Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF 

BUDDHISM

EDITORIAL BOARD 

EDITOR IN CHIEF 

Robert E. Buswell, Jr. 

Professor of Buddhist Studies and Chair, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures 

Director, Center for Buddhist Studies 

University of California, Los Angeles 

BOARD MEMBERS 

William M. Bodiford 

Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies 


Donald S. Lopez, Jr. 

Carl W. Belser Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies 

University of Michigan 

John S. Strong 

Professor of Religion and Chair, Department of Philosophy and Religion 

Bates College 

Eugene Y. Wang 

Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture 

Harvard University


BUDDHISM 

Volume One 

A-L 

Robert E. Buswell, Jr., Editor in Chief

Encyclopedia of Buddhism 

Robert E. Buswell, Jr., Editor in Chief 

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Encyclopedia of Buddhism / edited by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. 

p. cm. 

Includes bibliographical references and index. 

ISBN 0-02-865718-7(set hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-02-865719-5 

(Volume 1) — ISBN 0-02-865720-9 (Volume 2) 

1. Buddhism—Encyclopedias. I. Buswell, Robert E. 

BQ128.E62 2003 

294.3’03—dc21 

2003009965 

This title is also available as an e-book. 

ISBN 0-02-865910-4 (set) 

Contact your Gale sales representative for ordering information. 

Printed in the United States of America 

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS 

Preface. .............................................................vii 

List of Articles ........................................................xi 

List of Contributors ..................................................xix 

Synoptic Outline of Entries ...........................................xxvii 

Maps: The Diffusion of Buddhism .....................................xxxv 

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BUDDHISM 

Appendix: Timelines of Buddhist History ................................931 

Index ..............................................................945 

v

EDITORIAL AND PRODUCTION STAFF 

Linda S. Hubbard 

Editorial Director 

Judith Culligan, Anjanelle Klisz, Oona Schmid, and Drew Silver 

Project Editors 

Shawn Beall, Mark Mikula, Kate Millson, and Ken Wachsberger 

Editorial Support 

Judith Culligan 

Copy Editor 

Amy Unterburger 

Proofreader 

Lys Ann Shore 

Indexer 

Barbara Yarrow 

Manager, Imaging and Multimedia Content 

Robyn Young 

Project Manager, Imaging and Multimedia Content 

Lezlie Light 

Imaging Coordinator 

Tracey Rowens 

Product Design Manager 

Jennifer Wahi 

Art Director 

GGS, Inc. 

Typesetter 

Mary Beth Trimper 

Manager, Composition 

Evi Seoud 

Assistant Manager, Composition 

Wendy Blurton 

Manufacturing Specialist 

MACMILLAN REFERENCE USA 

Frank Menchaca 

Vice President 

Hélène Potter 

Director, New Product Development 

vi

PREFACE 

Buddhism is one of the three major world religions, along with Christianity and Islam, 

and has a history that is several centuries longer than either of its counterparts. 

Starting in India some twenty-five hundred years ago, Buddhist monks and nuns almost 

immediately from the inception of the dispensation began to “to wander forth 

for the welfare and weal of the many, out of compassion for the world,” commencing 

one of the greatest missionary movements in world religious history. Over the next 

millennium, Buddhism spread from India throughout the Asian continent, from the 

shores of the Caspian Sea in the west, to the Inner Asian steppes in the north, the 

Japanese isles in the east, and the Indonesian archipelago in the south. In the modern 

era, Buddhism has even begun to build a significant presence in the Americas and 

Europe among both immigrant and local populations, transforming it into a religion 

with truly global reach. Buddhist terms such as karma, nirvana, sam sara, and koan 

have entered common parlance and Buddhist ideas have begun to seep deeply into 

both Western thought and popular culture. 

The Encyclopedia of Buddhism is one of the first major reference tools to appear in 

any Western language that seeks to document the range and depth of the Buddhist 

tradition in its many manifestations. In addition to feature entries on the history and 

impact of Buddhism in different cultural regions and national traditions, the work 

also covers major doctrines, texts, people, and schools of the religion, as well as practical 

aspects of Buddhist meditation, liturgy, and lay training. Although the target audience 

is the nonspecialist reader, even serious students of the tradition should find 

much of benefit in the more than four hundred entries. 

Even with over 500,000 words at our disposal, the editorial board realized early on 

that we had nowhere nearly enough space to do justice to the full panoply of Buddhist 

thought, practice, and culture within each major Asian tradition. In order to accommodate 

as broad a range of research as possible, we decided at the beginning of the 

project to abandon our attempt at a comprehensive survey of major topics in each 

principal Asian tradition and instead build our coverage around broader thematic entries 

that would cut across cultural boundaries. Thus, rather than separate entries on 

the Huichang persecution of Buddhism in China or the Chosŏn suppression in Korea, 

for example, we have instead a single thematic entry on persecutions; we follow a 

similar approach with such entries as conversion, festivals and calendrical rituals, millenarianism 

and millenarian movements, languages, and stupas. We make no pretense 

to comprehensiveness in every one of these entries; when there are only a handful of 

vii

P REFACE 

entries in the Encyclopedia longer than four thousand words, this would have been a 

pipe dream, at best. Instead, we encouraged our contributors to examine their topics 

comparatively, presenting representative case studies on the topic, with examples 

drawn from two or more traditions of Buddhism. 

The Encyclopedia also aspires to represent the emphasis in the contemporary field 

of Buddhist studies on the broader cultural, social, institutional, and political contexts 

of Buddhist thought and practice. There are substantial entries on topics as diverse as 

economics, education, the family, law, literature, kingship, and politics, to name but 

a few, all of which trace the role Buddhism has played as one of Asia’s most important 

cultural influences. Buddhist folk religion, in particular, receives among the most 

extensive coverage of any topic in the encyclopedia. Many entries also explore the continuing 

relevance of Buddhism in contemporary life in Asia and, indeed, throughout 

the world. 

Moreover, we have sought to cross the intellectual divide that separates texts and 

images by offering extensive coverage of Buddhist art history and material culture. Although 

we had no intention of creating an encyclopedia of Buddhist art, we felt it was 

important to offer our readers some insight into the major artistic traditions of Buddhism. 

We also include brief entries on a couple of representative sites in each tradition; 

space did not allow us even to make a pretense of being comprehensive, so we 

focused on places or images that a student might be most likely to come across in 

reading about a specific tradition. We have also sought to provide some coverage of 

Buddhist material culture in such entries as amulets and talismans, medicine, monastic 

architecture, printing technologies, ritual objects, and robes and clothing. 

One of the major goals of the Encyclopedia is to better integrate Buddhist studies 

into research on religion and culture more broadly. When the editorial board was 

planning the entries, we sought to provide readers with Buddhist viewpoints on such 

defining issues in religious studies as conversion, evil, hermeneutics, pilgrimage, ritual, 

sacred space, and worship. We also explore Buddhist perspectives on topics of 

great currency in the contemporary humanities, such as the body, colonialism, gender, 

modernity, nationalism, and so on. These entries are intended to help ensure that 

Buddhist perspectives become mainstreamed in Western humanistic research. 

We obviously could not hope to cover the entirety of Buddhism in a two-volume 

reference. The editorial board selected a few representative monks, texts, and sites for 

each of the major cultural traditions of the religion, but there are inevitably many 

desultory lacunae. Much of the specific coverage of people, texts, places, and practices 

is embedded in the larger survey pieces on Buddhism in India, China, Tibet, and so 

forth, as well as in relevant thematic articles, and those entries should be the first place 

a reader looks for information. We also use a comprehensive set of internal cross-references, 

which are typeset as small caps, to help guide the reader to other relevant entries 

in the Encyclopedia. Listings for monks proved unexpectedly complicated. Monks, 

especially in East Asia, often have a variety of different names by which they are known 

to the tradition (ordained name, toponym, cognomen, style, honorific, funerary name, 

etc.) and Chinese monks, for example, may often be better known in Western literature 

by the Japanese pronunciation of their names. As a general, but by no means inviolate, 

rule, we refer to monks by the language of their national origin and their name 

at ordination. So the entry on the Chinese Chan (Zen) monk often known in Western 

writings as Rinzai, using the Japanese pronunciation of his Chinese toponym Linji, 

will be listed here by his ordained name of Yixuan. Some widely known alternate 

names will be given as blind entries, but please consult the index if someone is difficult 

to locate. We also follow the transliteration systems most widely employed today 

viii E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM

P REFACE 

for rendering Asian languages: for example, pinyin for Chinese, Wylie for Tibetan, Revised 

Hepburn for Japanese, McCune-Reischauer for Korean. 

For the many buddhas, bodhisattvas, and divinities known to the Buddhist tradition, 

the reader once again should first consult the major thematic entry on buddhas, 

etc., for a survey of important figures within each category. We will also have a few 

independent entries for some, but by no means all, of the most important individual 

figures. We will typically refer to a buddha like Amitabha, who is known across traditions, 

according to the Buddhist lingua franca of Sanskrit, not by the Chinese pronunciation 

Amito or Japanese Amida; similarly, we have a brief entry on the 

bodhisattva Maitreya, which we use instead of the Korean Mirŭk or Japanese Miroku. 

For pan-Buddhist terms common to most Buddhist traditions, we again use the 

Sanskrit as a lingua franca: thus, dhyana (trance state), duhkha (suffering), skandha 

(aggregate), and śunyata (emptiness). But again, many terms are treated primarily in 

relevant thematic entries, such as samadhi in the entry on meditation. Buddhist terminology 

that appears in Webster’s Third International Dictionary we regard as English 

and leave unitalicized: this includes such technical terms as dharan, koan, and 

tathagatagarbha. For a convenient listing of a hundred such terms, see Roger Jackson, 

“Terms of Sanskrit and Pali Origin Acceptable as English Words,” Journal of the International 

Association of Buddhist Studies 5 (1982), pp. 141–142. 

Buddhist texts are typically cited by their language of provenance, so the reader will 

find texts of Indian provenance listed via their Sanskrit titles (e.g., Sukhavatlvyu hasu 

tra, Sam dhinirmocana-su tra), indigenous Chinese sutras by their Chinese titles (e.g., 

Fanwang jing, Renwang jing), and so forth. Certain scriptures that have widely recognized 

English titles are however listed under that title, as with Awakening of Faith, Lotus 

Su tra, Nirvana Su tra, and Tibetan Book of the Dead. 

Major Buddhist schools, similarly, are listed according to the language of their origin. 

In East Asia, for example, different pronunciations of the same Sinitic logograph 

obscure the fact that Chan, Sŏn, Zen, and Thiê`n are transliterations of respectively the 

Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese pronunciations for the school we generally 

know in the West as Zen. We have therefore given our contributors the daunting 

task of cutting across national boundaries and treating in single, comprehensive entries 

such pan-Asian traditions as Madhyamaka, Tantra, and Yogacara, or such pan- 

East Asian schools as Huayan, Tiantai, and Chan. These entries are among the most 

complex in the encyclopedia, since they must not only touch upon the major highlights 

of different national traditions, but also lay out in broad swathe an overarching 

account of a school’s distinctive approach and contribution to Buddhist thought and 

practice. 

Compiling an Encyclopedia of Buddhism may seem a quixotic quest, given the past 

track records of similar Western-language projects. I was fortunate to have had the 

help of an outstanding editorial board, which was determined to ensure that this encyclopedia 

would stand as a definitive reference tool on Buddhism for the next generation—and 

that it would be finished in our lifetimes. Don Lopez and John Strong 

both brought their own substantial expertise with editing multi-author references to 

the project, which proved immensely valuable in planning this encyclopedia and keeping 

the project moving along according to schedule. My UCLA colleague William Bodiford 

surveyed Japanese-language Buddhist encyclopedias for the board and constantly 

pushed us to consider how we could convey in our entries the ways in which Buddhist 

beliefs were lived out in practice. The board benefited immensely in the initial 

planning stages from the guidance art historian Maribeth Graybill offered in trying to 

E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM 

ix

P REFACE 

conceive how to provide a significant place in our coverage for Buddhist art. Eugene 

Wang did yeoman’s service in stepping in later as our art-history specialist on the 

board. Words cannot do justice to the gratitude I feel for the trenchant advice, ready 

good humor, and consistently hard work offered by all the board members. 

I also benefited immensely from the generous assistance, advice, and support of the 

faculty, staff, and graduate students affiliated with UCLA’s Center for Buddhist Studies, 

which has spearheaded this project since its inception. I am especially grateful to 

my faculty colleagues in Buddhist Studies at UCLA, whose presence here gave me both 

the courage even to consider undertaking such a daunting task and the manpower to 

finish it: Gregory Schopen, William Bodiford, Jonathan Silk, Robert Brown, and Don 

McCallum. 

The Encyclopedia was fortunate to have behind it the support of the capable staff 

at Macmillan. Publisher Elly Dickason and our first editor Judy Culligan helped guide 

the editorial board through our initial framing of the encyclopedia and structuring of 

the entries; we were fortunate to have Judy return as our copyeditor later in the project. 

Oona Schmid, who joined the project just as we were finalizing our list of entries 

and sending out invitations to contributors, was an absolutely superlative editor, cheerleader, 

and colleague. Her implacable enthusiasm for the project was infectious and 

helped keep both the board and our contributors moving forward even during the 

most difficult stages of the project. Our next publisher, Hélène Potter, was a stabilizing 

force during the most severe moments of impermanence. Our last editor, Drew 

Silver, joined us later in the project, but his assistance was indispensable in taking care 

of the myriad details involved in bringing the project to completion. Jan Klisz was absolutely 

superb at moving the volumes through production. All of us on the board 

looked askance when Macmillan assured us at our first editorial meeting that we would 

finish this project in three years, but the professionalism of its staff made it happen. 

Finally, I would like to express my deepest thanks to the more than 250 colleagues 

around the world who willingly gave of their time, energy, and knowledge in order to 

bring the Encyclopedia of Buddhism to fruition. I am certain that current and future 

generations of students will benefit from our contributors’ insightful treatments of 

various aspects of the Buddhist religious tradition. As important as encyclopedia articles 

are for building a field, they inevitably take a back seat to one’s “real” research 

and writing, and rarely receive the recognition they deserve for tenure or promotion. 

At very least, our many contributors can be sure that they have accrued much merit— 

at least in my eyes—through their selfless acts of disseminating the dharma. 

ROBERT E. BUSWELL, JR. 

x E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM

LIST OF ARTICLES 

Abhidharma 

Collett Cox 

Abhidharmakośabhasya 

Collett Cox 

Abhijña (Higher Knowledges) 

Patrick A. Pranke 

Abortion 

George J. Tanabe, Jr. 

A gama/Nikaya 

Jens-Uwe Hartmann 

Ajanta 

Leela Aditi Wood 

Aksobhya 

Jan Nattier 

A layavijñana 


Alchi 

Roger Goepper 

Ambedkar, B. R. 

Christopher S. Queen 

Amitabha 

Luis O. Gómez 

Amulets and Talismans 

Michael R. Rhum 

Anagarika Dharmapala 

George D. Bond 

A nanda 

Bhikkhu Pasadika 

Ananda Temple 

Paul Strachan 

Anathapindada 

Joel Tatelman 

Anatman/A tman (No-self/Self) 

K. T. S. Sarao 

Ancestors 

Mariko Namba Walter 

Anitya (Impermanence) 

Carol S. Anderson 

An Shigao 

Paul Harrison 

Anuttarasamyaksam bodhi 

(Complete, Perfect Awakening) 


Apocrypha 

Kyoko Tokuno 

Arhat 


Arhat Images 

Richard K. Kent 

A ryadeva 

Karen Lang 

A ryaśura 

Peter Khoroche 

Asaṅga 

John P. Keenan 

Ascetic Practices 

Liz Wilson 

Aśoka 


Aśvaghosa 


Atisha 

Gareth Sparham 

Avadana 

Joel Tatelman 

Avadanaśataka 

Joel Tatelman 

Awakening of Faith (Dasheng 

qixin lun) 

Ding-hwa Hsieh 

Ayutthaya 

Pattaratorn Chirapravati 

Bamiyan 

Karil J. Kucera 

Bayon 

Eleanor Mannikka 

Bhavaviveka 

Paul Williams 

Bianwen 

Victor H. Mair 

Bianxiang (Transformation 

Tableaux) 


Biographies of Eminent Monks 

(Gaoseng zhuan) 

John Kieschnick 

Biography 

Juliane Schober 

Bka’ brgyud (Kagyu) 

Andrew Quintman 

Bodh Gaya 


xi

L IST OF A RTICLES 

Bodhi (Awakening) 

Robert M. Gimello 

Bodhicaryavatara 

Paul Williams 

Bodhicitta (Thought of Awakening) 


Bodhidharma 

Jeffrey Broughton 

Bodhisattva(s) 

Leslie S. Kawamura 

Bodhisattva Images 

Charles Lachman 

Body, Perspectives on the 

Liz Wilson 

Bon 

Christian K. Wedemeyer 

Borobudur 

John N. Miksic 

Bsam yas (Samye) 

Jacob P. Dalton 

Bsam yas Debate 


Buddha(s) 

Jan Nattier 

Buddhacarita 


Buddhadasa 


Buddhaghosa 


Buddhahood and Buddha Bodies 

John J. Makransky 

Buddha Images 

Robert L. Brown 

Buddha, Life of the 

Heinz Bechert 

Buddha, Life of the, in Art 

Gail Maxwell 

Buddhanusmrti (Recollection of the 

Buddha) 

Paul Harrison 

Buddhavacana (Word of the 

Buddha) 


Buddhist Studies 

Jonathan A. Silk 

Burmese, Buddhist Literature in 

Jason A. Carbine 

Bu ston (Bu tön) 


Cambodia 

Anne Hansen 

Candrakl rti 

Roger R. Jackson 

Canon 

Paul Harrison 

Catalogues of Scriptures 

Kyoko Tokuno 

Cave Sanctuaries 

Denise Patry Leidy 

Central Asia 

Jan Nattier 

Central Asia, Buddhist Art in 

Roderick Whitfield 

Chan Art 


Chan School 

John Jorgensen 

Chanting and Liturgy 


Chengguan 

Mario Poceski 

China 

Mario Poceski 

China, Buddhist Art in 

Marylin Martin Rhie 

Chinese, Buddhist Influences on 

Vernacular Literature in 


Chinul 

Sung Bae Park 

Chogye School 

Jongmyung Kim 

Christianity and Buddhism 

James W. Heisig 

Clerical Marriage in Japan 

Richard M. Jaffe 

Colonialism and Buddhism 

Richard King 

Commentarial Literature 

Alexander L. Mayer 

Communism and Buddhism 

Jin Y. Park 

Confucianism and Buddhism 

George A. Keyworth 

Consciousness, Theories of 

Nobuyoshi Yamabe 

Consecration 

Donald K. Swearer 

Conversion 

Jan Nattier 

Cosmology 

Rupert Gethin 

Councils, Buddhist 

Charles S. Prebish 

Critical Buddhism (Hihan Bukkyo) 

Jamie Hubbard 

Daimoku 

Jacqueline I. Stone 

Daitokuji 

Karen L. Brock 

D akinl 


Dalai Lama 


Dana (Giving) 

Maria Heim 

Dao’an 

Tanya Storch 

Daoism and Buddhism 

Stephen R. Bokenkamp 

Daosheng 

Mark L. Blum 

Daoxuan 


Daoyi (Mazu) 

Mario Poceski 

Death 

Mark L. Blum 

Decline of the Dharma 

Jan Nattier 

Deqing 

William Chu 

Desire 


xii E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM


Devadatta 

Max Deeg 

Dge lugs (Geluk) 

Georges B. J. Dreyfus 

Dhammapada 

Oskar von Hinüber 

Dharanl 

Richard D. McBride II 

Dharma and Dharmas 

Charles Willemen 

Dharmadhatu 

Chi-chiang Huang 

Dharmaguptaka 

Collett Cox 

Dharmakl rti 

John Dunne 

Dharmaraksa 

Daniel Boucher 

Dhyana (Trance State) 

Karen Derris 

Diamond Sutra 

Gregory Schopen 

Diet 

James A. Benn 

Dignaga 

John Dunne 

Dl pam kara 

Jan Nattier 

Disciples of the Buddha 

Andrew Skilton 

Divinities 

Jacob N. Kinnard 

Divyavadana 

Joel Tatelman 

Dogen 

Carl Bielefeldt 

Dokyo 

Allan G. Grapard 

Doubt 


Dreams 


Duhkha (Suffering) 


Dunhuang 


Economics 

Gustavo Benavides 

Education 

Mahinda Deegalle 

Engaged Buddhism 


Ennin 

David L. Gardiner 

Entertainment and Performance 


Esoteric Art, East Asia 

Cynthea J. Bogel 

Esoteric Art, South and Southeast 

Asia 

Gail Maxwell 

Ethics 

Barbara E. Reed 

Etiquette 

Eric Reinders 

Europe 

Martin Baumann 

Evil 

Maria Heim 

Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu) 

Buddhism in Japan 

James C. Dobbins 

Faith 


Famensi 


Family, Buddhism and the 

Alan Cole 

Fanwang jing (Brahma’s Net Sutra) 

Eunsu Cho 

Faxian 


Faxiang School 

Dan Lusthaus 

Fazang 


Festivals and Calendrical Rituals 

Jonathan S. Walters 

Folk Religion: An Overview 

Stephen F. Teiser 

Folk Religion, China 

Philip Clart 

Folk Religion, Japan 

Ian Reader 

Folk Religion, Southeast Asia 


Four Noble Truths 


Gandharl , Buddhist Literature in 

Richard Salomon 

Ganjin 


Gavam pati 

François Lagirarde 

Gender 

Reiko Ohnuma 

Genshin 


Ghost Festival 


Ghosts and Spirits 

Peter Masefield 

Gyonen 

Mark L. Blum 

Hachiman 

Fabio Rambelli 

Hair 

Patrick Olivelle 

Hakuin Ekaku 


Han Yongun 

Pori Park 

Heart Sutra 

John R. McRae 

Heavens 

Rupert Gethin 

Hells 


Hells, Images of 


Hermeneutics 

John Powers 

Himalayas, Buddhist Art in 

Roger Goepper 


xiii


Hl nayana 


Hinduism and Buddhism 

Johannes Bronkhorst 

History 

John C. Maraldo 

Honen 


Honji Suijaku 


Horyuji and Todaiji 


Huayan Art 

Henrik H. Sørensen 

Huayan jing 

Mario Poceski 

Huayan School 

Mario Poceski 

Huineng 

John R. McRae 

Huiyuan 

Mark L. Blum 

Hyesim 

A. Charles Muller 

Hyujŏng 

Sungtaek Cho 

Icchantika 


Ikkyu 

Sarah Fremerman 

India 

Richard S. Cohen 

India, Buddhist Art in 

Gail Maxwell 

India, Northwest 

Jason Neelis 

India, South 

Anne E. Monius 

Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula 


Indonesia, Buddhist Art in 


Indra 


Ingen Ryuki 

A. W. Barber 

Initiation 

Ronald M. Davidson 

Inoue Enryo 


Intermediate States 

Bryan J. Cuevas 

Ippen Chishin 


Islam and Buddhism 

Johan Elverskog 

Jainism and Buddhism 

Paul Dundas 

Japan 


Japan, Buddhist Art in 


Japanese, Buddhist Influences on 


Robert E. Morrell 

Japanese Royal Family and 

Buddhism 

Brian O. Ruppert 

Jataka 

Reiko Ohnuma 

Jataka, Illustrations of 


Jatakamala 


Jewels 


Jiun Onko 

Paul B. Watt 

Jo khang 


Juefan (Huihong) 


Kailaśa (Kailash) 


Kalacakra 

John Newman 

Kamakura Buddhism, Japan 


Karma (Action) 


Karma pa 


Karuna (Compassion) 


Khmer, Buddhist Literature in 

Anne Hansen 

Kihwa 


Kingship 

Pankaj N. Mohan 

Klong chen pa (Longchenpa) 


Koan 

Morten Schlütter 

Koben 


Konjaku Monogatari 


Korea 

Hee-Sung Keel 

Korea, Buddhist Art in 

Youngsook Pak 

Korean, Buddhist Influences on 


Jongmyung Kim 

Kuiji 

Alan Sponberg 

Kukai 

Ryuichi Abé 

Kumarajl va 

John R. McRae 

Kyŏnghŏ 


Laity 

Helen Hardacre 

Lalitavistara 


Lama 

Alexander Gardner 

Language, Buddhist Philosophy of 

Richard P. Hayes 

Languages 


Laṅkavatara-sutra 

John Powers 

xiv E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM


Laos 

Justin McDaniel 

Law and Buddhism 

Rebecca French 

Lineage 

Albert Welter 

Local Divinities and Buddhism 


Logic 

John Dunne 

Longmen 

Dorothy Wong 

Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarl kasutra) 


Madhyamaka School 

Karen Lang 

Ma gcig lab sgron (Machig 

Lapdön) 


Mahabodhi Temple 


Mahakaśyapa 

Max Deeg 

Mahamaudgalyayana 

Susanne Mrozik 

Mahamudra 


Mahaparinirvana-sutra 


Mahaprajapatl Gautaml 

Karma Lekshe Tsomo 

Mahasam ghika School 

Paul Harrison 

Mahasiddha 


Mahavastu 


Mahayana 


Mahayana Precepts in Japan 

Paul Groner 

Mahl śasaka 

Collett Cox 

Mainstream Buddhist Schools 

Collett Cox 

Maitreya 

Alan Sponberg 

Mandala 


Mantra 


Mara 


Mar pa (Marpa) 


Martial Arts 

William Powell 

Matrceta 


Medicine 

Kenneth G. Zysk 

Meditation 


Meiji Buddhist Reform 


Merit and Merit-Making 


Mijiao (Esoteric) School 


Mi la ras pa (Milarepa) 


Milindapañha 


Millenarianism and Millenarian 

Movements 

Thomas DuBois 

Mindfulness 


Miracles 


Mizuko Kuyo 


Modernity and Buddhism 


Mohe Zhiguan 

Brook Ziporyn 

Monastic Architecture 

Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt 

Monasticism 

Jeffrey Samuels 

Monastic Militias 


Mongolia 

Patricia Berger 

Monks 


Mozhao Chan (Silent Illumination 

Chan) 


Mudra and Visual Imagery 


Mulasarvastivada-vinaya 


Murakami Sensho 


Myanmar 


Myanmar, Buddhist Art in 

Paul Strachan 

Nagarjuna 

Paul Williams 

Nara Buddhism 


Naropa 


Nationalism and Buddhism 

Pori Park 

Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; 

Korean, Yŏmbul) 


Nepal 

Todd T. Lewis 

Newari, Buddhist Literature in 

Todd T. Lewis 

Nichiren 


Nichiren School 


Nine Mountains School of Sŏn 

Sungtaek Cho 

Nirvana 


Nirvana Sutra 

Mark L. Blum 

Nuns 



xv


Om mani padme hum 


Ordination 

John R. McRae 

Original Enlightenment (Hongaku) 


Oxherding Pictures 

Steven Heine 

Padmasambhava 


Pali, Buddhist Literature in 


Panchen Lama 


Paramartha 


Paramita (Perfection) 


Parish (Danka, Terauke) System in 

Japan 

Duncan Williams 

Paritta and Raksa Texts 


Path 

William Chu 

Persecutions 

Kate Crosby 

Philosophy 

Dale S. Wright 

Phoenix Hall (at the Byodoin) 


Pilgrimage 

Kevin Trainor 

Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch 

(Liuzu tan jing) 

John R. McRae 

Poetry and Buddhism 


Politics and Buddhism 

Eric Reinders 

Portraiture 


Potala 


Prajña (Wisdom) 


Prajñaparamita Literature 

Lewis Lancaster 

Pratimoksa 


Pratl tyasamutpada (Dependent 

Origination) 

Mathieu Boisvert 

Pratyekabuddha 

Ria Kloppenborg 

Pratyutpannasamadhi-sutra 

Paul Harrison 

Prayer 

José Ignacio Cabezón 

Precepts 

Daniel A. Getz 

Printing Technologies 


Provincial Temple System 

(Kokubunji, Rishoto) 

Suzanne Gay 

Psychology 


Pudgalavada 

Leonard C. D. C. Priestley 

Pure Land Art 


Pure Land Buddhism 


Pure Lands 


Pure Land Schools 

A. W. Barber 

Rahula 


Realms of Existence 

Rupert Gethin 

Rebirth 


Refuges 

John Clifford Holt 

Relics And Relics Cults 


Reliquary 


Rennyo 


Renwang jing (Humane Kings 

Sutra) 


Repentance and Confession 

David W. Chappell 

Ritual 

Richard K. Payne 

Ritual Objects 

Anne Nishimura Morse 

Rnying ma (Nyingma) 


Robes and Clothing 

Willa Jane Tanabe 

Ryokan 

David E. Riggs 

Saicho 


Sam dhinirmocana-sutra 

John Powers 

Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the 

Three Kingdoms) 


Sam sara 


Sañcl 


Saṅgha 


Sanjie Jiao (Three Stages School) 

Jamie Hubbard 

Sanskrit, Buddhist Literature in 


Śantideva 

Paul Williams 

Śariputra 


Sarvastivada and Mulasarvastivada 

Collett Cox 

Sa skya (Sakya) 

Cyrus Stearns 

Sa skya Pandita (Sakya Pandita) 


Satipatthana-sutta 


Satori (Awakening) 


xvi E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM


Sautrantika 

Collett Cox 

Scripture 


Self-Immolation 

James A. Benn 

Sengzhao 

Tanya Storch 

Sentient Beings 


Sexuality 

Hank Glassman 

Shingon Buddhism, Japan 

Ryuichi Abé 

Shinran 


Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and 



Shobogenzo 


Shotoku, Prince (Taishi) 


Shugendo 

Paul L. Swanson 

Shwedagon 

Paul Strachan 

Śiksananda 


Silk Road 

Jason Neelis 

Sinhala, Buddhist Literature in 

Ranjini Obeyesekere 

Skandha (Aggregate) 


Slavery 


Soka Gakkai 


Sŏkkuram 

Junghee Lee 

Soteriology 

Dan Cozort 

Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in 


Space, Sacred 


Sri Lanka 


Sri Lanka, Buddhist Art in 

Benille Priyanka 

Stupa 

A. L. Dallapiccola 

Sukhavatl vyuha-sutra 

Mark L. Blum 

Sukhothai 


Śunyata (Emptiness) 


Sutra 


Sutra Illustrations 


Suvarnaprabhasottama-sutra 

Natalie D. Gummer 

Suzuki, D. T. 


Syncretic Sects: Three Teachings 

Philip Clart 

Tachikawaryu 

Nobumi Iyanaga 

Taiwan 

Charles B. Jones 

Taixu 


Takuan Soho 


Tantra 


Charles D. Orzech 

Tathagata 


Tathagatagarbha 

William H. Grosnick 

Temple System in Japan 


Thai, Buddhist Literature in 

Grant A. Olson 

Thailand 


Theravada 

Kate Crosby 

Theravada Art and Architecture 

Bonnie Brereton 

Thich Nhat Hanh 


Tiantai School 

Brook Ziporyn 

Tibet 


Tibetan Book of the Dead 


Tominaga Nakamoto 

Paul B. Watt 

Tsong kha pa 


Ŭich’ŏn 


Ŭisang 

Patrick R. Uhlmann 

United States 

Thomas A. Tweed 

Upagupta 


Upali 


Upaya 


Usury 

Jamie Hubbard 

Vajrayana 


Vam sa 

Stephen C. Berkwitz 

Vasubandhu 

Dan Lusthaus 

Vidyadhara 


Vietnam 

Cuong Tu Nguyen 

Vietnamese, Buddhist Influences on 

Literature in 


Vijñanavada 

Dan Lusthaus 


xvii


Vimalakl rti 


Vinaya 


Vipassana (Sanskrit, Vipaśyana) 


Vipaśyin 

Jan Nattier 

Visnu 


Viśvantara 

Reiko Ohnuma 

War 

Michael Zimmermann 

Wilderness Monks 

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey 

DeGraff) 

Women 


Wŏnbulgyo 

Bongkil Chung 

Wŏnch’ŭk 

Eunsu Cho 

Wŏnhyo 

Eunsu Cho 

Worship 


Xuanzang 


Yaksa 


Yanshou 

Albert Welter 

Yijing 


Yinshun 

William Chu 

Yixuan 

Urs App 

Yogacara School 

Dan Lusthaus 

Yujŏng 

Sungtaek Cho 

Yun’gang 

Dorothy Wong 

Zanning 

Albert Welter 

Zen, Popular Conceptions of 

Juhn Ahn 

Zhanran 

Linda Penkower 

Zhao lun 

Tanya Storch 

Zhili 

Brook Ziporyn 

Zhiyi 

Brook Ziporyn 

Zhuhong 

William Chu 

Zonggao 


Zongmi 


xviii E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 

Ryuichi Abé 

Columbia University 

Kukai 


Juhn Ahn 




Kalamazoo College 




Urs App 

University Media Research, Kyoto, 

Japan 

Yixuan 

A. W. Barber 

University of Calgary 

Ingen Ryuki 


Martin Baumann 

University of Lucerne, Switzerland 

Europe 

Heinz Bechert 

University of Göttingen 



Villanova University 

Economics 


James A. Benn 

Arizona State University 

Diet 


Patricia Berger 

University of California, Berkeley 

Mongolia 

Stephen C. Berkwitz 

Southwest Missouri State University 

Vam sa 


Stanford University 

Dogen 

Japan 

Shobogenzo 

Mark L. Blum 

State University of New York, Albany 

Daosheng 

Death 

Gyonen 

Huiyuan 

Nirvana Sutra 

Sukhavatlvyuha-sutra 



Anuttarasamyaksam bodhi 

(Complete, Perfect Awakening) 

Ganjin 

Ippen Chishin 

Konjaku monogatari 



Takuan Soho 

Cynthea J. Bogel 

University of Washington 



University of Quebec at Montreal 

Pratltyasamutpada (Dependent 

Origination) 


Stephen R. Bokenkamp 

Indiana University 



Northwestern University 


Arhat 

Buddhavacana (Word of the 

Buddha) 


Cornell University 

Dharmaraksa 

Paramartha 

Bonnie Brereton 




Albuquerque, New Mexico 

Daitokuji 




Portraiture 


University of Lausanne, Switzerland 



Mindfulness 


California State University, Long 

Beach 

Bodhidharma 

Fazang 

Zongmi 

xix

L IST OF C ONTRIBUTORS 



Los Angeles County Museum of Art 

Buddha Images 





Doubt 

Icchantika 


University of California, Santa 

Barbara 

Prayer 

Scripture 

Jason A. Carbine 

University of Chicago 


David W. Chappell 

Soka University of America 



California State University, 

Sacramento 

Ayutthaya 

Sukhothai 

Eunsu Cho 


Fanwang jing (Brahma’s Net 

Sutra) 

Wŏnch’ŭk 

Wŏnhyo 

Sungtaek Cho 

Korea University 

Hyujŏng 


Yujŏng 

William Chu 


Deqing 

Path 

Yinshun 

Zhuhong 

Bongkil Chung 

Florida International University 

Wŏnbulgyo 

Philip Clart 

University of Missouri–Columbia 



Richard S. Cohen 

University of California, San Diego 

India 

Alan Cole 

Lewis and Clark College 


Collett Cox 


Abhidharma 


Dharmaguptaka 

Mahlśasaka 


Sarvastivada and 

Mulasarvastivada 

Sautrantika 

Dan Cozort 

Dickinson College 

Soteriology 

Kate Crosby 

University of London, United 

Kingdom 

Persecutions 

Theravada 


Florida State University 


Rebirth 

Sam sara 


A. L. Dallapiccola 

University of Edinburgh, United 

Kingdom 

Stupa 


International Dunhuang Project, 

British Library 



D akinl 


Padmasambhava 



Fairfield University 

Initiation 


Tantra 

Tibet 

Vajrayana 

Max Deeg 

University of Vienna, Austria 

Devadatta 

Mahakaśyapa 

Mahinda Deegalle 

Bath Spa University College, United 

Kingdom 

Education 

Karen Derris 

Harvard University 



Oberlin College 

Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu) 

Buddhism in Japan 

Genshin 

Honen 


Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; 

Korean, Yŏmbul) 

Rennyo 

Shinran 


Williams College 


Tsong kha pa 

Thomas DuBois 

National University of Singapore 


Movements 

Paul Dundas 

University of Edinburgh, United 

Kingdom 


John Dunne 

University of Wisconsin, Madison 

Dharmaklrti 

Dignaga 

Logic 

Johan Elverskog 

Southern Methodist University 


Sarah Fremerman 

Stanford University 

Ikkyu 

Rebecca French 

State University of New York, Buffalo 



Colorado College 

Ennin 

Saicho 

xx E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM




Lama 

Om mani padme hum 

Suzanne Gay 

Oberlin College 

Provincial Temple System 

(Kokubunji, Rishoto) 

Rupert Gethin 

University of Bristol, United Kingdom 

Cosmology 

Heavens 



Bradley University 

Precepts 







Hank Glassman 

Haverford College 

Sexuality 

Roger Goepper 

Cologne Museum, Germany 

Alchi 




Amitabha 


Desire 

Faith 

Meditation 

Nirvana 

Psychology 

Pure Lands 



Barbara 

Dokyo 

Space, Sacred 

Paul Groner 

University of Virginia 


William H. Grosnick 

La Salle University 



Beloit College 


Women 

Anne Hansen 

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee 

Cambodia 


Helen Hardacre 


Laity 

Paul Harrison 

University of Canterbury, New 

Zealand 

An Shigao 

Buddhanusmrti (Recollection of 

the Buddha) 

Canon 




University of Munich, Germany 

A gama/Nikaya 

Languages 

Richard P. Hayes 

University of New Mexico 


Maria Heim 

California State University, Long 

Beach 

Dana (Giving) 

Evil 

Steven Heine 

Florida International University 


James W. Heisig 

Nanzan Institute for Religion and 

Culture, Nanzan University, Japan 



Bowdoin College 

Refuges 

Sri Lanka 


Truman State University 

Awakening of Faith (Dasheng qixin 

lun) 

Taixu 

Zonggao 


Hobart and William Smith Colleges 

Dharmadhatu 

Śiksananda 

Ŭich’ŏn 

Jamie Hubbard 

Smith College 



Usury 

Nobumi Iyanaga 

Tokyo, Japan 

Tachikawaryu 


Carleton College 

Candraklrti 




Upaya 


Duke University 


Inoue Enryo 



Suzuki, D. T. 

Charles B. Jones 

The Catholic University of America 

Taiwan 


Griffith University, Australia 

Chan School 

Hakuin Ekaku 


University of Calgary 



Hee-Sung Keel 

Sogang University, South Korea 

Korea 

John P. Keenan 

Middlebury College 

Asaṅga 

Richard K. Kent 

Franklin and Marshall College 

Arhat Images 


University of Colorado 





xxi



Cambridge, United Kingdom 

A ryaśura 

Aśvaghosa 

Jatakamala 

Matrceta 


Institute of History and Philology, 

Academia Sinica, Taiwan 



Daoxuan 

Miracles 

Monks 

Jongmyung Kim 

Youngsan University, South Korea 

Chogye School 



Richard King 

Liverpool Hope University College, 

United Kingdom 



College of William and Mary 

Divinities 

Indra 

Mara 

Visnu 

Worship 

Yaksa 

Ria Kloppenborg 

Utrecht University, Netherlands 



St. Olaf College 

Bamiyan 



University of Oregon 


Chan Art 

François Lagirarde 

Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, 

Bangkok, Thailand 

Gavam pati 

Lewis Lancaster 

University of California, Berkeley 


Karen Lang 


A ryadeva 


Junghee Lee 

Portland State University 

Sŏkkuram 


Metropolitan Museum of Art, New 

York 


Mandala 


Todd T. Lewis 

College of the Holy Cross 

Nepal 


Dan Lusthaus 

University of Missouri–Columbia 


Vasubandhu 

Vijñanavada 



University of Pennsylvania 

Bianwen 

Bianxiang (Transformation 

Tableaux) 




John J. Makransky 

Boston College 


Eleanor Mannikka 

Indiana University of Pennsylvania 

Bayon 

John C. Maraldo 

University of North Florida 

History 


University of Sydney, Australia 


Milindapañha 

Gail Maxwell 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art 


Esoteric Art, South and Southeast 

Asia 



University of Illinois at Urbana- 

Champaign 


Dreams 

Faxian 

Xuanzang 

Yijing 


The University of Iowa 

Dharanl 

Mantra 


Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the 

Three Kingdoms) 



Laos 


John R. McRae 


Heart Sutra 

Huineng 

Kumarajlva 

Ordination 

Platform Sutra of the Sixth 

Patriarch (Liuzu tan jing) 


National University of Singapore 

Borobudur 


Pankaj N. Mohan 

University of Sydney, Australia 

Kingship 

Anne E. Monius 


India, South 

Robert E. Morrell 

Washington University in St. Louis 



Anne Nishimura Morse 

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 



Western Michigan University 


Śariputra 

Upali 


Toyo Gakuen University, Japan 

Hyesim 

Kihwa 

Renwang jing (Humane Kings 

Sutra) 

xxii E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM


Jan Nattier 


Aksobhya 

Buddha(s) 

Central Asia 

Conversion 


Dlpam kara 

Vipaśyin 

Jason Neelis 



Silk Road 

John Newman 

New College of Florida 

Kalacakra 


George Mason University 

Vietnam 


Literature in 

Ranjini Obeyesekere 

Princeton University 


Reiko Ohnuma 

Dartmouth College 

Gender 

Jataka 

Viśvantara 

Patrick Olivelle 

University of Texas at Austin 

Hair 

Grant A. Olson 

Northern Illinois University 


Charles D. Orzech 

University of North Carolina, 

Greensboro 

Tantra 

Youngsook Pak 


Kingdom 


Jin Y. Park 

American University 


Pori Park 


Han Yongun 


Sung Bae Park 

State University of New York at 

Stony Brook 

Chinul 


Philipps University, Marburg, 

Germany 

A nanda 

Rahula 

Richard K. Payne 

Institute of Buddhist Studies, 

Graduate Theological Union, 

Berkeley, California 

Ritual 

Linda Penkower 

University of Pittsburgh 

Zhanran 

Mario Poceski 

University of Florida 

Chengguan 

China 

Daoyi (Mazu) 

Huayan jing 

Huayan School 

William Powell 


Barbara 

Martial Arts 

John Powers 

Australian National University, 

Australia 

Hermeneutics 






Myanmar 


Vidyadhara 


Charles S. Prebish 

The Pennsylvania State University 


Leonard C. D. C. Priestley 

University of Toronto 

Pudgalavada 

Benille Priyanka 






Buddhadasa 






Jo khang 


Karma pa 

Ma gcig lab sgron (Machig Lapdön) 

Mahamudra 

Mahasiddha 



Naropa 

Potala 


Sapporo University, Japan 

Hachiman 

Honji Suijaku 




Ian Reader 

Lancaster University, United Kingdom 


Barbara E. Reed 

St. Olaf College 

Ethics 

Eric Reinders 

Emory University 

Etiquette 


Marylin Martin Rhie 

Smith College 



Chicago, Illinois 



David E. Riggs 


Ryokan 


University of Illinois at Urbana- 

Champaign 

Japanese Royal Family and 



xxiii


Jewels 

Relics And Relics Cults 

Richard Salomon 


Gandharl, Buddhist Literature in 

Jeffrey Samuels 

Western Kentucky University 

Monasticism 

K. T. S. Sarao 

Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist 

Studies, Taiwan 

Anatman/Atman (No-Self/Self) 


Yale University 

Koan 

Mozhao Chan (Silent Illumination 

Chan) 

Juliane Schober 


Biography 



Diamond Sutra 

Mahayana 


Vinaya 




Slavery 


Cardiff University, United Kingdom 



Vimalaklrti 


Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 

Copenhagen, Denmark 

Huayan Art 

Kyŏnghŏ 




Atisha 


Dalai Lama 

Panchen Lama 

Saṅgha 

Alan Sponberg 

University of Montana 

Kuiji 

Maitreya 

Cyrus Stearns 

Clinton, Washington 


Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt 

University of Pennsylvania 




Daimoku 

Lotus Sutra 

(Saddharmapundarlka-sutra) 

Nichiren 



Soka Gakkai 

Tanya Storch 

University of the Pacific 

Dao’an 

Sengzhao 

Zhao lun 

Paul Strachan 

Gerona, Spain 

Ananda Temple 


Shwedagon 


Bates College 


Aśoka 

Buddhacarita 

Buddhaghosa 

Hlnayana 

Lalitavistara 


Mahavastu 

Sutra 

Tathagata 

Upagupta 

Paul L. Swanson 

Nanzan Institute for Religion and 

Culture, Nanzan University, Japan 

Shugendo 


Swarthmore College 

Consecration 

Thailand 


University of Hawaii 

Abortion 


Koben 


Mizuko Kuyo 



University of Hawaii 



Joel Tatelman 

Social Sciences and Humanities 

Research Council of Canada 

Anathapindada 

Avadana 


Divyavadana 





Hells 

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey 

DeGraff) 

Metta Forest Monastery, Valley 

Center, California 


Kyoko Tokuno 


Apocrypha 


Kevin Trainor 

University of Vermont 

Pilgrimage 


University of San Diego 

Mahaprajapatl Gautaml 

Nuns 

Pratimoksa 

Thomas A. Tweed 

University of North Carolina 

United States 

Patrick R. Uhlmann 

University of California, 

Los Angeles 

Ŭisang 


University of Freiburg, 

Germany 

Dhammapada 


Mariko Namba Walter 


Ancestors 

xxiv E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM


Jonathan S. Walters 

Whitman College 




Pure Land Art 

Paul B. Watt 

DePauw University 

Jiun Onko 


Christian K. Wedemeyer 

University of Copenhagen, Denmark 

Bon 

Albert Welter 

University of Winnipeg 

Lineage 

Yanshou 

Zanning 



Kingdom 


Dunhuang 

Famensi 

Reliquary 

Charles Willemen 

Academy of Sciences, Belgium 



University of California, Irvine 

Parish (Danka, Terauke) System in 

Japan 

Temple System in Japan 

Paul Williams 

University of Bristol, United 

Kingdom 

Bhavaviveka 


Nagarjuna 

Śantideva 

Liz Wilson 

Miami University of Ohio 



Dorothy Wong 


Longmen 

Yun’gang 



Ajanta 

Bodh Gaya 



Sañcl 

Dale S. Wright 

Occidental College 

Philosophy 

Nobuyoshi Yamabe 

Kyushu Ryukoku Junior College, 

Japan 


Michael Zimmermann 

University of Hamburg, Germany 

War 

Brook Ziporyn 

Northwestern University 

Mohe Zhiguan 


Zhili 

Zhiyi 

Kenneth G. Zysk 

University of Copenhagen, 

Denmark 

Medicine 


xxv

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SYNOPTIC OUTLINE OF ENTRIES 

This outline provides a general overview of the conceptual structure of the Encyclopedia of Buddhism. The outline is organized 

under twenty-four major categories, a few of which are subcategorized. The entries are listed alphabetically within each category 

or subcategory. For ease of reference, one entry may be listed under several categories. 

Art History 

Ajanta 

Arhat Images 

Bamiyan 

Bayon 

Bianxiang (Transformation Tableaux) 

Bodh Gaya 


Borobudur 

Buddha Images 




Chan Art 


Daitokuji 

Dunhuang 


Esoteric Art, South and Southeast Asia 

Famensi 




Huayan Art 





Jewels 

Jo khang 



Longmen 


Mandala 






Portraiture 

Potala 

Pure Land Art 

Reliquary 

Sañc 

Shwedagon 

Sŏkkuram 



Stupa 



Yun’gang 

Biographies 



A nanda 

Anathapindada 

An Shigao 

Arhat 

A ryadeva 

A ryaśura 

Asaṅga 

Aśoka 

Aśvaghosa 

Atisha 

Bhavaviveka 



Biography 

Bodhidharma 

Buddhadasa 

Buddhaghosa 



Candrakrti 

Chengguan 

Chinul 

Dalai Lama 

Dao’an 

Daosheng 

Daoxuan 

Daoyi (Mazu) 

Deqing 

Devadatta 

Dharmakrti 

Dharmaraksa 

Dignaga 


Dogen 

Dokyo 

Ennin 

Faxian 

Fazang 

Ganjin 

Gavam pati 

Genshin 

Gyonen 

Hakuin Ekaku 

Han Yongun 

Honen 

Huineng 

Huiyuan 

Hyesim 

Hyujŏng 

Ikkyu 

Ingen Ryuki 

Inoue Enryo 

Ippen Chishin 

Jiun Onko 

xxvii

S YNOPTIC O UTLINE OF E NTRIES 


Karma pa 

Kihwa 


Koben 

Kuiji 

Kukai 

Kumarajva 

Kyŏnghŏ 

Ma gcig lab sgron (Machig Labdrön) 

Mahakaśyapa 


Mahaprajapat Gautam 


Matrceta 



Nagarjuna 

Naropa 

Nichiren 

Padmasambhava 

Panchen Lama 

Paramartha 

Rahula 

Rennyo 

Ryokan 

Saicho 

Śantideva 

Śariputra 


Sengzhao 

Shinran 


Śiksananda 

Suzuki, D. T. 

Taixu 

Takuan Soho 


Tsong kha pa 

Ŭich’ŏn 

Ŭisang 

Upagupta 

Upali 

Vasubandhu 

Vimalakrti 

Wŏnch’ŭk 

Wŏnhyo 

Xuanzang 

Yanshou 

Yijing 

Yinshun 

Yixuan 

Yujŏng 

Zanning 

Zhanran 

Zhili 

Zhiyi 

Zhuhong 

Zonggao 

Zongmi 

Bodhisattvas 






Maitreya 



Upaya 

Vimalakrti 

Viśvantara 

Buddhas and Buddhology 

Aksobhya 

Amitabha 

Anuttarasamyaksam bodhi (Complete, 

Perfect Awakening) 

Biography 

Bodh Gaya 




Buddha(s) 

Buddhacarita 


Buddha Images 



Buddha-nature 


Buddha) 

Buddhavacana (Word of the Buddha) 

Dpam kara 

Divyavadana 


Mara 

Nirvana 



Prattyasamutpada (Dependent 

Origination) 


Tathagata 


Vipaśyin 

Cosmology 

Buddha(s) 

Cosmology 

Death 

Heavens 

Hells 


Indra 



Origination) 


Pure Lands 


Rebirth 

Sam sara 



Countries and Regions 

Central Asia 

An Shigao 

Bamiyan 

Central Asia 


Dunhuang 

Gandhar, Buddhist Literature in 

Huayan jing 



Kumarajva 

Silk Road 

China 

Ancestors 

An Shigao 

Apocrypha 

Awakening of Faith (Dasheng qixin lun) 

Bianwen 


Biographies of Eminent Monks (Gaoseng 

zhuan) 

Bodhidharma 




Chan Art 

Chan School 

Chengguan 

China 




Dao’an 


Daosheng 

Daoxuan 

Daoyi (Mazu) 

Deqing 

Dharmaraksa 

Dunhuang 

Ennin 


Famensi 


Faxian 

Fazang 


Ganjin 

Heart Sutra 

Huayan Art 

Huayan jing 

Huayan School 

Huineng 

Huiyuan 

xxviii E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM



Koan 

Kuiji 

Kumarajva 

Lineage 

Longmen 

Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarka-sutra) 

Maitreya 

Martial Arts 


Mohe Zhiguan 

Mozhao Chan (Silent Illumination Chan) 

Nirvana Sutra 


Paramartha 

Persecutions 






Renwang jing (Humane Kings Sutra) 


Sengzhao 

Śiksananda 

Silk Road 


Taiwan 

Taixu 


Xuanzang 

Yanshou 

Yijing 

Yinshun 

Yixuan 

Yun’gang 

Zanning 

Zhanran 

Zhao lun 

Zhili 

Zhiyi 

Zhuhong 

Zonggao 

Zongmi 

Europe and the United States 



Dalai Lama 


Europe 

Suzuki, D. T. 


United States 


India, the Himalayas, and Nepal 

Ajanta 

Alchi 



A ryadeva 

A ryaśura 

Asaṅga 

Aśoka 

Aśvaghosa 

Atisha 

Bhavaviveka 

Bodh Gaya 

Buddhacarita 

Candrakrti 



Devadatta 

Dhammapada 

Dharmaguptaka 

Dharmakrti 

Diamond Sutra 

Dignaga 


Faxian 


Gavam pati 

Heart Sutra 


Hnayana 


India 



India, South 



Jataka 


Jatakamala 


Kalacakra 

Kingship 

Lalitavistara 


Languages 




Mahakaśyapa 


Mahamudra 



Mahasiddha 

Mahavastu 

Mahayana 

Mahśasaka 


Matrceta 

Milindapañha 


Nagarjuna 

Naropa 


Nirvana Sutra 

Padmasambhava 



Persecutions 


Pratimoksa 


Pudgalavada 


Sañc 


Śantideva 

Śariputra 



Sautrantika 

Sukhavatvyuha-sutra 


Tantra 

Upagupta 

Upali 

Vajrayana 

Vam sa 

Vasubandhu 

Vidyadhara 

Vijñanavada 

Vimalakrti 

Vinaya 

Visnu 

Yijing 


Japan 


Chan Art 

Chan School 



Daimoku 

Daitokuji 

Dogen 

Dokyo 

Ennin 


Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu) Buddhism 

in Japan 


Ganjin 

Genshin 

Gyonen 

Hachiman 

Hakuin Ekaku 

Honen 

Honji Suijaku 


Huayan Art 

Huayan School 

Ikkyu 

Ingen Ryuki 

Inoue Enryo 

Ippen Chishin 

Japan 


xxix





Japanese Royal Family and Buddhism 

Jiun Onko 


Koan 

Koben 


Kukai 

Laity 





Mizuko Kuyo 



Nichiren 



Parish (Danka, Terauke) System in Japan 


Provincial Temple System (Kokubunji, 

Rishoto) 



Rennyo 

Ryokan 

Saicho 



Shinran 

Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism 

Shobogenzo 


Shugendo 

Soka Gakkai 

Suzuki, D. T. 

Tachikawaryu 

Takuan Soho 

Tantra 



Vajrayana 


Korea 

Chan Art 

Chan School 

Chinul 

Chogye School 



Han Yongun 

Huayan Art 

Huayan School 

Hyesim 

Hyujŏng 

Kihwa 

Koan 

Korea 




Kyŏnghŏ 


Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three 

Kingdoms) 

Sŏkkuram 


Ŭich’ŏn 

Ŭisang 

Wŏnbulgyo 

Wŏnch’ŭk 

Wŏnhyo 

Yujŏng 

Southeast Asia 


Ananda Temple 

Ancestors 

Ayutthaya 

Bayon 

Borobudur 

Buddhadasa 


Cambodia 





Indonesia and the Malay peninsula 



Laos 


Myanmar 




Shwedagon 


Sukhothai 


Thailand 

Theravada 



Upagupta 

Vietnam 


Literature in 

Sri Lanka 


Buddhaghosa 






Sri Lanka 


Theravada 


Vam sa 

Tibet and Mongolia 

Atisha 


Bon 





D akin 

Dalai Lama 




Jo khang 


Karma pa 


Lama 

Ma gcig lab sgron (Machig Labdrön) 

Mahamudra 

Mahasiddha 

Mandala 



Mongolia 

Naropa 

Om Mani Padme Hum 

Padmasambhava 

Panchen Lama 

Potala 




Tantra 

Tibet 


Tsong kha pa 

Vajrayana 

Vidyadhara 


A nanda 

Anathapindada 

Arhat 


Gavam pati 

Mahakaśyapa 



Ordination 

Rahula 

Saṅgha 

Śariputra 

Upagupta 

Upali 

xxx E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM


Divinities, Ghosts, and Spirits 

Ancestors 

D akin 

Death 

Divinities 



Hachiman 

Heavens 

Hells 


Honji Suijaku 

Indra 



Mara 

Visnu 

Yaksa 

Doctrines and Doctrinal Study 

Abhidharma 


Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self) 


Anuttarasamyaksam bodhi (Complete, 

Perfect Awakening) 






Buddha-nature 

Buddhavacana (Word of the Buddha) 




Dana (Giving) 

Death 


Desire 

Dharan 


Dharmadhatu 


Doubt 


Ethics 

Evil 

Faith 


Hermeneutics 

Hnayana 

Icchantika 

Initiation 





Logic 

Mindfulness 

Nirvana 



Path 

Philosophy 



Origination) 

Psychology 

Rebirth 

Sam sara 




Upaya 


Folk Religions and Popular 

Practices 


Ancestors 

Arhat 

Arhat Images 


Bianwen 



Cosmology 

D akin 


Dana (Giving) 

Death 

Dharan 

Diet 


Evil 

Faith 







Gavam pati 



Hachiman 

Heart Sutra 

Heavens 

Hells 



Honji Suijaku 

Indra 

Initiation 



Laity 


Martial Arts 


Pilgrimage 

Rebirth 




Upagupta 

Vimalakrti 

Visnu 

Viśvantara 

Humanities, Thematic Entries 

Abortion 



Death 

Desire 

Education 


Ethics 

Evil 


Gender 

Hermeneutics 

Languages 

Lineage 

Mizuko Kuyo 



Persecutions 

Philosophy 

Psychology 

Ritual 

Sexuality 

Slavery 

Space, Sacred 

War 

Women 

Literary Genres and Collections 

Abhidharma 

A gama/Nikaya 

Apocrypha 

Avadana 

Bianwen 

Biographies of Eminent Monks (Gaoseng 

zhuan) 

Biography 

Canon 



Hermeneutics 


Languages 




Kingdoms) 

Scripture 

Literature, Indigenous; Buddhist 

Influences on 

Bianwen 



xxxi










Languages 







Literature in 

Material Culture 




Silk Road 

Meditation and Practice 







Buddha) 

Chan School 


Cosmology 

Daimoku 

Dana (Giving) 

Death 


Doubt 


Ethics 

Faith 


Icchantika 


Koan 

Lineage 

Logic 

Mahamudra 

Mandala 

Mantra 

Martial Arts 

Meditation 

Mindfulness 

Miracles 


Nirvana 



Path 

Pilgrimage 



Psychology 

Sam sara 




Soteriology 


Tantra 



Religious Encounters with 
















Religious Studies, Thematic 

Entries 



Conversion 

Cosmology 

Dana (Giving) 

Death 


Diet 

Doubt 

Dreams 


Education 

Ethics 

Evil 

Faith 

Gender 

Heavens 

Hells 

Hermeneutics 

History 

Icchantika 

Initiation 



Laity 

Lineage 


Movements 

Miracles 


Monasticism 

Monks 

Nirvana 

Nuns 

Ordination 

Path 

Persecutions 

Pilgrimage 

Prayer 

Precepts 

Rebirth 

Refuges 

Relics and Relics Cults 


Ritual 

Saṅgha 

Scripture 


Soteriology 

Space, Sacred 



Worship 

Ritual Practices 

Consecration 

Conversion 

Dharan 

Diet 

Etiquette 

Initiation 


Kalacakra 

Lineage 

Mandala 

Mantra 

Mizuko Kuyo 



Ordination 

Portraiture 

Pratimoksa 

Precepts 

Refuges 



Ritual 



Stupa 

Tantra 


Sacred Sites 

Ajanta 

Bamiyan 

Bayon 

Bodh Gaya 

Borobudur 


xxxii E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM




Daitokuji 

Dunhuang 



Famensi 






Jo khang 



Longmen 


Mandala 



Pilgrimage 

Potala 

Pure Land Art 


Reliquary 

Space, Sacred 

Sañc 

Shwedagon 

Sŏkkuram 



Stupa 


Yun’gang 

Saṅ˙ ga, General Themes 




Consecration 

Conversion 


Dana (Giving) 

Death 


Devadatta 

Economics 

Education 


Etiquette 

Faith 


Hair 

Initiation 

Jewels 


Laity 

Lama 


Lineage 

Mahasiddha 


Martial Arts 

Medicine 



Mindfulness 


Monasticism 


Monks 

Nuns 

Ordination 

Parish (Danka, Terauke) System in Japan 

Persecutions 

Pilgrimage 



Pratimoksa 

Prayer 

Precepts 

Refuges 




Saṅgha 


Sexuality 

Slavery 

Usury 

Vam sa 

Vidyadhara 

Vinaya 


Women 

Worship 

Schools and Traditions 


Bon 


Chan School 

Chogye School 



Dharmaguptaka 

Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu) Buddhism 

in Japan 


Hnayana 

Huayan School 




Mahayana 

Mahśasaka 



Mozhao Chan (Silent Illumination Chan) 




Pudgalavada 







Sautrantika 


Shugendo 

Soka Gakkai 

Tachikawaryu 

Tantra 


Theravada 


Vajrayana 

Vijñanavada 

Vinaya 

Wŏnbulgyo 



Scriptures and Texts 

Abhidharma 

Abhidharma 


Apocrypha 

Apocrypha 



Heart Sutra 


Commentaries and Treatises 



Dhammapada 

Milindapañha 

Mohe Zhiguan 



Shobogenzo 


Zhao lun 

Genres 

A gama/Nikaya 

Abhidharma 

Apocrypha 

Avadana 

Canon 



Hermeneutics 

Jataka 

Mahayana 



Scripture 


xxxiii


Sutra 

Tantra 

Vinaya 

Vam sa 

Ja taka, Avada na and Story 

Literature 

Avadana 



Buddhacarita 

Divyavadana 

Lalitavistara 

Jataka 

Jatakamala 


Mahavastu 


Kingdoms) 

Vam sa 

Su tra 

A gama/Nikaya 

Diamond Sutra 


Heart Sutra 

Huayan jing 




Nirvana Sutra 






Scripture 

Sukhavatvyuha-sutra 

Sutra 



Tantra 

Kalacakra 

Tantra 

Vinaya 



Pratimoksa 

Vinaya 

Sexuality and Gender Issues 

Abortion 

D akin 

Gender 

Hair 

Laity 

Mizuko Kuyo 

Monks 

Nuns 

Saṅgha 

Sexuality 

Women 

Social, Economic, and Political 

Issues 



Conversion 


Dalai Lama 

Death 


Diet 

Economics 

Education 



Ethics 

Etiquette 







Gender 



Hair 

History 

Honji Suijaku 

Japanese Royal Family and Buddhism 

Jewels 

Kingship 

Laity 


Martial Arts 

Medicine 



Movements 

Mizuko Kuyo 




Persecutions 


Provincial Temple System (Kokubunji, 

Rishoto) 



Silk Road 

Slavery 

Usury 

Vinaya 

War 

xxxiv E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM

MAPS 

THE DIFFUSION OF BUDDHISM 

Major Buddhist Sites in Asia 

The Spread of Buddhism in the Indian Subcontinent 

Routes of Trade and Religious Dissemination in Asia 

xxxv



xxxvii 

Map of the Indian subcontinent and East and Southeast Asia, with major Buddhist sites identified. XNR Productions, Inc. Reproduced 

by permission of the Gale Group. 

10°N 

0° 

IRAN 

20°N 

TURKMENISTAN 

70°E 

Major Buddhist 

Sites 

City 

Peak 

Other site 

UZBEKISTAN 

Bukhara 

AFGHANISTAN 

10°S 

Indus River 

Samarkand 

Ba\miya\n 

Gilgit 

Kapêsi Od≥d≥iya\na 

(Kabul) Gandha\ra 

Purus≥apura Parlharapura 

(Peshawar) Taxila Srinagar 

(Taks≥as;ila\) 

Ganges 

(Gan¾ga\) 

River 

H I 

I N D I A N O C E 

80°E 

Amara\vatê 

Madras 

Kashgar 

Yarkand 

Khotan 

Sakala 

Multan 

Mt. Kaila\s;a Gzhi ka rtse 

Sa skya(Shigatse) 

Hastina\pura 

(Sakya) 

Delhi 

Samkasya 

Ahicchatra 

Lhasa 

S:ra\vastê 


Mathura\ 

Lumbinê 

Ka\nyakubja 

Bkra shis lhun po (Tashilhunpo) 

Sa\keta 

Kus;inagara Kapilavastu 

Kathmandu 

Rgyal rtse (Gyantse) 

Bha\rhut 

Kaus;a\mbê Sa\rna\th Vais;a\lê 

Sa\n]cê Praya\ga Pa\èaliputra Na\landa\ 

Ginnagara Valabhê Ujjayanê 

Otantapu\ri 

Somapu\ri 

Bharukaccha 

Uruvilva\ Vikramas;êla 

Bodh Gaya\ 

Surparaka 

Na\sik 

Kalya\n≥a 

Ajan≥èa\ 

Calcutta 

Ta\mraliptê 

Bombay 

Ellora 

Karil Prathis≥èha\na 

Mandalay 

Ratnagiri 

Pagan S:rêks≥etra 

(Hmawza) 

PAKISTAN 

Vanavasi 

Van]ci 

KYRGYZSTAN 

TAJIKISTAN 

Na\ga\rjunakon≥d≥a 

Siddapura 

Ka\ncipuram 

INDIA 

Mihintale 

Upatissagama 

Anura\dhapura 

Colombo Polonnaruva 

Kandy 

Kalya\n≥i 

M A 

NEPAL 

SRI LANKA 

Aksu 

A N 

L A 

Kapilavastu 

0 200 400 mi. 

0 200 400 km 

Kucha 

90°E 

Y A 

Turfan 

Tibet 

BHUTAN 

S 

BANGLADESH 

Dunhuang 

Mekong River 

Chiangmai Haripun]jaya 

Ham≥savatê (Lamphun) 

(Pegu) 

Vientiane 

Sukhothai 

Rangoon Sudhammavatê 

(Thalon) 

Javapura 

(Lopburi) 

Ayutthaya 

Bangkok 

Angkor 

Phnom Penh 

Chaiya 

Vien Srah 

Nagara S:rê Dharmara\ja 

(Nakhon Si Tammarat) 

100°E 

S:rêvijaya 

(Palembang) 

Chang&an 

(Xi&an) 

Mt. Omei 

Longbian 

Hanoi 

Vyadhapura 

Yun&gang 

Caves 

C H I N A 

MYANMAR 

N 

MONGOLIA 

LAOS 

THAILAND 

I 

VIETNAM 

CAMBODIA 

Yangtze River 

Indrapura 

S:res≥èhapura 

Jakarta 

Borobudur 

Mt. Wutai 

Yello w 

110°E 

Beijing 

River 

Luoyang 

Longmen 

Caves 

Mt. Jiuhua 

Nanhai 

(Canton) 

M A L A Y S I A 

N 

D 

Mt. Tiantai 

Hong Kong 

BRUNEI 

O 

Prambanam 

NORTH 

KOREA 

Tokyo (Edo) 

Kamakura 

Seoul 

Heian (Kyoto) 

Mt. Hiei 

Haeinsa 

Kyo¨ngju 

Nara 

So¨¨kkuram Mt. Ko\ya 

Songgwangsa 

Shikoku 

Shanghai 

Putuo Shan 

Jiankang 

TAIWAN 

N 

SOUTH 

KOREA 

Taipei 

120°E 

P A C I F I C 

PHILIPPINES 

E 

S 

EAST 

TIMOR 

JAPAN 

O C E A N 

I 

130°E 

A 

M AJOR B UDDHIST S ITES IN A SIA

\ 

T HE S PREAD OF B UDDHISM IN THE I NDIAN S UBCONTINENT 

Lampaka 

Sha\h Ba\zgar≥hê 

Gilgit 

Sarva\stiva\da 

Ma\nsehra 

Gandha\ra 

H 

Indus River 

To Central Asia 

and China 

The Spread of Buddhism 

in the Indian Subcontinent 

Cradle of Buddhism 

Spread of Buddhism 

Main center of early Buddhist school 

As;okan epigraph or pillar 

Rock-cut cave 

City 

I 

Kandaha\r 

Indus River 

Khambalida 

Girinagara 

Sana 

Arabian 

Sea 

N 

Kuda 

Narmada\ River 

Girna\r 

Talaja 

Sopa\ra 

S:u\rpa\raka 

Na\na\gha\t 

Kondane 

Nadsur 

Kr 

³s 

³n 

³a 

\ River 

Ganges 

Mêraèh 

Niga\lê 

Sa\gar 

Gandak 

River 

Baira\è Mathura\ 

Lumbinê Ra\mpu\rva\ 

Kapilavastu 

Sa\m≥ka\s;ya 

Mu\lasarva\stiva\da 

S:ra\vastê 

Lauriya\ Nandangar≥h 

Rummindeê 

Gujarra\ 

Lauriya\ Arara\j Kus;inagara 

Sa\rna\th 

Vais;a\lê 

Na\landa\ 

Kaus;a\mbi Sasaram 

Pa\èaliputra 

Na\ga\rjuni 

Maha\sa\m≥ghika Ra\jagr≥ ha 

Ru\pna\th Barabar Bodh Gaya\ 

Sa\n]cê 

Ajan≥èa\ 

Pitalkhora\ 

Na\sik 

Junnar 

Ka\rlê 

Bedsa\ 

Shelarvadi 

Bha\ja\ 

Mahad 

Topra\ 

Ka\lsê 

Te\r 

River 

Goda\var 

Deotek 

River 

Maski Ra\jula 

Man≥d≥agiri Gun≥èupalle 

Ga\vênatha 

Amara\vatê 

Yerragud≥i 

Pa\lkigun≥d≥u 


Brahmagiri 

Maha\sa\m≥ghika 

Siddhapura 

Jatinga 

Ra\mes;vara 

M 

A 

Ka\n]cê 

L 

A 

Khandagiri-Udayagiri 

Sisulpalgarh 

Jaugada 

Tibet 

Y 

A 

Dhauli 

Bay of 

Bengal 

S 

Brahmaputra Rive r 

Mahasthangarh 

Pagan 

Therava\da 

Anura\dhapura 

Polonnaruva 

Maha\ga\ma 

0 200 400 mi. 

0 200 400 km 

Map of the Indian subcontinent, with arrows showing the spread of Buddhism. XNR Productions, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the 

Gale Group. 

xxxviii E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM


xxxix 

Map of trade routes and religious dissemination of Buddhism in Asia. XNR Productions, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the Gale 

Group. 

10°N 

IRAN 

20°N 

TURKMENISTAN 

70°E 

UZBEKISTAN 

Bukhara 

Samarkand 

Turfan 

Kokand Ferghana 

Kizil 

Osh 

Kucha 

Aksu 

Kizil 

Karashahr 

Kashgar 

Loulan 

Sheghna 

Yangi Hisar 

Yarkand 

Dunhuang 

Karghalik 

Ba\miya\n 

Khotan 

Charkhlik 

Od≥d≥iya\na Gilgit 

Miran 

Kapisi 

(Kabul) Mingora 

Chilas 

Keriya 

Niya 

Cherchen 

Purus≥apura Parlharapura 

(Peshawar) Taxila S:rênagar 

(Taks≥as;ila\) 

Bactria 

Indus River 

Sogdiana 

AFGHANISTAN 

PAKISTAN 

Routes of Trade and 

Religious Dissemination 

in Asia 

Silk road 

Other trade road 

Spread of Buddhism into Korea 

and Japan 

Spread of Maha\ya\na Buddhism 

Spread of Therava\da Buddhism 

Spread of Tibetan Buddhism 

Central Asian oasis 

Sacred mountains 

Tibetan Buddhist monastery 

City 

TAJIKISTAN 

Multan 

0° 

10°S 

Dharamsala 

80°E 

(Gang¾ 

Mathura\ 

Ka\nyakubja 

H I 

a\ 

Ganges 

) 

Rive r 

Amara\vatê 

Anura\dhapura 

Polonnaruva 

Kandy 

Mt. Kaila\s;a 

Lha rtse 

Gzhi ka rtse 

(Lhatse) 

(Shigatse) 

Se ra 

Lhasa 



Kathmandu ^Bras spung (Drepung) 

M A 

L A 

Kaus;a\mbhê Sa\rna\th 

Sa\n]cê Praya\ga Pa\èaliputra Na\landa\ 

Valabhê 

Otantapu\ri 

Vikramas;êla 

Bodh Gaya\ 

Surparaka 

Na\sik 

Kalya\n≥a 

Ajan≥èa\ 

Ta\mraliptê 

Ellora 

Karil Prathis≥èha\na 


Ka\ncipuram 

KYRGYZSTAN 

INDIA 

Ratnagiri 

SRI LANKA 

NEPAL 

Y A 

I N D I A N O C E A N 

0 200 400 mi. 

0 200 400 km 

90°E 

BHUTAN 

S 

Somapu\ri 

BANGLADESH 

C H I N A 

Tibet 

Mogaung 

Takon 

Mekong River 

Pagan 

S:rêks≥etra 

(Hmawza) 

Phayao 

Chiangmai 

Haripun]jaya 

Hamsavatê (Lamphun) 

(Pegu) 

Sukhothai Bhima- 

Sudhammavatê pura 

(Thalon) 

Javapura 

(Lopburi) Sri Deva 

Ayutthaya 

Nakhon-Pathom 

Chin-lin Angkor 

Chaiya 

Takkola Vien Srah 

Nagara S:rê Dharmara\ja 

(Nakhon Si Tammarat) 

Langkasuka 

N 

MYANMAR 

Kadaram 

100°E 

MONGOLIA 

Yong 

Chang 

Chengdu 

LAOS 

THAILAND 

Naravaranagara 

Kalah 

Malayu 

S:rêvijaya 

(Palembang) 

Long-bien 

Hanoi 

Vyadhapura 

Oc Eo 

Mt. Wutai 

Chang&an 

(Xi&an) 

Yangtze River 

Xinzhou 

Hue 

Indrapura 

S:res≥èhapura 

Vijaya 

Kauthara 

Panduranga 

Prambanam 

Borobudur 

Yogyakarta 

Beijing 

Yun&gang 

110°E 

Yellow River 

Luoyang 

Longmen 

Mt. Jiuhua 

Nanhai 

(Canton) 

M A L A Y S I A 

I 

VIETNAM 

CAMBODIA 

N 

D 

Mt. Tiantai 

Hong Kong 

BRUNEI 

O 

Daha 

Kutaraja 

Jiankang 

(Nanking) 

NORTH 

KOREA 

Hanso¨ng 

(Seoul) 

S. KOREA 

Mt. Putuo 

TAIWAN 

N 

Taipei 

120°E 

P&yo¨ngyang 

Ungju 

Kyo¨ngju 

Mt. Chogye 

PHILIPPINES 

E 

Edo (Tokyo) 

Kamakura 

Mt. Minobu 

Mt. Hiei 

Heian (Kyoto) 

Uji 

Nara 

Mt. Ko\ya 

Shikoku 

P A C I F I C 

S 

EAST 

TIMOR 

JAPAN 

O C E A N 

I 

130°E 

A 

R OUTES OF T RADE AND R ELIGIOUS D ISSEMINATION IN A SIA


A 

ABHIDHARMA 

In the centuries after the death of the Buddha, with 

the advent of settled monastic communities, there 

emerged new forms of religious praxis and modes of 

transmitting and interpreting the teaching. In this 

more organized setting, Buddhist practitioners began 

to reexamine received traditions and to develop new 

methods of organization that would make explicit their 

underlying significance and facilitate their faithful 

transmission. Although begun as a pragmatic method 

of elaborating the received teachings, this scholastic 

enterprise soon led to new doctrinal and textual developments 

and became the focus of a new form of 

scholarly monastic life. The products of this scholarship 

became revered tradition in their own right, eventually 

eclipsing the dialogues of the Buddha and of his 

disciples as the arbiter of the true teaching and determining 

both the exegetical method and the salient issues 

that became the focus of later Indian Buddhist 

doctrinal investigations. 

Abhidharma, its meaning and origins 

This scholastic enterprise was called abhidharma (Pali: 

abhidhamma), a multivalent term used to refer to the 

new techniques of doctrinal interpretation, to the body 

of texts that this interpretation yielded, and finally to 

the crucial discriminating insight that was honed 

through doctrinal interpretation and employed in religious 

praxis. Traditional sources offer two explanations 

for the term abhidharma: “with regard to (abhi) 

the teaching (dharma)” or the “highest or further 

(abhi) teaching (dharma).” The subject of abhidharma 

analysis was, of course, the teaching (dharma) as embodied 

in the dialogues of the Buddha and his disciples. 

However, abhidharma did not merely restate or 

recapitulate the teaching of the sutras, but reorganized 

their content and explicated their implicit meaning 

through commentary. In abhidharma, the specific content 

of the various individual sutras was abstracted and 

reconstituted in accordance with new analytical criteria, 

thereby allowing one to discern their true message. 

This true message, as set down in abhidharma texts, 

consists of the discrimination of the various events and 

components (dharma) that combine to form all of experience. 

This discrimination in turn enables one to 

distinguish those defiling factors that ensnare one in 

the process of REBIRTH from those liberating factors 

that lead to enlightenment. And finally, when the defiling 

and liberating factors are clearly distinguished, 

the proper PATH of practice becomes clear. Hence, abhidharma 

was no mere scholastic commentary, but 

rather soteriological exegesis that was essential for the 

effective practice of the path. 

Traditional sources do not offer a uniform account 

of the origins of the abhidharma method or of the abhidharma 

corpus of texts. Several traditional accounts 

attribute the composition of abhidharma texts to a first 

council supposedly held immediately after the death of 

the Buddha, at which his teachings were arranged and 

orally recited in three sections: the dialogues (sutra); 

the disciplinary monastic codes (VINAYA); and the taxonomic 

lists of factors (matrka or abhidharma). Implicitly, 

therefore, these traditional sources attribute 

authorship of the abhidharma to the Buddha himself. 

This question of the authorship and, by implication, 

the authenticity and authority of the abhidharma 

continued to be a controversial issue within subsequent, 

independent abhidharma treatises. Although 

many MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS accepted the 

1

A BHIDHARMA 

authority of abhidharma texts and included them 

within their canons as the word of the Buddha, several 

schools rejected the authority of abhidharma and 

claimed that abhidharma treatises were composed by 

fallible, human teachers. 

Independent abhidharma treatises were composed 

over a period of at least seven hundred years (ca. third 

or second centuries B.C.E. to fifth century C.E.). The appearance 

and eventual proliferation of these independent 

abhidharma treatises coincides with the emergence 

of separate schools within the early Buddhist community. 

Doctrinal differences among various groups, 

which were, in part, the natural result of differing lineages 

of textual transmission, were refined in scholastic 

debates and amplified by the composition of 

independent abhidharma exegetical works. Scholarly 

opinion on the sources for the genre of independent 

abhidharma treatises is divided between two hypotheses, 

each of which finds support in structural characteristics 

of abhidharma texts. The first hypothesis 

emphasizes the practice of formulating matrices or taxonomic 

lists (matrka) of all topics found in the traditional 

teaching, which are then arranged according to 

both numeric and qualitative criteria. The second hypothesis 

stresses the doctrinal discussions (dharmakatha) 

in catechetical style that attempt to clarify 

complex or obscure points of doctrine. These two 

structural characteristics suggest a typical process by 

which independent abhidharma treatises were composed: 

A matrix outline served to record or possibly 

direct discussions in which points of doctrine were 

then elaborated through a pedagogical question and 

answer technique. 

Regardless of which hypothesis more accurately 

represents the origin of independent abhidharma treatises, 

this dual exegetical method reflects a persistent 

tendency in the Buddhist tradition, from the earliest 

period onward, toward analytical presentation through 

taxonomic categories and toward discursive elaboration 

through catechesis. The need to memorize the 

teaching obviously promoted the use of categorizing 

lists as a mnemonic device, and certain sutras describe 

this taxonomic method as a way of encapsulating the 

essentials of the teaching and averting dissension. 

Other sutras proceed much like oral commentaries, in 

which a brief doctrinal statement by the Buddha is analyzed 

in full through a process of interrogation and 

exposition. Both of these methods, amply attested in 

the sutra collection, were successively expanded in subsequent 

independent scholastic treatises, some of 

which were not included within the sectarian, canonical 

abhidharma collections. For example, the collection 

of miscellaneous texts (khuddakapitaka) of the 

canon of the THERAVA DA school includes two texts utilizing 

these methods that were not recognized to be 

canonical “abhidharma” texts. The Patisambhidamagga 

(Path of Discrimination) contains brief discussions of 

doctrinal points structured according to a topical list 

(matika), and the Niddesa (Exposition) consists of commentary 

on the early verse collection, the Suttanipata. 

In fact, a clear-cut point of origin for the abhidharma 

as an independent section of the textual canon only reflects 

the perspective of the later tradition that designates, 

after a long forgotten evolution, certain texts as 

“abhidharma” in contrast to sutras or other possibly earlier 

expository works that share similar characteristics. 

Abhidharma texts 

Traditional accounts of early Indian Buddhist schools 

suggest that while certain schools may have shared 

some textual collections, many transmitted their own 

independent abhidharma treatises. XUANZANG (ca. 

600–664 C.E.), the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim who visited 

India in the seventh century C.E., is reported to 

have collected numerous texts of as many as seven 

mainstream Buddhist schools. These almost certainly 

included canonical abhidharma texts representing various 

schools. However, only two complete canonical 

collections, representing the Theravada and Sarvastivada 

schools, and several texts of undetermined sectarian 

affiliation are preserved. Even though each of 

the Theravada and Sarvastivada abhidharma collections 

contains seven texts, the individual texts of the 

two collections cannot be neatly identified with one 

another. However, a close examination of certain texts 

from each collection and a comparison with other extant 

abhidharma materials reveals similarities in the 

underlying taxonomic lists, in exegetical structure, and 

in the topics discussed. These similarities suggest either 

contact among the groups who composed and 

transmitted these texts, or a common ground of doctrinal 

exegesis and even textual material predating the 

emergence of the separate schools. 

The Theravada canonical abhidharma collection, 

the only one extant in an Indian language (Pali), contains 

seven texts: 

1. Vibhaṅga (Analysis); 

2. Puggalapaññatti (Designation of Persons); 

3. Dhatukatha (Discussion of Elements); 

4. Dhammasaṅgani (Enumeration of Factors); 

2 E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM

A BHIDHARMA 

5. Yamaka (Pairs); 

6. Patthana (Foundational Conditions); and 

7. Kathavatthu (Points of Discussion). 

The Sarvastivada canonical abhidharma collection, 

also including seven texts, is extant only in Chinese 

translation: 

1. Saṅgltiparyaya (Discourse on the Saṅglti); 

2. Dharmaskandha (Aggregation of Factors); 

3. Prajñaptiśastra (Treatise on Designations); 

4. Dhatukaya (Collection on the Elements); 

5. Vijñanakaya (Collection on Perceptual Consciousness); 

6. Prakaranapada (Exposition); and 

7. Jñanaprasthana (Foundations of Knowledge). 

Certain other early abhidharma texts extant in Chinese 

translation probably represent the abhidharma 

canonical texts of yet other schools: for example, the 

*Śariputrabhidharmaśastra (T. 1548), which may 

have been affiliated with a Vibhajyavada school, or 

the *Sam matlyaśastra (T. 1649) affiliated by its title 

with the Sam matya school, associated with the Vatsputryas. 

In the absence of historical evidence for the accurate 

dating of the extant abhidharma treatises, scholars have 

tentatively proposed relative chronologies based primarily 

upon internal formal criteria that presuppose a 

growing complexity of structural organization and of 

exegetical method. It is assumed that abhidharma texts 

of the earliest period bear the closest similarities to the 

sutras, and are often structured as commentaries on entire 

sutras or on sutra sections arranged according to 

taxonomic lists. The Vibhaṅga and Puggalapaññatti of 

the Theravadins and the Saṅgltiparyaya and Dharmaskandha 

of the Sarvastivadins exemplify these characteristics. 

The next set of abhidharma texts exhibits 

emancipation from the confines of commentary upon 

individual sutras, by adopting a more abstract stance 

that subsumes doctrinal material from a variety of 

sources under an abstract analytical framework of often 

newly created categories. This middle period would 

include the five remaining canonical texts within the 

Theravada and the Sarvastivada abhidharma canonical 

collections. The catechetical style of commentarial exegesis, 

evident even in the earliest abhidharma texts, becomes 

more structured and formulaic in texts of the 

middle period. The final products in this process of abstraction 

are the truly independent treatises that display 

marked creativity in technical terminology and doctrinal 

elaboration. Some of the texts, in particular the 

Kathavatthu of the Theravadins and the Vijñanakaya of 

the Sarvastivadins, display an awareness of differences 

in doctrinal interpretation and factional alignments, although 

they do not adopt the developed polemical 

stance typical of many subsequent abhidharma works. 

The composition of abhidharma treatises did not 

end with the canonical collections, but continued with 

commentaries on previous abhidharma works and with 

independent summary digests or exegetical manuals. 

Within the Theravada tradition, several fifth-century 

C.E. commentators compiled new works based upon 

earlier commentaries dating from the first several 

centuries C.E. They also composed independent summaries 

of abhidhamma analysis, prominent among 

which are the Visuddhimagga (Path of Purification) by 

BUDDHAGHOSA and the Abhidhammavatara (Introduction 

to Abhidhamma) by Buddhadatta. The Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha 

(Collection of Abhidhamma 

Matters) composed by Anuruddha in the twelfth century 

C.E. became thereafter the most frequently used 

summary of abhidhamma teaching within the Theravada 

tradition. 

The first five centuries C.E. were also a creative period 

of efflorescence for the abhidharma of the Sarvastivadins. 

In texts of this period, summary exposition 

combines with exhaustive doctrinal analysis and 

polemical debate. The teaching is reorganized in accordance 

with an abstract and more logical structure, 

which is then interwoven with the earlier taxonomic 

lists. Preeminent among these texts for both their 

breadth and their influence upon later scholastic compositions 

are the voluminous, doctrinal compendia, 

called vibhasa, which are represented by three different 

recensions extant in Chinese translation, the last and 

best known of which is called the Mahavibhasa (Great 

Exegesis). Composed over several centuries from the 

second century C.E. onward, these ostensibly simple 

commentaries on an earlier canonical abhidharma text, 

the Jñanaprasthana, exhaustively enumerate the positions 

of contending groups on each doctrinal point, 

often explicitly attributing these views to specific 

schools or masters. Instead of arguing for a single, orthodox 

viewpoint, the vibhasa compendia display an 

encyclopedic intention that is often content with comprehensiveness 

in cataloguing the full spectrum of differing 

sectarian positions. The vibhasa compendia are 


3

A BHIDHARMA 

repositories of several centuries of scholastic activity 

representing multiple branches of the Sarvastivada 

school, which was spread throughout greater northwestern 

India. However, they came to be particularly 

associated by tradition with the Sarvastivadins 

of Kashmir who, thereby, acquired the appellation, 

Sarvastivada-Vaibhasika. 

Three other texts composed during the same period 

that are associated with the northwestern region of Gandhara 

display a markedly different structure and purpose: 

the *Abhidharmahrdayaśastra (Heart of Abhidharma) by 

Dharmaśresthin; the *Abhidharmahrdayaśastra (Heart 

of Abhidharma) by Upaśanta; and the *Miśrakabhidharmahrdayaśastra 

(Heart of Abhidharma with Miscellaneous 

Additions) by Dharmatrata. Composed in verse 

with an accompanying prose auto-commentary, these 

texts function as summary digests of all aspects of the 

teaching presented according to a logical and nonrepetitive 

structure. In contrast to the earlier numerically 

guided taxonomic lists well-suited as mnemonic 

aids, these texts adopt a new method of organization, 

attempting to subsume the prior taxonomic lists and 

all discussion of specific doctrinal points under general 

topical sections. This new organizational structure 

was to become paradigmatic for the texts of the final 

period of Sarvastivada abhidharma. 

This final period in the development of Sarvastivada 

abhidharma treatises includes texts that are the products 

of single authors and that adopt a polemical style 

of exposition displaying a fully developed sectarian 

self-consciousness. They also employ increasingly sophisticated 

methods of argumentation in order to establish 

the position of their own school and to refute 

at length the views of others. Despite this polemical 

approach, they nonetheless purport to serve as wellorganized 

expository treatises or pedagogical digests 

for the entirety of Buddhist teaching. The Abhidharmakośa 

(Treasury of Abhidharma), including both 

verses (karika) and an auto-commentary (bhasya), by 

VASUBANDHU became the most important text from 

this period, central to the subsequent traditions of abhidharma 

studies in Tibet and East Asia. Adopting both 

the verse-commentary structure and the topical organization 

of the *Abhidharmahrdaya, the Abhidharmakośa 

presents a detailed account of Sarvastivada 

abhidharma teaching with frequent criticism of Sarvastivada 

positions in its auto-commentary. The Abhidharmakośa 

provoked a response from certain 

Kashmiri Sarvastivada masters who attempted to refute 

non-Sarvastivada views presented in Vasubandhu’s 

work and to reestablish their own interpretation of orthodox 

Kashmiri Sarvastivada positions. These works, 

the *Nyayanusaraśastra (Conformance to Correct Principle) 

and *Abhidharmasamayapradlpika (Illumination 

of the Collection of Abhidharma) by Saṅghabhadra and 

the Abhidharmadlpa (Illumination of Abhidharma) by 

an unknown author who refers to himself as the Dpakara 

(author of the Dlpa) were the final works of the 

Sarvastivada abhidharma tradition that have survived. 

Abhidharma exegesis 

Abhidharma exegesis evolved over a long period as both 

the agent and the product of a nascent and then increasingly 

disparate Buddhist sectarian self-consciousness. 

Given the voluminous nature of even the surviving literature 

that provides a record of this long doctrinal 

history, any outline of abhidharma method must be 

content with sketching the most general contours and 

touching on a few representative examples. Nonetheless, 

scanning the history of abhidharma, one discerns 

a general course of development that in the end resulted 

in a complex interpretative edifice radically different 

from the sutras upon which it was believed to 

be based. 

In its earliest stage, that is, as elaborative commentary, 

abhidharma was guided by the intention simply 

to clarify the content of the sutras. Taxonomic lists 

were used as a mnemonic device facilitating oral 

preservation and transmission; catechetical investigation 

was employed in a teaching environment of oral 

commentary guided by the pedagogical technique of 

question and answer. Over time, the taxonomic lists 

grew in complexity as the simpler lists presented in the 

sutra teachings were combined in new ways, and additional 

categories of qualitative analysis were created 

to specify modes of interaction among discrete aspects 

of the sutra teaching. The initially terse catechetical investigation 

was expanded with discursive exposition 

and new methods of interpretation and argumentation, 

which were demanded by an increasingly polemical 

environment. These developments coincided with 

a move from oral to written methods of textual transmission 

and with the challenge presented by other 

Buddhist and non-Buddhist groups. In its final stage, 

abhidharma texts became complex philosophical treatises 

employing sophisticated methods of argumentation, 

whose purpose was the analysis and elaboration 

of doctrinal issues for their own sake. The very sutras 

from which abhidharma arose were now subordinated 

as mere statements in need of analysis that only the abhidharma 

could provide. No longer serving as the starting 

point for abhidharma exegesis, the sutras were 


A BHIDHARMA 

invoked only as a supplemental authority to buttress 

independent reasoned investigations or to corroborate 

doctrinal points actually far removed from their scriptural 

antecedents. 

Abstract analysis, which is the guiding principle of 

abhidharma exegesis, also became the salient characteristic 

of its doctrinal interpretation. The analytical 

tendency, evident in lists present even in the sutras, expanded 

in abhidharma to encompass all of experience. 

In very simple terms, abhidharma attempts an exhaustive 

and systematic accounting of every possible 

type of experience in terms of its ultimate constituents. 

Abhidharma views experience with a critical analytical 

eye, breaking down the gross objects of ordinary perception 

into their constituent factors or dharmas and 

clarifying the causal interaction among these discrete 

factors. This analysis was not, however, motivated by 

simple abstract interest, but rather by a soteriological 

purpose at the very core of Buddhist religious praxis. 

Analysis determines the requisite factors of which each 

event consists, distinguishing those factors that lead to 

suffering and rebirth from those that contribute to 

their termination. This very process of analysis was 

identified with the insight that functions in religious 

praxis to cut off ensnaring factors and to cultivate those 

leading to liberation. 

Abhidharma analysis focused on refining these lists 

of factors and on investigating the problems that arise 

in using them to explain experience. Simple enumerations 

of factors found in the earlier sutras include the 

lists of five aggregates (skandha), twelve sense-spheres 

(ayatana), and eighteen elements (dhatu) that were 

used to describe animate beings, or the lists of practices 

and qualities that were to be incorporated into 

the set of thirty-seven limbs of enlightenment, whose 

cultivation results in the attainment of enlightenment. 

These earlier analytical lists were preserved in abhidharma 

treatises and integrated into comprehensive and 

complex intersecting classifications that aimed to clarify 

both the unique identity of each factor and all possible 

modes of conditioning interaction among them. 

The abhidharma treatises of various schools proposed 

differing lists of factors containing as many as seventyfive, 

eighty-one, or one hundred discrete categories. 

For example, the Sarvastivadins adopted a system of 

seventy-five basic categories of factors distinguished 

according to their intrinsic nature (svabhava), which 

were then grouped in five distinct classes. The first four 

classes (material form [ru pa]—eleven; mind [citta]— 

one; mental factors [caitta]—forty-six; and factors 

dissociated from material form and mind [cittaviprayuktasam 

skara]—fourteen) comprise all conditioned 

factors (sam skrta), that is, factors that participate 

in causal interaction and are subject to arising 

and passing away. The fifth class comprises three unconditioned 

factors (asam skrta), which neither arise 

nor pass away. 

Through abhidharma analysis, all experiential 

events were explained as arising from the interaction 

of a certain number of these factors. Particular occurrences 

of individual factors were further characterized 

in accordance with additional specific criteria or sets 

of qualities including their moral quality as virtuous, 

unvirtuous, or indeterminate, their locus of occurrence 

as connected to the realm of desire, the realm of 

form, the formless realm, or not connected to any 

realm, their connection to animate experience as characteristic 

of SENTIENT BEINGS or not, and their conditioning 

efficacy as resulting from certain types of 

causes or leading to certain types of effects. To give an 

example, a particular instance of a mental factor, such 

as conception (sam jña), can be virtuous in moral quality, 

characteristic of sentient beings, connected to the 

realm of desire, and so on. In other circumstance, another 

occurrence of the same factor of conception, 

while still characteristic of sentient beings, can be unvirtuous 

and connected to the realm of form. Although 

the specific character of each instance of conception 

differs as virtuous, or unvirtuous, and so on, all such 

instances, regardless of their particular qualities, share 

the same intrinsic nature as conception and can, therefore, 

be placed within the same fundamental category. 

Thus, the taxonomic schema of seventy-five factors 

represents seventy-five categories of intrinsic nature, 

each of which occurs phenomenally or experientially 

in innumerable instances. Through this disciplined exercise 

of exhaustive analysis in terms of constituent 

factors, experience can be seen as it actually is, the factors 

causing further suffering can be discarded, and 

those contributing toward liberation can be isolated 

and cultivated. 

This exhaustive abhidharma analysis of experience 

occasioned a number of doctrinal controversies that 

served to demarcate different schools. Many of these 

controversies were directed by fundamental disagreements 

that could be termed ontological, specifically 

concerning the way in which the different factors constituting 

experience exist and the dynamics of their interaction 

or conditioning. Such ontological concerns 

motivated the early lists of factors in the sutras, which 

were used to support the fundamental Buddhist teaching 

of no-self (anatman) by demonstrating that no 


5

A BHIDHARMA 

perduring, unchanging, independent self (atman) 

could be found. In abhidharma treatises the focus of 

ontological concern shifted from gross objects, such as 

the self, to the factors or dharmas of which these objects 

were understood to consist. 

Perhaps the most distinctive ontology was proposed 

by the Sarvastivadins, “those who claim sarvam asti,” 

or “everything exists.” Beginning from the fundamental 

Buddhist teaching of ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE), they 

suggested that the constituent factors of experience exist 

as discrete and real entities, arising and passing away 

within the span of a single moment. But such a view 

of experience as an array of strictly momentary factors 

would seem to make continuity and indeed any conditioning 

interaction among the discrete factors impossible. 

Factors of one moment, whose existence is 

limited to that moment, could never condition the 

arising of subsequent factors that do not yet exist; and 

factors of the subsequent moment must then arise 

without a cause since their prior causes no longer exist. 

To safeguard both the Buddhist teaching of impermanence 

and the conditioning process that is 

essential to account for ordinary experience, the Sarvastivadins 

suggested a novel reinterpretation of existence. 

Each factor, they claimed, is characterized by 

both an intrinsic nature, which exists unchanged in the 

past, present, and future, and an activity or causal efficacy, 

which arises and passes away due to the influence 

of conditions within the span of the present 

moment. Only those factors that are defined by both 

intrinsic nature and the possibility of activity exist as 

real entities (dravya); the composite objects of ordinary 

experience that lack intrinsic nature exist only as 

mental constructs or provisional designations (prajñapti). 

This model, the Sarvastivadins claimed, preserves 

the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence, since 

each factor’s activity arises and passes away, and yet 

also explains continuity and the process of conditioning, 

since factors exist as intrinsic nature in the past, 

present, and future. Such past (or future) existent factors 

can then, through various special types of causal 

efficacy, serve as conditions in the arising of subsequent 

factors. The Sarvastivada ontological model became 

the subject of heated debate and was rejected by 

other schools (e.g., the Theravada and the Darstantika) 

who claimed that factors exist only in the present, and 

not in the past and future. According to the Darstantikas, 

intrinsic nature cannot be distinguished from a 

factor’s activity. Instead, a factor’s very existence is its 

activity, and experience is nothing other than an uninterrupted 

conditioning process. The fragmentation 

of this conditioning process into discrete factors possessed 

of individual intrinsic nature and unique efficacy 

is nothing but a mental fabrication. 

These ontological investigations generated complex 

theories of conditioning and intricate typologies of 

causes and conditions. There is evidence for several rival 

classifications of individual causes and conditions, 

each of which accounts for a specific mode of conditioning 

interaction among specific categories of factors: 

For example, the Theravadins proposed a set of 

twenty-four conditions; the Sarvastivadins, two separate 

sets of four conditions and six causes. Besides establishing 

different typologies of causes and conditions, 

the schools also disagreed on the causal modality exercised 

by these specific types. The Sarvastivadins acknowledged 

that certain of these causes and conditions 

arise prior to their effects, while others, which exert a 

supportive conditioning efficacy, arise simultaneously 

with their effects. The Darstantikas, however, allowed 

only successive causation; a cause must always precede 

its effect. In these debates about causality, the nature of 

animate or personal conditioning—that is, efficacious 

action, or KARMA—and the theory of dependent origination 

intended to account for animate conditioning 

were, naturally, central issues because of their fundamental 

role in all Buddhist teaching and practice. 

The investigation of these doctrinal controversies, 

which came to occupy an ever greater position in later 

abhidharma treatises, required the development of 

more formal methods of argumentation that employed 

both supporting scriptural citations and reasoned investigations. 

In the earliest examples of such arguments, 

reasoned investigations did not yet possess the 

power of independent proof and were considered valid 

only in conjunction with supportive scriptural citations. 

This reliance upon scriptural citations spurred 

the development of a systematic HERMENEUTICS that 

would mediate conflicting positions by judging the authenticity 

and authority of corroborating scriptural 

passages and determining the correct mode of their interpretation. 

In general, the interpretative principles 

applied were inclusive and harmonizing; any statement 

deemed in conformity with the teaching of the Buddha 

or with his enlightenment experience was accepted 

as genuine. Hierarchies were created that incorporated 

divergent scriptural passages by valuing them differently. 

And finally, contradictory passages in the sutras 

or within abhidharma texts were said to represent the 

variant perspectives from which the Buddhist teaching 

could be presented. Notable for its parallel with later 

Buddhist ontology and epistemology was the hermeneu- 


A BHIDHARMAKOŚABHA S YA 

tic technique whereby certain passages or texts were 

judged to have explicit meaning (nltartha) expressing 

absolute truth or reality, while others were judged to 

have implicit meaning (neyartha) expressing mere 

conventional truth. And for the abhidharma texts, the 

sutras were merely implicit and in need of further interpretation 

that could be provided only by the explicit 

abhidharma treatises. In abhidharma texts of the later 

period, reasoned investigations were deemed sufficient, 

and the supporting scriptural references became 

decontextualized commonplaces, cited simply to validate 

the use of key terms in an abhidharma context. 

Reasoned investigations began to be appraised by independent 

non-scriptural criteria, such as internal 

consistency, and the absence of logical faults, such as 

fallacious causal justification. The doctrinal analysis 

and methods of argumentation developed within abhidharma 

treatises defined the course for later Indian 

Buddhist scholasticism, which refined and expanded 

its abhidharma heritage through the addition of new 

doctrinal perspectives, increasingly sophisticated techniques 

of argument, and a wider context of both intraand 

extra-Buddhist debate. 

See also: Abhidharmakośabhasya; Anatman/Atman 

(No-Self/Self); Canon; Commentarial Literature; 

Councils, Buddhist; Dharma and Dharmas; Psychology; 


Bibliography 

Bareau, André. “Les Sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule et leurs 

Abhidharmapitaka.” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême- 

Orient 50 (1952): 1–11. 

Cox, Collett. “The Unbroken Treatise: Scripture and Argument 

in Early Buddhist Scholasticism.” In Innovation in Religious 

Traditions: Essays in the Interpretation of Religious Change, 

ed. Michael A. Williams, Collett Cox, and Martin S. Jaffee. 

Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1992. 

Cox, Collett. Disputed Dharmas: Early Buddhist Theories on Existence. 

Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 

1995. 

Cox, Collett. “Kaśmra: Vaibhasika Orthodoxy (Chapter 3).” In 

Sarvastivada Buddhist Scholasticism, by Charles Willemen, 

Bart Dessein, and Collett Cox. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. 

1997. 

Frauwallner, Erich. Studies in Abhidharma Literature and the 

Origins of Buddhist Philosophical Systems, tr. Sophie Francis 

Kidd. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. 

Gethin, Rupert. “The Matikas: Memorization, Mindfulness, and 

the List.” In In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections on Mindfulness 

and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, 

ed. Janet Gyatso. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

1992. 

Hirakawa Akira. A History of Indian Buddhism: From Śakyamuni 

to Early Mahayana, tr. Paul Groner. Honolulu: University of 

Hawaii Press, 1990. 

Nyanatiloka Mahathera. Guide through the Abhidhamma Pitaka 

(1938). Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 

1971. 

Potter, Karl; with Buswell, Robert E.; Jaini, Padmanabh S.; and 

Reat, Noble Ross; eds. Abhidharma Buddhism to 150 A.D., 

Vol. 7: Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies. Delhi: Motilal 

Banarsidass, 1996. 

Watanabe Fumimaro. Philosophy and Its Development in the 

Nikayas and Abhidhamma. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983. 

ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHA SYA 

COLLETT COX 

The Abhidharmakośa (Treasury of Abhidharma) was 

composed by the fourth- or fifth-century Indian Buddhist 

master, VASUBANDHU. No scholarly consensus 

exists concerning whether or not Vasubandhu, the author 

of the Abhidharmakośa, should be identified with 

Vasubandhu, the author of numerous MAHA YA NA and 

YOGACA RA SCHOOL treatises. According to traditional 

biographical accounts, Vasubandhu composed the 

verses of the Abhidharmakośa, or karika, as a digest of 

orthodox Kashmiri Sarvastivada-Vaibhasika abhidharma 

doctrine. However, in his prose auto-commentary, the 

bhasya, Vasubandhu frequently criticized Sarvastivada 

doctrinal positions and presented his own divergent 

interpretations. 

Typical of the later abhidharma genre of polemical, 

summary digests, the Abhidharmakośa attempts to present 

the entirety of abhidharma doctrinal teaching according 

to a logical format, while also recording 

variant, sectarian interpretations and often lengthy 

arguments on specific points. For his organizational 

structure and much of his content, Vasubandhu relied 

upon earlier abhidharma treatises: notably, for content, 

upon the massive scholastic compendia (vibhasa) of 

Kashmir, and for structure and tenor of interpretation, 

upon the Abhidharmahrdaya (Heart of Abhidharma) 

texts of Gandhara. The Abhidharmakośa is divided into 

nine chapters (nirdeśa): 

1. Elements (dhatu) 

2. Faculties (indriya) 


7

A BHIJN A (HIGHER 

K NOWLEDGES) 

3. Worlds (loka) 

4. Action (karma) 

5. Contaminants (anuśaya) 

6. Path of Religious Praxis and Religious Persons 

(margapudgala) 

7. Knowledge (jñana) 

8. Meditative States (samapatti) 

9. Person (pudgala) 

The ninth chapter contains a refutation of the theory 

of the existence of the person and may represent a separate 

treatise by Vasubandhu, appended to the remainder 

of the Abhidharmakośa. The Abhidharmakośa 

became the most influential early Indian Buddhist Abhidharma 

text within the later scholastic traditions of 

Tibet and East Asia, where it served as a textbook 

within monastic curricula and generated numerous 

commentaries. 

See also: Abhidharma; Dharma and Dharmas; Sarvastivada 

and Mulasarvastivada 

Bibliography 

La Vallée Poussin, Louis de, trans. L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu, 

6 vols. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1923–1931. English 

trans. Leo M. Pruden, Abhidharmakośabhasyam, Vols. 1–4. 

Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1988–1990. 

ABHIJÑA (HIGHER KNOWLEDGES) 

COLLETT COX 

Abhijña (Pali, abhiñña; higher knowledge) refers to a 

stereotyped set of typically six spiritual powers ascribed 

to buddhas and their chief disciples. The first five are 

mundane and attainable through the perfection of 

concentration (samadhi) in meditative trance (dhyana; 

Pali, jhana). As earthly attainments, they are deemed 

available to non-Buddhist sages. In contrast, the sixth 

higher knowledge is supramundane and exclusively 

Buddhist, and attainable only through insight 

(vipaśyana; Pali, vipassana) into the Buddhist truths. 

The five mundane abhijñas include: 

• The divine eye (divyacaksus; Pali, dibbacakkhu), or 

the ability to see the demise and rebirth of beings 

according to their good and evil deeds; 

• The divine ear (divyaśrota; Pali, dibbasota), the 

ability to hear heavenly and earthly sounds far and 

near; 

• Knowledge of other minds (cetahparyayajñana; 

Pali, cetopariyañana), the ability to know the 

thoughts and mental states of others; 

• Recollection of previous habitations (pu rvanivasanusmrti; 

Pali pubbenivasanusati), the ability to 

remember one’s former existences from one to 

thousands of rebirths, through the evolution and 

destruction of many world systems; 

• Various supernatural powers (rddhi; Pali, iddhi), 

such as the ability to create mind-made bodies, 

project replicas of oneself, become invisible, pass 

through solid objects, move through the earth, 

walk on water, fly through the air, touch the sun 

and moon, and ascend to the highest heaven. 

In the MAHA PARINIRVA N A-SU TRA (Pali, Mahaparinibbana-sutta; 

Great Discourse on the Parinirvana), the 

Buddha tells his disciple A NANDA that one who perfects 

the four bases of supernatural power (rddhipada; 

Pali, iddhipada) can live for an entire eon, or for the 

remaining portion of an eon should he so desire. 

The sixth and only supramundane abhijña is the 

most important. Called “knowledge of the extinction 

of the passions” (aśravaksaya; Pali, asavakkhaya), it is 

equivalent to arhatship. The passions extinguished 

through this knowledge are sensuality (kama), becoming 

(bhava), ignorance (avidya; Pali, avijja), and 

views (drsti; Pali, ditthi). 

Historically, the six abhijñas can be seen as an elaboration 

of an earlier Buddhist paradigm of human perfection 

called the “three knowledges” (traividya; Pali, 

tevijja). Comprised of the recollection of former habitations, 

the divine eye, and knowledge of the extinction 

of the passions, the three knowledges form the 

content of the Buddha’s awakening in early canonical 

depictions of his enlightenment experience. 

Although mastery of the six abhijñas is an attribute 

of all perfect buddhas, the early Buddhist tradition was 

ambivalent toward the display of supernatural powers 

by members of the monastic order. In the Kevaddhasutta 

(Discourse to Kevaddha), the Buddha disparages 

as vulgar those monks who would reveal such powers 

to the laity, and in the VINAYA or monastic code, he 

makes it an offense for them to do so. Despite these 

strictures, wonder-working saints were lionized in the 

literatures of all Buddhist schools, and they became 


A BORTION 

the focus of numerous ARHAT cults, such as those devoted 

to the worship of the disciples UPAGUPTA and 

MAHA KA ŚYAPA. The MAHA YA NA tradition elaborated 

upon the abhijñas and rddhis of early Buddhism in its 

depictions of the attainments of celestial bodhisattvas 

and cosmic buddhas. In Buddhist TANTRA, these same 

powers became the model for a host of magical abilities 

called siddhis possessed by tantric masters and displayed 

as signs of their spiritual perfection. 

See also: Dhyana (Trance State); Meditation; Vipassana 

(Sanskrit, Vipaśyana) 

Bibliography 

Buddhaghosa. The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), tr. 

Bhikkhu Nyanamoli. Berkeley, CA: Shambhala, 1964. 

Katz, Nathan. Buddhist Images of Human Perfection: The Arahant 

of the Sutta Pitaka Compared with the Bodhisattva and 

the Mahasiddha. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1982. 

Ray, Reginald A. Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist 

Values and Orientations. New York: Oxford University Press, 

1994. 

ABORTION 

PATRICK A. PRANKE 

Abortion is the deliberate termination of pregnancy by 

mechanical or pharmaceutical means that result in the 

death of an unborn fetus. Since the death of the fetus 

is willfully caused, abortion is the subject of heated 

controversy. Just as Christians are divided in their 

opinions about abortion, Buddhists likewise present a 

range of views from unequivocal condemnation to 

active support. Between the extremes are various attempts 

to justify abortion without completely affirming 

it, or to question it without totally rejecting it. 

There are also those who remain silent on the issue. 

Early Buddhist teachings and practices 

Early Buddhist texts describe the formation of the fetus 

in great detail. At conception the fetus is in a liquid 

state and takes on flesh at the end of two weeks. 

Hands, feet, and a head appear by the fifth week, and 

the embryo is mature after three months. In physical 

terms, life begins with conception, but since the new 

fetus takes shape around a state of being that has already 

had previous lives, it represents a continuation 

of life and not just the beginning of new life. Most texts 

deny that the transmigrating state of being is a permanent 

soul, but they also define different kinds of IN- 

TERMEDIATE STATES that provides the karmic transition 

from one bodily life to the next. The exact nature of 

this intermediate state is the subject of debate, but the 

belief that there is some kind of vital continuity between 

one incarnation and the next means that the beginning 

of life does not take place at conception but 

precedes it. Each conception, however, is not taken 

lightly and the termination of bodily life at any stage 

is generally regarded as killing. 

Abortion is therefore not supported in early Buddhist 

teachings. It violates the first precept against the 

taking of life and goes against other teachings that condemn 

acts causing harm to others. Rituals performed 

for the fetus affirm its life and request protection for 

it and its mother. Monks who performed an abortion 

or helped a woman obtain abortion drugs were subject 

to punishment, including expulsion from the order. 

A monk could also be punished for reciting 

magical spells to prevent birth, or even for advising a 

woman to get an abortion. 

Traditional methods of performing abortions were 

crude and often not very effective. Medicines were 

used, but they could harm the mother or fail to produce 

the desired result. Abortionists used heating and 

scorching, as well as heavy manipulation, including 

trampling, of the womb, to terminate a pregnancy. 

Since intention is an important consideration in determining 

the seriousness of an offense, early texts discuss 

the different levels of infraction involved in cases 

in which death occurs to the mother or the fetus or 

both. The most serious crime is committed when the 

fetus alone dies as the intended victim. 

Modern views and practices 

With the development of safer and more effective 

means of abortion through modern medical practices, 

the abortion rate in Buddhist countries has risen. According 

to a survey done in 1981, it was estimated that 

there were thirty-seven abortions for every one thousand 

women of childbearing age in Thailand, a country 

in which over 90 percent of the population is 

Buddhist. The same survey estimated that there were 

sixty-five to ninety abortions among Japanese women 

of childbearing age. The United States rate was 22.6, 

according to this survey. 

These statistics show that early Buddhist proscriptions 

against abortion have not prevented its practice. 

Aware of Buddhist teachings against abortion, modern 


9

A GAMA/NIKA YA 

Buddhists have adopted a variety of strategies for relating 

theory with practice. In Thailand, for example, 

one approach makes the distinction between the ordained 

clergy, who are forbidden to be involved with 

abortion, and lay followers, who are allowed to have 

abortions without any religious or moral sanction. 

Some monks argue that while abortion is morally 

wrong in terms of Buddhist teachings, the decision for 

or against it is a matter of individual judgment. Other 

Thai Buddhists invoke the teaching on UPA YA (SKILL- 

FUL MEANS) by which an act can be justified if the intent 

behind it is pure. If pregnancy threatens the health 

or life of the mother, then its termination through 

abortion can be justified because the intention is to 

save the mother. 

Modern Japanese Buddhists likewise have developed 

means for dealing with the problem of carrying 

out abortions in the face of the precept against killing. 

Using the modern term mizuko, literally “water child,” 

for the fetus, William R. LaFleur in his influential book, 

Liquid Life (1992), explains the strategy of obscuring 

the point at which life begins and seeing fetal development 

as a continuum of liquid slowing becoming 

solid. This watery ambiguity disallows a fixed definition 

of the precise point at which life begins, and termination 

of the process through abortion likewise 

obscures any judgment that killing has taken place. 

LaFleur argues that fetal life is not so much terminated 

as returned to its origins, where it is put on hold and 

can await another occasion for its birth. While there is 

as yet little evidence to indicate the extent to which ordinary 

Japanese share this liquid life theory, it is not 

without its influence. 

Another modern development among Japanese 

Buddhists for dealing with abortion is MIZUKO KUYO, 

or rite for aborted fetuses. Popular in the 1970s and 

1980s, the rite has been criticized by Jodo Shinshu 

(True Pure Land School) and other Buddhists as being 

a moneymaking scheme that takes advantage of 

people’s superstitious fears that the souls of the aborted 

fetuses will curse them. Others defend mizuko kuyo as 

a legitimate Buddhist ritual that can help people deal 

with their feelings of sadness and guilt. That some people 

feel guilt over abortion indicates that they feel that 

in some way a wrong has been committed. 

Abortion is widely practiced in Buddhist countries, 

and the Buddhist responses vary from condemnation 

to justification. As indicated by studies showing that 

the majority of Japanese women having abortions do 

not feel guilt, the most popular response is toleration 

and acceptance of the act despite teachings that reject 

it, and many Buddhists remain silent, voicing no moral 

judgment one way or the other. 

See also: Precepts 

Bibliography 

Hardacre, Helen. Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan. Berkeley: 

University of California Press, 1997. 

Keown, Damien, ed. Buddhism and Abortion. Honolulu: University 

of Hawaii Press, 1999. 

LaFleur, William R. Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in 

Japan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. 

GEORGE J. TANABE, JR. 

A GAMA/NIKAYA 

The terms A gama and Nikaya denote the subdivisions 

of the Sutrapitaka (Pali, Suttapitaka; Basket of 

Discourses) within the CANON. A gama has the basic 

meaning of (received) tradition, canonical text, and 

(scriptural) authority, while Nikaya means both collection 

and group. Nikaya also denotes an ordination 

lineage that allows the joint performance of legal acts 

of the Buddhist order (SAṄGHA), a meaning that will 

not be explored in this entry. 

It is not known when monks started to gather individual 

discourses of the Buddha into structured 

collections. According to tradition, the Buddha’s discourses 

were already collected by the time of the first 

council, held shortly after the Buddha’s death in order 

to establish and confirm the discourses as “authentic” 

words of the Buddha (buddhavacana). Scholars, however, 

see the texts as continuously growing in number 

and size from an unknown nucleus, thereby undergoing 

various changes in language and content. For at 

least the first century, and probably for two or three 

centuries, after the Buddha’s death, the texts were 

passed down solely by word of mouth, and the preservation 

and intact transmission of steadily growing collections 

necessitated the introduction of ordering 

principles. The preserved collections reveal traces of an 

earlier structure that classified the texts into three, four, 

nine, or even twelve sections (aṅga), but this organizing 

structure was superseded by the Tripitaka scheme 

of arranging texts into the three (tri) baskets (pitaka) 

of discipline (VINAYA), discourses (sutras), and systematized 

teachings (ABHIDHARMA). All Buddhist 


A GAMA/NIKA YA 

schools whose literature has been preserved divided 

the Sutrapitaka further into sections called A gama or 

Nikaya. Neither term is school-specific; the notion that 

the THERAVA DA school used the term Nikaya while 

other schools used A gama is justified neither by Pali 

nor by Sanskrit sources. 

There are either four or five A gamas and Nikayas 

considered canonical by the various MAINSTREAM BUD- 

DHIST SCHOOLS: the Drghagama (Pali, Dghanikaya; 

Collection of Long Discourses); the Madhyamagama 

(Pali, Majjhimanikaya; Collection of Discourses of 

Middle Length); the Sam yuktagama (Pali, Sam yuttanikaya; 

Connected Discourses); the Ekottar(ik)agama 

(Pali, Aṅguttaranikaya; Discourses Increasing by One); 

and the Ksudrakagama (Pali, Khuddhakanikaya; Collection 

of Small Texts). Some schools do not accept a 

Ksudraka section as part of the Sutrapitaka; others 

classify it as a separate pitaka. The sequence of the five 

(or four) sections varies, but if included, the Ksudraka 

always comes last. The names refer to the ordering 

principle of each section: the Drgha (long) contains 

the longest discourses; the Madhyama (middle) contains 

those of medium-length; and the Sam yukta (connected) 

contains shorter sutras connected by their 

themes. The Ekottarika (Growing by one) or Aṅguttara 

(Increasing number of items) comprise discourses 

arranged in ascending order according to numbered 

sets of terms, from sutras treating one term up to those 

dealing with groups of ten or more. The contents of 

the Ksudraka (small texts) vary significantly from version 

to version: Most of the works that seem to form 

its nucleus are composed in verse and apparently belong 

to the oldest strata of the canon. Some of them, 

such as the DHAMMAPADA, rank among the best known 

Buddhist texts. 

It is not known how many versions of the Sutrapitaka 

were once transmitted by the various schools in 

India. Equally unknown is the number of languages 

and dialects used for this purpose. At present, only the 

Pali Suttapitaka of the Theravada school is completely 

preserved. Four A gamas are available in Chinese translation: 

the Drgha, the Madhyama, the Sam yukta, with 

three translations, two of them incomplete, and the 

Ekottarika. These were translated from the collections 

of different schools: The Drghagama probably belongs 

to the DHARMAGUPTAKA, the Madhyamagama and 

Sam yuktagama to the (Mula)Sarvastivadins, and the 

Ekottarikagama to the MAHA SA M GHIKA SCHOOL. 

In the early twentieth century, numerous fragments 

of Sanskrit sutra manuscripts were found in Central 

Asia, enabling scholars to recover at least a small part 

of the Sutrapitaka of the (Mula)Sarvastivadins. Later, 

fragments of the Ekottarikagama of the same school 

came to light among the Gilgit finds. Recent manuscript 

finds from Afghanistan and Pakistan also contain 

many sutra fragments from the scriptures of at 

least two schools, the (Mula)Sarvastivadins and probably 

the Mahasam ghikas. Most notable among them is 

a manuscript of the Drghagama of the (Mula)Sarvastivadins. 

Unlike colophons of vinaya texts, those of 

single sutras or sutra collections never mention schools, 

and this often renders a definite school ascription difficult. 

School affiliation of A gama texts may have been 

less important than modern scholars tend to believe. 

The different versions of the Sutrapitaka are by no 

means unanimous with regard to the number and type 

of sutras included in each section. To give one example: 

The Dghanikaya of the Theravada school contains 

thirty-four texts, while the Drghagama in Chinese 

translation contains only thirty. In the incompletely 

preserved Drghagama of the (Mula)Sarvastivadins, 

however, forty-seven texts are so far attested. Only 

twenty of them have a corresponding text in the Chinese 

Drghagama, and only twenty-four correspond to 

texts in the Pali version. For eight of them, a parallel 

text is found in the Majjhimanikaya of the Pali; at least 

four have no parallel at all. The agreement between the 

different versions of a sutra varies significantly. Versions 

may be close in some passages and loose in others. 

Often a considerable part of a sutra consists of 

formulaic passages, and the wording of these formulas 

is version specific. Further differences may be found 

in the sequence of passages, in the names of places and 

persons, and also in doctrine. All this indicates a common 

origin, followed by a long period of separate 

transmissions with independent redactional changes. 

There are many examples of text duplicates in two 

sections of the same Sutrapitaka. For example, the Satipatthana-sutta 

(Foundation of Mindfulness) of the Pali 

canon is contained in both the Dgha- and the Majjhimanikaya. 

This may be an indication of a separate 

transmission for each A gama/Nikaya in earlier times, 

another indication being terms like Dghabhanaka (reciter 

of the Dgha section) to refer to the respective specialist 

during the phase of oral transmission in the Pali 

tradition. At least in the case of the Mulasarvastivadins, 

many sutras are also duplicated in their Vinaya. 

When growth and redactional changes of the various 

collections came to an end, they began to form what can 

best be described as part of a canon of the respective 


11

A JAN T A 

schools. However, very little is known about the use or 

ritual and educational functions of the collections during 

early times. Because of their status as scriptural 

authority, quotations from the sutras are numerous in 

the COMMENTARIAL LITERATURE of the various schools. 

Certain sutras also continued to be transmitted individually 

or in fixed selections designed for specific religious 

purposes, and it appears that such texts played 

a much more important role in the life of Buddhists 

than the complete collections. Not all the sutras were 

collected as A gamas/Nikayas; the MAHA YA NA sutras, 

for instance, never came to be included in such a classification 

scheme. 

See also: Buddhavacana (Word of the Buddha); Pali, 

Buddhist Literature in; Sanskrit, Buddhist Literature 

in; Scripture 

Bibliography 

Hinüber, Oskar von. A Handbook of Pali Literature. Berlin and 

New York: de Gruyter, 1996. 

Lamotte, Étienne. History of Indian Buddhism: From the Origins 

to the Saka Era (1958), tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain-la-Neuve, 

Belgium: Université catholique de Louvain, Institut orientaliste, 

1988. 

Mayeda, Egaku. “Japanese Studies on the School of the Chinese 

A gamas.” In Zur Schulzugehörigkeit von Werken der 

Hlnayana-Literatur, 2 vols., ed. Heinz Bechert. Göttingen, 

Germany: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1985–1987. 

Mizuno, Kogen. Buddhist Su tras: Origin, Development, Transmission. 

Tokyo: Kosei, 1982. 

AJAN TA 

JENS-UWE HARTMANN 

Carved into a precipitous gorge in northern Maharashtra, 

Ajanta’s thirty Buddhist cave monasteries 

were excavated in two phases. The three finished 

Śatavahana caves (ca. first century C.E.) typify contemporaneous 

and earlier Western Indic cave monasteries. 

Ajanta’s other caves all date to the Vakataka 

emperor Harisena’s reign (ca. 460–480 C.E.). The 

Śatavahana and Vakataka excavations reveal differences 

in donorship, layout, and design. 

Containing numerous and generally terse Prakrit 

inscriptions, the earlier caves evidence a collective and 

socially eclectic pattern of patronage. Most of the Sanskrit 

Vakataka donative inscriptions are later intrusions 

into abandoned caves. Of the four programmatic 

inscriptions, three are lengthy eulogies in verse. They 

record that individual members of the ruling elites donated 

one or more caves in their entirety, giving them 

to the Buddha as his residence rather than to the three 

jewels or the SAṄGHA as theretofore. 

Differences in site layout and cave design reflect 

these changes. Both phases manifest two architectural 

types based on structural wooden prototypes. Ajanta’s 

worship halls share apsidal plans, caitya windows, 

barrel-vaulted roofs, and monumental STU PAs, while 

differing in the nature and amount of their painting 

and sculpture. Repeated buddha figures and joyous 

worshipers throng the Vakataka stupa halls. Most significant 

is the hieratically scaled buddha who, as it 

were, emerges from each central stupa. Framed within 

an architectural structure, these active buddhas transform 

the later stupa halls into gandhakutls, the Buddha’s 

personal residences. 

Early viharas (residential caves) typically take the 

form of large flat-roofed quadrangular rooms without 

pillars. Doorways leading to cells punctuate their 

sparsely decorated interior walls. The Vakataka donors 

added internal pillars, a colonnaded porch, and rich 

decorations in relief and paint onto this basic plan. A 

rear cell located immediately opposite the main doorway 

was expanded into an ornate pillared antechamber 

with a large internal cell. Tenanted by a monolithic 

statue of the Buddha preaching from a cosmic throne, 

this cell is (1) the gandhakutl where the Buddha resides 

as the spiritual and administrative head of his monks, 

and (2) the shrine where he is worshiped. 

These innovations speak to differences in Buddhist 

practice and belief. Viharas with shrines signal a departure 

from the earlier centralization of public worship, 

when the only shrines were stupa halls. In the 

early phase, the most potent manifestation of the Buddha’s 

living presence was the central stupa that embodied 

his body relics (śarlra); at Vakataka Ajanta, the 

most potent manifestation was the monumental Buddha 

image dwelling in his gandhakutl. Profuse ornamentation 

transformed relatively austere monasteries 

into richly jeweled cave palaces atop a cosmic mountain, 

appropriate residences for the Vakataka Buddha, 

who, as the Emperor of Ascetics, was the prime cosmic 

being. The belief in and practice of the bodhisattva 

PATH evidenced in caves 17 and 26 simultaneously reveal 

his imitable and human aspects. Vakataka Ajanta’s 

fabled narratives participated in these changes. Characterized 

by an idealized naturalism that represents 


A LCHI 

beings in action, the Ajanta style “cosmologizes” landscapes 

and beings. It thus expresses the simultaneously 

transcendental and imitable nature of the Buddha performing 

his wondrous deeds. 

See also: Jataka, Illustrations of; Relics and Relics Cults 

Bibliography 

Dehejia, Vidya. Discourse in Early Buddhist Art: Visual Narratives 

of India. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1997. 

Kramrisch, Stella. “Ajanta.” In Exploring India’s Sacred Art: Selected 

Writings of Stella Kramrisch, ed. Barbara Stoler Miller. 

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. 

Parimoo, Ratan, et al., eds. The Art of Ajanta: New Perspectives. 

New Delhi: Books and Books, 1991. 

Schlingloff, Dieter. Studies in the Ajanta Paintings: Identifications 

and Interpretations. Delhi: Ajanta Publications, 1987. 

Schlingloff, Dieter. Guide to the Ajanta Paintings: Narrative Wall 

Paintings. New Delhi: Munsiram Manoharlal, 1999. 

Spink, Walter. “Ajanta’s Chronology: Cave 1’s Patronage.” In 

Chhavi II: Rai Krishnadasa Felicitation Volume. Benares, India: 

Bharat Kala Bhavan, 1981. 

Spink, Walter. “The Achievement of Ajanta.” In The Age of the 

Vakatakas, ed. A. M. Shastri. New Delhi: Harman, 1992. 

Spink, Walter. “The Archaeology of Ajanta.” Ars Orientalis 21 

(1992): 67–94. 

Spink, Walter. “Before the Fall: Pride and Piety at Ajanta.” In 

The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, ed. Barbara 

Stoler Miller. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992. 

Yazdani, Ghulam. Ajanta: The Color and Monochrome Reproductions 

of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography, 4 vols. 

London: Oxford University Press, 1930. 

AKSOBHYA 

LEELA ADITI WOOD 

One of a large number of so-called celestial buddhas 

known to MAHAYANA Buddhists in India during the 

first millennium, Aksobhya was believed to inhabit a 

paradise-like world system far to the east, known as 

Abhirati (extreme delight). Bodhisattvas reborn there 

could make rapid progress toward buddhahood, while 

śravakas could achieve arhatship within a single life. 

Belief in Aksobhya appears to have emerged in India 

around the beginning of the first millennium C.E. and 

spread widely in Buddhist communities before being 

eclipsed by the growing popularity of AMITABHA. Today 

Aksobhya is known mainly as one of the five directional 

buddhas who appear in tantric ritual texts. 

Bibliography 

Chang, Garma C. C., ed. The Dharma-Door of Praising 

Tathagata Aksobhya’s Merits (partial translation of the 

Aksobhyavyu ha). In A Treasury of Mahayana Su tras: Selections 

from the Maharatnaku ta Su tra, tr. Buddhist Association 

of the United States. University Park and London: 

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983. 

Dantinne, Jean, trans. La splendeur de l’inébranlable (Aksobhyavyu 

ha). Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Institut Orientaliste, 

1983. 

Nattier, Jan. “The Realm of Aksobhya: A Missing Piece in the 

History of Pure Land Buddhism.” Journal of the International 

Association of Buddhist Studies 23, no. 1 (2000): 71–102. 

A LAYAVIJÑA NA 

JAN NATTIER 

The alayavijñana (storehouse consciousness) is the 

most fundamental of the eight consciousnesses recognized 

in the VIJN A NAVA DA school of thought. It is 

said to contain all the “seeds” for the “consciousnessmoments” 

or “consciousness-events” that people generally 

call reality. 

See also: Consciousness, Theories of; Psychology 

ALCHI 

JOHN S. STRONG 

The small village of Alchi (A lci), located about seventy 

kilometers west of Leh in Ladakh on an alluvial 

terrace on the left bank of the river Indus, has as its 

center an ancient religious area (chos ’khor). Alchi’s religious 

area is composed of a large STU PA, a threestoried 

temple (Gsum brtsegs), a congregation hall (’dus 

khang), two small chapels, and a later building, the socalled 

New Temple (Lha khang gsar ma). The site’s 

thick white-washed walls of mud and stone follow the 

Tibetan tradition of architecture; the wooden facades 

and the beams and pillars of the interior structures are 

clearly Kashmiri in style. 

The congregation hall, which dates to the late 

eleventh or early twelfth century, is the oldest building 

in the complex; the hall includes a Sarvavid-Vairocana 


13

A MBEDKAR, B. R. 

sculpture at its back end and rich wall paintings 

that are mainly variants of the Vajradhatu-mandala 

based on the Tibetan translation of the Sarvatathagata- 

Tattvasam graha (Symposium of Truth of All Buddhas). 

The three-storied temple, with three colossal clay sculptures 

of bodhisattvas in the niches, has similar mandalas 

in its murals. The temple also houses representations 

of Tara and Avalokiteśvara, along with many tathagatas 

and secular figures. A series of images of priests in the 

second upper story ends with ’Bri-gung-pa (1143– 

1217), which leads to a date of around 1200 C.E. The 

stylistic elegance and sophistication of the murals has 

its roots in Kashmir. The so-called Great Stupa is in 

fact a chapel in pañcayatana form housing a stupa and 

decorated with “thousands” of buddhas and a group 

of priests. Tibetan inscriptions in all three buildings 

give the names, though no dates, of the founders, who 

apparently belonged to the ruling families of the 

Ladakhi kingdom. The murals in the smaller New Temple 

show a different iconographic tradition and clearly 

belong to a slightly later Tibetan style. 

See also: Cave Sanctuaries; Himalayas, Buddhist Art 

in; India, Buddhist Art in; Monastic Architecture 

Bibliography 

Goepper, Roger. Alchi: Ladakh’s Hidden Buddhist Sanctuary: 

The Sumtsek. London: Serindia, 1996. 

Pal, Pratapaditya (text), and Fournier, Lionel (photographs). A 

Buddhist Paradise: The Murals of Alchi, Western Himalayas. 

Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Ravi Kumar, 1982. 

AMBEDKAR, B. R. 

ROGER GOEPPER 

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956), leader of India’s 

Dalits (untouchables) and principal draftsman 

of India’s constitution, led millions of his followers 

to Buddhist conversion. After earning doctoral degrees 

from Columbia University in New York and the 

London School of Economics, Ambedkar passed the 

English bar and launched a campaign of legal and 

moral challenges to the Hindu caste system. In The 

Buddha and His Dhamma (1957) and other writings, 

Ambedkar combined elements of Buddhist ethics, 

American pragmatism, and Protestant “social gospel” 

theology to formulate a socially and politically engaged 

Buddhism that he called “New Vehicle” (Navayana) 

Buddhism. 

See also: Engaged Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji. The Buddha and His Dhamma. 

Bombay: R. R. Bhole, 1957. 

Queen, Christopher S. “Dr. Ambedkar and the Hermeneutics 

of Buddhist Liberation.” In Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation 

Movements in Asia, ed. Christopher S. Queen and 

Sallie B. King. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

1996. 

Sangharakshita. Ambedkar and Buddhism. Glasgow, UK: Windhorse, 

1986. 

AMITA BHA 

CHRISTOPHER S. QUEEN 

Amitabha (Sanskrit, limitless light) is one of the socalled 

celestial or mythic buddhas who inhabit their 

own buddha-field and intervene as a saving force in 

our world. According to the Larger SUKHAVATIVYU HA- 

SU TRA, in a previous life Amitabha was the monk Dharmakara, 

who vowed that as part of his mission as a 

BODHISATTVA he would purify and adorn a world, 

transforming it into the most pure and beautiful 

buddha-field. Once he attained full awakening and accomplished 

the goals of his vows, Dharmakara became 

the Buddha Amitabha. He now resides in the world he 

purified, known as Sukhavat (blissful). From this 

world he will come to ours, surrounded by many bodhisattvas, 

to welcome the dead and to lead them to 

REBIRTH in his pure buddha-field. 

The figure of Amitabha is not known in the earliest 

strata of Indian Buddhist literature, but around the 

beginning of the common era he appears as the Buddha 

of the West in descriptions of the buddhas of the 

five directions. The cult of Amitabha most likely developed 

as part of the early MAHAYANA practice of 

invoking and worshiping “all the buddhas” and imagining 

some of these as inhabiting distant, “purified” 

worlds, usually associated with one of the cardinal directions. 

The myth of his vows and pure land may have 

developed in close proximity to, or in competition 

with, similar beliefs associated with other buddhas like 

AKSOBHYA (another one of the early buddhas of the 

five directions, whose eastern pure land is known as 

Abhirati). 

Although Amitabha shares many of the qualities associated 

with other buddhas of the Mahayana, he is 


A MULETS AND T ALISMANS 

generally linked to the soft radiance of the setting sun, 

which suffuses, without burning or blinding, all corners 

of the universe (in East Asia he is also linked to 

moonlight). The emphasis on his luminous qualities 

(or those of his halo), which occupies an important 

role in East Asian iconography, does not displace or 

contradict the association of Amitabha with a religion 

of voice and sound; his grace is secured or confirmed 

by calling out his name, or, rather, invoking his name 

with the ritual expression of surrender: “I pay homage 

to Amitabha Buddha.” Even in texts that emphasize 

imagery of light, such as the Dazhidu lun (Treatise on 

the Great Perfection of Wisdom), he is still the epitome 

of the power of the vow and the holy name. 

Amitabha is represented in dhyanamudra, perhaps 

suggesting the five hundred kalpas of meditation that 

led Dharmakara to his own enlightenment. An equally 

characteristic posture is abhayamudra (MUDRA of protection 

from fear and danger), which normally shows 

the buddha standing. 

In its more generalized forms, however, FAITH in 

Amitabha continues to this day to include a variety of 

practices and objects of devotion. A common belief, 

for instance, is the belief that his pure land, Sukhavat, 

is blessed by the presence of the two bodhisattvas 

Avalokiteśvara and Mahasthamaprapta. Faith in the 

saving power of these bodhisattvas, especially 

Avalokiteśvara, was often linked with the invocation 

of the sacred name of Amitabha, the recitation of 

which could bring the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara to 

the believer’s rescue. The overlapping of various beliefs 

and practices, like the crisscrossing of saviors and 

sacred images, is perhaps the most common context 

for the appearance of Amitabha—it is the case in 

China, Korea, and Vietnam, and in Japanese Buddhism 

outside the exclusive Buddhism of the Kamakura 

reformers. 

The perception of Amitabha as one among many 

saviors, or the association between faith in him and 

the wonder-working powers of Avalokiteśvara, are 

common themes throughout Buddhist Asia. It is no 

accident that the PANCHEN LAMA of Tibet is seen as 

an incarnation of Amitabha, whereas his more powerful 

counterpart in Lhasa, the DALAI LAMA, is regarded 

as the reincarnation of the Bodhisattva 

Avalokiteśvara. 

See also: Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, Yŏ˘mbul); 

Pure Lands 

Bibliography 

Foard, James; Michael Solomon; and Richard K. Payne, eds. The 

Pure Land Tradition: History and Development. Berkeley: Regents 

of the University of California, 1996. 

Gómez, Luis O. “Buddhism as a Religion of Hope: Observations 

on the ‘Logic’ of a Doctrine and Its Foundational Myth.” 

Eastern Buddhist New Series 32, no. 1 (Spring 1999/2000): 

1–21. 

Gómez, Luis O., trans. and ed. The Land of Bliss: The Paradise 

of the Buddha of Measureless Light: Sanskrit and Chinese Versions 

of the Sukhavatlvyu ha Su tras (1996), 3rd printing, corrected 

edition. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. 

Tsukinowa, Kenryu; Ikemoto, Jushin; and Tsumoto, Ryogaku. 

“Amita.” In Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, Vol. 1, Fasc. 3., ed. 

G. P. Malalasekera. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Government Press 

of Ceylon, 1964. 

Zürcher, E. “Amitabha.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 

1., ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Macmillan, 1987. 

AMULETS AND TALISMANS 

LUIS O. GÓMEZ 

Amulets are small, mystically charged objects carried 

upon the person that provide the bearer with good fortune 

or protection from harm. Amulets are carried by 

members of many Buddhist cultures, most prominently 

in the THERAVA DA countries of mainland Southeast 

Asia (Burma [Myanmar], Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia). 

These amulets are almost always explicitly Buddhist 

in form. They often take the form of small Buddha 

images or representations of holy people. They can also 

be representations of sacred objects, such as cetiyas. 

Cetiyas (Sanskrit, caitya) are reliquary monuments, 

such as STU PAS. The sale of Buddhist amulets can be an 

effective means of raising funds. 

Amulets are usually either stamped medallions or 

molded clay statuettes—similar to votive tablets—that 

are small enough to be worn on a chain around the 

neck. Stamped medallions, usually of bronze, are a relatively 

modern but very popular type. They are often 

issued in honor of a particularly holy monk and bear 

the monk’s portrait on the obverse. The reverse can 

bear representations of renowned stupas or apotropaic 

texts and designs, such as magical number squares. 

Amulets can also be short sacred passages (usually 

gatha) written on paper, cloth, or metal. In Southeast 

Asia, texts on base or precious metal are wound into 

tight little tubes. Texts on paper are similarly rolled up 

and put into a small container. Texts on cloth can be 


15

A NAGA RIKA 

D HARMAPA LA 

carried folded up and put into a breast pocket; it would 

be sacrilegious to carry them in a lower pocket. These 

amulets are especially popular in Cambodia. Texts or 

magical diagrams can also be written on larger pieces 

of cloth or paper and carried folded up in other types 

of containers, such as cloth pouches or lockets made 

of wood, brass, or silver. This type of amulet is used 

in Tibet and China. 

Amulets derive their power from the blessings of 

monks with reputations for being exceptionally holy 

and mystically powerful. The amulets can be seen as 

small objects in which the power of the sacred is crystallized, 

as with holy relics. Once crystallized, this 

power can be used by ordinary people who are not 

themselves holy or powerful. This power comes from 

both the words—Pali or Sanskrit blessings—and the 

personal power of the monks who chant them. The 

right words must be spoken by the right person for the 

transfer of power to be effective. Individual monks acquire 

this power after years of meditation; it is demonstrated 

by their ability to perform miracles. The ideal 

monk is an ascetic hermit who spends his days in meditation 

and who has been ordained since he was a boy. 

While amulets are most commonly worn for generalized 

protection, they often have very specific protective 

properties. A given amulet, for instance, may 

protect against puncture wounds (such as those from 

bullets or knives), but not against crushing wounds 

(such as those from truncheons). It is not unusual to 

see men, and to a lesser extent women, wearing several 

amulets. Special metal neck chains are made for 

this purpose. Thriving amulet markets can be found 

near some large urban Buddhist monasteries. The 

value of an amulet is a function of the power of its initial 

blessing (which derives from the holiness of the 

monk who blessed it), its age and rarity, and any history 

of demonstrated efficacy that is attached to it. An 

amulet is more valuable if it is known, for example, to 

have saved someone from a terrible car wreck. 

See also: Merit and Merit-Making; Relics and Relic 

Cults 

Bibliography 

Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja. The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and 

the Cult of Amulets: A Study in Charisma, Hagiography, Sectarianism, 

and Millennial Buddhism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 

University Press, 1984. 

MICHAEL R. RHUM 

ANAGA RIKA DHARMAPA LA 

Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933) was the leading figure 

in the Sri Lankan Buddhist renaissance that sought 

to restore Buddhism during the late colonial period. 

Born Don David Hevavitarana into an elite Sinhala Buddhist 

family, he met Colonel Henry Olcott and Madame 

Elena Petrovna Blavatsky and joined their newly formed 

Buddhist Theosophical Society in 1884 in Sri Lanka 

(then Ceylon). Seeing the depressed condition of Buddhism 

in both Sri Lanka and India, Dharmapala took it 

as his mission to revive Buddhism. In his work he sought 

to enable Buddhists to address the twofold task of recovering 

their identity and finding ways to respond to 

modernity. Creating a new role for himself in Buddhism, 

he became an anagarika (homeless one), who 

was neither a monk nor a layperson, and he took the 

name Dharmapala (protector of the dharma). 

A tireless activist, Dharmapala worked in India, where 

he founded the Maha Bodhi Society and sought to restore 

the Buddhist shrine of the sacred bodhi tree at the site of 

the Buddha’s enlightenment in BODH GAYA. Through his 

writings and his brilliant oratory, he critiqued the colonial 

and Christian suppression of Buddhism and Buddhists. 

Relying on Buddhist texts such as the Mahavam sa, 

he linked Buddhism and Sinhala nationalism and challenged 

Sinhala Buddhists to reclaim their true identity 

and abandon their attachment to colonial values. 

Dharmapala popularized a reformed Buddhism that was 

characterized by a lay orientation, a this-worldly asceticism, 

an activist and moralist focus, and a strong 

social consciousness. Dharmapala traveled widely in 

Asia preaching these ideas, and he introduced the West 

to his reformist vision when he represented Buddhism 

at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. 

Bibliography 

Bond, George D. The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka: Religious 

Tradition, Reinterpretation, and Response. Columbia: University 

of South Carolina Press, 1988. 

Gombrich, Richard, and Obeysekere, Gananath. Buddhism 

Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka. Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1988. 

A NANDA 

GEORGE D. BOND 

A nanda was a close relative of the Buddha. The Buddha 

ordained A nanda, and as the Buddha grew old, he 


A NANDA 

T EMPLE 

chose A nanda to serve as his attendant. Thus, A nanda 

became the Buddha’s constant companion for the 

twenty-five years preceding the Buddha’s death. The 

canonical texts are replete with examples of A nanda’s 

dedicated care for the Buddha’s comfort, health, and 

safety. In an extreme situation, A nanda was even prepared 

to risk his life to save that of his master. A nanda 

is depicted in the scriptures as extremely amicable toward 

both ordained or laypersons. He was known as a 

brilliant organizer who essentially served as the Buddha’s 

personal secretary, as he would be called in present 

terms. A nanda was instrumental in the creation 

of the Buddhist order of NUNS, a move that the Buddha 

did not initially favor. A nanda, however, asked the 

Buddha if women were capable of realizing supreme 

enlightenment like men, whereupon the Buddha answered 

in the affirmative. 

A nanda was the key figure in the transmission of the 

BUDDHAVACANA (WORD OF THE BUDDHA). He served 

as an indispensable authority at the First Council, which 

was held to codify the Buddha’s legacy soon after his 

death. A nanda is reported to have recited the texts of 

the discourses (sutras); in the line that opens all sutras— 

“Thus have I heard”—the I refers to A nanda. The Buddha’s 

declaration that A nanda was foremost among the 

erudite and upright is a monument to his talents, moral 

strength, and determination. A nanda was said to have 

lived an extraordinarily long life. He later came to be 

revered as the second Indian patriarch of the CHAN 

SCHOOL. 

See also: Councils, Buddhist; Disciples of the Buddha 

Bibliography 

Malalasekera, G. P. “1. A nanda.” Dictionary of Pali Proper 

Names, Vol. 1. London: Indian Text Series, 1937–1938. 

Wang, Bangwei. “The Indian Origin of the Chinese Chan 

School’s Patriarch Tradition.” In Dharmadu ta: Mélanges offerts 

au Vénérable Thich Huyên-Vi, ed. Bhikkhu Tampalawela 

Dhammaratana and Bhikkhu Pasadika. Paris: 

Éditions You-Feng, 1997. 

ANANDA TEMPLE 

BHIKKHU PA SA DIKA 

The most uplifting of Pagan temples, the Ananda was 

built by King Kyanzittha in the mid-eleventh century. 

The Ananda Temple represents the maturity of the early 

period style at Pagan. Based on a single story 

elevation, it is a balanced and harmonious design with 

its central spire rising from a square base and terraces. 

The true effect is best seen from the west side, where 

nineteenth-century donors did not add covered walkways. 

The plan is a Greek cross: a two hundred-foot central 

square with four prayer halls that project out at the 

cardinal points. Facing these prayer halls, the four cardinal 

shrines are set in giant arched niches cut into the 

block. These contain colossal standing buddhas. Only 

the south image is original early period; the others are 

Konbaung replacements from the late eighteenth and 

early nineteenth centuries, as are the splendid carved 

wood doors at the entrance to the outer ambulatory. 

These images are dramatically lit by concealed shafts that 

connect to skylights contained in the external pediments. 

Fragments of the original paintings have been recovered 

in the halls; the remainder, which would have 

covered all the walls and vaults, were whitewashed by 

misguided do-gooders during an earlier period. There 

is a double ambulatory running around the main block 

over which the exterior terraces climb. These terraces 

contain glazed plaque scenes of the JATAKAS. Around the 

base are more glazed plaques depicting the attack and 

defeat of the army of MARA (the personification of evil 

who tried to tempt the Buddha just before his enlightenment). 

Inside, the outer ambulatory contains ninety 

relief scenes from the life of the Buddha. This was a time 

when people were converting to the new faith and these 

scenes were intended to teach the story of the Buddha’s 

life. The stone carving is vigorous and at times dynamic. 

As with the entire building there is an energy and excitement 

to these scenes. The Ananda is a monument 

to the establishment of THERAVADA as the state religion 

of Myanmar (Burma). There is none of the grand complacency 

of the colossal late temples; the place vibrates 

with the force of a newfound faith. 

See also: Monastic Architecture; Myanmar; Myanmar, 

Buddhist Art in; Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Duroiselle, Charles. The Ananda Temple at Pagan. Delhi: Manager 

of Publications, Archaeological Survey of India, 1937. 

Luce, G. H. Old Burma—Early Pagan. 3 vols. Locust Valley, NY: 

J. J. Augustin, 1969–1970. 

Strachan, Paul. Pagan: Art and Architecture of Old Burma. Whiting 

Bay, Arran, Scotland: Kiscadale Publications, 1989. 

PAUL STRACHAN 


17

A NA THAPIN D ADA 

ANA THAPIN D ADA 

Sudatta, usually called Anathapindada (Pali, Anathapindika; 

Giver of Alms to the Destitute), the wealthy 

merchant of Śravast and donor of the famous Jetavana 

Monastery in India, was perhaps the Buddhist order’s 

most important patron. An ardent and learned lay disciple 

(upasaka), he was particularly devoted to the 

Buddha and to his disciple ŚA RIPUTRA. Anathapindada 

died listening to the dharma. 

See also: Disciples of the Buddha 

Bibliography 

Dennis, Mark, and Dennis, Joseph, trans. “Anathapindada, 

Purna, and Kotikarna in the Mahasam ghika Vinaya.” In The 

Glorious Deeds of Pu rna, ed. Joel Tatelman. Richmond, UK: 

Curzon, 2000. 

Johnston, E. H., trans. The Buddhacarita, or, Acts of the Buddha. 

Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1935–1937. 

Malalasekera, G. P. “Anathapindika.” In Dictionary of Pali 

Proper Names. London: J. Murray, 1937–1938. Reprint, London: 

Pali Text Society, 1974. 

Nyanaponika, Thera, and Hecker, Hellmuth. Great Disciples of 

the Buddha: Their Lives, Their Works, Their Legacy, ed. 

Bhikkhu Bodhi. Boston: Wisdom, 1997. 

JOEL TATELMAN 

ANA TMAN/A TMAN (NO-SELF/SELF) 

The Vedic Sanskrit term atman (Pali, atta), literally 

meaning breath or spirit, is often translated into English 

as self, soul, or ego. Etymologically, anatman (Pali, 

anatta) consists of the negative prefix an plus atman 

(i.e., without atman) and is translated as no-self, nosoul, 

or no-ego. These two terms have been employed 

in the religious and philosophical writing of India to 

refer to an essential substratum within human beings. 

The idea of atman was fully developed by the Upanisadic 

and Vedantic thinkers who suggested that there 

does exist in one’s personality, a permanent, unchanging, 

immutable, omnipotent, and intelligent atman, 

which is free from sorrow and leaves the body 

at death. The Chandogya Upanisad, for instance, states 

that the atman is “without decay, death, grief.” Similarly, 

the Bhagavadglta calls the atman “eternal . . . 

unborn . . . undying . . . immutable, primordial . . . 

all-pervading.” Some Upanisads hold that the atman 

can be separated from the body like the sword from 

its scabbard and can travel at will away from the body, 

especially in sleep. But Buddhism maintains that since 

everything is conditioned, and thus subject to ANITYA 

(IMPERMANENCE), the question of atman as a self-subsisting 

entity does not arise. The religion points out 

that anything that is impermanent is inevitably 

DUH KHA (SUFFERING) and out of our control (anatman), 

and thus cannot constitute an ultimate self. 

According to Buddhism, beings and inanimate objects 

of the world are constructed (sam skrta), as distinguished 

from NIRVAN A, which is unconstituted 

(asam skrta). The constituted elements are made up of 

the five SKANDHA (AGGREGATE) or building blocks of 

existence: the physical body (ru pa), physical sensation 

(vedana), sensory perception (sam jña, sañña), habitual 

tendencies (sam skara, sam khara), and consciousness 

(vijñana, viññana). The last four of these skandhas are 

also collectively known as nama (name), which denotes 

the nonmaterial or mental constituents of a being. 

Ru pa represents materiality alone, and inanimate 

objects therefore are included in the term ru pa. A living 

being composed of five skandhas is in a continuous 

state of flux, each preceding group of skandhas 

giving rise to a subsequent group of skandhas. This 

process is going on momentarily and unceasingly in 

the present existence as it will go on also in the future 

until the eradication of avidya (ignorance) and the attainment 

of nirvana. Thus, Buddhist analysis of the 

nature of the person centers on the realization that 

what appears to be an individual is, in fact, an everchanging 

combination of the five skandhas. These aggregates 

combine in various configurations to form 

what is experienced as a person, just as a chariot is 

built of various parts. But just as the chariot as an entity 

disappears when its constituent elements are 

pulled apart, so does the person disappear with the 

dissolution of the skandhas. Thus, what we experience 

to be a person is not a thing but a process; there is no 

human being, there is only becoming. When asked 

who it is, in the absence of a self, that has feeling or 

other sensations, the Buddha’s answer was that this 

question is wrongly framed: The question is not “who 

feels,” but “with what as condition does feeling occur?” 

The answer is contact, demonstrating again the 

conditioned nature of all experience and the absence 

of any permanent substratum of being. 

Just as the human being is analyzed into its component 

parts, so too is the external world with which 

one interacts. This interaction is one of consciousness 

(vijñana) established through cognitive faculties 

(indriya) and their objects. These faculties and their 


A NA TMAN/A TMAN 

(NO -SELF/SELF) 

objects, called spheres (ayatana), include both sense 

and sense-object, the meeting of which two is necessary 

for consciousness. These three factors that together 

comprise cognition—the sense-faculty, the 

sense-object, and the resultant consciousness—are 

classified under the name dhatu (element). The human 

personality, including the external world with which it 

interacts, is thus divided into skandha, ayatana, and 

dhatu. The generic name for all three of them is 

dharma, which in this context is translated as “elements 

of existence.” The universe is made up of a bundle 

of elements or forces (sam skaras) and is in a 

continuous flux or flow (santana). Every dharma, 

though appearing only for a single instant (ksana), is a 

“dependently originating element,” that is, it depends 

for its origin on what had gone before it. Thus, existence 

becomes “dependent existence,” where there is 

no destruction of one thing and no creation of another. 

Falling within this scheme, the individual is entirely 

phenomenal, governed by the laws of causality and 

lacking any extraphenomenal self within him or her. 

In the absence of an atman, one may ask how Buddhism 

accounts for the existence of human beings, 

their identity, continuity, and ultimately their religious 

goals. At the level of “conventional truth” (sam vrtisatya), 

Buddhism accepts that in the daily transactional 

world, humans can be named and recognized as more 

or less stable persons. However, at the level of the “ultimate 

truth” (paramarthasatya), this unity and stability 

of personhood is only a sense-based construction 

of our productive imagination. What the Buddha encouraged 

is not the annihilation of the feeling of self, 

but the elimination of the belief in a permanent and 

eternal “ghost in the machine.” Thus, the human being 

in Buddhism is a concrete, living, striving creature, 

and his or her personality is something that changes, 

evolves, and grows. It is the concrete human, not the 

transcendental self, that ultimately achieves perfection 

by constant effort and creative will. 

The Buddhist doctrine of REBIRTH is different from 

the theory of reincarnation, which implies the transmigration 

of an atman and its invariable material rebirth. 

As the process of one life span is possible without 

a permanent entity passing from one thought-moment 

to another, so too is a series of life-processes possible 

without anything transmigrating from one existence to 

another. An individual during the course of his or her 

existence is always accumulating fresh KARMA (ACTION) 

affecting every moment of the individual’s life. At 

DEATH, the change is only comparatively deeper. The 

corporeal bond, which held the individual together, 

falls away and his or her new body, determined by 

karma, becomes one fitted to that new sphere in which 

the individual is reborn. The last thought-moment of 

this life perishes, conditioning another thoughtmoment 

in a subsequent life. The new being is neither 

absolutely the same, since it has changed, nor totally 

different, being the same stream (santana) of karmic 

energy. There is merely a continuity of a particular lifeflux; 

just that and nothing more. Buddhists employ 

various similes to explain this idea that nothing transmigrates 

from one life to another. For example, rebirth 

is said to be like the transmission of a flame from one 

thing to another: The first flame is not identical to the 

last flame, but they are clearly related. The flame of life 

is continuous, although there is an apparent break at 

so-called death. As pointed out in the MILINDAPAN HA 

(Milinda’s Questions), “It is not the same mind and 

body that is born into the next existence, but with this 

mind and body . . . one does a deed . . . and by reason 

of this deed another mind and body is born into the 

next existence.” The first moment of the new life is 

called consciousness (vijñana); its antecedents are the 

sam skaras, the prenatal forces. There is a “descent” of 

the consciousness into the womb of the mother 

preparatory to rebirth, but this descent is only an expression 

to denote the simultaneity of death and rebirth. 

In this way, the elements that constitute the 

empirical individual are constantly changing but they 

will never totally disappear till the causes and conditions 

that hold them together and impel them to 

rebirth, the craving (trsna; Pali, tanha), strong attachment 

(upadana) and the desire for reexistence (bhava), 

are finally extinguished. 

See also: Consciousness, Theories of; Dharma and 

Dharmas; Intermediate States 

Bibliography 

Collins, Steven. Selfless Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravada 

Buddhism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1982. 

Conze, Edward. Buddhist Thought in India: Three Phases of Buddhist 

Philosophy. London: Allen and Unwin, 1962. 

de Silva, Lynn A. The Problem of the Self in Buddhism and Christianity. 

Colombo, Sri Lanka: Study Centre for Religion and 

Society, 1975. 

Hick, John. Death and Eternal Life. London: Macmillan, 

1976. 

Kalupahana, D. J. The Principles of Buddhist Psychology. Albany: 

State University of New York Press, 1987. 


19

A NCESTORS 

Murti, T. R. V. The Central Philosophy of Buddhism: A Study of 

the Madhyamika System, 2nd edition. London: Allen and 

Unwin, 1960. 

Pérez-Remón, Joaquín. Self and Non-Self in Early Buddhism. 

The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton, 1980. 

Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught, revised edition. 

Bedford, UK: Fraser Gallery, 1967. 

ANCESTORS 

K. T. S. SARAO 

The meaning of ancestor differs among different cultures, 

depending on their kinship system and their beliefs 

regarding the deceased. Ancestor could refer to the 

originator of an ancestral lineage or the soul of a dead 

person who is memorialized in a family shrine. The 

Sanskrit word for ancestor, preta, is related to the Vedic 

term pitarah (fathers). According to an ABHIDHARMA 

commentary, Mahavibha sa (Chinese, Dapiposha lun; 

Great Exegesis), Yama, the first mortal who died and 

became the king of the netherworld, is called preta-raja 

(king of the dead) or pitr-raja (king of fathers). Thus, 

in ancient India, the words preta and pitarah were almost 

interchangeable in their use. This reflects the patrilineal 

kinship system of ancient India and the 

ancestral rites that were performed and maintained 

through the male line. 

In Asia, various forms of ancestor worship were incorporated 

into Buddhist rites. Ancestral rites and ceremonies 

are particularly prominent in East Asia, where 

MAHAYANA Buddhism and Confucianism predominated 

and interacted. Southeast Asian societies, where 

THERAVADA Buddhism flourished, observe similar 

Buddhist rites for ancestors, but the continuity of a 

family lineage is not the main motive of their rites. In 

general, ancestor worship entails belief in the protective 

power of the deceased members of a particular 

family, lineage, or a tribal group. It is also based on the 

desire to overcome fear of the corpse and elevate the 

newly deceased to the level of respected ancestors, 

which continue to interact with the living. 

Buddhist ideas of soul and afterlife 

According to Buddhist scriptures, questions regarding 

existence in the afterlife constitute one of the fourteen 

issues on which the Buddha did not elaborate because 

such matters cannot be proven by experience or logic. 

Buddhist teachings denied any unchangeable or permanent 

entity, such as a soul, since all phenomena are 

seen as subject to ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE). The Buddha 

is said to have instructed his disciples not to deal 

with funerals, unless they were for family members. 

The Buddha’s funeral is said to have been performed 

according to the ancient Indian customs for the funeral 

of a cakravartin (wheel-turning emperor or king, 

who rules the world), and no Buddhist funerals for the 

dead were established at that time. Buddhist ideas of 

no-self (anatman) were the opposite of Brahmanical 

beliefs concerning the continuity of the self. Later, 

however, some Buddhist schools modified the idea of 

no-self by, for example, positing the ALAYAVIJN ANA 

(storehouse consciousness) as that which undergoes 

rebirth. One widely accepted theory is the Sarvastivada 

school’s stance on KARMA (ACTION) as the continuing 

force that sets in motion a new existence after death. 

Whatever philosophical terms the Buddhist scholars 

used, continuity of the individual after death was more 

or less assumed. These ideas, such as karma, provided 

the theoretical background for ancestral rites for the 

Buddhists. 

Buddhist ancestral rites developed and incorporated 

non-Buddhist beliefs and practices from Hinduism, 

Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto, as well as from the 

popular folk beliefs of the people in Asia. In almost all 

Asian cultures, indigenous spirit cults play a major role 

in ancestor worship and veneration: for example, the 

phi spirit of Thai people, the nat of the Burmese, the 

tama of the Japanese, and the po and gui of the Chinese. 

These potentially dangerous spirits can become 

ancestors through Buddhist pacification rituals and 

memorial rites. 

The Ghost Festival and merit transfer 

The most widespread Buddhist ancestral festival is the 

GHOST FESTIVAL, or yulanpen (Japanese, Obon), which 

was recorded in Chinese Buddhist sources as early as 

the fifth century. During the Ghost Festival, ancestors 

are invited back to this world for a feast, which is prepared 

by the family members. This festival is based on 

the Buddhist legend of MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, one of 

the ten leading disciples of the Buddha. Mahamaudgalyayana 

is well known for liberating his mother from 

hell. His mother was unable to eat since all the food 

she tried to eat changed into fire before she put it into 

her mouth. Mahamaudgalyayana’s offerings to the 

community of monks saved her from hell, and she was 

reborn in an upper heaven. This yulanpen festival 

unites the Buddhist components of hungry ghosts and 

salvation with Chinese indigenous belief in pacifying 

dead spirits. In China, imitation paper money and 


A NCESTORS 

miniature furniture and houses are burned to enrich 

the dead in the netherworld. With proper family offerings, 

these spirits can be transformed into protective 

ancestors. 

This legend of yulanpen is based on Chinese Buddhist 

scriptures, but the idea of food offerings for ancestors 

also existed in pre-Buddhist India. An example 

of this is the main feature of the śraddha feast, where 

sacred rice balls, or pinda, were offered to ancestors. 

In these Indian rites, a feast is provided for the Brahmans, 

and the merit of this act is transferred to the ancestors. 

This kind of direct and indirect ritual feeding 

of ancestors has been incorporated into Buddhist ancestral 

rites such as yulanpen and other rites to feed 

hungry ghosts. 

In yulanpen and related rites, an altar outside the 

main chapel was set up with food for the hungry ghosts, 

and various sutras were recited in order to feed them 

and provide prayers for the pretas’ possible future enlightenment. 

This kind of ritual act of pu jana or, as 

Lynn deSilva calls it, “spiritual nourishment” (p. 155) 

was made for various revered objects such as the “three 

jewels” of the Buddha, dharma, and saṅgha, as well as 

for parents, teachers, elders, and the souls of the dead. 

The objects of offering were primarily food but also 

included incense (fragrance), clothes, bedding for 

monks, flowers, lights (candles and other bright lights), 

music, and right actions. In these offering ceremonies, 

the Buddha is symbolically invited into the ceremonial 

place and given praise and offerings. Confessional 

prayers are recited and certain MANTRA (e.g., nenbutsu, 

DHARAN I, or DAIMOKU, depending on which Buddhist 

school one belongs to) are chanted in front of the Buddha. 

The merit accrued from these offerings and sutra 

recitations is transferred to the dead. 

In Sri Lanka, the deceased who did not reach the 

proper afterworld are feared by the living. Various sicknesses 

and disasters are alleged to be caused by these 

floating spirits of the dead. In order to pacify such 

ghosts, Buddhist monks are called upon to perform the 

pirit rites and to distribute magic threads and water to 

those afflicted. These floating spirits are eventually 

transformed into benevolent ancestors by the power of 

the pirit rites. Thai and Burmese Buddhists observe the 

same rite, but it is called the paritta ritual (Spiro, pp. 

247–250). In Thailand, bun khaw saak (merit-making 

with puffed rice) and org phansa (end of Lent) are held 

annually in wats (monasteries), and offerings are made 

to the ancestors collectively (Tambiah, p. 190). The 

merit of such acts is transferred to the deceased, yet 

Stanley Tambiah is reluctant to call these ceremonies 

ancestral worship since they do not involve systematized 

or formalized interaction between the deceased 

and the living. Nevertheless, he notes that the Buddhist 

monks act as mediators between death and rebirth, and 

they eliminate the dangers and pollution of death. In 

Korea, Buddhist monks do not widely deal with death 

rituals or rites of feeding deceased spirits and ancestors, 

unlike Thai or Japanese monks, even though Koreans 

have similar beliefs in spirits as those of other 

East Asian people. Shamans (Korean, mudang) largely 

deal with these ancestral rites. 

Intermediate states and memorial rites 

The timing interval of memorial rites for the dead 

varies. In Sri Lanka, the rites (pu janas) are to be held 

on the seventh day, three months, and one year after 

the death day. These memorial rites are called mataka 

danes, and monks are invited for the memorial feasts. 

The ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHASYA and other Buddhist 

texts describe the judgments said to be undergone by 

the dead in the INTERMEDIATE STATES (Sanskrit, antarabhava; 

Chinese, zhongyou) every seven days after 

death, up to the forty-ninth day. The forty-ninth day 

is the final date when the realm of REBIRTH—whether 

in the hells, the heavens, or other realms—will be decided. 

Thus it marks the end of first mourning period 

for the living. In China, memorial rites for the 

deceased assume the form of Ten Buddha Rites (Chinese, 

shifoshi), which include seven weekly rites held 

every seven days up to the forty-ninth day, and on 

the hundredth day, one year, and the third year 

anniversaries—in total, ten memorial rites. 

In Japan, three to five more rites were added, including 

rites held on the seventh, thirteenth, and 

thirty-third anniversaries. Observing ancestral rites is 

a major part of Japanese Buddhist practice, and death 

related rituals and services, such as funerals and 

memorial rites, have become the major source of 

monastic financing. According to folklorist Yanagida 

Kunio, the deceased souls, which are called hotoke 

(buddha) or spirits (Japanese, sho rei) are purified 

through these memorial rites. Once pacified, they become 

kami (deities) after the thirty-third anniversary 

memorial rite. These deified ancestors eventually lose 

their individual personalities as time passes and converge 

into the collective group of divine ancestors, 

which resides in the ancestral tablets (Japanese, ihai) 

and in ancestral family tombs. In Japan, ihai tablets are 

the most significant object in a Buddhist altar. They 

are enshrined in Japanese homes, with the exception 


21

A NCESTORS 

A Zen (Chan school) priest paying respect at his parents’ gravesite 

in the cemetery of the Kotokoji in Tokyo, 1992. © Don Farber 

2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

of those of Jodo Shinshu, one of the major lineages of 

Pure Land adherents. The ancestral tablet is Chinese 

Confucian in origin but was popularized by Buddhist 

monks during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 

(Fujii, 1988, p. 20). 

Family tombs are also important objects of ancestral 

worship in Japan. Early tombs are modeled on the 

STU PAS in India, where relics of the Buddha are enshrined. 

Japanese ancestral tombs are visited by family 

members to commemorate their ancestors during the 

Obon ancestral festival. Unlike the Chinese and Japanese, 

Thai and Burmese Buddhists do not show much 

interest in building and maintaining elaborate graves 

because tombs are not regarded as ancestral residences. 

Founder worship in Japan 

Another characteristic of Japanese Buddhism in relation 

to ancestor worship is worship of the founders of 

various Buddhist schools and sects, many of which 

were established during the Kamakura period (1185– 

1333). Those most frequently worshipped include 

KU KAI (774–835) of the Shingon Tantric school; Eisai 

(1141–1215) of Rinzai Zen; DO GEN (1200–1253) of 

Soto Zen; HO NEN (1133–1212) of the Pure Land sect 

or Jodoshu; SHINRAN (1173–1263) of Jodo Shinshu; 

and NICHIREN (1222–1282) of the Nichiren school. 

These founders are worshipped and revered as divine 

“fathers” of their respective lineages. The followers of 

these founders are considered the “children” of the 

father-founders, using a family analogy. The blood lineage 

(Japanese, kechimyaku) is interpreted in a spiritual 

sense as the bond connecting the founder and the 

followers through various rites. This founder worship 

is the basis of salvific and devotional Japanese Buddhism, 

since schools and lineages were formed and developed 

upon the basis of the revelatory experience of 

these founders. Several annual rites are performed to 

commemorate the birth, death, and other major life 

events of the founders or prominent monks who contributed 

to the different schools of Buddhism in Japan. 

The stupas, which contain the remains of founders and 

prominent monks, are usually constructed within a 

monastery complex of the headquarters of a particular 

lineage or sect. Furthermore, statues of the founders 

and prominent monks are made and placed near the 

central objects of worship, usually Buddha figures or 

MAN D ALAS. 

Conclusion 

Although Śakyamuni Buddha did not affirm the existence 

of an unchanging soul, Buddhism, in its development 

over many centuries in different parts of Asia, 

provides a rich theoretical and ritual basis for ancestral 

rites. One aspect of this basis is the idea of repeated 

birth in the lower six realms of existence: the realms 

of the hells, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, demigods 

(asura), or heavenly deities, depending upon one’s 

karma from past lives. This idea of karma, of ancient 

Indian origin, was inherited by Buddhists and is understood 

as the continuing individual process that 

undergoes the cycle of rebirth. The concept of PRA- 

TITYASAMUTPADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINATION) also contributed 

to ancestor worship, as the theory was 

understood, especially by the laypeople, to mean that 

past, present, and future lives are connected. Moreover, 

the idea of NIRVAN A, which is often explained 

with the analogy of extinguishing a candle, evolved 

into the idea of dharmakaya or dharma body, which is 

not affected by the death of the physical body of the 

Buddha (Sanskrit, nirman akaya). The Buddha’s funeral 

and the subsequent development of relic worship 

gave further impetus to the worship of ancestors. 

The main concept underlying Buddhist ancestral 

rituals is the transfer of merit, which is practiced in almost 

all Buddhist countries. In the rituals of merit 


A NITYA 

( IMPERMANENCE) 

transfer, giving offerings to the Buddha is regarded as 

the same thing as offering to ancestors. The unity of the 

living and the dead or the bond between descendants 

and ancestors is assured and affirmed by participating 

in and observing the Buddhist ancestral rites. In Southeast 

Asia, ancestor worship is not as evident as in East 

Asia, but the continual transfer of merit though offerings 

to monks and the saṅgha provides the opportunity 

to commemorate and nourish ancestral spirits. 

See also: Cosmology; Death; Lineage; Merit and Merit- 

Making 

Bibliography 

Ahern, Emily M. The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village. Stanford, 

CA: Stanford University Press, 1973. 

deSilva, Lynn A. Buddhism: Beliefs and Practices in Sri Lanka. 

Colombo, Sri Lanka: de Silva, 1974. 

Freedman, Maurice. Lineage Organization in Southeastern 

China. London: University of London, Athlone Press, 1958. 

Fujii Masao. “Soshi shinko no keisei to tenkai” (The formation 

and development of founder worship in Japan). Taisho 

daigaku daigaku-in kenkyu ronshu 6 (1982): 23–39. 

Fujii Masao. Sosen saiki (Ancestral rites). Bukkyo minzogu-gaku 

taikei, Vol. 4. Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 1988. 

Gombrich, Richard Francis, and Obeyesekere, Gananath. Buddhism 

Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka. Princeton, 

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. 

Holt, John C. “Assisting the Dead by Venerating the Living: 

Merit Transfer in the Early Buddhist Tradition.” Numen 28, 

no. 1 (1981): 1–28. 

Jordan, David K. Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: The Folk Religion 

of a Taiwanese Village. Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1972. 

Lee, Kwang Kyu. “The Concept of Ancestors and Ancestor Worship 

in Korea.” Asian Folklore Studies 43 (1984): 199–214. 

Smith, Robert J. Ancestor Worship in Contemporary Japan. Stanford, 


Spiro, Melford E. Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and 

Its Burmese Vicissitudes. New York: Harper, 1970. 

Takeda Choshu. Sosen su hai (Ancestor worship). Kyoto: 

Heirakuji Shoten, 1971. 

Tamamura Taijo. So shiki Bukkyo (Funeral Buddhism). Tokyo: 

Daihorinkaku, 1964. 

Tambiah, Stanley J. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East 

Thailand. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1970. 

Teiser, Stephen. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton, 


Yanagida Kunio. Senzo no hanashi. Tokyo: Tsukuma shobo, 

1946. English translation by Fanny Hagin Mayer and Ishiwara 

Yasuyo. About Our Ancestors: The Japanese Family System. 

Tokyo: Bunshodo, 1970. 

ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE) 

MARIKO NAMBA WALTER 

Impermanence, as the Sanskrit word anitya or Pali 

word anicca are generally translated, is one of the three 

characteristics of the phenomenal world, or the world 

in which human beings live. The other two characteristics 

are DUH KHA (SUFFERING) and no-self (anatman). 

The concept of impermanence is fundamental to all 

Buddhist schools: Everything that exists in this world 

is impermanent. No element of physical matter or any 

concept remains unchanged, including the SKANDHA 

(AGGREGATE) that make up individual persons. Things 

in the world change in two ways. First, they change 

throughout time. Second, everything in this world is 

influenced by other elements of the world, and thus all 

existence is contingent upon something else. Because 

of this state of interdependence, everything that exists 

in this world is subject to change and is thus impermanent. 

Impermanence is the cause of suffering, because 

humans attempt to hold on to things that are 

constantly changing, on the mistaken assumption that 

those things are permanent. 

NIRVA N A is the only thing that lies beyond the reach 

of change, because it exists beyond the conceptual 

dualism of existence or nonexistence. Traditionally, 

Buddhist texts explain that because nirvana is not dependent 

upon other elements in the world, it is described 

as “uncreated” and “transcendent.” In short, 

nirvana is not subject to change and is therefore not 

impermanent. For one who pursues the path toward 

enlightenment, the goal is to recognize the truth of impermanence 

by learning how not to depend upon the 

notion that things exist permanently in the world. According 

to the THERAVA DA school of Buddhism, the 

first step in knowing the nature of reality is recognizing 

that neither the self nor the world exist permanently. 

Impermanence is woven throughout all of 

Buddhism, from its texts to artistic representations of 

Buddhist concepts. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Bodhi 

(Awakening); Four Noble Truths; Path; Pratltyasamutpada 

(Dependent Origination) 


23

A N 

S HIGAO 

Bibliography 

Conze, Edward. Buddhist Thought in India: Three Phases of Buddhist 

Philosophy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 

1962. 

Karunadasa, Y. “The Buddhist Critique of Sassatavada and 

Ucchedavada: The Key to a Proper Understanding of the 

Origin and Doctrines of Early Buddhism.” Middle Way 74, 

no. 2 (1999): 69–79. 

CAROL S. ANDERSON 

Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and 

Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China. Leiden, 

Netherlands: Brill, 1959. 

Zürcher, Erik. “A New Look at the Earliest Chinese Buddhist 

Texts.” In From Benares to Beijing: Essays on Buddhism and 

Chinese Religion in Honour of Prof. Jan Yün-hua, ed. Koichi 

Shinohara and Gregory Schopen. Oakville, ON: Mosaic, 

1991. 

PAUL HARRISON 

AN SHIGAO 

An Shigao is the Chinese name of a Parthian Buddhist 

translator active in the Chinese capital Luoyang circa 

148 to 180 C.E. Tradition represents him as a prince who 

renounced his throne to propagate the dharma in distant 

lands, becoming a hostage at the Han court, but 

little is known about his life. Scholars disagree over 

whether he was a layman or a monk, a follower of the 

MAHAYANA or not. What is certain is that he was the 

first significant translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese. 

Fewer than twenty genuine works of his are thought to 

have survived. They include sutras on such important 

topics as the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, PRATITYASAMUTPA DA 

(DEPENDENT ORIGINATION), the SKANDHA (AGGREGATE), 

and MINDFULNESS of breathing and other techniques of 

self-cultivation, as well as several treatises on similar 

subjects (one of them an early version of Saṅgharaksa’s 

Yogacarabhu mi). Two works are in fact anthologies of 

short sutras, while two other longer sutras (Daśottara, 

Arthavistara) are compendia of terms, thus providing 

Chinese Buddhists with a comprehensive treatment of 

their new religion’s ideas and vocabulary. All the translations 

are of mainstream (Śravakayana) literature, most 

apparently affiliated with the Sarvastivada school. The 

first propagator of ABHIDHARMA and meditation texts in 

China, An Shigao also pioneered the field of Chinese 

Buddhist translations, and may have established the 

translation committee as the standard approach. While 

his archaic renditions were soon superseded by his successors, 

some of the terms he used (like the transcriptions 

fo for Buddha or pusa for bodhisattva) have stood 

the test of time and are still current in East Asia today. 

See also: Mainstream Buddhist Schools 

Bibliography 

Forte, Antonino. The Hostage An Shigao and His Offspring. 

Kyoto, Japan: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 1995. 

ANUTTARASAMYAKSAM BODHI 

(COMPLETE, PERFECT AWAKENING) 

Anuttarasamyaksam bodhi is a Sanskrit term for unsurpassed 

(anuttara), complete and perfect (samyak) 

awakening (sam bodhi). Buddhist texts frequently use 

this term to describe the awakened wisdom acquired 

by buddhas and tathagatas and to indicate that the content 

of that awakening transcends all conceptions and 

cannot be compared to the knowledge or wisdom of 

any other being, whether human or divine. 

See also: Bodhi (Awakening) 

APOCRYPHA 

WILLIAM M. BODIFORD 

The term apocrypha has been used in Western scholarship 

to refer to Buddhist literature that developed 

in various parts of Asia in imitation of received texts 

from the Buddhist homeland of India. Texts included 

under the rubric of apocrypha share some common 

characteristics, but they are by no means uniform in 

their literary style or content. Apocrypha may be characterized 

collectively as a genre of indigenous religious 

literature that claimed to be of Indian Buddhist pedigree 

or affiliation and that came to acquire varying 

degrees of legitimacy and credence with reference to 

the corpus of shared scripture. Some apocrypha, especially 

in East Asian Buddhism, purported to be the 

BUDDHAVACANA (WORD OF THE BUDDHA) (that is, 

sutra) or the word of other notable and anonymous 

exegetes of Indian Buddhism (śastra). Others claimed 

to convey the insights of enlightened beings from India 

or of those who received such insights through a 

proper line of transmission, as in the case of Tibetan 

“treasure texts” (gter ma) that were hidden and discovered 

by qualified persons. Still others were mod- 


A POCRYPHA 

eled after canonical narrative literature, as in the case 

of apocryphal JATAKA (birth stories of the Buddha) 

from Southeast Asia. Thus, what separates apocrypha 

from other types of indigenous Buddhist literature 

was their claimed or implied Indian attribution and 

authorship. The production of apocryphal texts is related 

to the nature of the Buddhist CANON within each 

tradition. The Chinese and Tibetan canons remained 

open in order to allow the introduction of new scriptures 

that continued to be brought from India over 

several centuries, a circumstance that no doubt inspired 

religious innovation and encouraged the creation 

of new religious texts, such as apocrypha. The 

Pali canon of South and Southeast Asia, on the other 

hand, was fixed at a relatively early stage in its history, 

making it more difficult to add new materials. 

The above general characterization offers a clue 

as to the function and purpose of apocrypha: They 

adapted Indian material to the existing local 

contexts—be they religious, sociocultural, or even 

political—thereby bridging the conceptual gulf that 

otherwise might have rendered the assimilation of 

Buddhism more difficult, if not impossible. The perceived 

authority inherent in the received texts of the 

tradition was tacitly recognized and adopted to make 

the foreign religion more comprehensible to contemporary 

people in the new lands into which Buddhism 

was being introduced. Indeed history shows that some 

apocryphal texts played seminal roles in the development 

of local Buddhist cultures as they became an integral 

part of the textual tradition both inside and 

outside the normative canon. But not all apocrypha 

were purely or even primarily aimed at promoting 

Buddhist causes. Some Chinese apocrypha, for example, 

were all about legitimating local religious customs 

and practices by presenting them in the guise of the 

teaching of the Buddha. These examples illustrate that 

the authority of SCRIPTURE spurred literary production 

beyond the confines of Buddhism proper and provided 

a form in which a region’s popular religious dimensions 

could be expressed in texts. 

Of the known corpus of apocrypha, the most “egregious” 

case may be East Asian Buddhist apocrypha 

that assumed the highest order of Indian pedigree, by 

claiming to be the genuine word of the Buddha himself. 

Naturally their claims to authenticity did not go 

unnoticed among either conservative or liberal factions 

within the Buddhist community. During the medieval 

period these texts became objects of contempt 

as well as, contrarily, materials of significant utility 

and force in the ongoing sinification of Buddhism. 

Thus Chinese Buddhist apocrypha epitomize the complexity 

of issues surrounding the history, identity, and 

function of Buddhist apocrypha as a broader genre of 

Buddhist literature. 

Chinese Buddhist apocrypha 

Chinese Buddhist apocrypha began to be written almost 

contemporaneously with the inception of Buddhist 

translation activities in the mid-second century 

C.E. According to records in Buddhist CATALOGUES OF 

SCRIPTURES, the number of apocrypha grew steadily 

every generation, through at least the eighth century. 

Most cataloguers were vehement critics of apocrypha, 

as can be gauged from their description of them as either 

“spurious” or “suspected” scriptures, or from 

statements that condemned these scriptures as eroding 

the integrity of the Buddhist textual transmission 

in China. Despite the concerted, collective efforts of 

the cataloguers and, at times, the imperial court to root 

out these indigenous scriptures, it was not until the 

compilation of the first printed Buddhist canon, the 

Northern Song edition (971–983), that new textual 

creation waned and eventually all but ceased. The production 

of apocrypha in China was thus a phenomenon 

of the manuscript period, when handwritten texts 

of local origin could gain acceptance as scripture and 

even be included in the canon, the result being an enigmatic 

category of scripture that is at once inauthentic 

and yet canonical. 

Modern scholarship’s discovery of such “canonical 

apocrypha” testifies to the complexity and difficulty 

of textual adjudication as well as to the authors’ sophisticated 

level of comprehension and assimilation 

of Buddhist materials. It was never easy for traditional 

bibliographical cataloguers to determine scriptural 

authenticity. Success in ferreting out apocryphal 

texts—especially when the texts in question were composed 

by authors with extensive knowledge of Buddhist 

doctrines and practice and with substantial 

literary skill—required extensive exposure to a wide 

range of Buddhist literature. In addition, the task was 

at times deliberately compromised—as in the case of 

the Lidai sanbaoji (Record of the Three Treasures 

throughout Successive Dynasties; 597)—for no other 

reason than the polemical need to purge from the 

canon any elements that might subject Buddhism to 

criticism from religious and ideological rivals, such as 

Daoists and Confucians. The Lidai sanbaoji added 

many false author and translator attributions to apocrypha 

in order to authenticate those texts as genuine 

scripture; and once its arbitrary attributions were 


25

A POCRYPHA 

accepted in a state-commissioned catalogue, the Da- 

Zhou kanding zhongjing mulu (Catalogue of Scriptures, 

Authorized by the Great Zhou Dynasty; 695), the Chinese 

tradition accepted the vast majority of those texts 

as canonical. The Kaiyuan shijiao lu (Record of Śakyamuni’s 

Teachings, Compiled during the Kaiyuan Era; 

730)—recognized as the best of all traditional 

catalogues—was critical of both these predecessors, 

but even it was unable to eliminate all these past inaccuracies 

due in part to the weight of tradition. 

Canonical apocrypha are therefore ideal examples of 

the clash of motivations and compromises reached in 

the process of creating a religious tradition. These 

apocrypha thus added new dimensions to the evolving 

Buddhist religion in China due in part to their 

privileged canonical status, but also, more importantly, 

because of their responsiveness to Chinese religious 

and cultural needs. 

There are some 450 titles of Chinese apocryphal 

texts listed in the traditional bibliographical catalogues. 

In actuality, however, the cumulative number of apocrypha 

composed in China is closer to 550 when we take 

into account both other literary evidence, as well as 

texts not listed in the catalogues but subsequently discovered 

among Buddhist text and manuscript collections 

in China and Japan. Approximately one-third of 

this total output is extant today—a figure that is surprisingly 

large, given the persistent censorship to which 

apocrypha were subjected throughout the medieval period. 

This survival rate is testimony to their effectiveness 

as indigenous Buddhist scripture and attests to the 

continued reception given to these texts by the Chinese, 

even such knowledgeable exegetes as ZHIYI 

(538–597), the systematizer of the TIANTAI SCHOOL of 

Chinese Buddhism. The vitality of the phenomenon of 

apocrypha in China also catalyzed the creation of new 

scriptures in other parts of East Asia, though to 

nowhere near the same extent as in China proper. 

The extant corpus of apocrypha includes both 

canonical apocrypha as well as texts preserved as citations 

in Chinese exegetical works. Apocrypha were also 

found in the two substantial medieval manuscript collections 

discovered in modern times. The first is the 

DUNHUANG cache of Central Asia discovered at the 

turn of the twentieth century, which included manuscripts 

dating from the fifth to eleventh centuries. The 

second is the Nanatsu-dera manuscript canon in 

Nagoya, Japan, which was compiled during the twelfth 

century based on earlier manuscript editions of the 

Buddhist canon. It was discovered in 1990 to have included 

apocrypha of both Chinese and Japanese origin. 

The most astonishing historical finding in this 

canon was the Piluo sanmei jing (The Scripture on the 

Absorption of Piluo), an apocryphon attested in the bibliographical 

catalogue compiled by the renowned 

monk-scholar DAO’AN (312–385), but previously unknown. 

The Japanese manuscript is the only extant 

copy of this extremely early Chinese apocryphon. 

Other findings are no less valuable in ascertaining the 

overall history of apocrypha: Both the Dunhuang and 

Nanatsu-dera manuscripts included many titles with 

no known record in the catalogues, evidence indicating 

that indigenous scriptural creation was even more 

prolific than had previously been recognized. Moreover, 

scholars have suggested or identified convincingly 

some of the Nanatsu-dera apocrypha as Japanese 

compilations based on Indian texts or Chinese apocryphal 

materials. Thus the apocrypha extant in Japan 

serve as witness to the currency and impact of this contested, 

but obviously useful, material. 

Texts and contents 

The extant corpus of apocryphal literature defies simple 

description, as each text has its own unique doctrinal 

or practical orientation, motive, and literary style 

and technique. Some of the canonical apocrypha skillfully 

synthesized orthodox Buddhist material from India 

without any apparent indication of their native 

pedigree; others, however, propagated popular beliefs 

and practices typical of local culture while including 

negligible Buddhist elements, save for the inclusion of 

the word su tra (jing) in the title. The majority falls 

somewhere between the two extremes, by promoting 

Buddhist beliefs and practices as the means of accruing 

worldly and spiritual merit. A few scholars have 

attempted to make typological classifications of all extant 

apocrypha, but these remain problematic until the 

corpus is thoroughly studied and understood in its 

religious and sociocultural contexts. What follows 

therefore is a selected review of some of the raison 

d’être of apocrypha, which are reflected in the ways in 

which Buddhist teachings are framed and presented. 

We will begin with two examples of apocrypha that 

assembled MAHAYANA doctrine in ways that would 

support a theory or practice that had no exact counterpart 

in Indian Buddhism. First, the AWAKENING OF 

FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN LUN) reconstructed Buddhist 

orthodoxy by synthesizing three major strands of Indian 

doctrine—ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS), ALAYAVIJN ANA 

(storehouse consciousness), and TATHAGATAGARBHA 

(womb/embryo of buddhas)—in order to posit an ontology 

of mind in which the mind could simultane- 


A POCRYPHA 

ously be inherently enlightened and yet subject to ignorance. 

After its appearance in the sixth century, the 

Awakening of Faith became perhaps the most prominent 

example of the impact apocrypha had on the development 

of Chinese Buddhist ideology, as it became 

the catalyst for the development of the sectarian doctrines 

of such indigenous schools as Tiantai, Huayan, 

and Chan. The text is also a prime example of the ways 

in which an indigenous author selectively appropriated 

and ingeniously synthesized Indian materials in order 

better to suit a Chinese religious context. Second, the 

Jin’gang sanmei jing (The Scripture of Adamantine Absorption, 

or Vajrasamadhi-su tra) is an eclectic amalgam 

of a wide range of Mahayana doctrine, which 

sought to provide a foundation for a comprehensive 

system of meditative practice and to assert the soteriological 

efficacy of that system. The scripture is also 

one of the oldest works associated with the CHAN 

SCHOOL in China and Korea, and is thus historically 

significant. Unlike other apocrypha discussed elsewhere 

in this entry, one study suggests that this 

sutra is actually a Korean composition from the seventh 

century (Buswell 1989). This scripture, along with 

Japanese apocrypha mentioned earlier, is thus a 

barometer of the organic relationship that pertained 

between Buddhism in China and the rest of East Asia 

and demonstrates the pervasive impetus for indigenous 

scriptural creation throughout the region. 

Other apocrypha incorporated local references and 

inferences in order to better relate certain Buddhist 

values and stances to the surrounding milieu. PRE- 

CEPTS are the bedrock of Buddhist soteriology and figure 

prominently as a theme among apocrypha, as, for 

example, in the FANWANG JING (BRAHMA’S NET SU- 

TRA). This scripture reformulated the Mahayana bodhisattva 

precepts in part by correlating them with the 

Confucian notion of filial piety (xiao), a conspicuous 

maneuver that betrays both the Chinese pedigree of 

the text as well as its motive to reconcile two vastly different 

value systems. It also addressed problems arising 

from secular control over Buddhist institutions and 

membership—a blending of religious instruction and 

secular concerns that was not atypical of apocrypha, as 

we will see again below. 

Other apocrypha that have precepts as a prominent 

theme specifically targeted the LAITY; such texts include 

the Piluo sanmei jing (The Scripture of the Absorption 

of Piluo), Tiwei jing (The Scripture of Tiwei), and 

Chingjing faxing jing (The Scripture of Pure Religious 

Cultivation). These apocrypha taught basic lay moral 

guidelines, such as the five precepts, the ten wholesome 

actions, and the importance of DANA (GIVING), all set 

within a doctrinal framework of KARMA (ACTION) and 

REBIRTH. These lay precepts are at times presented as 

the sufficient cause for attaining buddhahood, a radically 

simplified PATH that is no doubt intended to encourage 

the participation of the laity in Buddhist 

practice. These precepts are also often presented as being 

superior to the five constant virtues (wuchang) of 

Confucianism, or to any of the tangible and invisible 

elements of the ancient Chinese worldview, including 

the cosmological network of yin and yang, the five material 

elements, and the five viscera of Daoist internal 

medicine. The idea of filial piety is most conspicuous 

in the Fumu enzhong jing (The Scripture on Profound 

Gratitude toward Parents), which is based on the Confucian 

teaching of “twenty-four [exemplary types of] 

filial piety” (ershihsi xiao). The text highlights the deeds 

of an unfilial son and exhorts him to requite his parents’ 

love and sacrifice by making offerings to the three 

JEWELS (the Buddha, the dharma, and the SAṄGHA). 

The scripture has been one of the most popular apocrypha 

since the medieval period. 

The law of karma and rebirth mentioned above is a 

ubiquitous theme or backdrop of apocrypha. The text 

commonly known as the Shiwang jing (The Scripture 

on the Ten Kings) illustrated the alien Buddhist law to 

a Chinese audience by depicting the afterlife in purgatory. 

After death, a person must pass sequentially 

through ten hell halls, each presided over by a judge; 

the individual’s postmortem fate depended on the 

judges’ review of his or her deeds while on earth. This 

bureaucratization of hell was an innovation that mirrored 

the Chinese sociopolitical structure. This scripture’s 

pervasive influence can be gauged from the many 

paintings, stone carvings, and sculptures of the ten 

kings—typically garbed in the traditional attire and 

headgear of Chinese officials—that were found in medieval 

East Asian Buddhist sites. 

Given that apocryphal scriptures were products of 

specific times and places, it is no surprise that they also 

criticized not only the contemporary state of religion 

but also society as a whole, and even the state and its 

policies toward Buddhism. Such criticisms were often 

framed within the eschatological notion of the DECLINE 

OF THE DHARMA, which was adapted from Indian 

sources. The RENWANG JING (HUMANE KINGS SU TRA) 

described corruption in all segments of society, natural 

calamities and epidemics, state control and persecution 

of Buddhism, and the neglect of precepts by Buddhist 

adherents. The suggested solution to this crisis 

was the perfection of wisdom (prajñaparamita), whose 


27

A RHAT 

efficacy would restore order in religion and society and 

even protect the state from extinction. The scripture 

was popular in medieval East Asia, especially among 

the ruling class, not least because of its assertion of state 

protection. The Shouluo biqiu jing (The Scripture of 

Bhiksu Shouluo) offered a different solution to eschatological 

crisis: It prophesized the advent of a savior, 

Lunar-Radiant Youth, during a time of utter disorder 

and corruption. Such a messianic message is of course 

not without precedent in Indian Buddhism—the cult 

of the future buddha MAITREYA is the ubiquitous 

example—but the suggestion of a savior in the present 

world might easily be construed as politically subversive, 

and as a direct challenge to the authority of the 

secular regime. This scripture is one of those lost apocrypha 

that was discovered among the Dunhuang manuscript 

cache some fourteen hundred years after the 

first recorded evidence of its composition. 

The preceding coverage has touched upon only a 

small part of the story of Buddhist apocrypha. Even 

this brief treatment should make clear, however, that 

apocrypha occupy a crucial place in the history of 

Buddhism as a vehicle of innovation and adaptation, 

which bridged the differences between the imported 

texts of the received Buddhist tradition and indigenous 

religion, society and culture. As such, they also 

offer substantial material for cross-cultural and comparative 

studies of scripture and canon in different religious 

traditions. 

See also: Daoism and Buddhism; Millenarianism and 

Millenarian Movements 

Bibliography 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. The Formation of Ch’an Ideology in China 

and Korea: The Vajrasamadhi-Su tra, a Buddhist Apocryphon. 

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr., ed. Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha. Honolulu: 

University of Hawaii Press, 1990. 

Jaini, Padmanabh S., and Horner, I. B. Apocryphal Birth Stories 

(Paññasa-Jataka), 2 vols. London: Pali Text Society, 1985. 

Kapstein, Matthew T. The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: 

Conversion, Contestation, and Memory. Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 2000. 

Makita, Tairyo. Gikyo kenkyu (Studies on Suspect Scriptures). 

Kyoto: Kyoto Daigaku Jinmon Kagaku Kenkyusho, 1976. 

Makita, Tairyo, and Ochiai, Toshinori, eds. Chu goku senjutsu 

kyo ten (Scriptures Composed in China); Chu goku Nihon senjutsu 

kyo ten: kanyaku kyo ten (Scriptures Composed in China 

and Japan, Scriptures Translated into Chinese [Extractions]); 

and Chu goku Nihon senjutsu kyo ten: senjutsusho 

(Scriptures and Commentaries Composed in China and 

Japan). Nanatsu-dera koitsu kyoten kenkyu sosho (The Long 

Hidden Scriptures of Nanatsu-dera, Research Series), Vols. 

1–5. Tokyo: Daito Shuppansha, 1994–2000. 

Mochizuki, Shinko . Bukkyo kyo ten seiritsushi ron (Study on the 

Development of Buddhist Scriptures). Kyoto: Hozo-kan, 

1946. 

Orzech, Charles D. Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture 

for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism. 

University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. 

Teiser, Stephen F. The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making 

of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: 


Tsukamoto, Zenryu . Tsukamoto Zenryu chosakushu , Vol. 2: 

Hokucho bukkyo shi kenkyu (Collected Works of Tsukamoto 

Zenryu, Vol. 2: Studies on the Buddhist History of Northern 

Dynasties). Tokyo: Daito Shuppansha, 1974. 

Yabuki, Keiki. Meisha yoin: kaisetsu (Echoes of the Singing 

Sands: Explanations). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1933. 

Zürcher, Erik. “Prince Moonlight: Messianism and Eschatology 

in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism.” T’oung-pao 68 

(1982), 1–59. 

ARHAT 

KYOKO TOKUNO 

The arhat (Sanskrit) or arahant (Pali) is a being who 

has attained the state of enlightenment that is the goal 

of THERAVADA and other MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST 

SCHOOLS. The arhat is fully human yet has reached a 

transcendent state of wisdom and liberation that the 

texts describe as being almost identical with that of the 

Buddha. In this way, the arhat fulfills a dual role as both 

an ideal for imitation and an object of veneration. 

As an ideal of imitation, the arhat represents the 

completion of the gradual PATH that leads from the 

stage of an ordinary person, characterized by ignorance, 

to that of an enlightened person endowed with 

wisdom. Theravada texts describe this path as having 

two levels: the mundane or worldly, and the supramundane. 

Theravada held that the path was open to 

all beings who could master the attainments required, 

and it subdivided the path into four stages that must 

be completed over many lifetimes. These four stages 

are termed the four paths (marga) or the four noble 

persons (arya-pudgala), and comprise (1) the path of 

stream-attainment (srotapanna marga), (2) the path 

of once-returning (sakrdagami marga), (3) the path of 


A RHAT 

nonreturning (anagami marga), and (4) the path 

of the arhat. The division of the path into these stages 

extending over many lifetimes served to make the ideal 

of arhatship more viable for ordinary people. 

The Buddhist CANON contains many sutras that spell 

out in detail the nature of the perfections that must be 

accomplished at each of the stages of the path in order 

to progress toward arhatship. The perfection of moral 

conduct (ślla) constitutes the first requirement of the 

path. In the Visuddhimagga (Path to Purification), BUD- 

DHAGHOSA (fifth century C.E.) explains that a person 

on the path must fulfill the PRECEPTS, living by compassion 

and nonviolence, living without stealing and 

depending on the charity of others, practicing chastity, 

speaking truth, and following all of the major and minor 

precepts. Having made progress in slla, the aspiring 

arhat moves to perfect the restraint of sense 

faculties. Controlling the senses rather than allowing 

the senses to control him or her, the aspirant experiences 

a state of peace. The next stage involves the development 

of samadhi, or concentration, and here the 

chief obstacles to be overcome are the five hindrances 

(nlvarana), which include sensual desire, ill will, sloth 

and torpor, excitement and flurry, and DOUBT. 

Closely related to this formulation of the states to 

be conquered is the list of mental fetters (sam yojana) 

that must be abandoned in order to progress from the 

stage of stream-enterer to that of arhat. A person attains 

the fruit of stream-entry by eliminating the first 

three fetters: mistaken belief in a self, doubt, and trust 

in mere rites and RITUALs. To progress to the stage of 

the once-returner, a person must reduce lust, ill will, 

and delusion. The third noble person, the nonreturner, 

completes the destruction of the first five 

fetters by completely destroying sensual desire and ill 

will. To become an arhat one must proceed to eliminate 

the five remaining fetters, called higher fetters: 

desire for material existence, desire for immaterial existence, 

conceit, restlessness, and ignorance. 

Having eliminated these negative states, the arhatto-be 

enters the successive jhanas (Sanskrit, dhyana) 

or trance states of samadhi, and attains the mental factors 

ending in pure MINDFULNESS and equanimity. The 

Dlghanikaya contrasts persons who have reached this 

stage with ordinary persons by stating that those who 

attain this level are as happy as prisoners who have 

been set free or as people who have found their way 

out of the wilderness to safety (D.1.72f.). To move beyond 

this stage, the potential arhat perfects the six 

ABHIJN A (HIGHER KNOWLEDGES). The first three of 

these comprise what can be called miraculous powers: 

the ability to do the miraculous deeds traditionally attributed 

to Indian holy persons, such as becoming invisible, 

flying through the air, walking on water, and 

other physical and psychic powers. The three remaining 

abhijña comprise the three knowledges: knowledge 

of one’s previous lives, the “divine eye” (divyacaksu) 

that allows one to see others’ past lives, and knowledge 

of the destruction of the cankers. Having reached this 

stage, the arhat is described throughout the Pali canon 

as “one who has destroyed the cankers, who has done 

what was to be done, who has laid down the burden 

. . . and is liberated.” 

The detailed and somewhat formulaic canonical descriptions 

of the arhat’s path serve both to present the 

path as an imitable goal and to emphasize how distant 

this goal is from the ordinary person. Theravada supplemented 

these normative descriptions of the path to 

arhatship with hagiographical accounts of the great 

arhats who had completed this path. The difficulty of 

the path implied that the figures who had completed it 

were greatly to be venerated. The canonical and commentarial 

stories of the great arhats describe them as 

performing meritorious deeds in their previous lives, 

which led to their having opportunities to hear and follow 

the dharma. Through hearing the dharma and 

practicing the path, these arhats reached the perfection 

of wisdom and compassion. Theravadin accounts 

praise these arhats for attaining various forms of perfection 

in relation to the world. Free from the snares of 

desire, the arhats were not attached to the material 

world. For example, the female arhat, Subha, who had 

overcome all attachments and was living as a nun in 

the forest, plucked out her eye and gave it to a pursuer 

who said that he was attracted to her because of her 

deerlike eyes. The stories of other arhats stress their perfection 

of qualities such as equanimity, nonattachment, 

and peace. Great arhats like Mahakassapa (Sanskrit, 

MAHAKAŚYAPA) and Añña-Kondoñña were revered for 

their ability to teach the dharma, and other arhats were 

remembered for serving as advisers and counselors to 

the people. Veneration of these great arhats by ordinary 

persons at the lower levels of the path both leads to and 

is in itself imitation of the arhats’ path to development. 

Although the arhat plays a primary role in Theravada 

Buddhism, the ideal is also found in some MA- 

HAYANA texts that mention a group of sixteen (or 

sometimes eighteen) great arhats. Mahayana sutras 

teach that the Buddha requested these sixteen arhats 

to remain in the world to teach the dharma until the 

next Buddha, MAITREYA, appears. 


29

A RHAT 

I MAGES 

See also: Arhat Images; Bodhi (Awakening); Disciples 

of the Buddha 

Bibliography 

Bond, George D. “The Arahant: Sainthood in Theravada Buddhism.” 

In Sainthood: Its Manifestations in World Religions, 

ed. Richard Kieckhefer and George D. Bond. Berkeley: University 

of California Press, 1988. 

Horner, I. B. The Early Buddhist Theory of Man Perfected. London: 

Williams and Norgate, 1936. 

Tambiah, S. J. “The Buddhist Arahant: Classical Paradigm and 

Modern Thai Manifestations.” In Saints and Virtues, ed. 

John S. Hawley. Berkeley: University of California Press, 

1987. 


ARHAT IMAGES 

The depiction of arhats (Chinese, luohan; Japanese, 

rakan; Korean, nahan) in painting and sculpture is a 

time-honored one in East Asian Buddhist art. Literally 

meaning “one worthy of honor,” arhats are senior disciples 

of the Buddha who attained awakening through 

his teaching. After the sutra about sixteen “great” 

arhats, Da aluohan Nandimiduoluo suo shuo fazhuji 

(Record of the Abiding Law as Spoken by the Great Arhat 

Nandimitra, T.2030), was translated into Chinese in 

the mid-seventh century, worship centered on this select 

group, which eventually expanded from sixteen to 

eighteen and then to five hundred in number. These 

select arhats, said to reside in remote mountain fastnesses 

and believed to possess miraculous powers, had 

been given the charge to protect the buddhadharma 

until the buddha of the future, MAITREYA, makes his 

appearance, and this kalpa (or cycle) of existence 

comes to an end. From the late ninth century onward, 

arhats inspired a fervent cultic worship in Central Asia 

and throughout East Asia. 

One clue that suggests why such worship was so 

enduring may be found in the Record of the Abiding 

Law. There the believer is instructed to show devotion 

to the arhats by supporting the monastic order. 

The sutra states that such devotional actions call forth 

the arhats, although they disguise their “transcendent 

natures,” to mingle amidst human beings, bestowing 

upon pious donors “the reward of that fruit that 

surpasses all others” (i.e., the attainment of buddhahood). 

Another factor that contributed to the flourishing 

of arhat worship in China was the probable 

An arhat, or enlightened disciple, with a fly whisk. (Chinese painting 

by Guanxiu, 832–912.) The Art Archive/Private Collection 

Paris/Dagli Orti. Reproduced by permission. 

association of the miracle-working arhats named in 

the sutra and subsequently depicted in paintings and 

sculpture with the fabled but indigenous Daoist immortals, 

who were also thought to reside in remote 

realms and possess supernatural powers; indeed, the 

Sanskrit term arhat was first translated into Chinese 

by borrowing terms from the Daoist lexicon that refer 

to such immortals. 

The beginnings of the depiction of the sixteen arhats 

named in the Record of the Abiding Law are obscure; 

the available visual evidence consists of mere fragments 

or later copies of paintings. Textual sources, however, 

indicate that by the latter half of the ninth century, as 

the arhats’ cultic worship became well-established, 

painters of note, such as Guanxiu (832–912) and 

Zhang Xuan (tenth century), depicted the theme, apparently 

in the form of iconic portraits. By this time 

there appear to have been two approaches to depicting 

arhats: either as monks with Chinese facial features 


A RYADEVA 

or as distinctly exotic, even grotesque beings. Guanxiu, 

a Chan priest and accomplished poet who was said to 

have derived inspiration for his painting from prayerinduced 

visions, was heralded by later historians as 

having been the first to portray the arhats, in the words 

of Huang Xiufu (late tenth/early eleventh century), as 

foreign in appearance, “having bushy eyebrows and 

huge eyes, slack-jawed and big-nosed,” and in a landscape 

setting, “leaning against a pine or a boulder.” 

Such characteristics can be seen in a set of sixteen hanging 

scrolls in the Imperial Household Agency, Tokyo, 

that is generally thought to best preserve Guanxiu’s 

powerful conception. Guanxiu’s radical vision was perpetuated 

in sets of arhat paintings produced throughout 

the medieval period in China and Japan. 

By the latter half of the twelfth century the mode 

of representing arhats in the guise of more familiar, 

sinicized monks, albeit sometimes performing miraculous 

feats, included their placement in much more 

elaborate landscape settings and the suggestion of narrative 

implications far beyond the content of the 

Record of the Abiding Law. Skilled at conjuring up such 

dramatic renditions in ink and color on silk, professional 

Buddhist painters in cities like Ningbo in Zhejiang 

province created large sets of hanging scrolls that 

depicted what had now become the five hundred 

arhats. One of the most significant sets to survive from 

a Ningbo workshop is that produced in 1178 by Lin 

Tinggui and Zhou Jichang. 

Arhats, because of their ascetic devotion to the 

dharma, became a favored subject of adherents to the 

CHAN SCHOOL. Whereas resplendent sets of paintings, 

like the one mentioned above, were hung in temple 

halls for public worship, renderings in ink monochrome 

and often with exceptionally delicate lineation, 

known as baimiao or plain line drawing, were enjoyed 

by monks and lay worshippers in more intimate and 

scholarly exchanges. From the twelfth century onward 

in China, but especially at times when the Chan school 

was revitalized by the presence and activity of prominent 

clerics, depictions of arhats in this more scholarly 

mode of painting reappeared with new vigor and subtle 

invention. 

As a complement to painted images, sculpted representations 

of arhats occupied temple halls as well. 

Few early examples survive, however. Offering a 

glimpse of what must have been a vibrant tradition are 

five magnificent ceramic sculptures of arhats, slightly 

larger than lifesize and featuring a three-color glaze, 

that were found in a cave in Hebei province early in 

the twentieth century. From a presumed set of sixteen, 

they are thought to date to the late eleventh or early 

twelfth century. Sinicized portrayals, they reflect the 

characterization of the arhats as familiar monks; nevertheless, 

because of the talent of the nameless artisans 

who created them, they are imbued with a meditative 

authority befitting the arhats’ mission to remain ever 

steadfast in protecting the dharma. 

See also: Arhat; Chan Art; Daoism and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

De Visser, Marinus W. The Arhats in China and Japan. Berlin: 

Oesterheld, 1923. 

Fong, Wen. The Lohans and a Bridge to Heaven. Washington, 

DC: Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art, 1958. 

Kent, Richard K. “Depictions of the Guardians of the Law: Lohan 

Painting in China.” In Latter Days of the Law: Images of 

Chinese Buddhism 850–1850, ed. Marsha Weidner. Lawrence: 

Spenser Museum of Art, University of Kansas; Honolulu: 


Smithies, Richard, “The Search for the Lohans of I-chou 

(Yixian).” Oriental Art 30, no. 3 (1984): 260–274. 

Watanabe, Masako. “Guanxiu and Exotic Imagery in Rakan 

Paintings.” Orientations 31, no. 4 (2000): 34–42. 

A RYADEVA 

RICHARD K. KENT 

A ryadeva (ca. 170–270 C.E.) in his major work, 

Catuhśataka (Four Hundred Verses), defends the MAD- 

HYAMAKA SCHOOL against Buddhist and Brahmanical 

opponents. The commentary of CANDRAKIRTI (ca. 

600–650 C.E.) on this text identifies A ryadeva as a Sinhala 

king’s son who renounced the throne, traveled to 

South India, and became NA GA RJUNA’s main disciple. 

Bibliography 

Lang, Karen. A ryadeva’s Catuhśataka: On the Bodhisattva’s Cultivation 

of Merit and Knowledge. Copenhagen, Denmark: 

Akademisk Forlag, 1986. 

Sonam, Ruth. Yogic Deeds of Bodhisattvas: Gyel-tsap on 

A ryadeva’s Four Hundred. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1994. 

Tillemans, Tom J. F. Materials for the Study of A ryadeva, Dharmapala, 

and Candraklrti, 2 vols. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische 

und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 1990. 

KAREN LANG 


31

A RYAŚU RA 

A RYAŚU RA 

A ryaśura was a fourth-century C.E. Sanskrit poet. His 

famous work, the JA TAKAMA LA (Garland of Jatakas), 

contains thirty-four stories about the noble deeds of 

the Buddha in previous incarnations, exemplifying in 

particular the PA RAMITA (PERFECTION) of generosity, 

morality, and patience. Written in prose interspersed 

with verse, it is one of the Buddhist masterpieces of 

classical Sanskrit literature. 

See also: Jataka; Sanskrit, Buddhist Literature in 

Bibliography 

Khoroche, Peter, trans. Once the Buddha Was a Monkey: A rya 

Śu ra’s Jatakamala. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 

1989. 

ASAṄGA 

PETER KHOROCHE 

Asaṅga (ca. 320–ca. 390) is regarded as the founder of 

the Yogacara tradition of MAHAYANA philosophy. His 

biography reports that he was born in Purusapura, India, 

and converted to Mahayana from the HINAYANA, 

later convincing his brother VASUBANDHU to make the 

same move. Together they systematized the teachings 

of Yogacara, authoring the main Yogacara commentaries 

and treatises. Asaṅga’s many works include 

Abhidharmasamuccaya (A Compendium of Abhidharma), 

which presents and defines technical terms 

and usages, and the Xlanyang shengjiao lun, extant only 

in Chinese translation, a text that summarizes the truly 

compendious Yogacarabhu mi (Stages of Yogic Practice), 

with which he is also connected as author/editor. Other 

commentaries are attributed to him on important Yogacara 

and some Prajñaparamita and Madhyamaka 

works as well. By far his principal work is the Mahayanasam 

graha (Summary of the Great Vehicle), in 

which he presents the tenets of Yogacara in clear and 

systematic fashion, moving step by step, first explaining 

the basic notion of the storehouse consciousness 

and its functional relationship to the mental activities 

of sensing, perceiving, and thinking, then outlining the 

structure of consciousness in its three patterns of the 

other-dependent (dependent arising applied to the 

very structure of consciousness), the imagined, and the 

perfected, which is the other-dependent emptied of 

clinging to the imagined. He then sketches how the 

mind constructs its world; he develops a critical philosophy 

of mind that, in place of ABHIDHARMA’s naive 

realism, can understand understanding, reject its imagined 

pattern, and—having attained the perfected state 

of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS)—engage in other-dependent 

thinking and action. Asaṅga thereby reaffirms the conventional 

value of theory, which had appeared to be 

disallowed by earlier Madhyamaka dialectic. He treats 

the practices conducive to awakening (perfections, 

stages, discipline, concentration, and nonimaginative 

wisdom) and finally turns to the abandonment of delusion 

and the realization of buddhahood as the three 

bodies of awakening. Asaṅga’s work is a compendium 

of critical Yogacara understanding of the mind. 

See also: Consciousness, Theories of; Madhyamaka 

School; Yogacara School 

Bibliography 

Keenan, John P., trans. The Summary of the Great Vehicle by 

Bodhisattva Asaṅga (Translated from the Chinese of Paramartha). 

Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation 

and Research, 1992. 

Lamotte, Étienne, ed. and trans. La Somme du Grand Véhicule 

d’Asaṅga (Mahayanasam graha), Vol. 1: Version tibétaine et 

chinoise (Hiuan-tsang); Vol. 2: Traduction et commentaire. 

Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 1938–39. Reprint, 1973. 

Rahula, Walpola, ed. and trans. Le compendium de la superdoctrine 

(Abhidharmasamuccaya) d’Asaṅga. Paris: École 

Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1971. Reprint, 1980. 

ASCETIC PRACTICES 

JOHN P. KEENAN 

Buddhism arose in India at a time when a number of 

non-Vedic ascetic movements were gaining adherents. 

These Śramanic traditions offered a variety of psychosomatic 

disciplines by which practitioners could experience 

states transcending those of conditioned 

existence. Accounts of the Buddha’s quest for awakening 

depict the BODHISATTVA engaging in ascetic disciplines 

common to many Śramanic groups of his time. 

The bodhisattva reportedly lived in the wilderness, 

practiced breath-control, gave little care to his manner 

of dress, and fasted for long periods, strictly controlling 

his intake of food. But these accounts are not entirely 

consistent. Most indicate that the bodhisattva 

practiced asceticism for a period of six years; others 

(namely the Sutta Nipata 446, and the Aṅguttara Nik- 


A SCETIC 

P RACTICES 

aya 4:88) state that the period of ascetic practice was 

seven years in duration. All accounts depict the bodhisattva 

practicing a regimen characterized by abstemious 

self-control, but details differ. Some say that 

he went unclothed in the manner of some Śramanic 

groups, that he wore only animal skins or bark clothing, 

and that he subsisted on fruits and roots. Some 

indicate that his meals consisted only of a single grain 

of rice, or a single jujube fruit. 

The most critical discrepancy in these accounts of 

the bodhisattva’s experiments in asceticism is the fact 

that where early sources such as the Sutta Nipata 

praise asceticism, later accounts describe the bodhisattva 

reaching a point where he rejects asceticism 

and discovers the Middle Way. Later accounts link this 

discovery of a PATH between the extremes of selfindulgence 

and self-mortification to the achievement 

of BODHI (AWAKENING). The bodhisattva, according to 

these accounts, had reached such a point of emaciation 

that he could feel his spinal cord by touching his 

abdomen (e.g., Majjhima Nikaya 1:80, 1: 246). Fainting 

from hunger and near to death, the bodhisattva 

had to rethink his methodology. A critical juncture in 

his ascetic regimen occurred when he accepted an offering 

of rice boiled in milk and was rejected by his 

ascetic companions as a hedonist. 

To understand why later accounts repudiate asceticism 

as a path to awakening and link the practice of 

the Middle Way to the achievement of awakening, it 

is necessary to consider the history of Buddhist engagement 

with rival religious groups and how polemics 

shaped the development of Buddhism in India. As 

Buddhism spread from its initial heartland, it became 

important that Buddhists take a stand on asceticism so 

as to clearly differentiate themselves from other non- 

Vedic Śramanic groups. Rivalry with Jains was particularly 

intense, as Buddhists competed for support from 

more or less the same segment of the lay population 

that Jain monastics relied upon for their financial support. 

Hajime Nakamura (Go tama Buddha, pp. 63ff.) 

suggests that antiascetic sentiments began to be expressed 

as Buddhists responded to critical remarks 

made by Jains to the effect that Buddhist monastics 

were lazy and self-indulgent. Nakamura argues that the 

biographical tradition of the Buddha’s discovery of the 

Middle Way after practicing extreme asceticism was 

developed in this polemical context. Other scholars 

have focused on internal developments within Buddhism 

and seen evidence of a historical shift away from 

early asceticism. Reginald Ray, for example, argues in 

Buddhist Saints in India (pp. 295–317) that ascetic 

practices were the central focus of Buddhism in early 

days, but later were marginalized with the growth of 

settled MONASTICISM. 

Historical issues aside, there are other reasons for 

ambivalence within Buddhist traditions with regard to 

asceticism. On the one hand, ascetic practices are central 

to developing an attitude of being content with little, 

an important aspect of the salutary detachment that 

Buddhists seek to inculcate. But on the other hand, asceticism 

can be practiced for a variety of unwholesome, 

self-aggrandizing reasons. Because of concerns about 

possible misuse, ascetic practices have been regarded 

as optional rather than mandatory aspects of the path. 

Lists of ascetic practices differ. In THERAVADA contexts, 

the classical list of ascetic practices (dhutanga) 

includes thirteen items: wearing patchwork robes recycled 

from cast-off cloth, wearing no more than three 

robes, going for alms, not omitting any house while 

going for alms, eating at one sitting, eating only from 

the alms bowl, refusing all further food, living in the 

forest, living under a tree, living in the open air, living 

in a cemetery, being satisfied with any humble 

dwelling, and sleeping in the sitting position (without 

ever lying down). MAHAYANA texts mention twelve ascetic 

practices (called dhu taguna). They are the same 

as the Theravada list except they omit two rules about 

eating and add a rule about wearing garments of felt 

or wool. 

Several of the thirteen dhutanga are virtual emblems 

of the SAṄGHA in Theravada countries. For example, 

at the end of Theravada ordination ceremonies, members 

of the saṅgha are instructed in the four ascetic customs 

known as the four resorts (Pali, nissaya): begging 

for alms, wearing robes made from cast-off rags, 

dwelling at the foot of a tree, and using fermented cow 

urine as medicine (as opposed to more palatable medicines 

like molasses and honey). These four practices, 

often mentioned in canonical texts, undoubtedly go 

back to the beginnings of Buddhism in India. 

Studies of contemporary saints in Buddhist Asia 

(such as those by Carrithers, Tambiah, and Tiyavanich) 

suggest that those who follow ascetic practices enjoy 

tremendous prestige. Bank presidents residing in 

Bangkok travel hundreds of miles and endure all kinds 

of hardships to visit and make offerings to WILDERNESS 

MONKS of the Thai forest traditions. There is no denying 

that the Buddhist emphasis on moderation militates 

against extreme asceticism. But it is equally clear 

from ethnographic and textual studies that ascetic 

practices are deeply woven into the fabric of Buddhism. 


33

A Ś OKA 

See also: Diet; Robes and Clothing; Self-Immolation 

Bibliography 

Cakraborti, Haripada. Asceticism in Ancient India. Calcutta: 

Punthi Pustak, 1973. 

Carrithers, Michael. The Forest Monks of Sri Lanka: An Anthropological 

and Historical Study. Delhi: Oxford Press, 1983. 

Dantinne, Jean. Les qualities de l’ascete (Dhutaguna). Brussels: 

Thanh-Long, 1991. 

Gombrich, Richard. Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from 

Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo. New York: Routledge, 

1988. 

Nakamura, Hajime. Go tama Buddha. Tokyo: Buddhist Books 

International, 1977. 

Ray, Reginald. Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values 

and Orientations. New York: Oxford University Press, 

1994. 

Tambiah, Stanley. The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult 

of Amulets: A Study in Charisma, Hagiography, Sectarianism, 

and Millennial Buddhism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1984. 

Tiyavanich, Kamala. Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in 

Twentieth-Century Thailand. Honolulu: University of 


AŚOKA 

LIZ WILSON 

Aśoka (ca. 300–232 B.C.E.; r. 268–232 B.C.E.), the third 

ruler of the Indian Mauryan empire, became a model 

of KINGSHIP for Buddhists everywhere. He is known today 

for the edicts he had inscribed on pillars and rock 

faces throughout his kingdom, and through the legends 

told about him in various Buddhist sources. 

In one of his edicts, Aśoka expresses regret for the 

suffering that was inflicted on the people of Kaliṅga 

(present-day Orissa) during his conquest of that territory. 

Henceforth, he proclaims, he will renounce war 

and dedicate himself to the propagation of dharma. 

Just what he meant by this statement has been a subject 

of debate. Some have understood the word dharma 

here to mean the Buddha’s teaching, and so have read 

Aśoka’s change of heart in Kaliṅga as a conversion experience. 

In a few subsequent inscriptions, it is true, 

Aśoka does refer specifically to Buddhist sites (such as 

the Buddha’s birthplace, which he visited in person) 

and to Buddhist texts, but, in general, for him, the 

propagation of dharma seems to have implied an active 

moral polity of social concern, religious tolerance, 

and the observance of common ethical precepts. In 

one edict, for instance, he orders fruit and shade trees 

to be planted and wells to be dug along the roads for 

the benefit of travelers. In others, he establishes medical 

facilities for humans and animals; he commissions 

officers to help the poor and the elderly; and he enjoins 

obedience to parents, respect for elders, and generosity 

toward and tolerance of priests and ascetics of 

all sects. 

Throughout the ages, however, Aśoka was best 

known to Buddhists not through his edicts but through 

the legends that were told about him. These give no 

doubt about his conversion to Buddhism and his specific 

support of the monastic community. In Sanskrit 

and Pali sources, Aśoka’s kingship is said to be the 

karmic result of an offering he made to the Buddha in 

a past life. In this life, it is his encounter with an enlightened 

Buddhist novice that changes him from being 

a cruel and ruthless monarch into an exemplary 

righteous king (dharmaraja), a universal monarch 

(cakravartin). As such, he undertakes a series of great 

acts of merit: He redistributes the relics of the Buddha 

into eighty-four thousand stupas built all over his kingdom; 

he establishes various Buddhist sites of PILGRIM- 

AGE; he becomes a supporter of charismatic saints such 

as UPAGUPTA and Pindola; he fervently worships the 

bodhi tree at BODH GAYA; and he gives away (and then 

redeems) his kingship and all of his possessions to the 

SAṄGHA. In addition, in the Sri Lankan vam sas (chronicles), 

he is said to purify the teaching by convening 

the Third Buddhist Council, following which he sends 

missionary-monks, including his own son Mahinda, to 

various lands within his empire and beyond (e.g., Sri 

Lanka). 

These stories helped define notions of Buddhist 

kingship throughout Asia, and gave specificity to 

the mythic model of the wheel-turning, dharmaupholding 

cakravartin. From Sri Lanka to Japan, 

monarchs were inspired by the image of Aśoka as a 

propagator of the religion, distributor of wealth, 

sponsor of great festivals, builder of monasteries, and 

guarantor of peace and prosperity. In particular, the 

legend of his construction of eighty-four thousand 

stupas motivated several Chinese and Japanese emperors 

to imitate it with their own schemes of relic 

and wealth distribution, which served to unify their 

countries and ritually reassert their sovereignty. 

See also: Councils, Buddhist; India; Sri Lanka 


A TISHA 

Bibliography 

Barua, B. M. Asoka and His Inscriptions, 2 vols. Calcutta: New 

Age, 1946. 

Li Rongxi, trans. The Biographical Scripture of King Asoka. 

Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and 

Research, 1993. 

Nikam, N. A., and McKeon, Richard, eds. and trans. The Edicts 

of Asoka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. 

Strong, John S. The Legend of King Aśoka. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


Thapar, Romila. Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas. Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 1961. 


LUN), being falsely attributed to him. 

See also: Sanskrit, Buddhist Literature in 

Bibliography 

Johnston, E. H., ed. and trans. The Saundarananda of Aśvaghosa, 

2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1928 and 1932. 

Johnston, E. H., ed. and trans. The Buddhacarita or, Acts of the 

Buddha. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993. 

Lüders, Heinrich. “Das Śariputraprakarana, ein Drama des 

Aśvaghosa.” In Philologica Indica. Göttingen, Germany: 

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1940. 


AŚVAGHOSA 

Aśvaghosa (ca. 100 C.E.) was a Sanskrit poet and 

dramatist. As is the case with nearly all the writers of 

ancient India, legend and fictional anecdote take the 

place of biographical fact, but the association of 

Aśvaghosa with the Kushan king Kaniska is at least 

chronologically possible. 

Aśvaghosa is the author of two long poems, among 

the earliest extant in Sanskrit: BUDDHACARITA (Acts of 

the Buddha) and Saundarananda, about the conversion 

of the Buddha’s half-brother Nanda. Fewer than 

half of the twenty-eight cantos of the Buddhacarita survive 

complete in the original Sanskrit, bringing the 

story only as far as the Buddha’s enlightenment, but 

Tibetan and Chinese translations preserve the entire 

work. Only fragments survive of Aśvaghosa’s nine-act 

play, Śariputraprakarana (The Matter [or Drama] of 

Śariputra), about the conversion of ŚA RIPUTRA and 

MAHA MAUDGALYA YANA, later to become two of the 

Buddha’s main disciples. Of the other works attributed 

to Aśvaghosa, only the fragments of another drama are 

likely to be his. 

The profound knowledge of brahmanical lore displayed 

in his writing supports the Chinese tradition 

that he was born a brahman and only later converted 

to Buddhism. Conversion is the main theme of two of 

his works and also figures prominently in the third. 

His avowed purpose in writing was to win converts to 

the Buddha’s teaching by the charm of his art and the 

intensity of his conviction. Aśvaghosa’s fame as a 

writer and the legend of his life contributed to his 

renown in East Asia and resulted in a number of works, 

such as the AWAKENING OF FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN 

ATISHA 

Atisha (982–1054) was born to the ruler of a minor 

kingdom in Northeast India. He studied under the best 

Buddhist teachers of his time, including Jetari (whose 

name is also written Jitari) and Bodhibhadra. After 

some years of married life he entered the Buddhist order, 

where he was given the name Dpam karaśrjñana 

(Light of Wisdom). Atisha, the name by which he is 

better known, is an apabhram śa (proto-Bengali) form 

of the common Buddhist Sanskrit term atiśaya, which 

means “surpassing intention or kindness.” In Tibet, 

Atisha is more commonly known as Jo bo rje (pronounced 

Jowojay), which conveys the idea of holiness 

and leadership. 

According to later hagiographical accounts, after 

becoming a monk, Atisha studied in the four great 

monastic universities of the Pala dynasty (eighth to 

twelfth centuries): Nalanda, Otantapuri, Vikramaśla, 

and Somapuri. He then traveled to Suvarnadvpa (perhaps 

Sumatra in present-day Indonesia), where he met 

his most important teacher, Dharmakrtiśr, a Cittamatra 

(Mind Only) philosopher who taught Atisha 

MAHAYANA altruism (bodhicitta). Atisha returned to 

India when he was middle-aged, and the Pala king 

Nayapala appointed him abbot of Vikramaśla, where 

he launched a program of monastic renewal. 

At the end of the tenth century, the king of Mnga’ 

ris (Ngari) in far western Tibet, Ye shes ’od (Yeshay ö), 

sent a group of twenty-one Tibetans to India, among 

them the great translator Rin chen bzang po (958– 

1055). Ye shes ’od was a descendant of the original Tibetan 

royal line that had ended in central Tibet in 

about 840, a date that marks the end of the first spread 


35

A VADA NA 

of Buddhism (snga dar) in Tibet. Rin chen bzang po’s 

return to Mnga’ ris after his travels in India is the traditional 

date for the beginning of the second spread 

(sphyi dar) of Buddhism. 

According to hagiographical accounts, late in his life 

Ye shes ’od told his son Byang chub ’od (Changchub ö, 

984–1078) to invite Atisha, then the foremost Indian 

Buddhist scholar, to help further the spread of Buddhism 

in Tibet. Atisha accepted the invitation and arrived 

in Mnga’ ris in 1042. He never returned to India, 

traveling and teaching extensively before his death in 

central Tibet in 1054. 

In western Tibet Atisha collaborated with Rin chen 

bzang po on Tibetan translations of PRAJNA PA RAMITA 

LITERATURE. Atisha later collaborated in central Tibet 

with Nag mtsho tshul khrims rgyal ba (Nagtso 

Tsultrim gyalwa) on Tibetan translations of many fundamental 

texts of the Madhayamaka (Middle Way). Of 

his many Tibetan disciples the most important is 

’Brom ston rgyal ba’i byung gnas (Dromtön Chökyi 

jungnay, 1008–1064), who founded Rva sgreng (Reting), 

the first monastery of the Bka’ gdams (Kadam) 

sect. The Bka’ gdams, which evolved into the DGE LUG 

(GELUK) or Yellow Hat sect, is the Tibetan sect with 

which the name of Atisha is most closely associated. 

Among Atisha’s best known works is his Byang chub 

sgron me (Lamp for the Path), taught soon after arriving 

in Tibet. In it he classifies practitioners of Buddhism 

into three types (those of lesser, middling, and 

superior capacities), and he stresses the importance of 

a qualified guru, the need for a solid foundation of 

morality, the central place of Mahayana altruism, and 

an understanding of ultimate reality. He also sets forth 

the practice of TANTRA as a powerful technique for 

quickly reaching enlightenment. Atisha’s works influenced 

all the later Tibetan Buddhist sects (BKA’ BRGYUD, 

SA SKYA, and Dge lugs). Some later Dge lugs writers, influenced 

by TSONG KHA PA’s Lam rim chen mo (Stages 

of the Path to Enlightenment, written in 1403) projected 

onto the historical Atisha a mythical perfect guru who 

became for them the symbol of their exclusive form of 

monasticism and scholastic learning. 

See also: Tibet 

Bibliography 

Chattopadhyaya, Alaka. Atiśa and Tibet. Calcutta: Indian Studies 

Past and Present, 1967. 

Eimer, Helmut. Rnam thar rgyas pa: Materialien zu eine Biographie 

der Atiśa (Dlpaṁkaraśrljñana). Wiesbaden, Germany: 

Harrassowitz, 1979. 

Sherburne, Richard, trans. The Complete Works of Atiśa 

Śrl Dlpaṁkara Jñana. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000. 

AVADA NA 

GARETH SPARHAM 

As a genre of Buddhist literature, the Sanskrit term 

avadana (Pali, apadana; Chinese, piyu; Tibetan, rtogs 

par brjod pa’s sde) denotes a narrative of an individual’s 

religiously significant deeds. Often these narratives 

constitute full-fledged religious biographies, 

sometimes of eminent monastics, sometimes of ordinary 

lay disciples. The avadanas portray, frequently 

with thematic and narrative complexity, concrete human 

actions that embody the truths propounded in 

the doctrine (dharma) and the discipline (VINAYA). 

Avadanas range from formulaic tales that simply 

dramatize the workings of KARMA (ACTION) and the efficacy 

of FAITH and devotion, to fantastical adventure 

stories, to the sophisticated art of virtuosi poets. Like 

modern novels and short stories, avadanas offer something 

for every taste. The avadana literature draws on 

diverse sources: actual lives, the biography of the Buddha 

and tales of his former births (JA TAKA), biographical 

accounts in the canonical literature, and the vast, 

pan-Indian store of secular story-literature. Indian 

Buddhists composed avadanas from about the second 

century B.C.E. to the thirteenth century C.E. Thereafter, 

Buddhists elsewhere in Asia continued the tradition. 

In India and beyond, avadana stories also inspired narrative 

painting. 

Structurally, avadanas, like jatakas (which came to 

be considered a subcategory of avadana), consist of a 

story of the present (pratyutpannavastu), a story of the 

past (atltavastu), and a juncture (samavadhana) in 

which the narrator, always the Buddha or another enlightened 

saint, identifies characters in the past as former 

births of characters in the present. For the story 

of the past, some avadanas substitute a prediction 

(vyakarana) of the protagonist’s spiritual destiny. 

The earliest avadanas, like the Apadana and the 

Sthavlravadana (ca. second century B.C.E.), are autobiographical 

narratives in verse attributed to the Buddha’s 

immediate disciples. In contrast, biographical 

anthologies from the first to the fourth centuries C.E., 

such as the AVADA NAŚATAKA (A Hundred Glorious 

Deeds), Karmaśataka (A Hundred Karma Tales), and 

DIVYA VADA NA (Heavenly Exploits), are in mixed prose 

and verse and feature a much wider range of charac- 


A VADA NA 

ters. The Avadanaśataka stories are brief and formulaic, 

those of the Karmaśataka less so, and those of the 

Divyavadana the most complex and diverse. The sixthto 

eighth-century Pali commentaries (atthakatha) and 

several collections preserved only in Chinese contain 

many avadana and avadana-type stories. 

Just as Hindu poets retold stories of heroes from the 

epics and Puranas, Buddhist poets retold the lives of 

their own heroes. The second-century Kumaralata, in 

his Kalpanamanditika Drstantapaṅkti (A Collection 

of Parables Ornamented by the Imagination), first 

adapted the prose-and-verse format to the demands 

of belles lettres. His successors from the fourth to the 

eighth centuries, A RYAŚU RA, Haribhatta, and Gopadatta, 

composed ornate poetry (kavya) in the form 

of bodhisattvavadanamalas (garlands of avadanas 

concerning the Buddha’s previous births). Similarly, 

the eleventh-century Hindu poet Ksemendra drew 

on the MU LASARVASTIVADA VINAYA to compose the 

Bodhisattvavadana-kalpalata, which became important 

in Nepal and Tibet. 

The mostly unpublished verse avadanamalas (garlands 

of avadanas), which constitute a later subgenre, 

are anonymous works, composed in the style of Hindu 

Puranas, that display MAHAYANA influences. Several of 

these retell stories from earlier sources, some in a distinctively 

Nepalese idiom. 

As scholars increasingly recognize narrative as a 

mode of knowing distinct from, but in no way inferior 

to, philosophical discourse, they can look forward to 

learning much from a literary genre that has played an 

essential role in Buddhist self-understanding for more 

than two thousand years. 


Bibliography 

Burlingame, Eugene Watson, trans. Buddhist Legends, 3 vols. 

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921; London: 


Chavannes, Edouard, trans. Cinq cents contes et apologues extraits 

du Tripitaka chinois, 4 vols. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 

1910–1935. 

Cutler, Sally Mellick. “The Pali Apadana Collection.” Journal of 

the Pali Text Society 20 (1994): 1–42. 

Feer, Léon, trans. Avadana-çataka: Cent légendes bouddhiques. 

Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1891. 

Handurukande, Ratna, ed. and trans. Five Buddhist Legends in 

the Campu Style. Bonn, Germany: Indica et Tibetica Verlag, 

1984. 

Hofinger, Marcel, ed. and trans. Le Congrès du Lac Anavatapta: 

Vies de Saints Bouddhiques, Extrait du Vinaya des Mu lasarvastivadin 

Bhaisajyavastu. Vol. 1: Légendes des Anciens (Sthaviravadana). 

Vol. 2: Légendes du Bouddha (Buddhavadana). 

Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Institut Orientaliste and Peeters 

Press, 1982–1990. 

Iwamoto, Yutaka. Bukkyo setsuwa kenkyu josetsu (An Introduction 

to the Study of Buddhist Legends). Tokyo: Kaimei 

Shoin, 1978. 

Jones, J. J., trans. The Mahavastu, 3 vols. London: Pali Text Society, 

1949–1956. 

Jones, John Garrett. Tales and Teachings of the Buddha: The 

Jataka Stories in Relation to the Pali Canon. London: Allen 

and Unwin, 1979. 

Lamotte, Étienne. History of Indian Buddhism, tr. Sara Webb- 

Boin. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Institut Orientaliste and 

Peeters Press, 1988. 

Nakamura, Hajime. Indian Buddhism: A Survey with Bibliographical 

Notes. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987. 

Pruitt, William, trans. The Commentary on the Verses of the 

Therls. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1998. 



1994. 

Strong, John S. “The Buddhist Avadanists and the Elder 

Upagupta.” Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 22 (1985): 

862–881. 

Strong, John S. The Legend and Cult of Upagupta: Sanskrit Buddhism 

in North India and Southeast Asia. Princeton, NJ: 


Takahata, Kanga, ed. Ratnamalavadana: A Garland of Precious 

Gems or, a Collection of Edifying Tales, Belonging to the Mahayana. 

Tokyo: Toyo Bunko Oriental Library, 1954. 

Tatelman, Joel. “The Trials of Yaśodhara and the Birth of 

Rahula: A Synopsis of Bhadrakalpavadana II–IX.” Buddhist 

Studies Review 15, no. 2 (1998): 1–42. 

Tatelman, Joel, trans. “The Trials of Yaśodhara: The Legend of 

the Buddha’s Wife in the Bhadrakalpavadana.” Buddhist Literature 

1 (1999): 176–261. 

Tatelman, Joel, trans. The Glorious Deeds of Pu rna. Richmond, 

UK: Curzon, 2000. 

Willemen, Charles, trans. The Storehouse of Sundry Valuables. 



Winternitz, Maurice. A History of Indian Literature, 2 vols., tr. 

S. Ketkar and H. Kohn. Calcutta: University of Calcutta 

Press, 1927; New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 

1977. 

JOEL TATELMAN 


37

A VADA NAŚATAKA 

AVADA NAŚATAKA 

The Avadanaśataka (A Hundred Glorious Deeds) is an 

anthology of one hundred biographical stories in Sanskrit 

from the first to second centuries C.E. The stories 

are thematically organized into ten “books” that portray 

the truth of the doctrine of KARMA (ACTION) and 

the power of religious DA NA (GIVING), FAITH, and devotion. 

An earlier version is preserved in Chinese 

(Taisho no. 200). 

See also: Avadana; Divyavadana; Jataka 

Bibliography 

Bagchi, P. C. “A Note on the Avadanaśataka and Its Chinese 

Translation.” Visvabharati Annals 1 (1945): 56–61. 

Fa Chow, trans. “Chuan Tsi Pai Yuan King and the Avadanaśataka.” 

Visvabharati Annals 1 (1945): 35–55. 

Feer, Léon, trans. Avadana-çataka: Cent légendes bouddhiques. 

Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1891. Reprint, Amsterdam: APA- 

Oriental Press, 1979. 

Strong, John S. “The Transforming Gift: An Analysis of Devotional 

Acts of Offering in Buddhist Avadana Literature.” History 

of Religions 18 (1979): 221–237. 

AVALOKITEŚVARA. See Bodhisattva(s) 

AVATAM SAKA-SU TRA. See Huayan Jing 

JOEL TATELMAN 

AWAKENING OF FAITH (DASHENG 

QIXIN LUN) 

The Dasheng qixin lun (Treatise on the Awakening of 

Faith According to the Mahayana) is a Chinese apocryphal 

composition believed to have been written during 

the sixth century. The text is important for its 

appropriation of the TATHA GATAGARBHA, the doctrine 

of Buddha-nature, into the central teaching of Chinese 

Buddhist schools such as Huayan and Chan. The 

Dasheng qixin lun explains how ordinary, deluded beings 

can attain enlightenment without renouncing this 

worldly life. The text was reputed to have been written 

in Sanskrit by AŚVAGHOSA (Chinese, Maming; first 

century C.E.) and then translated into Chinese in 550 

by the Indian dharma master PARAMA RTHA (Chinese, 

Zhendi; 499–569). However, no Sanskrit version of this 

text exists, and most scholars accept its indigenous 

Chinese provenance. 

The Dasheng qixin lun is divided into five parts. In 

part one, the author explains his motives for writing 

the treatise. In part two, he outlines the significance of 

his discussion. In part three, he focuses on two aspects 

of mind to explicate the relationship between enlightenment 

and ignorance, nirvana and sam sara, or the 

absolute and the phenomenal. In part four, he enumerates 

five practices that aid the believer in the awakening 

and growth of faith, with an emphasis on 

calmness and insight meditation. In part five, he describes 

the benefits that result from cultivating the five 

practices. The content of the Dasheng qixin lun is often 

summarized as “One Mind, Two Aspects, Three 

Greatnesses, Four Faiths, and Five Practices.” 

The composition of the Dasheng qixin lun represents 

a process of Sinicization of Indian Buddhism. 

The text seeks to synthesize tathagatagarbha and yogacara 

philosophies of mind by positing that one mind 

has two aspects: the absolute aspect, which is the equivalent 

of the tathagatagarbha, and the phenomenal aspect, 

which refers to the A LAYAVIJN A NA (storehouse 

consciousness). Since the tathagatagarbha is the underlying 

ontological matrix upon which the phenomenal 

aspect of mind is grounded, the latter always has 

the potential to be transformed into the absolute mind. 

Ignorance is simply the manifestation of one’s defiled 

modes of consciousness, which do not have distinct 

characteristics of their own and are not separate from 

the mind’s true essence. To attain enlightenment, one 

needs only to free oneself from deluded thoughts and 

cultivate faith in one’s inherently pure mind. Enlightenment 

is accordingly conceptualized as a process in 

which one fully actualizes one’s initial awakening into 

one’s true nature through religious cultivation and 

meditative practice. 

The Dasheng qixin lun has exerted a profound impact 

on the development of East Asian Buddhism; numerous 

Buddhist exegetes in China, Korea, and Japan 

have written commentaries on it and have incorporated 

its thesis into their systems of thought. The terminology 

and hermeneutic of the Dasheng qixin lun 

represent a Chinese shift away from the apophasis of 

the Madhyamaka teaching of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) to 

the kataphasis of the doctrine of immanent Buddhanature. 

Its use of the paradigm of ti (essence) and yong 


A YUTTHAYA 

(function) in analyzing the relationship between the 

abstract and the phenomenal realms also plays an influential 

role in the Huayan teachings of lishi wuai 

(unimpeded interpenetration between principle and 

phenomena) and shishi wuai (unimpeded interpenetration 

of all phenomena). Most importantly, through 

its explicit linkage of tathagatagarbha and alayavijñana, 

the Dasheng qixin lun succeeds in adapting the 

tathagatagarbha doctrine to the indigenous Chinese 

milieu. It assures the Mahayana ideal of universal salvation 

and affirms the sanctity of life in this world. 

Its assumption of the inherent purity and enlightenment 

in the minds of all sentient beings also provides 

an ontological basis for the Chan school’s doctrine of 

“seeing one’s nature and attaining Buddhahood” 

(jianxing chengfo). 

See also: Apocrypha; Chan School; China; Huayan 

School 

Bibliography 


and Korea: The Vajrasamadhi-su tra, a Buddhist Apocryphon. 




Gregory, Peter N. Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism. 


Hakeda, Yoshito S., trans. and ed. The Awakening of Faith, Attributed 

to Aśvaghosa. New York: Columbia University Press, 

1967. 

AYUTTHAYA 

DING-HWA HSIEH 

Ayutthaya was a kingdom in what is now Thailand. It 

was ruled by thirty-six kings between 1350 and 1767. 

The art of Ayutthaya is typically divided into four 

phases associated with its major political eras: 1350 to 

1488, 1488 to 1628, 1629 to 1733, and 1733 to 1767. 

The city was destroyed by the Burmese in 1767. 

The two most important monasteries of the early 

periods were Mahathat (erected in 1384 by King Boromaraja 

I) and Ratchaburana (erected in 1424 by Boromaraja 

II). Like monasteries in the earlier kingdom of 

SUKHOTHAI, the alignment of the wihan (assembly 

hall), prang (tower shaped in Khmer fashion), and 

ubosot or bot (congregation and ordination hall) followed 

a single east-west axis. Smaller prangs and wihans 

were enclosed around the central tower within a 

rectangular gallery, where a row of buddha images was 

placed. The main prangs were generally marked 

halfway up by niches facing each cardinal direction, 

in each of which was placed a buddha image; each 

prang was crowned by a metal finial in the shape of a 

vajra (pronged ritual instrument). Relics, buddha images, 

and votive tablets were deposited in the prangs’ 

relic chambers. For instance, exquisite gold royal regalia 

and vessels were found in the deposit of Wat 

Ratchaburana. Wat Chai Wattabaram, built by King 

Prasat Thong in 1630, is an example of the later phase 

of prang structure. 

The Sri Lankan bell-shaped chedi popular in 

Sukhothai was used extensively in Ayutthaya. Notable 

Ayutthayan features are a higher base, rows of small 

columns around the railing on the top, and an elongated 

finial. A good example of this type is Wat Phra 

Sisanphet, erected in 1491 by King Ramathibodi II. 

The only surviving complete late Ayutthayan 

monastery is Wat Naphramen, built in the middle of 

the sixteenth century. Its ubosot is rectangular, with 

thick walls, slit windows, and tall octagonal pillars 

crowned by lotus capitals. The ceiling is decorated with 

gold star clusters. The main image placed at the end of 

the hall is the only remaining large-scale seated and bejeweled 

bronze Buddha. The base of the ubosot, curved 

into a boat shape in early Ayutthaya, became straighter 

in the later phases. 

See also: Monastic Architecture; Southeast Asia, Buddhist 

Art in; Thailand 

Bibliography 

Boisselier, Jean, and Beurdeley, Jean-Michel. The Heritage of 

Thai Sculpture. Bangkok, Thailand: Asia Books, 1987. 

Woodward, Hiram W., Jr. The Sacred Sculpture of Thailand: The 

Alexander B. Griswold Collection, The Walters Art Gallery. 

Bangkok, Thailand: River Books, 1997. 

PATTARATORN CHIRAPRAVATI 


39


B 

BA MIYA N 

Located 240 miles northwest of Kabul in present-day 

Afghanistan, Bamiyan was a point of intersection on 

the major thoroughfares of antiquity. References to 

Bamiyan as a religious center can be found in the writings 

of the Chinese pilgrim to India XUANZANG (ca. 

600–664 C.E.). The site ultimately fell into disuse after 

its annihilation by Genghis Khan in 1222, an act of revenge 

for his son’s death during the siege of the citadel 

Shahr-i-Zohak, which sits high above the Bamiyan 

valley. In the eighteenth century, Buddhist images at 

the site were used for artillery practice by the Mogul 

emperor Aurangzeb, and in the nineteenth century 

Bamiyan was explored by British archaeologists. The 

most extensive research done at Bamiyan was under 

the auspices of the French. 

The trading post of Bamiyan sits in a lush valley beneath 

the mountains of the Hindu Kush, with a precipitous 

mountain at its back and an escarpment 

suitable for carving at its face. This escarpment came 

to be covered with innumerable grottos carved from 

the living rock, comprising Buddhist assembly halls, 

meditation caves, and icon niches. All told they cover 

at least one mile. Until 2001, there stood within carved 

niches a monumental fifty-three-meter buddha image 

at the western end, and a smaller thirty-five-meter 

buddha at the eastern end. Originally covered with 

brilliant pigments and gold, these buddha figures left 

a lasting impression on Xuanzang, as well as on the 

thirteenth-century Arab geographer Yakut. Both remarked 

upon the great buddha images of Bamiyan as 

being without compare elsewhere in the world. 

There is debate as to the iconographic identity of 

the two images. It is generally argued that the smaller 

buddha figure represented the historical Buddha, 

Śakyamuni, largely because that is how the image is 

referenced in most of the chronicles of the times. The 

larger buddha is thought to have represented the universal 

buddha Vairocana. Written accounts of this 

statue as wearing a crown support this possible iconographic 

identification. This statue, like its smaller 

counterpart, displayed the drapery patterning that 

originated in Gandhara. Constructed no later than the 

sixth century C.E., both images were first carved out 

of the living rock, then completed using an additive 

technique employing wooden dowels to attach additional 

pieces, covered by clay and stucco, and lastly 

painted. The interior of the image niches were also 

covered with painted depictions reflecting the syncretic 

beliefs of the rulers of Bamiyan at the time. Both 

statues were missing their faces as early as the eighteenth 

century, with at least one scholar arguing that 

the faces were once covered by metal plates, which 

were easily removed. 

The colossal buddhas of Bamiyan survived the vicissitudes 

of the various political changes in the region 

until March 2001. After issuing an edict against images 

and idolatry, the reigning Islamic fundamentalist Taliban 

regime in Afghanistan—after spurning attempts 

by international organizations to buy or preserve the 

statues—proceeded to destroy them. Two days of artillery 

barrages were required to successfully destroy 

what Aurangzeb had left behind. The niches that protected 

the buddha images still remain, their outlines 

forever an echo of what were once the most aweinspiring 

BUDDHA IMAGES in all of Asia. 

See also: Huayan Art; Persecutions 

41

B AYON 

Bibliography 

Baker, P. H. B., and Allchin, F. R. Shahr-i Zohak and the History 

of the Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan. Oxford: B.A.R., 1991. 

Beal, Samuel, trans. Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western 

World, Chinese Accounts of India, Vol. 1. Calcutta: Susil 

Gupta, 1957. 

Flood, Finbarr Barry. “Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic 

Iconoclasm, and the Museum.” Art Bulletin 84, no. 4 

(2002): 641–659. 

Godard, André, et al. Les antiquités bouddhiques de Bamiyan: 

Memoires de la délégation archéologique Française en Afghanistan, 

Vol. 2. Paris: Éditions Van Oest, 1928. 

Klimburg-Salter, Deborah E. The Kingdom of Bamiyan: Buddhist 

Art and Culture of the Hindu Kush. Naples and Rome: Istituto 

universitario orientale, Dipartimento di studi asiatici, 

1989. 

Rowland, Benjamin. The Art of Central Asia. New York: Crown, 

1974. 

KARIL J. KUCERA 

drastically altered the temple’s configuration and 

meaning. 

Although Buddhist, the Bayon followed tradition in 

its merging of regional or ancestral gods with Buddhist 

and Hindu deities. VISN U is found almost exclusively 

on the western side of the temple, Śiva more often on 

the south, and Buddhist imagery on the north and east. 

The Bayon was the last major Khmer monument to 

embrace the tradition that gave it birth, destined to 

wither and die in less than one hundred years. 

See also: Cambodia; Hinduism and Buddhism; Local 

Divinities and Buddhism; Southeast Asia, Buddhist 

Art in 

Bibliography 

Dufour, Henri. Le Bayon d’Angkor Thom, 2 vols. Paris: Commission 

archeologique de l’Indochine, 1910–1914. 

Dumarçay, Jacques, and Groslier, Bernard-Philippe. Le Bayon. 

Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1967 and 1973. 

ELEANOR MANNIKKA 

BAYON 

The Bayon is a twelfth-century royal Khmer (Cambodian) 

temple. One of Southeast Asia’s most famous 

monuments, the Bayon is a densely crowded sandstone 

temple constructed under King Jayavarman VII (r. 

1181–ca. 1220) at Angkor Thom in northwest Cambodia. 

This pyramid temple, a MAHAYANA site, marked 

the end of an ancient royal Khmer tradition dominated 

by Hindu gods. 

Axial entrances on all four sides cross through a rectangular 

outer and inner gallery carved with bas-reliefs 

that glorify the king’s history. On the upper elevation 

a series of connected structures leads to the massive, 

round central tower. Its dark interior once housed a 

large, naga-protected buddha. At its consecration, 

Jayavarman was symbolically joined to this buddha 

and imbued with a divine cast in the process. And at 

his death, the king’s ashes would have been placed 

underneath this image, creating a certain conceptual 

kinship between the Bayon and a STU PA with its internal 

relics. 

The well-known guardian faces on the Bayon’s fiftytwo 

towers wear characteristic choker necklaces and 

originally stared straight ahead. But when many had 

their eyes recut to gaze downward, Avalokiteśvara became 

their most likely new identity. These recut eyes 

were one of several changes during construction that 

BHA VAVIVEKA 

Bhavaviveka was a MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL philosopher 

who lived from perhaps 500 to 570 C.E. His name 

may have been Bhavya or Bhaviveka, and he may have 

come from South India. Bhavaviveka’s attack on the 

interpretation of Madhyamaka by Buddhapalita (c. 

500 C.E.) led later Tibetans to refer to him as the 

founder of the Svatantrika-Madhyamaka. Bhavaviveka’s 

works include the Prajñapradlpa (Lamp of 

Wisdom) on NAGARJUNA, and the Madhyamakahrdayakarika 

(Verses on the essence of Madhyamaka) with 

Tarkajvala (Blaze of Reasoning, an autocommentary), 

an early encyclopedia of Indian philosophy. 

Bibliography 

Eckel, Malcolm D. To See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest for 

the Meaning of Emptiness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1992. 

Iida, S. Reason and Emptiness: A Study of Logic and Mysticism. 

Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1980. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. A Study of Svatantrika. Ithaca, NY: Snow 

Lion, 1987. 

Ruegg, David S. The Literature of the Madhyamaka School of 

Philosophy in India. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 

1981. 

PAUL WILLIAMS 


B IANXIANG (TRANSFORMATION T ABLEAUX) 

BIANWEN 

Until the early twentieth century, with the discovery 

of a cache of important manuscripts at DUNHUANG, 

Gansu Province, in the far northwest of China, bianwen 

(transformation texts) were completely unknown 

to scholars. Once literary historians became 

aware of them, however, they soon realized that these 

texts, which date to the Tang (618–907) and Five Dynasties 

(907–960) periods, filled a crucial gap in 

scholarly understanding of the development of Chinese 

popular literature. They are the earliest substantial 

specimens of vernacular writing in China, and 

they represent the earliest examples of prosimetric 

narratives in Chinese. That is to say, they are the first 

Chinese texts that alternate sung, declaimed, or intoned 

verse and spoken prose to advance a narrative. 

As such, they had an enormous impact upon virtually 

all later performing arts (including full-scale operatic 

drama) and vernacular fiction in China. They 

also provide vital evidence for the sources of many 

popular tales of later times, and they embody firsthand 

data about storytelling in medieval China. Although 

the bianwen are not, as was once thought, 

promptbooks used in performance, they bear the 

marks of derivation from oral literature. 

The wen in bianwen means text; the bian component, 

however, caused tremendous confusion during 

the first half-century of research on the genre. After 

intensive investigation involving comparisons with 

texts written in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other languages, 

it has become clear that bian in bianwen refers 

to transformational manifestations evoked by spiritually 

powerful individuals (comparable to the Sanskrit 

terms nirmana and rddhi.) The oral precedents 

of bianwen utilized picture scrolls as illustrative devices 

to enhance the performance, and bianwen are 

closely connected to the artistic genre known as 

BIANXIANG (TRANSFORMATION TABLEAUX). The earliest 

bianwen describe Buddhist subjects, but wholly 

secular themes, both historical and contemporary in 

nature, were soon added. 

See also: Chinese, Buddhist Influences on Vernacular 

Literature in; Entertainment and Performance 

Bibliography 

Mair, Victor H. T’ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist 

Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and 

Drama in China. Cambridge, MA: Council of East Asian 

Studies, Harvard University, 1989. 

Pai, Hua-wen. “What Is ‘pien-wen’?” tr. Victor H. Mair. Harvard 

Journal of Asiatic Studies 44, no. 2 (1984): 493–514. 

BIANXIANG (TRANSFORMATION 

TABLEAUX) 

VICTOR H. MAIR 

It is commonly assumed that bianxiang (transformation 

tableaux) are the matching illustrations for BIAN- 

WEN (transformation texts), a genre of popular 

Buddhist narratives that was discovered at DUN- 

HUANG. There are, indeed, many similarities. For example, 

bianxiang are also associated with the cave 

temples of Dunhuang, both genres flourished during 

the medieval period, both were intended for the portrayal 

of Buddhist themes, and, above all, the bian of 

both genre names means “transformation” or “transformational 

manifestation.” There are, however, significant 

differences. Whereas bianwen sometimes dealt 

with secular subjects, bianxiang are exclusively religious 

in nature. Furthermore, while bianwen are folkish 

in nature, bianxiang are often the products of high 

culture. Finally, whereas evidence for bianwen is restricted 

almost exclusively to the manuscripts from 

Dunhuang, evidence (largely textual) for bianxiang is 

related to localities spread over the length and breadth 

of China. 

Bianxiang are also frequently confused with MAN - 

D ALA. Here, too, there are similarities and differences, 

but the situation is more complex than with bianwen, 

despite the fact that bianxiang and mandala are both 

artistic genres, since bianxiang may share features of 

mandala and vice versa. Basically, whereas bianxiang 

connotes a narrative moment, event, place, or sequence 

of moments, events, or places pictorially or 

sculpturally represented, a mandala is an object or 

icon, usually having a circular arrangement, intended 

to serve as the focus of worship or meditation. 

The chief subjects of bianxiang are paradise scenes 

(especially the Western Pure Land), depictions of the 

contents of famous sutras (particularly the LOTUS SU- 

TRA), incidents from the life of the Buddha (especially 

his NIRVAN A), deeds of various BODHISATTVAS (particularly 

Avalokiteśvara) and ARHATS (e.g., ŚARIPUTRA), 

and so forth. Bianxiang were favored by the adherents 

of the CHAN SCHOOL, and the tradition of painting 

bianxiang was transmitted to Japan, where it became 

an integral part of Buddhist popular culture. Vivid 

records of the commissioning and actual painting of 


43

B IOGRAPHIES OF E MINENT M ONKS (GAOSENG Z HUAN) 

bianxiang have been preserved, and they afford valuable 

insights into the motivation and organization of 

Buddhist devotees in medieval China. 

See also: Hells, Images of; Pure Land Art; Sutra Illustrations 

Bibliography 

Mair, Victor H. “Records of Transformation Tableaux (pienhsiang).” 

T’oung Pao 72, no. 3 (1986): 3–43. 

Wu Hung. “What Is Bianxiang?—On the Relationship between 

Dunhuang Art and Dunhuang Literature.” Harvard Journal 

of Asiatic Studies 52, no. 1 (1992): 111–192. 


BIOGRAPHIES OF EMINENT MONKS 

(GAOSENG ZHUAN) 

“Biographies of Eminent Monks” is a genre of Chinese 

Buddhist writing consisting primarily of four biographical 

collections, all compiled by monks: (1) Biographies 

of Eminent Monks (Gaoseng zhuan), completed around 

530 by Huijiao (497–554); (2) Further Biographies of Eminent 

Monks (Xu gaoseng zhuan), first draft completed 

in approximately 650 by DAOXUAN (596–667) with later 

additions in the 660s; (3) Biographies of Eminent Monks 

[Compiled] during the Song Dynasty (Song gaoseng 

zhuan), completed in 982 by ZANNING (919–1001); and 

(4) Biographies of Eminent Monks [Compiled] during the 

Ming Dynasty (Ming gaoseng zhuan), completed in 1617 

by Ruxing (d.u.). Although there is some overlap in 

time between collections, in general each picks up 

where the last left off. Daoxuan, for example, wrote 

mostly on monks who lived after Huijiao’s collection 

was completed. 

Of the four books, Huijiao’s has been the most influential 

and the most admired for its style. It has been 

one of the most widely read historical works by any 

Chinese monk. 

Huijiao’s Biographies of Eminent Monks established 

the format for the later versions. He divided the 275 

biographies contained in his collection into ten categories: 

(1) “Translators”; (2) “Exegetes”; (3) “Divine 

Wonders,” devoted to wonder-workers; (4) “Practitioners 

of Meditation”; (5) “Elucidators of the Regulations,” 

devoted to scholars of the VINAYA or 

monastic rules; (6) “Those who Sacrificed Themselves,” 

for monks who sacrificed their bodies in acts 

of charity or devotion; (7) “Chanters of Scriptures”; 

(8) “Benefactors,” for monks who solicited funds for 

Buddhist construction and other enterprises; (9) 

“Hymnodists,” devoted to monks skilled in intoning 

liturgy; and (10) “Proselytizers.” At the end of each 

section, Huijiao appended a treatise in which he discusses 

the theme of the section. In his treatise on 

translators, Huijiao gives a brief history of the transmission 

of Buddhist scriptures and discusses the difficulties 

of translating Indian texts into Chinese. An 

introduction to the book lists previous collections of 

monastic biographies, and explains how Huijiao distinguished 

his work from them. 

Subsequent works followed Huijiao’s format with 

some changes. Most notably, Daoxuan combined the 

sections for hymnodists and proselytizers, and then 

added a section for “Protectors of the Dharma,” devoted 

to monks who defended Buddhism from its enemies 

at court and elsewhere. 

The compilers of the collections followed Chinese 

historiographical custom in the composition of their 

biographies. In general, they relied on previous 

sources, directly quoting them without attribution. 

Major sources included the texts of stele inscriptions, 

usually composed soon after a monk’s death by a local 

literatus at the request of the monk’s followers. 

The compilers also drew on other literary accounts, 

including prefaces to works written by the monk in 

question, and collections of miracle stories; they occasionally 

based biographies on oral traditions concerning 

particular monks. In most cases, the original 

sources for the biographies are lost, but occasionally 

it is possible to reconstruct the sources for biographies 

in the later collections. As the title suggests, 

criterion for inclusion was based on a monk’s “eminence,” 

or rank. With a few exceptions, only monks 

regarded by the compilers as admirable are accorded 

biographies. 

See also: Biography; History 

Bibliography 

Kieschnick, John. The Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval 

Chinese Hagiography. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 1997. 

Wright, Arthur F. “Biography and Hagiography: Hui-chiao’s 

Lives of Eminent Monks.” In Studies in Chinese Buddhism, ed. 

Robert M. Somers. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 

1990. 

JOHN KIESCHNICK 


B IOGRAPHY 

BIOGRAPHY 

Many religious traditions develop elaborate narratives 

about the life of the founding figure. Such sacred biographies 

often include accounts of mythic events and 

miracles that underscore the virtues and attainments 

of the founder. These narratives give shape to the history 

and legitimate the social institutions of emergent 

religious traditions. Buddhism has elaborated and embellished 

its biographical emphasis to create a sacred 

biography not only of the Buddha’s final life but also 

of his earlier lives, the lives of his disciples, the lives of 

other enlightened beings, and ultimately the lives of all 

SENTIENT BEINGS who witness the Buddha’s teaching. 

Biography may be understood as a core concept of the 

Buddhist tradition; it is a cultural idiom that continues 

to engender religious meaning in practice, doctrine, 

and belief. The importance of the Buddha’s 

biography lies in the ways in which it has shaped the 

tradition in the centuries following his death (Reynolds). 

Indeed, Buddhist concern with life stories has 

generated biographical genres and modes of religious 

behavior that are articulated in oral narratives, classical 

and vernacular texts, visual art, and ritual, as well 

as in the cultural histories of Buddhist polities in much 

of Asia. The remainder of this entry describes some of 

the ways in which sacred biography has shaped the development 

of Buddhism in diverse cultural contexts. 

Each of the major branches of Buddhism offers a 

different version of the life of the Buddha; these biographies 

are informed by doctrines specific to each 

school or lineage. Themes in the biographies of Gautama 

may illustrate not only his unique spiritual 

achievements, but also characteristics attributed to 

buddhas in general. In addition, biographical themes 

in the life or lives of the Buddha are often incorporated 

into the biographical narratives of other remarkable 

individuals, such as ARHATS, BODHISATTVAS, 

or eminent monks. 

There are differing versions of the Buddha’s biography, 

and scholars cannot identify a single or “original” 

source in Buddhist literature. After his death, 

accounts of the Buddha’s life and teaching were transmitted 

orally for several centuries. Gradually, the Buddha’s 

message became codified and committed to 

written texts that eventually came to be known as the 

Buddhist CANON. Numerous passages in the Buddhist 

sutras and VINAYA refer to events and episodes of the 

Buddha’s life, and there are many texts throughout the 

Buddhist tradition that describe mythic events and sacred 

qualities of the Buddha. The biographies that 

eventually emerged were initially not systematized or 

even organized in temporal sequence. It took some five 

centuries for the Buddha’s biographical accounts to become 

standardized and formalized. 

The Buddha’s final life 

Certain mythic episodes are salient in many accounts 

of the Buddha’s life, despite the diversity in the stories 

that make up the Buddha’s biography. According to 

these accounts, Siddhartha’s conception was immaculate, 

as a white elephant entered his mother’s womb. 

His birth was painless, and, taking his first strides, he 

announced that this was his final and culminating life. 

Brahmin astrologers whom his father had consulted 

prophesied that the child would become either a world 

conqueror (cakravartin) who rules over a social and 

political universe, or a buddha who transcends ordinary 

reality through spiritual enlightenment. Raised in 

luxury and tutored in the seclusion of the palace, Siddhartha 

eventually married Yaśodhara and fathered a 

son, RAHULA. Curious about life outside the palace, 

Siddhartha encountered the inescapable human condition 

of old age, sickness, and death. This insight led 

him to discover that human existence is conditioned 

by suffering. Having fulfilled his obligations as a householder, 

he resolved to leave his indulgent life and renounce 

society. He became a wandering mendicant 

and apprenticed himself to several gurus. Eventually, 

he realized that extreme asceticism does not lead to enlightenment, 

and he determined to follow a middle 

path between indulgence and asceticism. Like other 

buddhas before him, he resolved to meditate under a 

bodhi tree until he achieved NIRVAN A. While he was 

seated in meditation, MARA, the Evil One, challenged 

him in vain with the promise of unlimited power, with 

attacks by his mighty army, and, finally, with his sensuous 

daughters. Rebuffing each offer, Gautama 

gained three knowledges (traividya; Pali, tevijja) on his 

path to enlightenment: He remembered all his past 

lives, he came to understand that the nature of one’s 

existence is the result of past action, and finally, he 

gained complete knowledge of his liberation. The Buddha 

hesitated to preach, however, until the intervention 

of a god (deva) persuaded him to teach the 

dharma and to reveal his model for practice and the 

path to nirvana for others to follow. 

In the course of a ministry that lasted more than 

forty years, the Buddha established the monastic order 

(SAṄGHA) and preached to a growing early Buddhist 

community. A prominent lay supporter, King Bimbi- 


45

B IOGRAPHY 

sara, donated land to establish the first permanent residence 

for monks. When the Buddha passed away and 

left the cycle of REBIRTH (SAM SARA), he was given the 

funerary rites of a world conqueror, and his relics were 

enshrined throughout the Buddhist world. His disciples 

convened the first Buddhist Council shortly after 

his death to compile his teachings, and the Buddhist 

tradition began to take shape in the transition from the 

founder’s charismatic life to the emerging institutional 

history and doctrinal developments. For instance, 

AŚOKA’s cult of relics helped promote the institutionalization 

of the Theravada monastic lineage. Doctrinal 

interpretations of the bodies of the Buddha that are 

specific to the major branches of the tradition also correspond 

to their respective interpretations of the Buddha’s 

sacred biography. 

The story of the Buddha’s culminating life in 

sam sara illustrates central beliefs and doctrines of Buddhism, 

including Gautama’s model for and path to enlightenment, 

his message, and the establishment of 

Buddhist institutions. The story also legitimates the 

veneration of the Buddha’s relics and the STU PAS that 

enshrine them, as well as the veneration of icons and 

images that embody his biography. These sacred objects 

are closely associated with the Buddha’s biography 

and establish his presence in rituals. They remind 

Buddhists of the Buddha’s enlightenment and of his 

absence from the cycle of rebirth. 

The ja taka tradition 

Central motifs of the sacred biography, especially the 

Buddha’s remembrance of past lives in visions that culminated 

in his enlightenment, eventually developed 

into an elaborate genre of tales called JATAKA, which 

are stories of the Buddha’s former lives. In the Pali tradition, 

jataka attained semicanonical status in compilations 

containing up to 550 such stories that recount 

the perfection of virtues by the buddha-to-be. These 

tales about the Buddha’s past lives as a king, ascetic, 

monkey, or elephant do not follow a systematized sequence, 

but they do share a similar narrative structure. 

Generally, each story opens with a frame in the narrative 

present, namely the final life of Gautama Buddha, 

and identifies the place and occasion for the story 

about a past rebirth about to be recounted. The account 

then unfolds events in a former rebirth of the 

Buddha and concludes by explaining the outcome according 

to universal laws of Buddhist causality. The 

story of the former life becomes the dramatic stage 

upon which the consequences of moral action are illustrated. 

Jataka stories generally conclude by returning 

to the time of the Buddha’s final life and identifying 

companions of the Buddha with dramatis personae 

in the story just recounted. 

Perhaps the best-known jataka in the THERAVADA 

world is the Vessantara Jataka, in which the buddhato-be, 

in his life as Prince Vessantara (Sanskrit, 

VIŚVANTARA), perfects the virtue of generosity (dana). 

Vessantara gives away everything a king or householder 

might value: his prosperity, power, home, and 

even his family, only to have it all restored at the conclusion 

of the tale. 

Jataka tales figure prominently in a variety of ways 

in Buddhist cultures; they appear in temple paintings, 

children’s stories, movie billboards and, most recently, 

comic books. They offer abundant material for religious 

education. Central motifs in the biographies of 

the Buddha elucidate moral principles, values, and 

ethics, and certain well-known jataka tales serve a didactic 

purpose in teaching younger generations about 

the tradition. Jatakas are salient across Buddhist communities 

and the themes they recount readily resonate 

with other aspects of religious knowledge and practice. 

As such, recounting certain jataka stories in public sermons 

or even representing them in paintings can serve 

as commentary on current social and political issues. 

Stories about the Buddha’s former lives are also a form 

of entertainment. In Burma, for example, these stories 

have traditionally been the subject of popular theatrical 

performances that continue through the night. 

Cultural contexts of the biographical genre 

In visual art, biographical references can be found in 

Buddhist architecture, in sculptures and icons of the 

Buddha, and in the visual narratives of paintings and 

stone carvings. Paintings of jataka stories can be seen 

along walkways in monastery grounds and along the 

staircases leading to pilgrimage sites. Jataka paintings 

also often decorate the inner spaces of Buddhist temples. 

Certain hand gestures (MUDRA) or poses displayed 

in BUDDHA IMAGES refer to particular moments in his 

life, such as when he touched the earth as witness to 

his meritorious deeds at the time of his enlightenment 

or when he reclined at the moment of his departure 

from the cycle of rebirth. At BOROBUDUR in Java, a 

magnificent MAHAYANA Buddhist stupa from the seventh 

to the ninth century C.E., carved stone plates along 

the meditation path depict jataka scenes that have been 

“read” by scholars in much the same way one would 

read a textual narrative. Whatever the initial motivation 

for the creation of visual portrayals of events from 


B KA’ BRGYUD 

(KAGYU) 

the Buddha’s biographies, such images serve as objects 

of meditation, contemplation, and ritual reminders of 

the Buddha. 

Many Buddhist rituals invoke salient idioms from 

the Buddha’s biography. For example, Burmese Buddhists, 

especially the Shan people, celebrate a boy’s 

temporary initiation as a novice with a ritual reenactment 

of Siddhartha’s splendorous life and departure 

from the palace. In Thailand, stories of the Buddha’s 

life as Vessantara are chanted on ritual occasions and 

at the behest of devout lay patrons. Images of the Buddha 

are consecrated through an eye-opening ceremony, 

and a deferential protocol of behavior is 

required in front of consecrated images; one behaves 

as if one were in the Buddha’s presence. Lastly, pilgrimages 

are undertaken to sites that commemorate 

episodes of the Buddha’s life, as well as places that contain 

relics of the Buddha, such as BODH GAYA in northeast 

India, the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment. 

Biographies of the Buddha also give voice to local 

interpretations, and the Buddhist biographical genre 

includes numerous apocryphal jataka stories. Countless 

stories about the Buddha’s many lives enrich the 

biographical idiom in local Buddhist traditions, chronicles, 

myths, and religious sites, thereby linking persons 

and places with the Buddha’s pristine early community. 

One way this occurs is through relating universal 

biographical themes to particular local features. For example, 

the colossal Burmese Mahamuni was constructed, 

according to local myth, in the Buddha’s 

likeness, and it is said to have been enlivened by him 

during a visit to the region now known as Arakan. Stories 

like this serve to legitimate not only the particular 

image, but, more significantly, all of its royal patrons 

and protectors through Burmese dynastic history. The 

Mahamuni complex further links the geographical and 

cultural periphery of lower Burma to central Buddhist 

concepts in the Buddha’s biography (Schober). In the 

Theravada tradition, apocryphal stories, local traditions, 

and peripheral locations are thus brought together 

to construct and perpetuate biographical 

extensions of the Buddha’s lives. 

In the traditions of Mahayana and VAJRAYANA Buddhism, 

we find many life stories of other buddhas, bodhisattvas, 

and embodiments of enlightenment from the 

past, present, and even future. Such an expansion of 

the biographical genre made it possible to integrate 

preexisting religious and cultural values into Buddhist 

belief systems. In China, for example, Buddhist BI- 

OGRAPHIES OF EMINENT MONKS (GAOSENG ZHUAN) are 

informed by biographical conventions borrowed from 

the indigenous Confucian tradition. Like their counterparts 

in other branches of Buddhism, biographies 

of eminent Chinese monks take up familiar themes 

(Kieschnick). Asceticism, miracle working, healing, 

and scholarship commonly figure in biographies of 

eminent monks to underscore how their lives emulate 

and perpetuate extraordinary events in the biography 

of the Buddha. Such stories emphasize links between 

teachers and their disciples in order to construct a lineage 

that, at least in principle, is believed to establish 

a historical connection to the idealized time of the 

Buddha. Biographies of famous monks also commonly 

recount miracles associated with relics or they describe 

extraordinary practices with which charismatic monks 

have been credited. 

In this way, Buddhist sacred biography is a genre 

that seeks to demonstrate that the accomplishments 

that eminent monks achieve in later periods share features 

in common with the words and acts of the 

founder of Buddhism. Buddhist sacred biography thus 

locates the Buddha’s life story with specific Buddhist 

communities. By linking the universal with geographic 

peripheries and particular cultures, Buddhist biography 

engages the religious imagination of Buddhists and 

contributes to the continuing vitality of the tradition. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the, in Art; Jataka, Illustrations 

of 

Bibliography 



Press, 1997. 

Reynolds, Frank E. “The Many Lives of the Buddha.” In The Biographical 

Process: Studies in the History and Psychology of 

Religion, ed. Frank E. Reynolds and Donald Capps. The 

Hague, Netherlands: Mouton, 1976. 

Schober, Juliane, ed. Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions 

of South and Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 1997. 

BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU) 

JULIANE SCHOBER 

Bka’ brgyud (pronounced Kagyu) may be translated as 

“oral lineage” or “lineage of the Buddha’s word.” Many 

traditions of Tibetan Buddhism use the term bka’ 


47

B KA’ BRGYUD 

(KAGYU) 

brgyud to describe the successive oral transmission, 

and therefore authenticity, of their teachings. The 

name Bka’ brgyud, however, most commonly refers to 

the Mar pa Bka’ brgyud (the oral lineage of Mar pa), 

a stream of tantric Buddhist instructions and meditation 

practices initially brought to Tibet from India by 

the Tibetan translator MAR PA (MARPA) in the eleventh 

century. Although the Bka’ brgyud subsequently developed 

into a complex structure of autonomous subsects 

and branch schools, later Western writings tended 

to describe it as one of four sects of Tibetan Buddhism, 

to be distinguished from the RNYING MA (NYINGMA), 

SA SKYA (SAKYA), and DGE LUGS (GELUK). Another Tibetan 

typology of tantric traditions enumerates the 

Mar pa Bka’ brgyud as one of eight streams of tantric 

instruction, the so-called sgrub brgyud shing rta chen 

po brgyad (eight great chariot-like lineages of achievement), 

which includes traditions such as the Rnying 

ma, the Bka’ gdams of Atisha, and the Gcod instructions 

of MA GCIG LAB SGRON (MACIG LAPDON). Some 

Tibetan historians have referred to the lineage stemming 

from Mar pa with the near homonym Dkar 

brgyud (pronounced Kargyu), which means “white 

lineage,” describing the white cotton robes worn by 

mendicant yogins of this tradition, and stressing their 

commitment to intensive meditation practice. 

Each of the various Bka’ brgyud subsects trace their 

lineage back to the primordial tantric buddha Vajradhara, 

who is considered an incontrovertible source of 

authentic Buddhist instruction. According to traditional 

accounts, the Indian MAHA SIDDHA (great adept) 

Tilopa (988–1069) received visionary instructions 

from Vajradhara, later passing them on to his principal 

disciple, the Bengali scholar and adept NA ROPA 

(1016–1100). The latter transmitted his chief instructions 

(codified as the Na ro chos drug, or the Six Doctrines 

of Naropa) to Mar pa. Mar pa returned to Tibet, 

where he translated, arranged, and disseminated these 

practices, together with those of the meditational system 

of MAHA MUDRA, most famously to his yogin disciple 

MI LA RAS PA (Milarepa; 1028/40–1111/23). These 

early figures—the buddha Vajradhara, the Indians 

Tilopa and Naropa, and their Tibetan successors Mar 

pa and Mi la ras pa—form the earliest common segment 

of the Bka’ brgyud lineage, a line of individuals 

largely removed from an institutionalized monastic 

setting. One of Mi la ras pa’s foremost disciples, the 

physician-monk Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen 

(1079–1153), merged the instructions he received from 

this lineage with the monasticism and systematic exegetical 

approach he learned during his earlier training 

under masters of the Bka’ gdams sect. Sgam po pa, 

therefore, appears to have spearheaded the true institutionalization 

of the Bka’ brgyud, founding an 

important monastery and retreat center near his 

homeland in the southern Tibetan region of Dwags po. 

For this reason, the many subsequent branches of the 

Bka’ brgyud are also collectively known as the Dwags 

po Bka’ brgyud. 

The Bka’ brgyud later split into numerous divisions, 

known in Tibetan as the four major and eight minor 

Bka’ brgyud subsects (Bka’ brgyud che bzhi chung 

brgyad), where the terms major and minor carry neither 

quantitative nor qualitative overtones, but rather 

indicate a relative proximity to the master Sgam po pa 

and his nephew Dwags po Sgom tshul (1116–1169). 

The four major Bka’ brgyud subsects follow from the 

direct disciples of these two masters. These include: 

1. The Karma Bka’ brgyud, also known as the 

Karma Kaṁ tshang, which is directed by the 

Karma pa hierarchs and originated with the first 

Karma pa Dus gsum mkhyen pa (1110–1193). 

This sect held great political power in Tibet from 

the late fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries 

and continues to be one of the most active among 

the four, especially in Eastern Tibet and in exile. 

2. The Tshal pa Bka’ brgyud, which originated with 

Zhang tshal pa Brtson grus grags pa (1123–1193). 

3. The ’Ba’ rom Bka’ brgyud, which originated with 

’Ba’ rom Dar ma dbang phyug (1127–1199) and 

forged early ties with the Tangut and Mongol 

Courts. 

4. The Phag gru Bka’ brgyud, which originated with 

the great master Phag mo gru pa Rdo rje rgyal po 

(1110–1170), who established a seat at Gdan sa 

thil Monastery in Central Tibet. This monastery, 

together with an ancestral home in nearby Rtses 

thang, became the center of the powerful ruling 

Phag mo gru family during the fourteenth and 

fifteenth centuries. 

The incipience of the eight lesser Bka’ brgyud subsects 

is traced back to the disciples of Phag mo gru pa 

Rdo rje rgyal po. These include: 

1. The ’Bri gung Bka’ brgyud, which originated 

with ’Bri gung ’Jigs rten mgon po (1143–1217) 

and held great political influence during the thirteenth 

century. 


B ODH 

G AYA 

2. The Stag lung Bka’ brgyud, which originated 

with Stag lung thang pa Bkra shis dpal 

(1142–1210). 

3. The Gling ras Bka’ brgyud, which originated with 

Gling rje ras pa Padma rdo rje (1128–1288) and 

later became the ’Brug pa Bka’ brgyud under his 

disciple Gtsang pa rgya ras Ye shes rdo rje 

(1161–1211). The latter subsect rose to prominence 

under royal patronage in Bhutan. 

4. The G.ya’ bzang Bka’ brgyud, which originated 

with Zwa ra ba Skal ldan ye shes seng ge (d. 

1207). 

5. The Khro phu Bka’ brgyud, which originated 

with Rgya tsha (1118–1195), Kun ldan ras pa 

(1148–1217), and their nephew Khro phu lotsava 

Byams pa dpal (1173–1228). 

6. The Shug gseb Bka’ brgyud, which originated with 

Gyer sgom Tshul khrims seng ge (1144–1204). 

7. The Yel pa Bka’ brgyud, which originated with 

Ye shes brtsegs pa (d.u.). 

8. The Smar tshang Bka’ brgyud, which originated 

with Smar pa grub thob Shes rab seng ge (d.u.). 

Many of these subsects have since died out as independent 

institutional systems. A few, such as the 

Karma Bka’ brgyud, ’Bri gung Bka’ brgyud, and ’Brug 

pa Bka’ brgyud, continue to play an important role in 

the religious lives of Tibetan Buddhists inside Tibet, 

across the Himalayan regions, and in Europe and the 

Americas since the Tibetan exile during the latter half 

of the twentieth century. 


Bibliography 

Guenther, Herbert V., trans. The Life and Teaching of Naropa. 

Boston and London: Shambhala, 1986. 

Gyaltsen, Khenpo Könchok, trans. The Great Kagyu Masters: 

The Golden Lineage Treasury. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1990. 

Lhalungpa, Lobsang P., trans. The Life of Milarepa. New York: 

Dutton, 1977. Reprint, Boston: Shambhala, 1984. 

Richardson, Hugh. “The Karma-pa Sect: A Historical Note.” 

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1958): 139–164 and 

(1959): 1–18. Reprinted in High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected 

Writings on Tibetan History and Culture, ed. Michael Aris. 

London: Serindia, 1998. 

Smith, E. Gene. “Golden Rosaries of the Bka’ brgyud Schools.” 

In Dkar brgyud gser ’phreng: A Golden Rosary of Lives of Eminent 

Gurus, compiled by Mon-rtse-pa Kun-dga’-dpal-ldan 

and ed. Kun-dga’-brug-dpal. Leh, India: Sonam W. 

Tashigang, 1970. Reprinted in Among Tibetan Texts, ed. Kurtis 

R. Schaefer. Boston: Wisdom, 2001. 

Torricelli, Fabrizio, and, Naga, Sangye T., trans. The Life of the 

Mahasiddha Tilopa. Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan 

Works and Archives, 1995. 

Trungpa, Chögyam, and the Nalanda Translation Committee, 

trans. The Rain of Wisdom. Boston: Shambhala, 1980. 


trans. The Life of Marpa the Translator. Boston: Shambhala, 

1986. 

BODH GAYA 

ANDREW QUINTMAN 

The Buddha attained complete and perfect enlightenment 

while seated on the diamond throne (vajrasana) 

under the bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. Also called the 

seat of enlightenment (bodhimanda), this throne is 

said to be located at the earth’s navel, the only place 

on earth that rests directly on the primordial layer of 

golden earth supporting the cosmos. Only there can 

the earth support a buddha undergoing full enlightenment 

without breaking apart. The bodhimanda 

numbers among the numerous invariables in all buddhas’ 

biographies, which have only three distinguishing 

features. These are the genus of their bodhi trees, 

and the places of their births and deaths. Hence, individual 

buddhas are identified with and by their particular 

bodhi trees, Śakyamuni’s being the pipal tree 

(ficus religiosa). 

The enlightenment is further ritualized and solemnized 

by its being embedded in an elaborate sequence 

of actions, beginning with Siddhartha’s 

decision to abandon physical austerities and to follow 

the middle way. Despite the site’s extent, the ground 

is thick with sacred traces of the Buddha performing 

these actions. According to the Chinese pilgrims 

FAXIAN (ca. 337–418 C.E.) and XUANZANG (ca. 

600–664 C.E.), individuals hailing from different 

places and eras erected STU PAs, pillars, railings, temples, 

and monasteries to memorialize deeds and 

places. An example is the jewel-walk, one of the seven 

spots where the Buddha spent one week of his sevenweek 

experience of enlightenment. 

Though the emperor AŚOKA probably established 

Bodh Gaya and the bodhi tree as Buddhism’s most sacred 

Buddhist PILGRIMAGE site and object, the earliest 


49

B ODHI 

(AWAKENING) 

extant remains and inscriptions are Śuṅgan (second to 

first century B.C.E.). Recording three Śuṅgan noblewomen’s 

donations to the King’s Temple, its railing 

and the jewel-walk posts, these inscriptions inaugurate 

an ongoing domestic and foreign tradition of donations 

and repairs. Early inscriptions also record Sri 

Lankan, Burmese, and Chinese pilgrimage. For example, 

Sri Lankan donative activity began with King 

Meghavarman’s building of the Mahabodhi Monastery 

(ca. fourth century C.E.) to house Sinhalese monks. Beginning 

in the eleventh century, the kings of Burma 

sent several expeditions to repair the temple. 

Muslim invaders vandalized Bodh Gaya, probably 

before the last Burmese repair in 1295. The site remained 

desolate until the seventeenth century, when 

a Mahant settled there. Gaining ownership of the site, 

he salvaged its archaeological remains to build a Śaivate 

monastery near the MAHABODHI TEMPLE. The 

nineteenth century saw the resurgence of foreign Buddhist 

pilgrimage and Burmese reparative expeditions. 

The latter inspired British interest, resulting in colonial 

excavation and rebuilding in the 1880s. In 1891 

ANAGARIKA DHARMAPALA founded the Mahabodhi 

Society in Sri Lanka to reestablish Buddhist ownership 

of the site. A lengthy legal battle ended victoriously 

in 1949. Today, Bodh Gaya is a thriving center 

of international Buddhism, attracting millions of Buddhist 

pilgrims every year from all over the world. Continuing 

a long-standing tradition, Buddhist sects 

throughout Asia (Sri Lanka, Burma [Myanmar], Thailand, 

Vietnam, China, Japan, Tibet, Nepal, and 

Bhutan) have established flourishing missions and 

built and repaired monasteries and temples there. 

See also: Bodhi (Awakening) 

Bibliography 

Ahir, D. C. Buddha Gaya through the Ages. Delhi: Sri Satguru, 

1994. 

Barua, Benimadhab. Gaya and Buddha-Gaya, Vol. 1: Early History 

of the Holy Land (1931). Varanasi, India: Bhartiya, 1975. 

Barua, Dipak Kumar. Buddha Gaya Temple: Its History. Buddha 

Gaya, India: Buddha Gaya Temple Management Committee, 

1975. Second revised edition, 1981. 


World, Translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (A.D. 

629). London: Trubner, 1884. Reprint, Delhi: Oriental Books 

Reprint Corp., 1969. 

Bhattacharyya, Tarapada. The Bodhgaya Temple. Calcutta: 

Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyah, 1966. 

Legge, James, trans. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Being an 

Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hsien of His Travels in India 

and Ceylon (A.D. 399–414) in Search of the Buddhist Books 

of Discipline. Oxford: Clarendon, 1886. Reprint, New York: 

Paragon, 1965. 

Leoshko, Janice, ed. Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment. Bombay: 

Marg, 1988. 

BODHI (AWAKENING) 


The Sanskrit and Pali word bodhi derives from the Indic 

root √budh (to awaken, to know). It was rendered 

into Chinese either by way of transliteration, as puti 

(Japanese, bodai; Korean, pori), or by way of translation. 

The most common among the many Chinese 

translations are jue (Japanese, kaku; Korean, kak; “to 

be aware”) and dao (Japanese, do ; Korean, to; “the 

way”). The standard Tibetan translation is byang chub 

(purified and perfected). Those who are attentive to 

the more literal meaning of the Indic original tend to 

translate bodhi into English as “awakening,” and this 

is to be recommended. However, it has long been conventional 

to translate it as “enlightenment,” despite the 

risks of multiple misrepresentation attendant upon the 

use of so heavily freighted an English word. 

General characterizations of bodhi 

In the most general terms, bodhi designates the attainment 

of that ultimate knowledge by virtue of which a 

being achieves full liberation (vimoksa, vimukti) or NIR- 

VAN A. Sometimes the term is understood to refer to the 

manifold process of awakening by which one comes 

variously and eventually to know the truth of things 

“as they truly are” (yathabhu tam ), thereby enabling liberation 

from DUH KHA (SUFFERING) and REBIRTH for 

both self and others. At other times bodhi is taken to 

refer to the all-at-once culmination of that process. In 

the latter sense, the term bodhi may be said to belong 

to the large category of names for things or events so 

ultimate as to be essentially ineffable, even inconceivable. 

However, in the former more processive sense, either 

as a single term standing alone or as an element 

in any number of compounds (bodhicitta, bodhisattva, 

abhisam bodhi, bodhicarya, etc.), bodhi is a subject of extensive 

exposition throughout which it is made clear 

that the term belongs more to the traditional categories 

of PATH (marga), practice (carya, pratipatti), or cause 

(hetu) than to the category of fruition or transcendent 

effect (phala). Thus, despite a common tendency in 


B ODHI 

(AWAKENING) 

scholarship to regard bodhi as a synonym for nirvana, 

vimoksa, and so on, it is best to treat bodhi as analytically 

distinct in meaning from the various terms for the 

result or consequence of practice. 

Although the term bodhi often refers to the liberating 

knowledge specifically of BUDDHAS (awakened 

ones), it is not reserved for that use alone; bodhi is also 

ascribed to other and lesser kinds of liberated beings, 

like the ARHAT. When the full awakening of a buddha 

is particularly or exclusively intended, it is common to 

use the superlative form, ANUTTARASAMYAKSAM BODHI 

(COMPLETE, PERFECT AWAKENING). In East Asian Buddhist 

discourse, particularly in the CHAN SCHOOL 

(Japanese, Zen), one encounters other terms (e.g., Chinese, 

wu; Japanese, satori) that are also translated as 

“awakening” or “enlightenment.” These other terms 

are perhaps related in meaning to bodhi, but they were 

very seldom used actually to translate the Indic word, 

are not admitted to be precisely synonymous with it, 

and in their common usages notably lack its sense of 

ultimacy or finality. They refer rather to certain moments 

or transient phases of the processes of realization 

arising in the course of contemplative practice. As 

such they are the focus of much dispute over their purportedly 

“sudden” or “gradual” occurrence. 

Traditional accounts of bodhi found in or derived 

from South Asian sources are often connected to accounts 

of Śakyamuni’s own liberating knowledge, attained 

in his thirty-fifth year, in the final watch of his 

first night “beneath the bodhi tree.” He is said then 

to have achieved, in a climax to eons of cultivation 

extending through innumerable past lives, the ultimate 

knowledge (vidya) or ABHIJNA (HIGHER KNOWL- 

EDGES)—that is, knowledge of the extinction of the 

residual impurities (asravaksayajñana; literally, “oozings” 

or “cankers”) of sensual desire (kama), becoming 

(bhava), views (drsti), and ignorance (avidya). 

This extinguishing or purgative knowledge arises precisely 

in the immediate verification of the FOUR NO- 

BLE TRUTHS—that is, in the intuitive confirmation 

(abhisamaya) of the truth of duhkha (suffering), the 

truth of the origin (samudaya) of suffering in craving 

(trsna) and ignorance (avidya), the truth of the cessation 

(nirodha) of suffering, and the truth of the path 

(marga) leading to the cessation of suffering. To the 

limited and questionable extent that one can conceive 

of bodhi as an experience, these knowings or extinctions 

are, so to speak, the content or object of Śakyamuni’s 

experience of awakening, and the four noble 

truths are what it was that he awakened to. We may 

note in this classical account of bodhi the convergence 

of two modes of soteriological discourse—a discourse 

of purgation or purification signaled by the use of 

terms like eradication (ksaya) and canker (asrava), 

and a discourse of veridical cognition, exemplified by 

such terms as knowledge (vidya) and abhijña. Bodhi 

is thus shown to be, at once, a cleansing and a gnosis, 

an understanding that purifies and a purification 

that illuminates. 

The more systematic or scholastic traditions of Buddhism 

commonly expound bodhi in terms of its constituent 

factors (bodhipaksa, bodhipaksikadharma). 

These, of course, are components of awakening in the 

sense of an extended process or path rather than in the 

sense of a single, unitary culmination of a path. There 

are thirty-seven such factors, grouped in seven somewhat 

overlapping categories. The four “foundations 

of MINDFULNESS” (smrtyupasthana) are mindfulness 

or analytical meditative awareness of the body (kaya), 

of feelings (vedana), of consciousness (vijñana), and 

of mind-objects (dharma). The four “correct eliminations” 

(samyakprahana) or “correct exertions” 

(samyakpradhana) are the striving to eliminate evil that 

has already arisen, to prevent future evil, to produce 

future good, and to increase good that has already 

arisen. The four “bases of meditative power” (rddhipada) 

are aspiration (chanda), strength (vlrya), composure 

of mind (citta), and scrutiny (mlmam sa). The 

five “faculties” (indriya) are FAITH (śraddha), energy 

(vlrya), mindfulness (smrti), concentration (samadhi), 

and PRAJNA (WISDOM). The five “powers” (bala) are 

five different degrees of the five faculties ranging from 

the lowest degree sufficient to be simply a follower 

of the Buddha, through the higher degrees necessary 

to achieve the higher degrees of sainthood: status as 

a stream winner (śrotapanna), a once-returner 

(sakrdagamin), a nonreturner (anagamin), and an 

arhat. The seven “limbs of awakening” (bodhyaṅga) 

are memory (smrti), investigation of teaching 

(dharmapravicaya), energy (vlrya), rapture (prlti), 

serenity (praśrabdhi), concentration (samadhi), and 

equanimity (upeksa). The final eight factors are the 

components of the noble eightfold path. 

So manifold and complex a characterization of 

bodhi, as a process comprising multiple parts, serves 

to underscore the fact that awakening is clearly not an 

end divorced from its means, nor a realization separate 

from practice; rather it is the sum and the perfection 

of practice. This fact is often explicitly acknowledged 

in Buddhism—in assertions of the unity of realization 

and practice or in the variously formulated insistence 

that practice is essential to realization. Such claims 


51

B ODHI 

(AWAKENING) 

must be kept in mind as cautions against the temptation 

to conceive of bodhi as a wholly autonomous, selfgenerated, 

and entirely transcendent “experience.” 

Indeed, it could serve even as warrant for banning the 

very use of modern, largely Western notions of “experience” 

(pure experience, religious experience, mystical 

experience, etc.) from all discussions of bodhi or 

analogous terms. To speak of “the experience of awakening,” 

rather than of, say, the performance or the cultivation 

of awakening, is to risk reifying the process 

and, worse still, isolating it from the rest of Buddhism. 

Bodhi in the Mahayana 

The characterizations of awakening sketched above are 

common to the whole of Buddhism. Among notions 

of bodhi that are especially emphasized in MAHAYANA 

one must note its conception as an object of noble aspiration. 

The ideal Mahayana practitioner, the BO- 

DHISATTVA, is essentially defined as one who aspires to 

bodhi, one who dedicates himself to the enactment of 

bodhi for himself but also and especially for all beings. 

This is the sense of the word operative in the term bodhicittotpada, 

the arousal of BODHICITTA (THOUGHT OF 

AWAKENING), a locution rich in conative significance 

that conveys the affective dimension, the emotive 

power, of liberating knowledge, as well as its necessary 

association with the virtue of KARUN A (COMPASSION). 

Also characteristic of Mahayana is a recurrent concern 

with identifying the source of the capacity for 

awakening. Is it natural or inculcated? In sixth-century 

China there appeared a text entitled the AWAKENING 

OF FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN LUN) that was attributed to 

AŚVAGHOSA but was probably a Chinese contribution 

to the evolving tradition of TATHAGATAGARBHA (matrix 

or embryo of buddhahood) thought. This text 

coined the term “original awakening” (benjue), contrasting 

that with “incipient awakening” (shijue). The 

former refers to an innate potential awakening, a natural 

purity of mind (cittaprakrtiviśuddhi) or underlying 

radiance of mind (prabhasvaratvam cittasya), 

which enables practice and so engenders the actualization 

of awakening. The latter refers to the process 

of actualization itself, by which one advances from the 

nonawakened state, through seeming and partial awakening, 

to final awakening. Drawing upon a usage of 

linguistics, we might speak of the pair as awakening in 

the mode of competence and awakening in the mode 

of performance. The notion of a natural enlightenment 

that abides as a potency in the very sentience of SEN- 

TIENT BEINGS (later called buddha-nature) and issues 

in the gradual enactment of actual awakening stood in 

contrast to alternative views found in certain traditions 

of the YOGACARA SCHOOL of Buddhism, according to 

which awakening is the outcome of the radical transformation 

of a mind (aśrayaparavrtti) that is naturally 

or inveterately defiled. This notion proved very fruitful 

throughout East Asian Buddhism but fostered in 

the Japanese Tendai (Chinese, Tiantai) school an especially 

powerful and enduring doctrine of ORIGINAL 

ENLIGHTENMENT (HONGAKU) that left its mark on 

nearly all of medieval and early modern Japanese Buddhism. 

It also had profound ethical implications insofar 

as the notion of original or natural awakening was 

commonly invoked, or was said to be invoked, for antinomian 

or laxist purposes on the grounds that one’s 

originally awakened condition rendered effortful practice 

otiose. 

Comparable to the idea of original awakening, but 

even stronger and bolder, is the startling claim resonant 

in much of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Buddhism 

that awakening is not merely potentially present 

in the mundane sentient condition but actually identical 

with the worst of that condition. This seemingly 

paradoxical assertion is classically conveyed in the 

aphorism, “the afflictions (kleśa) are identical with 

awakening.” In conventional theory, bodhi is the eradication 

of the kleśa (affective hindrances like anger, 

lust, greed, etc.); the assertion that the kleśa and bodhi 

are one and the same would therefore seem, at least at 

first glance, to be not only heterodox but also perverse 

and self-contradictory. It appears to stand the conventional 

view of awakening on its head. However, justification 

for so seemingly outrageous a claim is to be 

found in the doctrine of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS), according 

to which any sentient event or condition, being 

necessarily empty (śu nya) of self-nature or own 

being (svabhava), mysteriously incorporates all other 

sentient events or conditions. Hell entails buddhahood; 

evil entails good; and vice versa. Thus, even an 

impulse of lust or hatred harbors the aspiration for 

awakening, and awakening is not a condition or 

process that depends upon or consists in the complete 

extinction of imperfection. 

The sudden/gradual issue 

The concept of original awakening was also central to 

Chan discourse about “sudden” (Chinese, dun; Japanese, 

ton) and “gradual” (Chinese, jian; Japanese, zen) 

awakening. Here the term for awakening is the Chinese 

word wu (read in Japanese as satori or go), and, 

as noted above, wu is to be distinguished from bodhi, 

although it is not wholly unrelated. The terms sudden 


B ODHICARYA VATA RA 

awakening (dunwu) and gradual awakening (jianwu) 

were, of course, instruments of polemic. Certain Chan 

traditions criticized others for being gradualist in their 

understanding and practice of awakening while claiming 

themselves to be subitist. The former, of course, is 

a term of disparagement, the latter a term of strong 

approbation. No school ever itself claimed to be gradualist; 

all laid claim to sudden awakening. In the eighth 

century the so-called Southern Chan school, derived 

from the teachings of the sixth patriarch HUINENG (ca. 

638–713), claimed to offer sudden or all-at-once awakening 

while alleging that the so-called Northern 

School, derived from the teachings of Shenxiu (ca. 

606–706), espoused a gradual or step-by-step, and 

thus ultimately bogus, awakening. The Northern 

School, which was actually as subitist as any, died out 

as a distinct Chan lineage, whereas the Southern 

School flourished to the point that all post-eighthcentury 

Chan derives from the Southern School and 

so adheres de rigueur to the position that true awakening 

comes suddenly or all at once. In effect this is 

simply a variation on the theme of original awakening, 

for the asserted suddenness or all-at-once character 

of awakening is really just a function of its being, 

as it were, always and already present in one’s very nature 

as a sentient being. It need not be formed but only 

acknowledged, and acknowledgement is always all at 

once. It must be noted, however, that only in the most 

extreme and eccentric traditions of Chan did the claim 

of “sudden awakening” ever imply the actual rejection 

of effortful practice. Instead, such gradual practice was 

typically held to be necessary, but necessary chiefly as 

the sequel to a quickening moment of sudden awakening, 

functioning to extend what was glimpsed in 

sudden awakening so as to make it permanent, habitual, 

and mature. 

Bodhi as “enlightenment” 

It was noted above that the most common English rendering 

of bodhi (or wu or satori) is “enlightenment.” 

There are grounds for such a translation. Some of the 

earliest usages of the word enlightenment show it to 

have meant something like spiritual illumination, and 

spiritual illumination is not so far from “awakening.” 

However, the term enlightenment is also commonly 

employed in the West to designate an age in European 

intellectual and cultural history, roughly the eighteenth 

century, the dominant voices of which were 

those of philosophers like Voltaire, Condorcet, and 

Diderot, who all declared the supremacy of reason 

over faith, and the triumph of science and rational 

ethics over religion. Such thinkers were harshly dismissive 

of the kinds of piety, faith, asceticism, and 

mystical insight that we saw above to be among the 

components or factors of bodhi. To be sure, the awakening 

of the Buddha was not a suspension or an abrogation 

of reason, but neither was it simply an 

exercise of what Voltaire would have meant by reason. 

Better then to use the more literal rendering of “awakening,” 

which also has the advantage of conveying the 

concrete imagery of calm alertness and clear vision 

that the Buddhist traditions have always had in mind 

when speaking of bodhi. 

Bibliography 

Gethin, Rupert M. L. The Buddhist Path to Awakening: A Study 

of the Bodhi-Pakkhiya Dhamma, 2nd edition. Oxford: 

Oneworld, 2001. 

Gregory, Peter N., ed. Sudden and Gradual: Approaches to Enlightenment 

in Chinese Thought. Honolulu: University of 


Ruegg, David S. Buddha-nature, Mind, and the Problem of Gradualism 

in Comparative Perspective: On the Transmission and 

Reception of Buddhism in India and Tibet. London: School 

of Oriental and African Studies, 1989. 

Stone, Jacqueline I. Original Enlightenment and the Transformation 

of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University 


BODHICARYA VATA RA 

ROBERT M. GIMELLO 

Bodhicaryavatara (Introduction to the Conduct That 

Leads to Enlightenment; Byang chub sems dpa’i spyod pa 

la ’jug pa) is, with CANDRAKIRTI’s seventh-century 

Madhyamakavatara (Introduction to Madhyamaka), 

the most important text integrating Madhyamaka philosophy 

into the bodhisattva path. The text is structured 

around meditation on the altruistic “awakening 

mind” or BODHICITTA (THOUGHT OF AWAKENING) and 

its development through PA RAMITA (PERFECTION). The 

longest chapter is on PRAJNA (WISDOM) and treats 

philosophical analysis. Written by ŚA NTIDEVA (ca. 

685–763), the poem was popular in late Indian Buddhism 

and has been enormously important in Tibet. 

See also: Bodhisattva(s); Madhyamaka School 

Bibliography 

Brassard, Francis. The Concept of Bodhicitta in Śantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. 

Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. 


53

B ODHICITTA (THOUGHT OF A WAKENING) 

Crosby, Kate, and Skilton, Andrew, trans. Śantideva: The Bodhicaryavatara. 

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. 

Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang. Meaningful to Behold, tr. Tenzin Norbu. 

London: Wisdom, 1986. 

Wallace, Visna A., and Wallace, B. Allan, trans. A Guide to the 

Bodhisattva Way of Life (Bodhicaryavatara). New York: Snow 

Lion, 1997. 

Williams, Paul. Altruism and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy 

of the Bodhicaryavatara. Richmond, UK: Curzon, 1998. 

BODHICITTA (THOUGHT 

OF AWAKENING) 

PAUL WILLIAMS 

The English phrase “thought of awakening” is a mechanical 

rendering of the Indic term bodhicitta. The 

original term is a compound noun signifying “thought 

directed at or focused on awakening,” “a resolution to 

seek and/or attain awakening,” or “the mind that is 

(virtually or intrinsically) awakening (itself).” The 

concept is known in non-Mahayana sources (e.g., 

Abhidharmadlpa, pp. 185–186, 192) and occurs in 

transitional texts such as the MAHAVASTU, but gains 

its doctrinal and ritual importance in MAHAYANA and 

tantric traditions. 

Technical definitions 

In its most common denotation the term bodhicitta 

refers to the resolution to attain BODHI (AWAKENING) 

in order to liberate all living beings, which defines and 

motivates the BODHISATTVA’s vow. However, even this 

simple definition entails several layers of meaning and 

practice. The resolution to attain awakening can be 

seen as a state of mind or a mental process, but it is 

also the solemn promise (the vow as verbal act) embodied 

or expressed in particular ritual utterances, 

acts, and gestures (recitation of the vows, dedication 

of merit, etc.). Bodhicitta is also the motivating thought 

and sentiment behind the spiritual practice or career 

(carya) of the bodhisattva; as such, it is the defining 

moment and the moving force behind the course of 

action that follows and enacts the initial resolution (the 

first appearance of the thought, known as bodhicittotpada). 

As moving force and motivation it is also the 

mental representation of the goal (awakening) and the 

essential spirit of the practice (a usage sometimes rendered 

in English as “an awakened attitude”). Finally, 

the culmination of the intention of the vow and of the 

subsequent effort in the PATH—that is, awakening 

itself—may also be regarded as technically bodhicitta. 

As a further extension of this usage, the term bodhicitta 

may also refer to the fundamental source or ground 

for the resolution, namely, innate enlightenment. 

In a narrow psychological sense, bodhicitta is the 

first conscious formulation of an aspiration: to seek 

full awakening (buddhahood) in order to lead all SEN- 

TIENT BEINGS to liberation from DUH KHA (SUFFERING). 

Conceived as a wish, as an intention that arises or occurs 

in the mind, the bodhicitta is a sort of decision; 

but in the traditional Buddhist view of mental culture, 

feelings and wishes can be fostered or cultivated. Accordingly, 

the bodhicitta is generally believed to require 

mental culture and self-cultivation, perhaps as an integral 

part of the purpose it embodies. The continued 

cultivation of the intention, the practice or exercise of 

the thought of awakening, helps develop a series of 

mental states and behavioral changes that gradually approximate 

the object of the wish: full awakening as a 

compassionate buddha or bodhisattva. 

Ritual uses and meanings 

This practice of the thought of awakening begins with 

a RITUAL enactment, usually as part of the so-called 

sevenfold supreme worship (saptavidha-anuttarapu ja), 

which includes, among other things, the rituals of taking 

the bodhisattva vows and the dedication of merit. 

Some Indian authors (e.g., A RYAŚU RA and Candragomin) 

composed their own ritual for the production 

and adoption of the bodhicitta. In these liturgical 

settings the bodhicitta appears prominently as the focus 

of the ritual of the bodhisattva vow, which in many 

Mahayana liturgies replaced or incorporated earlier 

rituals for the adoption of the PRECEPTS or rituals 

preparatory for meditation sessions. Such rituals proliferated 

in East Asia and Tibet. 

Although the model for many Tibetan liturgies was 

arguably a reworking of ritual elements in the 

Śiksasamuccaya and the BODHICARYAVATARA of ŚANTI- 

DEVA (ca. seventh century C.E.), the tradition combined 

a variety of sources in developing a theology and 

a liturgy of the thought of awakening. The Thar pa rin 

po che’i rgyan of Sgam po pa (1079–1153 C.E.) distinguishes 

the ritual based on Śantideva’s teachings from 

the rituals from the lineage of Dharmakrti Suvarnadvpin 

of Vijayanagara (fl. ca. 1000 C.E.)—presumably 

received through ATISHA (982–1054 C.E.). 

Most Mahayana traditions consecrate the initial 

thought as the impetus and hence the most important 

moment in the bodhisattva’s career: the breaking forth 



of an idea, the aspiration to the good, and a rare and 

valuable event. This event, in both its internal, psychological 

form and its ritual, public form is called 

“giving rise to the thought of awakening,” or, “causing 

the (first) appearance of a thought directed at 

awakening” ([prathama]-bodhicittotpada). In its most 

literal and concrete sense, this is the moment when a 

bodhisattva encounters, or creates the conditions for, 

the appearance of the earnest wish to attain awakening 

for the benefit of all sentient beings. In Śantideva’s 

explanation, the vow as expression of bodhicitta is 

closely associated with the adoption of the precepts of 

the bodhisattva (bodhisattvasam vara), which are seen 

as the means for preserving and cultivating the initial 

resolution. This close link is recognized in many other 

ritual plans; for instance, the repentance rites (wuhui, 

“five ways to repent”) of the TIANTAI SCHOOL follow 

an ascending hierarchy that is somehow parallel to the 

sevenfold act of worship but begins with confession 

(canhui) and culminates with the resolution (fayuan) 

to seek awakening for the sake of all living beings. 

Indian Mahayana scholastic accounts assume for 

the most part that a concerted and conscious effort to 

cultivate the bodhicitta by setting out on the path 

(called prasthanacitta) is necessary for awakening. 

Nonetheless, the ritual expression of the vow (called 

“the thought of the vow,” pranidhicitta), and the adoption 

of the bodhisattva precepts (sam vara) in the presence 

of a spiritual mentor (kalyanamitra), or before all 

the buddhas of the universe, is sometimes seen as a 

guarantee of eventual awakening. Some authors (notably 

Śantideva in his Bodhicaryavatara) conceive of 

bodhicitta as a force so potent that it appears to be external 

to the person’s own will, effort, or attention. In 

this conception, once a person has given rise to the resolution, 

the bodhicitta is, as it were, awakening itself, 

present, in manifest or latent form, in that person’s 

mental processes. 

Thought of awakening as awakened thought 

We may speak of a historical process whereby the abstract 

notion or the psychological reality of a resolution 

became an autonomous spiritual force. The 

process is already suggested in Mahayana sutras that 

glorify the bodhicitta as both the sine qua non of 

Mahayana practice and the essence or substance of 

awakening: It is a hidden treasure, like a panacea or 

powerful medicinal herb (see, for example, the 

“Maitreyavimoksa” chapter of the Gandavyu ha-su tra). 

What may have been a hyperbolic celebration of the 

bodhicitta, however, soon took the form of a reification 

or deification of this mental state or sequence of 

mental states. The thought of awakening is present 

even if one lacks all virtue, like a jewel hidden in a dung 

heap; one who gives rise to the thought will be venerated 

by gods and humans (Bodhicaryavatara). And, in 

a metaphor chosen as the title for one of the fourteenth 

Dalai Lama’s commentaries, the thought of awakening 

is like a flash of lightning in the dark night of human 

delusion. What is more, sutras and śastras alike agree 

that the thought of awakening protects from all dangers 

the person who conceives of it. 

Insofar as the bodhicitta is also the starting point for 

Mahayana practice proper, it is a precondition and a 

basis for the virtues of a buddha (the buddhadharmas), 

and hence, impels, as it were, all the positive faculties 

and states generated in the path. The thought of awakening 

hence manifests itself throughout the path, in all 

stages of the bodhisattva’s development (Mahayanasu 

tralam kara, chap. 4, following the Aksayamatinirdeśa). 

The First Bhavanakrama of Kamalaśla states 

that the foundation (mu la) for these virtues, and for 

the omniscience of a full buddha, is KARUN A (COM- 

PASSION), but, referring to the Vairocanabhisam bodhi, 

adds that bodhicitta is the generating and impelling 

cause (hetu) of buddhahood. 

Furthermore, insofar as bodhicitta is the mind of 

awakening, it is a beginning that is an end in itself. To 

paraphrase Kamalaśla’s Second Bhavanakrama, there 

are two types of bodhicitta, the conventional one of ritual 

and process, and the absolute one that is both the 

innate potency to become awakened and the mind that 

has attained the ultimate goal, awakening itself. The 

distinction between these two aspects or levels of bodhicitta 

is perhaps an attempt to account for the difference 

between the ritual and conventional enactment 

of a resolution, the spirit of commitment, the magnetic 

force of an ideal representation, and a sacred presence 

(awakening itself). Psychologically the idea may reflect 

a desire to understand how conviction and good intent 

can exist next to lack of conviction and a desire 

for what is not virtuous—in short how an ideal can be 

both a clear and heartfelt conviction and a distant goal. 

The distinction between a provisional or conventional 

thought of awakening (sam vrtibodhicitta) and 

one that is or embodies the ultimate goal (paramarthabodhicitta) 

plays a central role in tantric conceptions 

of the “physiology” and “psychology” of ritual 

and meditation, in India and beyond. For it serves as 

a link between ritual convention and timeless truth, 

and between disparate branches of the tradition— 


55


linking, for instance, the sutra or paramita aspects of 

the path with the tantric stages, on the ground that all 

stages manifest some aspect of bodhicitta. This is arguably 

the most important function of bodhicitta as an 

explanatory or apologetic category in path theory and 

is highlighted in classic lam rim literature (for a contemporary 

presentation, see Gyatso). 

The thought as icon 

The thought of awakening is also a pivotal concept in 

Mahayana ethical speculation: In some ways bodhicitta 

is shorthand for the instinct of empathy and the cultivation 

of compassion as foundations for Buddhist 

involvement with SAM SARA. It epitomizes important 

dimensions of intentionality, as attitude toward others 

and attitudes toward self, as well as intention as the direction 

in which transformative behavior moves. 

A term so laden with meanings almost fits naturally 

as the core around which one could build further ritual 

tropes, as one can see in relatively early tantras like 

the Mahavairocana-su tra. The Guhyasamaja-tantra 

devotes its second chapter to bodhicitta, describing it 

as the solid core (sara, vajra) of the body, speech, and 

mind of all the buddhas. Since this ultimate reality is, 

not surprisingly, the emptiness of all things, the text 

implicitly builds a bridge between the ethical and ritual 

life of the practitioner’s body, speech, and mind, 

and both the reality and its sacred embodiment in all 

buddhas. 

Bodhicitta is also a force that empowers the practitioner, 

and therefore plays an important role in some 

tantric rites of initiation or CONSECRATION (abhiseka). 

A common homology imagines bodhicitta as masculine 

potency—UPAYA and the seed of awakening—and 

prajña as the feminine “lotus-vessel” that receives the 

bodhicitta. Thus, bodhicitta becomes bindu (the “droplets” 

of awakening) and hence the semen that stands 

for the generative power of awakening. Because bodhicitta 

as bindu or semen represents the male potency 

of awakened saints, it is not uncommon for a female 

participant (a yoginl present symbolically or in person) 

to be seen as vidya or prajña, whereas bodhicitta stands 

for upaya. Classical Indian physiology assumed that females 

also have semen, hence the disciple receiving initiation 

ingested, symbolically or literally, the sexual 

fluids of both the guru (male) and the yoginl (female) 

as a way to give rise to the thought of awakening— 

thus generated, as it were, from the union of mother 

and father. 

Summary interpretations 

The above tapestry shows how the concept of bodhicitta 

ties together liturgy, systematic theories of awakening 

and the path, and the foundations of Buddhist ethics. 

It is a concept as important for the history of Mahayana 

ritual as those of the vow (pranidhana) and the dedication 

of merit (punyaparinamana). A social history of 

the concept would include its function as a secure solid 

ground outside social and sectarian differences: It is, as 

it were, a thin, but steely thread that links the specifics 

of ritual and theology with the idea of a timeless and 

ineffable liberating reality. As a source of authority, 

bodhicitta is both an inner drive and an untainted reality 

beyond individual differences. 

Theologically, bodhicitta is, in part, a functional 

equivalent to the family of concepts encompassed by 

Hindu notions of prasada and Western concepts of 

grace: Bodhicitta stands for the mystery of the presence 

of the holy in an imperfect human being who is in need 

of liberation and imagines it, despite the unlikelihood 

of the presence of even the mere idea of perfection in 

such an imperfect being. 

See also: Original Enlightenment (Hongaku) 

Bibliography 

Brassard, Francis. The Concept of Bodhicitta in Śantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. 

Albany: State University of New York Press, 

2000. 

Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho (Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama XIV). A 

Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night: A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s 

Way of Life, tr. the Padmakara Translation Group. 


Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang. Essence of Vajrayana: The Highest Yoga 

Tantra Practice of Heruka Body Mandala. London: Tharpa, 

1997. 

Khunu Rinpoche. Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea: Verses 

in Praise of Bodhicitta, tr. G. Sparham. Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 

1999. 

Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas (Lodro Thaye Kongtrul, Jamgon 

Kongtrul). The Light of Wisdom: The Root Text, Lamrim yeshe 

nyingpo by Padmasambhava . . . Commentary on the Light of 

Wisdom by Jamgon Kongtrul the Great. Boston: Shambhala, 

1999. 

Nanayakkara, S. K. “Bodhicitta.” In Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, 

Vol. 3, Fasc. 2, ed. G. P. Malalasekera, 1972. 



B ODHIDHARMA 

BODHIDHARMA 

Within the CHAN SCHOOL or tradition, Bodhidharma 

(ca. early fifth century) is considered the first patriarch 

of China, who brought Chan teachings from India to 

China, and the twenty-eighth patriarch in the transmission 

of the torch of enlightenment down from 

Śakyamuni Buddha. Bodhidharma is the subject of 

countless portraits, where he is represented as an Indian 

wearing a full beard with rings in his ears and a 

monk’s robe, frequently engaged in the nine years of 

cross-legged sitting which he was loath to interrupt, 

even when a prospective disciple cut off his own arm 

to prove his sincerity. Modern scholars have come to 

doubt many of the elements in this legendary picture. 

Of the ten texts attributed to Bodhidharma, the most 

authentic is probably an unnamed compilation one can 

provisionally call the Bodhidharma Anthology. This anthology 

opens with a biography and an exposition of 

his teaching, both composed by Tanlin, a sixth-century 

specialist in the Srlmaladevlsim hanada-su tra (Chinese, 

Shengman shizi hou jing; Su tra of Queen Śrlmala). Tanlin’s 

biography presents Bodhidharma as the third son 

of a South Indian king. Of Bodhidharma’s route to 

China, Tanlin says, “He subsequently crossed distant 

mountains and seas, traveling about propagating the 

teaching in North China.” This more historically feasible 

Bodhidharma came to North China via Central Asia. 

Tanlin explains Bodhidharma’s teaching as “entrance 

by principle and entrance by practice” (liru and 

xingru). “Entrance by principle” involves awakening to 

the realization that all SENTIENT BEINGS are identical to 

the true nature (dharmata)—if one abides in “wall examining” 

(biguan) without dabbling in the scriptures, 

one will “tally with principle.” “Wall examining” has 

been the subject of countless exegeses, from the most 

imaginative and metaphorical (be like a wall painting 

of a bodhisattva gazing down upon the suffering of 

sam sara) to the suggestion that it refers to the physical 

posture of cross-legged sitting in front of a wall. 

Later Tibetan translations gloss it as “abiding in brightness” 

(lham mer gnas), a tantric interpretation that also 

invites scrutiny. 

“Entrance by practice” is fourfold: having patience 

in the face of suffering; being aware that the conditions 

for good things will eventually run out; seeking for 

nothing; and being in accord with intrinsic purity. The 

anthology also includes three Records (again the title is 

provisional) consisting of lecture materials, dialogues, 

Bodhidharma (ca. early fifth century), the first Chan patriarch of 

China. (Japanese wood sculpture, Edo period, 1600–1868). © 

Reunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY. Reproduced 

by permission. 

and sayings. Record I has a saying attributed to Bodhidharma: 

“When one does not understand, the person 

pursues dharmas; when one understands, dharmas 

pursue the person.” Later Chan did not appropriate 

this saying for its Bodhidharma story. 

Two other early sources of information on Bodhidharma 

deserve mention. The first is a sixth-century 

non-Buddhist source, the Luoyang qielan ji (Record of 

the Buddhist Edifices of Luoyang), which twice mentions 

an Iranian-speaking Bodhidharma from Central 

Asia. The second is the seventh-century Xu gaoseng 

zhuan (Further Biographies of Eminent Monks) by DAO- 

XUAN (596–667). It contains a Bodhidharma entry (a 

slightly reworked version of Tanlin’s piece), an entry 

on Bodhidharma’s successor, Huike, and a critique of 

Bodhidharma’s style of meditation. Here, Bodhidharma 

is said to have (1) come to China by the southern 

sea route, and (2) handed down a powerful mystery 

text, the LAṄKAVATARA-SU TRA (Discourse of the Descent 

into Lanka), to Huike. Holders of this sutra were 

thought to be capable of uncanny feats, such as sitting 

cross-legged all night in a snowbank. The later Chan 

picture of Bodhidharma incorporates both Daoxuan’s 

southern sea route and his sacramental transmission 

of the Laṅkavatara. By the early eighth century, the 

first Chan histories had assembled these key elements 


57

B ODHISATTVA( S ) 

as the Bodhidharma story, drawing principally upon 

Daoxuan’s work. 

See also: China 

Bibliography 

Broughton, Jeffrey L. The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest 

Records of Zen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 

Faure, Bernard. “Bodhidharma as Textual and Religious Paradigm.” 

History of Religions 25, no. 3 (1986): 187–198. 

Faure, Bernard. Le traité de Bodhidharma: Première anthologie 

du bouddhisme Chan. Paris: Le Mail, 1986. 

Yanagida Seizan, ed. and trans. Daruma no goroku. Zen no 

goroku 1. Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1969. 

BODHISATTVA(S) 

JEFFREY BROUGHTON 

The term bodhisattva (Pali, bodhisatta; Tibetan, 

byang chub sems pa; Chinese, pusa; Korean, posal, 

Japanese, bosatsu) refers to a sattva (person) on a 

Buddhist marga (PATH) in pursuit of BODHI (AWAK- 

ENING) or one whose nature is awakening. In the 

Mahayana tradition, a bodhisattva is a practitioner 

who, by habituating himself in the practice of the 

PARAMITA (PERFECTION), aspires to become a buddha 

in the future by seeking ANUTTARASAMYAKSAM BODHI 

(COMPLETE, PERFECT AWAKENING) through PRAJNA 

(WISDOM) and by benefiting all sentient beings 

through KARUN A (COMPASSION). A bodhisattva is one 

who courageously seeks enlightenment through totally 

and fully benefiting others (parartha), as well as 

himself (svartha). A bodhisattva is also termed a mahasattva 

or “Great Being” because he is a Mahayana 

practitioner who seeks anuttarasamyaksam bodhi and 

who is equipped with the necessities for enlightenment—punyasambhara 

(accumulation of merits) and 

jñanasambhara (accumulation of wisdom)—and the 

quality of upaya-kauśalya (skillful means); that is, he 

knows how to act appropriately in any situation. 

According to the Bodhisattvabhu mi, the bodhisattvayana 

(spiritual path of a bodhisattva) is considered 

to be superior to both the śravakayana (spiritual path 

of the disciples) and the pratyekabuddhayana (spiritual 

path of a self-awakened buddha) because a bodhisattva 

is destined to attain enlightenment by removing the 

kleśajñeyavarana (emotional and intellectual afflictions), 

whereas those on the other two spiritual paths 

aspire for NIRVAN A, that is, extinction of emotional afflictions 

only. 

The bodhisattva is known by different appellations; 

for example, in Mahayana-su tralam kara XIX: 73–74, 

the following fifteen names are given as synonyms for 

bodhisattva: 

1. mahasattva (great being) 

2. dhlmat (wise) 

3. uttamadyuti (most splendid) 

4. jinaputra (Buddha’s son) 

5. jinadhara (holding to the Buddha) 

6. vijetr (conqueror) 

7. jinaṅkura (Buddha’s offspring) 

8. vikranta (bold) 

9. paramaścarya (most marvelous) 

10. sarthavaha (caravan leader) 

11. mahayaśas (of great glory) 

12. krpalu (compassionate) 

13. mahapunya (greatly meritorious) 

14. lśvara (lord) 

15. dharmika (righteous). 

Bodhisattvas are of ten classes: 

1. gotrastha (one who has not reached purity yet) 

2. avatlrna (one who investigates the arising of the 

enlightenment mind) 

3. aśuddhaśaya (one who has not reached a pure intention) 

4. śuddhaśaya (one who has reached a pure intention) 

5. aparipakva (one who has not matured in the 

highest state) 

6. paripakva (one who has matured in the highest 

state) 

7. aniyatipatita (one who although matured has not 

yet entered contemplation) 

8. niyatipatita (one who has entered contemplation) 

9. ekajatipratibaddha (one who is about to enter the 

supreme enlightenment) 


B ODHISATTVA( S ) 

10. caramabhavika (one who has entered supreme 

enlightenment in this life). 

Regarding the bodhisattva’s practice, different 

texts use different categories to discuss the process. 

For example, the Daśabhu mika-su tra refers to the 

daśabhu mi (ten spiritual stages) of a bodhisattva, 

while the Bodhisattvabhu mi makes reference to twelve 

vihara (abodes), adding two vihara to the list of ten 

bhu mis: gotravihara (abode of the bodhisattva family) 

and adhimukticaryavihara (abode of firm resolution), 

the latter of which continues throughout the 

next ten abodes. The last ten of the viharas essentially 

correspond to the ten bodhisattva stages of the 

Daśabhu mika-su tra, although each has a name different 

from the names of the stages. In each of the ten 

stages of the Daśabhu mika-su tra, a distinct paramita 

is practiced so that the bodhisattva gradually elevates 

himself to the final goal of enlightenment. The stages 

of practice according to the Daśabhu mika-su tra, with 

their corresponding paramitas, are as follows: 

1. pramudita-bhu mi (joyful stage): danaparamita 

(perfection of charity) 

2. vimala-bhu mi (free of defilements stage): śllaparamita 

(perfection of ethical behavior) 

3. prabhakarl-bhu mi (light-giving stage): dhyanaparamita 

(perfection of contemplation) 

4. arclsmatl-bhu mi (glowing wisdom stage): 

ksantiparamita (perfection of patience) 

5. sudurjaya-bhu mi (mastery of utmost difficulty 

stage): vlryaparamita (perfection of energy) 

6. abhimukhl-bhu mi (wisdom beyond definition of 

impure or pure stage): prajñaparamita (perfection 

of wisdom) 

7. du raṅgama-bhu mi (proceeding afar stage [in 

which a bodhisattva gets beyond self to help others]): 

upayakauśalyaparamita (perfection of utilizing 

one’s expertise) 

8. acala-bhu mi (calm and unperturbed stage): 

pranidhanaparamita (perfection of making vows 

to save all sentient beings) 

9. sadhumati-bhu mi (good thought stage): balaparamita 

(perfection of power to guide sentient 

beings) 

10. dharmamagha-bhu mi (rain cloud of dharma 

stage): jñanaparamita (perfection of all-inclusive 

wisdom) 

However, the numbers of stages of a bodhisattva are 

inconsistent from sutra to sutra and from commentary 

to commentary. One finds fifty-two stages in the 

Pusa yingluo benye jing (Taisho no. 1485), fifty-one in 

the RENWANG JING (HUMANE KINGS SU TRA, Taisho 

no. 245), forty in both the FANWANG JING (BRAHMA’S 

NET SU TRA, Taisho no. 1484) and the Avatam sakasu 

tra (HUAYAN JING, Taisho no. 278), fifty-seven in 

the Śu rangama[samadhi]-sutra (Taisho no. 642), fiftyfour 

in the Cheng weishi lun (Taisho no. 1591), four 

in the Mahayanasam graha (She dasheng lun, Taisho 

no. 1594), and both thirteen and seven stages in the 

Bodhisattvabhu mi (Pusa dichi jing, Taisho no. 1581). 

There are other classifications of bodhisattvas, such 

as those who enter enlightenment quickly and those 

who enter gradually; those who are householders and 

those who are not, each divided into nine classes; 

those who are extremely compassionate, such as 

Avalokiteśvara; and those who are extremely wise, such 

as Mañjuśr. MAITREYA bodhisattva is considered to be 

the future buddha who is prophesized to appear in this 

world. Śakyamuni himself is understood to have been 

a bodhisattva in his past lives and is so called in the accounts 

of his previous births (JATAKA). 

In order to distinguish him from the śravakas and 

PRATYEKABUDDHAs, who benefit only themselves, a 

Mahayana bodhisattva is characterized as one who 

makes vows to benefit all sentient beings, as well as 

himself. In the Pure Land tradition, for example, according 

to the Larger SUKHAVATIVYU HA-SU TRA, the 

Bodhisattva Mahasattva Dharmakara makes fortyeight 

vows and becomes the Buddha of Infinite Light 

and Life (AMITABHA or Amitayus), who resides in the 

Western Quarter and functions as a salvific buddha. 

Among the well-known bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara 

and Maitreya are probably the most popular 

in East Asia. In the East Asian Buddhist tradition, 

Avalokiteśvara, better known by the Chinese name 

Guanyin (Korean, Kwanseŭm; Japanese, Kannon), is 

worshiped by both clergy and laity as a mother figure, 

a savior, and a mentor, who responds to the pain and 

suffering of sentient beings. In Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso, 

the fourteenth DALAI LAMA, is considered to be a reincarnation 

of Avalokiteśvara. 

Maitreya (Pali, Metteyya) bodhisattva, who is said 

to dwell in Tusita heaven, is known as the “future 

buddha” because he will appear in this world to reestablish 

Buddhism after all vestiges of the current 

dispensation of Śakyamuni Buddha have vanished. 

Tradition holds that ASAṄGA went to Tusita to study 


59

B ODHISATTVA 

I MAGES 

as Yinshou pusa. In more modern times, founders of 

new Buddhist movements in China, Taiwan, Japan, and 

the United States are considered by followers to be bodhisattvas 

and, in some cases, even buddhas. 

See also: Bodhisattva Images; Mudra and Visual 

Imagery 

Bibliography 

Dayal, Har. The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature. 

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1932. 

Dutt, Nalinaksha, ed. Bodhisattva-bhu mih. Patna, India: K. P. 

Jayaswal Research Institute, 1978. 

Hardacre, Helen, and Sponberg, Alan, eds. Maitreya, the Future 

Buddha. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 

Kawamura, Leslie S., ed. The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhism. 

Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981. 

Ogihara Unrai, ed. Bodhisattva-bhu mi: A Statement of Whole 

Course of the Bodhisattva. Tokyo: Sankibo Buddhist Book 

Store, 1971. 

Yü Chün-fang. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of 

Avalokiteśvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 

An image of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara being worshiped by 

the donor of the painting. (Chinese painting from the caves of 

Dunhuang, tenth century.) The Art Archive/Musée Guimet 

Paris/Dagli Orti. Reproduced by permission. 

under Maitreya, where he received five treatises from 

him that became the basis for establishing the YOGACARA 

SCHOOL. Worship of Maitreya as the future buddha has 

also contributed to MILLENARIANISM AND MILLENARIAN 

MOVEMENTS in several Buddhist traditions. 

Mañjuśr and Samantabhadra are bodhisattvas who 

are often depicted in a triad together with the primordial 

Buddha Vairocana. Samantabhadra stands on 

Vairocana’s right side and Mañjuśr on his left. 

Samantabhadra is also often shown seated on the back 

of a white elephant, holding a wish-fulfilling jewel, a 

lotus flower, or a scripture, exemplifying his role as the 

guardian of the teaching and practice of the Buddha. 

Mañjuśr, by contrast, represents wisdom, and is depicted 

wielding a flaming sword that cuts through the 

veil of ignorance. 

Buddhist scholars and savants of India, such as 

NAGARJUNA and VASUBANDHU, have been referred to as 

bodhisattvas; in China, DAO’AN, for example, is known 

BODHISATTVA IMAGES 

LESLIE S. KAWAMURA 

Although they play a fairly limited role in early Buddhism, 

BODHISATTVAS came to occupy a position of 

preeminence in later Buddhist literature. Moreover, 

visual representations of bodhisattvas comprise one of 

the largest and most important categories of imagery 

in Buddhist art. Despite this popularity, however, depictions 

of bodhisattvas, as with anthropomorphic depictions 

of BUDDHAS, apparently did not first appear 

until at least several centuries after the lifetime of the 

historical Buddha, Śakyamuni. Various explanations 

have been proposed to account for the relatively late 

emergence of the cult of images in Buddhism, but the 

textual and archaeological record remains inconclusive 

on several important fronts, such as the contentious 

question of when—and why—the earliest images of 

buddhas and bodhisattvas were created. While many 

aspects of the origin of the bodhisattva in the context 

of Buddhist art thus remain unresolved, the subsequent 

evolution and transmission of images of bodhisattvas 

are easier to chart. 


B ODHISATTVA 

I MAGES 

Early representations 

Judged on the basis of surviving stone sculpture from 

India, which constitutes the largest block of early evidence, 

the iconography of buddhas and of bodhisattvas 

differs in several key respects. A second-century triad 

from Gandhara illustrates the typical characteristics of 

the two figural types. The central Buddha is depicted 

as an ascetic, with a simple coiffure, the plain robes 

customarily worn by a monk, and no other sort of 

adornment; the flanking bodhisattvas, by contrast, are 

depicted as very much of this world, with elaborate 

hairstyles and headdresses, rich robes, and the sorts of 

jeweled necklaces, bracelets, and earrings typically reserved 

for royalty. More than merely a reflection of 

stylistic preferences, these differences have long been 

interpreted as carrying deeper meaning. The simplicity 

of the Buddha’s presentation, for example, can be 

seen as indicative of his status as one who has renounced 

the material world, while the ornamentation 

of the bodhisattva invokes analogies between earthly 

and spiritual power, and between material and spiritual 

abundance. 

It should be noted that there are several other images, 

such as a red sandstone sculpture from Mathura, 

that seem to contradict this general categorization: Although 

the standing figure exhibits the lack of adornment 

associated with images of the Buddha, the 

inscription labels it very clearly as a bodhisattva. In 

fact, such representations are reflections of a popular 

early motif that emphasized Śakyamuni’s status as a 

bodhisattva, both in previous lives and just prior to becoming 

a buddha. This tradition, however, was certainly 

overshadowed by more typical imagery of the 

so-called mahasattvas, or “Great Beings,” as the wellknown 

bodhisattvas generally associated with MA- 

HAYANA Buddhism were often called. It is this later 

ideal of powerful, transcendent figures dedicated to alleviating 

suffering in the human realm that underlies 

the development of the complex and multifaceted 

iconography of bodhisattvas that permeates the Buddhist 

world. 

While there are, then, certain general characteristics 

shared by almost all bodhisattvas, there are also many 

specific individual traits that serve to distinguish one 

from another. Often these take the forms of particular 

attributes, such as the vase carried by MAITREYA, the 

thunderbolt (Sanskrit, vajra) held by Vajrapani, or the 

sword and book frequently given to Mañjuśr, while in 

other instances a bodhisattva might be paired with a 

specific animal mount, as are Samantabhadra and his 

elephant. In practice, however, this kind of straightforward 

iconographical identification is often made 

more difficult by the fact that many traits evolve over 

time, of course, or are transformed in different geographical 

regions; furthermore, some bodhisattvas can 

assume multiple physical forms, each with its own distinguishing 

characteristics. A closer look at some of the 

traditions of representation of Avalokiteśvara, undoubtedly 

the single most popular bodhisattva in the 

pantheon, will help to illustrate the nature and scope 

of these complexities. 

The Bodhisattva of Compassion 

The Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Perceiver of the 

Sounds of the World) appears frequently in Indian 

Buddhist literature and art, and in both arenas assumes 

a multiplicity of forms and plays a variety of roles. In 

some sutras, the Avalokiteśvara is merely a background 

figure, so to speak, and pictorially and sculpturally he 

is often portrayed as a subordinate attendant to the 

Buddha; over time, however, he was increasingly represented 

in both mediums as the focus of attention. 

What remains constant, and thus serves as a unifying 

element in the majority of literary and artistic depictions, 

is an emphasis on Avalokiteśvara as the embodiment 

of infinite KARUN A (COMPASSION). One concrete 

expression of this emphasis can be seen in the many 

literary accounts detailing how the bodhisattva can 

save someone from the perils of the world. Iconographically, 

this theme is reflected by such features 

as the multiple limbs and heads with which 

Avalokiteśvara is often endowed (underscoring this 

special ability to help those in distress), and by the image 

of AMITABHA Buddha usually found in his headdress 

(alluding to the Western Paradise where 

Avalokiteśvara may help one be reborn). 

The popularity of Avalokiteśvara spread to China 

(where he is known as Guanyin) and other parts of 

East Asia (Japan, Kannon; Korea, Kwanseŭm), and 

grew to such an extent that it essentially overshadowed 

that of all other bodhisattvas. Initially this was brought 

about in part by the widespread appeal of the LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), several early 

translations of which were made into Chinese, in 

which Guanyin figures prominently; in fact, chapter 

25, which details some thirty-three different manifestations 

of Guanyin, was often published and circulated 

as an independent text. Many well-known depictions 

of Guanyin are based on imagery from the Lotus 

Su tra, and it is perhaps the elasticity of form described 


61

B ODHISATTVA 

I MAGES 

China as the goddess of mercy and compassion, and 

retained that status throughout later East Asian artistic 

traditions. 

The Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara—the Bodhisattva of Compassion—shown 

with a thousand arms, symbolizing his ability to help 

those in distress. (Chinese wood sculpture.) © Reunion des Musées 

Nationaux/Art Resource, NY. Reproduced by permission. 

in the sutra that made it possible for different branches 

of Buddhism to be associated with different characteristic 

representations of the bodhisattva. Thus, to give 

just two examples: While PURE LAND BUDDHISM favored 

images of Guanyin leading souls to paradise, the 

CHAN SCHOOL preferred the so-called Water-Moon 

Guanyin and its allusions to the illusory nature of the 

phenomenal world. 

Of all the developments associated with representations 

of Avalokiteśvara, none has received as much 

scholarly attention as the gender transformation that 

Guanyin underwent in China. While it is true that bodhisattvas 

are theoretically beyond such dualities as 

male and female, early depictions of Guanyin often exhibit 

decidedly male characteristics (such as the mustache 

common in both Indian and Chinese portrayals), 

while the Lotus Su tra also lists various specifically female 

forms that Guanyin is capable of assuming. 

Whether influenced by these literary descriptions, or 

because compassion was perceived as a more feminine 

emotional trait, or in response to the cosmological tendency 

in traditional China to create yin/yang pairings 

of complementary forces such as wisdom and compassion, 

whatever complex combination of factors was 

at play, the outcome was that Guanyin emerged in 

Meanings beyond the text 

Images of Avalokiteśvara, despite their great variety 

and multiplicity, share a common emphasis on the 

virtue of karuna, and exhibit remarkable continuity 

over time and location. To a great extent, this is due 

to a close correlation between text and image; indeed, 

the primary meanings for most representations of 

bodhisattvas derive from sutras and other literary 

sources. There are, however, many instances where 

bodhisattva imagery exhibits different patterns of development, 

and derives meaning from other arenas. 

The Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, for example, who may 

have evolved from pre-Buddhist Indian earth gods, 

rarely appears in either art or literature in India. In 

China, by contrast, as the Bodhisattva Dizang, 

Ksitigarbha is frequently depicted in illustrations of 

scenes of hell (though his popularity drops off remarkably 

after the thirteenth century), while in Japan, 

where he is known as Jizo, he has long been popularized 

as the protector of children. Lastly, as Chijang 

posal, he was one of the most important bodhisattvas 

in Korean Buddhism during the Chosŏn period 

(1392–1910), and most traditional Korean monastic 

complexes had a special Ksitigarbha Hall where paintings 

of Chijang and the Kings of Hell were the focus 

of ritual offerings on behalf of the deceased during the 

mourning period for the dead. Each of these instances 

demonstrates the frequently localized meanings of a 

given theme that can evolve apart from canonical textual 

sources. 

On an even more particularized level, bodhisattva 

imagery has often been linked to historical individuals, 

a phenomenon that certainly can alter visual 

meaning in a number of ways. For example, BODHI- 

DHARMA, the reputed transmitter of Chan Buddhism 

from India to China, is claimed in Chan tradition as 

an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara. This may account 

for both the somewhat surprising frequency with 

which Avalokiteśvara is depicted in images connected 

with Chan, as well as the structural similarities 

between such images as “Bodhidharma on a Reed” 

and the “White-robed Guanyin” or “Guanyin with 

Willows”—similarities that are clearly intended to appropriate 

the aura of the bodhisattva for the Chan patriarch. 

(In a similar vein, the DALAI LAMA of Tibetan 

Buddhism is also viewed as an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara, 

and here, too, the identification certainly 


B ODY, PERSPECTIVES ON THE 

serves to reinforce claims of spiritual authority.) There 

are also well-attested examples that link secular, rather 

than religious, leaders with bodhisattvas. In China, the 

infamous Empress Wu Zetian (d. 706) of the Tang dynasty, 

for example, went to great lengths to encourage 

belief in the idea that she was an incarnation of 

the Bodhisattva Maitreya, and it has been claimed 

that various Buddhist images that she sponsored 

actually bear her own likeness. In the Qing dynasty, 

the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–1795) had himself 

portrayed on multiple occasions as the Bodhisattva 

Mañjuśr, enshrined at the center of a complex 

MAN D ALA, while in the late nineteenth century the 

empress dowager Zixi cast herself as Guanyin in elaborate 

living tableaux that were preserved in photographs. 

Whatever religious motivations may lie 

behind such acts, the ends they served can justifiably 

be described as more political than religious. 

In short, if many images of bodhisattvas, whether 

painted or sculpted, are informed by sincere attempts 

to convey the spiritual powers associated with these 

Great Beings whose superhuman exploits were made famous 

by Mahayana sutras, there are other images that 

attempt to borrow these connotations for different purposes. 

At the same time, there are also cases in which 

representations of bodhisattvas are so far removed from 

the context of Buddhism that they are essentially depleted 

of religious meaning altogether. For example, 

while it is difficult to determine whether the elegant 

blanc-de-chine ceramic images of Guanyin first popularized 

in the seventeenth century were originally admired 

and sought out primarily for their formal and 

aesthetic qualities, that certainly became the case for the 

avid collectors, mainly foreign, who started to amass 

them in the early twentieth century. In the end, even a 

bodhisattva is powerless in the face of commodification. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the, in Art; Hells, Images of; 

Mudra and Visual Imagery; Sutra Illustrations 

Bibliography 

Czuma, Stanislaw J. Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India. 

Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1985. 

Huntington, Susan L. The Art of Ancient India: Buddhist, Hindu, 

Jain. New York: Weatherhill, 1985. 

Hurvitz, Leon, trans. Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine 

Dharma. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. 

Murase, Miyeko. “Kuan-yin as Savior of Men: Illustration of the 

Twenty-fifth Chapter of the Lotus Su tra in Chinese Painting.” 

Artibus Asiae 37, nos. 1–2 (1971): 39–74. 

Schopen, Gregory. “Monks and the Relic Cult in the 

Mahaparinibbana-sutta.” In Bones, Stones, and Buddhist 

Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and 

Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. Honolulu: University 


Seckel, Dietrich. Buddhist Art of East Asia, tr. Ulrich Mammitzsch. 

Bellingham: Center for East Asian Studies, Western 

Washington University, 1989. 

Whitfield, Roderick, and Farrer, Anne. Caves of the Thousand 

Buddhas: Chinese Art from the Silk Route. London: British 

Museum, 1990. 

Yü, Chün-fang. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of 


BODY, PERSPECTIVES ON THE 

CHARLES LACHMAN 

The path to NIRVA N A or awakening, for Buddhists, involves 

the entire human being as a psychophysical 

complex. Although known to distinguish physical 

processes from psychic processes for the purpose of 

analysis, Buddhists do not ascribe to the notion (articulated 

by other religious traditions originating in 

India) that within every person there exists an eternal 

nonphysical self that may be said to “have” or 

“occupy” a body. For Buddhists, physical processes are 

dependent upon mental processes and vice versa. 

Thus, Buddhist traditions utilize the body as an object 

of contemplation and as a locus of transformation. 

Buddhist scriptures and meditation manuals present 

a wide variety of meditations that focus on the 

body. Many involve mindful awareness of everyday 

activity: MINDFULNESS of breathing; mindfulness of 

modes of deportment, such as standing and sitting; and 

mindfulness of routine activities, such as walking, eating, 

and resting. Others meditations are analytic in 

nature. The body may be broken down into its four 

material elements: earth or solidity, water or fluidity, 

fire or heat, and air or movement. Such analytic exercises 

are particularly helpful for overcoming the illusion 

of an enduring “self” (atman; Pali, attan). In the 

Majjhimanikaya (Group Discourses of Middle Length; 

III. 90–1), the analysis of the body into its four material 

elements is compared to the quartering of an ox; 

once the ox is so divided, the generic concept of “flesh” 

diminishes recognition of the individuality of the ox. 

Although members of other religious communities 

in ancient India also practiced such meditations on the 

physical elements of earth, water, fire, and air in the 


63


body, Indian Buddhists developed a uniquely Buddhist 

form of meditation on the body, which is praised in 

Buddhist scripture as the sine qua non of salvation. 

Called “mindfulness of the body,” this contemplative 

technique entails breaking the body down into its 

thirty-two constituent parts, including internal organs 

such as the heart, the liver, the spleen, and the kidneys. 

The anatomical analysis in this cultivation of mindfulness 

of the body is so detailed that some scholars 

credit members of the early Buddhist monastic order 

(SAṄGHA) with a decisive role in the development of 

ancient Indian anatomical theory. Kenneth Zysk has 

argued that concern with ritual impurity limited the 

extent to which other (namely Brahmanical or proto- 

Hindu) religious specialists could serve as healers and 

carry out empirical studies based on dissection. Restrictions 

concerning the handling of bodily wastes 

from persons of different social classes and the disposal 

of dead bodies limited what Brahmanical caregivers 

could offer in the way of medical care and empirical 

research. With their relative, but certainly not absolute, 

indifference to Brahmanical purity strictures, members 

of the Buddhist saṅgha acquired a great deal of empirical 

knowledge of bodily processes and led the way 

in medical advances. 

The ambiguity of the body 

If Zysk is correct in asserting that Buddhist monastic 

communities in India were less hindered by constraints 

concerning the handling of bodily wastes and dead 

bodies, this is not to say that members of the Buddhist 

saṅgha regarded the body as intrinsically valuable, nor 

that their conceptions of the body were untouched by 

concerns about bodily purity and pollution. Cultivating 

distaste for the body by noting with disgust the discharges 

from various apertures of the body constitutes 

an initial stage of psychophysical training practiced by 

monastics of virtually all Buddhist denominations. 

With its orifices producing mucus, earwax, sweat, excrement, 

and the like, the body is conventionally imagined 

as a rot-filled pustule, a boil with many openings 

leaking pus. For MONKS and NUNS who are afflicted by 

sensual desire and who view bodily pleasures like eating, 

bathing, self-adornment, and sexual activity as inherently 

pleasing, developing a sense of aversion 

toward the body by visualizing it as a foul pustule or 

by contemplating corpses in various stages of putrefaction 

is recommended as an antidote to sensuality. 

And if the generic human body is comparable to a 

leaky bag of filth, the female body is regarded as even 

more disgusting. This perception is perhaps due to the 

fact that it has an additional aperture lacking in males, 

an aperture prone to emitting periodic quantities of 

blood (Faure, p. 57). In any case, literary representations 

of meditations of the loathsomeness of the body 

tend to be overwhelmingly androcentric. Such narratives, 

embedded in hagiographies of various denominations, 

are filled with scenes of dying and diseased 

women observed by male spectators. Female spectators 

who appear in such narratives are depicted in ways 

that conform to the andocentric orientation of the 

genre. Male bodies almost never function as objects of 

contemplation for women in these narratives. Instead, 

women contemplating the foulness of the body observe 

their own aging bodies or those of other women. While 

Buddhist discourse holds all bodies to be impermanent 

and subject to disease, such hagiographies suggest 

there is nothing so effective as a female body to make 

this basic truth concrete. 

As unsettling as many of these accounts may be, one 

should not assume that Buddhists are phobic about the 

body. The aversion such accounts induce is not an end 

in itself but a remedy for pleasure-seeking. Ultimately 

the outlook meditators seek is neither attraction nor 

revulsion but indifference. Contemplation of the foulness 

of the body is sometimes described as a “bitter 

medicine” that may be terminated once greed for bodily 

pleasures has been overcome. After having served 

its purpose as a counteractive practice, disgust for the 

body should ideally give way to a more neutral attitude. 

Moreover, in comparison with the bodies of nonhumans, 

the human body is a blessing. Buddhists 

across Asia recognize that human birth is rare, and 

many Buddhists regard human embodiment as an essential 

prerequisite for achieving awakening. Although 

human bodies may be of a gross material nature compared 

to those of divine beings dwelling in heavenly 

realms, humans enjoy occasions for awakening that 

gods and goddesses lack by virtue of the very sublime 

material conditions in which they live. Rebirth as a god 

or goddess is a worthy goal for LAITY, who may not be 

in immediate pursuit of awakening, but it holds little 

charm for those monks and nuns who do not wish to 

defer their awakening by hundreds of years. For them, 

embodiment as a human being is a valuable opportunity 

not to be wasted. 

Thus, much depends on the perspective when evaluating 

the status of the human body for Buddhists. If 

treated as an intrinsically valuable thing, the body can 

obstruct the experience of awakening, preventing one 

from seeing things as they really are. But when used 

instrumentally as a locus of meditation and insight, the 



body has immense value, more precious than a wishfulfilling 

jewel. Hence the Buddha is reported to have 

affirmed in the Sam yuttanikaya (Connected Discourses; 

1.62) that the body, with its attendant psychic 

processes, is the locus of salvation, the path to a transcendent, 

deathless condition. 

Subtle bodies, salvific bodies 

Thus the body may present the face of a friend or a 

foe, depending on what goals one wishes to achieve in 

life and how well one invests the body’s resources in 

achieving those goals. Monastic training, like a regimen 

of physical training, develops capacities unknown 

to those without self-discipline. If one dedicates oneself 

to the disciplined cultivation of Buddhist virtues 

(i.e., salutary physical, moral, and cognitive states), 

those virtues will be instantiated in the form and appearance 

of one’s body. Buddhist texts promote the 

goal of bodily transformation, promising sweetsmelling, 

beautiful, and healthy bodies to those who 

cultivate virtue, even while teaching that in their natural 

condition all bodies are smelly, impermanent 

havens of disease and death. Given this emphasis on 

bodily transformation through the cultivation of 

virtue, it should come as no surprise that Buddhists 

advocate contact with and contemplation of the bodies 

of buddhas and saints such as ARHATs and BOD- 

HISATTVAs. Contact with such beings is salutary not 

just because such beings are virtuous and helpful, but 

because their discipline has transformed them to the 

point where their bodies exude medicinal effects. Like 

walking apothecaries, Buddhist saints are said to heal 

disease upon contact with the afflicted just as their 

words heal the disease (duhkha) that according to Buddhists 

afflicts all unawakened beings. 

Accounts of the salutary effects of seeing buddhas, 

arhats, and bodhisattvas—or even formulating the aspiration 

to have such experiences—are commonplace 

in many genres of Buddhist literature. Seeing their radiant 

skin, bright eyes, and decorous deportment engenders 

serenity and joy; the sight is said to be at once 

tranquilizing and stimulating. This Buddhist emphasis 

on the benefits of seeing the body of the Buddha or 

other religious virtuosi can in part be explained by the 

South Asian milieu in which Buddhism arose. Many 

South Asian religious traditions promote the practice 

of participatory seeing (darśana) whereby the observer 

participates in the sacrality of the observed by visual 

contact. If one cannot gaze upon the bodies of Buddhist 

saints, one can nevertheless recollect the features 

of the body of the Buddha. The contemplative practice 

of recollecting the extraordinary features of the 

body of the Buddha, with its thirty-two major and 

eighty minor distinguishing marks, is common to all 

Buddhist traditions. The Buddha is also embodied in 

his teachings (dharma). While some Buddhists insist 

that this body of teaching is the only proper object of 

reverence and that adoration of the physical form is 

misguided, Kevin Trainor notes that textual passages 

warning against attachment to the Buddha’s physical 

form are outnumbered by passages advocating such 

devotion. 

The gift of the body 

In accordance with the principle that the body has no 

intrinsic value, but gains value through the manner in 

which it is used, Buddhists extol the practice of offering 

one’s body to others out of compassion. Tales of 

the former lives of the Buddha narrate many occasions 

in which the Buddha-to-be offered his flesh to starving 

animals at the expense of his life. Whereas THER- 

AVA DA Buddhists regard such altruistic practices as 

praiseworthy but not necessarily to be imitated, MA- 

HA YA NA Buddhists regard self-sacrifice as an essential 

component of the Buddhist path. 

In addition to offering their bodies as food for starving 

beings, followers of the bodhisattva path also gain 

merit by burning the body as an act of religious devotion. 

The locus classicus for the practice of SELF- 

IMMOLATION is an incident narrated in the LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). In a previous 

life, the bodhisattva Bhaisajyaraja ingested copious 

amounts of flammable substances and then set fire to 

his body as an offering to the buddhas. The burning 

of the entire body or parts of the body, such as an arm 

or a finger, is highly celebrated in Chinese Buddhist 

texts composed from the fifth through the tenth centuries. 

The practice continues today in symbolic form 

in Chinese Buddhist monastic ordinations: The ordinand’s 

eagerness to make such an offering is signaled 

by the burning of several places on the head with cones 

of incense. In preparing the body for immolation, Chinese 

Buddhists reportedly followed special grain-free 

diets that drew on Daoist traditions associated with the 

pursuit of immortality. James Benn has demonstrated 

that these grain-free diets were also used by Buddhist 

adepts in preparation for self-mummification, 

whereby the deceased adept’s body would serve an 

iconic function as an object of worship. 

Self-immolation has also been developed in interesting 

ways in Southeast Asia. During the Vietnam War, 

Vietnamese monks and nuns used self-immolation as 


65

B ON 

a means of political protest. They attracted considerable 

attention to their cause by performing public selfimmolations 

in protest against the Diem regime, 

which had imposed restrictive measures on the practice 

of Buddhism and the activities of Buddhist monks 

and nuns. 

When its sacrifice for the sake of others is advocated, 

the body is clearly an essential element of religious 

practice. However, even putting such heroic measures 

aside, one cannot embark on the bodhisattva path 

without regarding the body as an essential means of 

fulfilling one’s bodhisattva vows. One of the central 

vows of the bodhisattva is a statement that one is eager 

to undergo billions of repeated embodiments in 

the cycle of REBIRTH (sam sara) in order to help others 

achieve awakening. 

In contrast to the Mahayanist emphasis on postponing 

final awakening for eons and eons, Buddhist 

tantra (VAJRAYA NA) stresses speed of attainment, 

promising the achievement of buddhahood in one 

lifetime. The body is said to contain the seeds of buddhahood, 

the prerequisites for achieving full awakening 

in this lifetime. Hence the human body as a focus 

of practice is central to Vajrayana Buddhism. Practitioners 

regard the body as a microcosm of the universe, 

with all its gods, goddesses, and other powerful beings. 

Such beings are invoked and their powers harnessed 

for the goal of full awakening by touching various parts 

of the body using special hand gestures and by chanting 

MANTRAs or sacred utterances. 

See also: Anatman/Atman (No-Self/Self); Buddhahood 

and Buddha Bodies; Gender; Sexuality 

Bibliography 

Collins, Steven. “The Body in Theravada Buddhist Monasticism.” 

In Religion and the Body, ed. Sara Coakley. New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 1997. 

Das, Veena. “Paradigms of Body Symbolism: An Analysis of Selected 

Themes in Hindu Culture.” In Indian Religion, ed. 

Richard Burghart and Audrey Canthe. London: Curzon, 

1985. 

Dissanayake, Wimal. “Self and Body in Theravada Buddhism.” 

In Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, ed. Thomas P. 

Kasulis with Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake. Albany: 


Faure, Bernard. The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality. 


Pye, Michael. “Perceptions of the Body in Japanese Religion.” 

In Religion and the Body, ed. Sara Coakley. New York: Cambridge 


Trainor, Kevin. Relics, Ritual, and Representation in Buddhism: 

Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition. Cambridge, 

UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 

Wijayaratna, Mohan. Buddhist Monastic Life According to the 

Texts of the Theravada Tradition, tr. Claude Grangier and 

Steven Collins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 

Williams, Paul. “Some Mahayana Buddhist Perspectives on the 

Body.” In Religion and the Body, ed. Sara Coakley. New York: 


Zysk, Kenneth. Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine 

in the Buddhist Monastery. New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1991. 

BON 

LIZ WILSON 

Bon (pronounced pön) is often characterized as the indigenous, 

pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet. While not 

entirely untrue, such a description is misleading. There 

are clearly indigenous Tibetan elements in historical 

Bon, and some of these elements likely predate the arrival 

of Buddhism in Tibet. But because there was no 

effective Tibetan literary language before the introduction 

of Buddhism, there is scant evidence from 

which to reconstruct pre-Buddhist Bon. Moreover, because 

the Bon that is known from later sources (and 

exists to this day alongside Tibetan Buddhism) is a 

highly syncretic religious complex, deeply conditioned 

by its encounter with Indian (and probably other) 

forms of Buddhism, it cannot rightly be considered either 

indigenous or pre-Buddhist. 

Historical Bon itself claims to be a direct descendant 

of—indeed identical with—a religion known as 

Bon that existed during the centuries before the introduction 

of Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century. 

The few extant sources from the royal dynastic period 

in Tibet do suggest the existence during this period of 

a religious formation that may have been known as 

Bon, whose priests were called bon po, and perhaps also 

gshen. As reconstructed from these sources, this earlyor 

proto-Bon seems to have included a strong belief in 

an afterlife and to have involved a system of funerary 

rites, animal sacrifices, and royal consecration ceremonies 

as primary foci. It thus bears little resemblance 

to later Bon. 

There seems to have been some friction between 

proto-Bon and Buddhism in the dynastic period. Later 

sources from both traditions tell of Buddhist PERSE- 

CUTIONS of Bon, which the Buddhist king Khri srong 


B ON 

lde btsan (pronounced Trisong Detsen; r. 755–797 

C.E.) is said to have formally proscribed around 785. 

Buddhists tell of a subsequent Bon persecution of Buddhism. 

Both accounts share many similar features 

(banishing of priests, hiding of books for later recovery, 

etc.), so the historicity of many of the details is 

open to doubt, although nearly contemporaneous documents 

preserved in DUNHUANG do indicate some tension 

between the traditions. 

Later Bon considers its “founder” to have been the 

teacher Gshen rab mi bo (pronounced Shenrap Miwo), 

from the semimythical land of ’Ol mo lung ring. As in 

the MAHAYANA account of Śakyamuni Buddha, Gshen 

rab is said to have been an enlightened being who emanated 

in this world as the preordained teacher of the 

present world-age. Yet, unlike Śakyamuni, accounts 

of whom emphasize early renunciation of his kingdom 

and married life, Gshen rab is said to have 

remained a layman until late in life, working to propagate 

Bon as a prince, together with his many wives 

and offspring. 

The documented historical period of Bon begins 

with the “rediscovery” of many allegedly ancient Bon 

scriptures by Gshen chen klu dga’ (pronounced 

Shenchen Lugah, 996–1035) around 1017; these texts 

make up a substantial part of the current Bon CANON. 

Gshen chen klu dga’ was a native of west-central 

Gtsang province, and the majority of early Bon institutions 

were centered in that area. He and his disciples 

created the scriptural and institutional base for Bon 

during the next four centuries. In 1405 Shes rab rgyal 

mtshan (pronounced Shayrap Gyeltsen, 1356–1415) 

founded the monastery of Sman ri (pronounced Menree), 

which was to become the most important Bon 

center until the twentieth century. The eminent scholar 

of Bon, Per Kværne, has suggested that the Bon canon 

was fixed in this period, likely no later than 1450. 

Bon was reputedly persecuted again under the rule 

of the fifth DALAI LAMA (1617–1682) and during the 

succeeding two centuries, during which time Bon 

monasteries were closed, destroyed, or converted, 

though some scholars downplay the extent of this persecution. 

The canon was subjected to further revision 

in the mid-eighteenth century by Kun grol grags pa 

(pronounced Kundrol Takpa, 1700–?), who prepared 

a detailed catalogue of its scriptures. Subsequently, in 

the nineteenth century, Bon experienced something of 

a resurgence. The primarily Buddhist Non-sectarian 

(ris med) Movement, in which the Bon teacher Shar 

rdza bkra shis rgyal mtshan (pronounced Shardza 

Tashi Gyeltsen, 1858–1935) collaborated, expressed 

collegial respect for Bon and vice versa. The importance 

of the great perfection (rdzogs chen) and rediscovered 

treasure (gter ma) teachings in both the 

Non-sectarian Movement and Bon provided the foundation 

for mutual recognition and cross-fertilization. 

From this time until the present, there have been some 

who speak of Bon as the “fifth school” of Tibetan Buddhism, 

in addition to the RNYING MA (NYINGMA), 

SA SKYA (SAKYA), BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU), and DGE 

LUGS (GELUK). 

There are in fact many similarities between Bon and 

the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, which make such an 

identification—while ultimately untenable—not entirely 

unreasonable. In fact, the basic teachings of Bon 

are virtually identical to those found in Tibetan Buddhism. 

Both traditions commonly refer to the ideal, 

enlightened being by the term sangs rgyas (Sanskrit, 

buddha) and to enlightenment itself by the term byang 

chub (Sanskrit, BODHI [AWAKENING]). In addition to 

these exact correspondences, one also sometimes finds 

the use of alternative, but functionally equivalent, 

terms. For instance, the term bon is contrasted with 

chos (dharma), a key word in Buddhist thought. Yet, 

bon occurs in Bon literature in exactly the same contexts 

as chos does in Buddhism; Bon texts speak, for 

example, of a “bon body” (bon sku), which is essentially 

the same as the Buddhist “dharma body” (chos 

sku), both serving as the first of a triad that includes 

the beatific body (longs sku) and the emanation body 

(sprul sku). The structure of their canons is also similar. 

Like the Buddhists, the Bonpos divide their sacred 

scriptures into two classes—one containing scriptures 

of revealed word (in the case of Bon, those attributed 

to Gshen rab), the other the writings of later saints. In 

both traditions, the collection of revealed scriptures is 

known as the Bka’ ’gyur (pronounced kanjur). The 

Buddhists refer to their collection of commentaries as 

the Bstan ’gyur (pronounced tanjur), while the Bonpos 

call theirs the Brten ’gyur (a homonym). 

Although Bon appears in many respects to be a completely 

“buddhicized” tradition in its forms, doctrines, 

and practices, many old indigenous traditions remain 

in the core of Bon, especially with regard to COSMOL- 

OGY, sacred narratives, and pantheon. Thus, though the 

Bon revealed in the sources available to scholars cannot 

be considered the indigenous, pre-Buddhist religion 

of Tibet, these distinctively Bon elements do 

provide a glimpse of what may have been some of the 

ancient religious forms of pre-Buddhist Tibet. 


67

B OROBUDUR 


Bibliography 

Karmay, Samten Gyaltsen, ed. and trans. The Treasury of Good 

Sayings: A Tibetan History of Bon. London: Oxford University 

Press, 1972. 

Karmay, Samten Gyaltsen. The Arrow and the Spindle: Studies 

in History, Myths, Rituals, and Beliefs in Tibet. Kathmandu, 

Nepal: Mandala Book Point, 1998. 

Kværne, Per. “The Canon of the Tibetan Bonpos.” Indo-Iranian 

Journal 16 (1974): nr. 1, 18–56; nr. 2, 96–144. 

Kværne, Per. “Śakyamuni in the Bon Religion.” Temenos 25 

(1989): 33–40. 

Kværne, Per. “The Bon Religion of Tibet: A Survey of Research.” 

In The Buddhist Forum, Vol. 3, ed. Tadeusz Skorupski and 

Ulrich Pagel. New Delhi: Heritage, 1995. 

Kværne, Per. The Bon Religion of Tibet: The Iconography of a 

Living Tradition. London: Serindia, 1995. Reprint, Boston: 

Shambhala, 2001. 

Martin, Dan. Unearthing Bon Treasures: Life and Contested 

Legacy of a Tibetan Scripture Revealer, with a General Bibliography 

of Bon. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2001. 

Snellgrove, David, ed. and trans. The Nine Ways of Bon: Excerpts 

from the gZi-brjid. London: Oxford University Press, 1967. 

Reprint, Boulder, CO: Prajña Press, 1980. 

BOROBUDUR 

CHRISTIAN K. WEDEMEYER 

Borobudur is a monumental structure that was erected 

in the Kedu plain in south central Java, on the foundation 

of an older shrine of unknown form. Construction 

began about 790 C.E., and alterations 

continued to be made until approximately 850 C.E. 

From above, Borobudur resembles a MAN D ALA, in that 

it consists of a large STU PA (burial mound) surrounded 

by three round terraces, on each of which are more 

stupas (108 in all); farther from the central stupa are 

four square terraces. In profile, the monument resembles 

a mountain, since the transition from each terrace 

is marked by a staircase rising to the next. 

Reliefs (1,350 panels) illustrate texts, such as JATAKA 

and AVADANA tales, the Mahakarmavibhaṅga, the 

LALITAVISTARA, the Gandavyu ha, and the Bhadracari. 

Niches atop the walls of the galleries contain BUDDHA 

IMAGES. These images exhibit different hand positions 

according to their location on the monument. These 

hand positions, or mudra, symbolize the conquest of 

illusion, charity, meditation, dispelling of fear, and 

teaching. The seventy-two stupas on the round terraces, 

which are hollow, contain images whose hand 

positions symbolize the Buddha’s first sermon in Deer 

Park at Benares. 

This combination of stupa, mountain, and mandala 

was never replicated elsewhere, but its influence is visible 

in Cambodia and through that intermediary in 

Thailand and Burma (Myanmar). No inscriptions survive 

to tell us what the monument signified to the Javanese, 

but the ten relief series suggest that it may have 

functioned to enable selected individuals to pass symbolically 

through the ten stages on the PATH to becoming 

a BODHISATTVA. The form of Buddhism 

followed by the builders of Borobudur emphasized the 

role of bodhisattvas, but was less esoteric than later expressions 

in Java and Sumatra wherein such deities as 

Vajrasattva and Trailokyavijaya were emphasized. The 

bodhisattvas Mañjuśr and Samantabhadra play key 

roles in the texts narrated on Borobudur. These deities 

were also popular in East Asia at this time. 

The monument’s construction coincides with a period 

during which a dynasty known as the Śailendra 

(mountain lord) dominated central Java politically. 

Around 830 C.E. a Buddhist queen married a Hindu 

king of the Sañjaya line. The great Hindu monument 

of Loro Jonggrang at Prambanam was constructed between 

about 830 and 856. Narrative reliefs depicting 

the Ramayana and Krsna texts on Loro Jonggrang may 

have been motivated by the desire to present a Hindu 

response to Borobudur. 

See also: Huayan Art; Indonesia, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Gómez, Luis, and Woodward, Hiram W., Jr., eds. Barabudur: 

History and Significance of a Buddhist Monument. Berkeley, 

CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1981. 

Miksic, John N. Borobudur: Golden Tales of the Buddhas. Berkeley, 

CA: Periplus Editions, 1990. 

BSAM YAS (SAMYE) 

JOHN N. MIKSIC 

Founded around 779 C.E., Bsam yas (Samye) was Tibet’s 

first monastery. Although a few temples of worship 

had been built earlier in Tibet, Bsam yas was the 

first fully functioning monastery. Upon its completion, 


B SAM YAS D EBATE 

the first seven Tibetan Buddhist monks were ordained 

by Śantaraksita, the famous abbot of the Indian 

monastery Vikramaśla. Soon after, the famous BSAM 

YAS DEBATE was held, ostensibly to decide which form 

of Buddhism Tibetans would follow, that of India or 

that of China. 

Bsam yas was built during the reign of King Khri 

srong lde btsan (r. 755–797), the second of the three 

great Buddhist kings of Tibet’s early imperial period. 

This king had invited Śantaraksita to Tibet to assist him 

in establishing Buddhism as the state religion. According 

to traditional accounts, when the king began 

work on his new monastery, local spirits who were opposed 

to the foreign religion created obstacles so numerous 

that not even the building’s foundation could 

be laid. Śantaraksita, whose strengths lay in monastic 

learning and not in battling demonic forces, could not 

help. The king was forced to find someone trained in 

the arts of Buddhist tantra. Śantaraksita recommended 

the renowned master, PADMASAMBHAVA, from the 

kingdom of Uddiyana in northwestern India. Upon 

Padmasambhava’s arrival, the great tantrika quickly 

subdued the troublesome spirits, forcing them to take 

vows to forever protect Buddhism in Tibet. 

Bsam yas played a central role in Khri srong lde 

btsan’s lifelong project to make Buddhism the state 

religion of Tibet. At the time of its construction, the 

Tibetan empire was at the height of its power. In 763, 

Tibetans even occupied the Chinese capital of 

Chang’an, where they installed a puppet emperor for a 

brief time. Bsam yas was built as a symbol of Tibet’s 

newfound international prestige, and the central cathedral’s 

three stories were designed in the traditional architectural 

styles of India, China, and Tibet, respectively. 

Bsam yas’s universalism was further reflected in the 

layout of the whole monastic complex—a cosmogram 

of the Indian world system. According to this system, 

the central axis of Mount Sumeru is surrounded by 

four continents, one in each of the cardinal directions. 

Similarly at Bsam yas, around the central cathedral 

were built four buildings, their shapes corresponding 

to those of the continents. 

The monastery was also built to represent a threedimensional 

MAN D ALA in a design modeled on the 

great Indian Buddhist monastery of Otantapuri, located 

in today’s Bihar. The particular mandala represented 

by Bsam yas seems to have been that of the 

Buddha Vairocana. Recent scholarship has suggested 

that the Tibetan imperial cult may have given special 

prominence to this deity, and that this close association 

was also reflected in the arrangement of Bsam yas. 

According to early sources, a statue of Vairocana was 

originally positioned on the second floor as the central 

image; another Vairocana statue, this in his four-faced 

Sarvavid form, was installed on the top floor. 

The same layout can still be observed. Bsam yas was 

severely damaged a number of times by fires (seventeenth 

century), earthquakes and more fires (nineteenth 

century), and Chinese invaders (twentieth 

century), but the restorations seem to have remained 

largely faithful to its original plan. The central cathedral 

was rebuilt in 1989 following the most recent desecrations, 

and renovations continued throughout the 

1990s on other parts of the complex. 


Bibliography 

Chan, Victor. Tibet Handbook: A Pilgrimage Guide. Chico, CA: 

Moon, 1994. 

Kapstein, Matthew. The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, 

Contestation, and Memory. New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2001. 

Snellgrove, David, and Richardson, Hugh. A Cultural History of 

Tibet (1968). Boston: Shambala, 1995. 

BSAM YAS DEBATE 

JACOB P. DALTON 

Among Western scholars, the Bsam yas Debate has 

generated more speculation than any other single event 

in Tibetan history. Around 797 C.E., a philosophical 

debate is said to have taken place at BSAM YAS (SAMYE), 

the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet. The debate was 

held in order to decide, in effect, which form of Buddhism 

would be adopted by the Tibetan royal court— 

that of the Chinese CHAN SCHOOL or Indian Buddhism. 

The debate was presided over by the Tibetan king, Khri 

srong lde btsan (r. 755–797), and the two sides were 

represented by the Chinese master Huashang Moheyan 

(Sanskrit, Mahayana) and the Indian scholar Kamalaśla, 

respectively. According to Tibetan sources, 

the Indian side was declared the winner; Moheyan and 

his disciples were banished from the country, and Indian 

Buddhism was established as the state religion. 

The alleged victory for the Indian side has strongly 

shaped Tibetans’ understanding of their own religious 

heritage. 


69

B SAM YAS D EBATE 

The philosophical issue at stake was how enlightenment 

should be attained—immediately or after a period 

of extensive training. Thus, according to the 

famous history (Chos ’byung) composed by BU STON 

(BU TÖN) rin chen grub (1290–1364), Moheyan opened 

the debate by explaining that just as clouds, be they 

white or black, obscure the sky, so do all activities, be 

they virtuous or nonvirtuous, perpetuate REBIRTH in 

SAM SARA. Therefore, he concluded, the cessation of all 

mental activity leads immediately to the highest liberation. 

Kamalaśla responded to this philosophical quietism 

by explaining the stages of analytic meditation. 

He stressed that even nonconceptual wisdom results 

from a specific process of gradual analysis. Moheyan 

was soundly defeated, and some of his disciples were 

so humiliated that they committed suicide. 

Bu ston’s account, which is largely representative of 

the normative Tibetan historical tradition, is clearly a 

biased one. He frames his narrative with a prophecy 

made by Śantaraksita, the Indian master who helped 

to establish Bsam yas and ordained the first nine Buddhist 

monks in Tibet. Here, shortly before his death, 

Śantaraksita predicts a controversy between two Buddhist 

groups and instructs that his disciple, Kamalaśla 

of Nalanda, should be summoned to resolve the dispute. 

Bu ston’s account then closes with a story vilifying 

Moheyan, in which the Chinese master sends some 

“Chinese butchers” to murder Kamalaśla by squeezing 

his kidneys. 

This Tibetan version of events has been complicated 

by the discovery of a Chinese work titled the Dunwu 

dasheng zhengli jue (Verification of the Greater Vehicle 

of Sudden Awakening). The text was unearthed from 

the caves at DUNHUANG, a region once frequented by 

Moheyan. A translation was first published by Paul 

Demiéville in his 1952 article, Le concile de Lhasa. The 

Chinese work purports to be a word-for-word record 

of the debate written by Wangxi, a direct disciple of 

Moheyan. Its version of events differs radically from 

those of the various Tibetan sources; in this version, 

Moheyan wins the debate. This discovery has led some 

scholars to doubt the very existence of the debate, suggesting 

that instead it should be viewed as indicative 

of an ongoing controversy through a series of only indirect 

encounters between Chinese and Indian factions 

at the Tibetan royal court. That said, it remains that 

all available sources agree that a debate of some kind 

did take place. 

It is unclear whether Kamalaśla knew about the 

Chinese text when, apparently at the Tibetan king’s request, 

he composed his three famous treatises summarizing 

the debate’s central themes, each called a 

Bhavanakrama (Stages of Meditation). The Indian and 

Chinese works address many of the same topics, but 

part ways on a number of important points. The Chinese 

work, for example, gives considerable attention 

to the doctrine of TATHAGATAGARBHA (buddhanature), 

while Kamalaśla does not even mention 

it. Similarly, the Chinese work remains silent on a 

number of issues that are crucial to Kamalaśla’s 

argument—the need to develop compassion and the 

stages of meditation are two examples. Both texts, it 

seems, reflect their authors’ concerns with developments 

in their own countries more than with each 

other. It is unclear whether all three of Kamalaśla’s 

works were composed in Tibet. 

Indeed, the teachings of Moheyan should be understood 

within the context of eighth-century Chinese 

Chan, itself a milieu of highly charged polemics. According 

to other Dunhuang documents, Moheyan belonged 

to the lineage of the Northern school of Chan. 

This school had already come under attack earlier in 

the eighth century by Shenhui (684–758) of the socalled 

Southern school, and its lineage continued to be 

contested from many sides throughout Moheyan’s lifetime. 

Such a polarizing environment certainly would 

have influenced Moheyan, and the fragments of his 

teachings found at Dunhuang support the common 

view of him as extreme in his advocacy of immediate 

enlightenment. 

In addition to its doctrinal ramifications, the Bsam 

yas Debate certainly had a strong political component. 

The nature of these more political concerns can 

be detected in yet another work that discusses the debate. 

The Sba bzhed (Testimony of Ba) is an early Tibetan 

account of the relevant period, purportedly 

written by a minister to Khri srong lde btsan. Several 

editions of the work exist, and all agree that the Indian 

side won. A close reading of the various Sba 

bzhed editions suggests that a central issue driving the 

debate may have been the Tibetan court’s adoption 

of the Indian Buddhist cosmological framework. This 

framework, with its “lawlike operation of karma,” 

may have offered eighth-century Tibetans an attractive 

foundation for political governance. According 

to this reading, it was the antinomian aspect of the 

popular Chinese teachings that threatened the new 

political order. 

All such interpretations of the Bsam yas Debate remain, 

however, just that—interpretations. All we can 


B UDDHA( S ) 

say for certain is that the debate has served a number 

of different ends. In the later Tibetan tradition, the debate 

was used as evidence for India’s importance as the 

only authentic source for Buddhist teachings. The debate 

also served as a weapon in polemical disputes between 

opposing Tibetan Buddhist groups. Perhaps the 

most well-known example of this trend appears in the 

writings of SA SKYA PAN D ITA (SAKYA PAN D ITA, 

1182–1251). There, the author equates the Moheyan 

side with the Tibetan tradition of Rdzogs chen by criticizing 

the “Self-Sufficient White Remedy” (dkar po 

chig thub) doctrine of the BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU) pa for 

being like the “Rdzogs chen of the Chinese tradition” 

(rgya nag lugs kyi rdzogs chen). Possible links between 

Chinese Chan and early Tibetan Rdzogs chen remain 

unclear, but the two teachings appear to bear some 

similarities, and these were certainly what caught the 

attention of later Tibetan polemicists. 

See also: Bodhi (Awakening); Tibet 

Bibliography 

Demiéville, Paul. Le concile de Lhasa: une controverse sur le 

quiétisme entre bouddhistes de l’Inde et de la Chine au VIIIe 

siècle de l’ère chrétienne. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de 

France, 1952. 

Gómez, Luis O. “Indian Materials on the Doctrine of Sudden 

Enlightenment.” In Early Ch’an in China and Tibet, ed. 

Whalen Lai and Lewis Lancaster. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities 

Press, 1983. 

Gómez, Luis O. “The Direct and Gradual Approaches of Zen Master 

Mahayana: Fragments of the Teachings of Mo-ho-yen.” 

In Studies in Ch’an and Hua-Yen, ed. Robert M. Grimello and 

Peter N. Gregory. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1983. 

Jackson, David. “Sa skya pandita the ‘Polemicist’: Ancient Debates 

and Modern Interpretations.” Journal of the International 

Association of Buddhist Studies 13, no. 2 (1990): 

17–116. 



Press, 2001. 

Obermiller, Eugéne. History of Buddhism (Chos-hbyung) by Buston, 

2 vols. Heidelberg, Germany: Harrassowitz, Leipzig, 

1931, 1932. 

Wangdu, Pasang, and Diemberger, Hildegard. Dba’ bzhed: The 

Royal Narrative Concerning the Bringing of the Buddha’s Doctrine 

to Tibet. Vienna: Verlag der osterreichischen akademie 

der wissenschaften, 2000. 


BUDDHA(S) 

The term buddha, literally “awakened one,” is one of 

many Indian epithets applied to the founder of the 

Buddhist religion. A buddha is defined, first and foremost, 

as one who has undergone the profoundly transformative 

experience known as NIRVAN A and who, as 

a result, will never be subject to the cycle of birth and 

death again. Women and men who experienced this 

same awakening by following in the footsteps of the 

Buddha were referred to as ARHATs or “worthy ones,” 

an epithet also applied to the Buddha himself. These 

disciples, however, were not themselves referred to as 

buddhas, for that term was reserved for those rare individuals 

who experienced BODHI (AWAKENING) on 

their own in a world with no knowledge of Buddhism. 

Moreover, to attain awakening without the help of a 

teacher was not in itself sufficient to be classified as a 

buddha, for those who did so but did not teach others 

how to replicate that experience were known instead 

as PRATYEKABUDDHAs, a term variously explained as 

“individually enlightened” or “enlightened through 

(an understanding of) causation.” In addition to attaining 

nirvana without assistance from others, the 

classical definition of a buddha includes teaching others 

what one has found. A buddha is, in sum, not only 

the discoverer of a timeless truth, but the founder of a 

religious community. 

It is possible—though far from certain—that the 

earliest Buddhist tradition knew of only one such figure, 

the so-called historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, 

also known as Śakyamuni (sage of the Śakya 

clan). But the notion that other buddhas had preceded 

him appeared at an early date, and may well have been 

assumed by Śakyamuni himself. Over the next four to 

five centuries Buddhists came to believe that other 

such buddhas would also appear in the distant future; 

some even claimed that buddhas were living at the 

present time, though in worlds unimaginably distant 

from our own. While the belief in past and future buddhas 

came to be accepted by all Buddhist schools, the 

idea of the simultaneous existence of multiple buddhas 

appears to have gained general currency only in 

MAHAYANA circles. 

Buddhas of the past 

The earliest datable evidence for a belief in the existence 

of buddhas prior to Śakyamuni comes from the 

time of King AŚOKA (ca. 300–232 B.C.E.), who claimed 

in one of his inscriptions to have enlarged the memorial 

mound (STU PA) of a previous buddha named 


71

B UDDHA( S ) 

Konakamana (Pali, Konagamana; Sanskrit, Konakamuni 

or Kanakamuni). No names of other buddhas are 

mentioned, and there is no way to determine whether 

Aśoka viewed Konakamana as belonging to a larger lineage 

scheme. Within a century or so after Aśoka’s time, 

however—and possibly much earlier, depending on 

what dates are assigned to materials in the Pali canon— 

other names had been added to the list as well. 

Seven buddhas. A wide range of literary, artistic, 

and epigraphical sources refers to “seven buddhas of 

the past,” a list including Śakyamuni and six prior 

buddhas: Vipaśyin, Śikhin, Viśvabhu, Krakucchanda, 

Kanakamuni, and Kaśyapa. A terminus ante quem for 

the emergence of this tradition is again supplied by an 

inscription, in this case on a stupa railing at Bharhut 

in north-central India (ca. second century B.C.E.), 

where Śakyamuni’s predecessors (with the exception of 

Śikhin, where the railing has been damaged) are mentioned 

by name. The same six buddhas, together with 

Śakyamuni, are prominently featured on the gateways 

to the great stupa at SAN CI (ca. first century B.C.E.). 

Subsequently, they appear, both in artistic works and 

in inscriptions, at a host of other Buddhist sites. 

The widespread agreement on both the number 

and sequence of these previous buddhas in surviving 

sources—including canonical scriptures preserved in 

Pali and Chinese that can be attributed to several distinct 

ordination lineages (nikayas)—suggests that the 

list of seven was formulated at an early date. More 

specifically, it points to the likelihood that this list 

had been standardized prior to the first major schism 

in Buddhist history, the split between the selfproclaimed 

“Elders” (Sthaviras) and “Majorityists” 

(Mahasam ghikas, or Great Assembly), which took 

place between a century and a century and a half after 

the Buddha’s death. 

The most detailed discussion of Śakyamuni’s predecessors 

in early (i.e., non-Mahayana) canonical literature 

is found in the Pali Mahapadana-suttanta 

(Dlghanikaya, sutta no. 14) and in other recensions of 

the same text preserved in Chinese translation (Taisho 

1[1], 2, 3, 4, and 125[48.45]). Here the lives of the seven 

buddhas, from Vipaśyin (Pali, Vipass) to Śakyamuni 

himself, are related in virtually identical terms, from a 

penultimate existence in the Tusita heaven, to a miraculous 

birth, to the experience of nirvana and a subsequent 

preaching career. Only in minor details—such 

as the names of their parents, their life spans, and the 

caste into which they were born—can these biographies 

be distinguished. 

Implicit in this replication of a single paradigmatic 

pattern is the assumption that all buddhas-to-be (Sanskrit, 

BODHISATTVA) must carry out an identical series 

of practices, after which they will teach a dharma identical 

to that of their predecessors. In subsequent centuries 

this would lead to the idea that by replicating 

the deeds of Śakyamuni and his predecessors in every 

detail, other Buddhists, too, could strive to become 

buddhas rather than arhats. 

Not all the members of this list of seven, despite 

their parallel life stories, appear to have played equally 

significant roles in cultic practice. If we divide the list 

into subgroups of “archaic” buddhas said to have lived 

many eons ago (Vipaśyin, Śikhin, and Viśvabhu), and 

“ancient” buddhas described as preceding Śakyamuni 

in the present eon (Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, and 

Kaśyapa), a clear pattern can be discerned. While the 

ancient buddhas are all associated with known geographical 

locations, the towns where the archaic buddhas 

are said to have lived have no clear historical 

referent. When the Chinese monk FAXIAN (ca. 337–ca. 

418) visited India at the beginning of the fifth century 

C.E., for example, he was taken to three towns in northeast 

India (all within range of the city of Śravast), 

where the ancient buddhas were said to have lived, and 

he was shown stupas said to contain their remains. No 

comparable pilgrimage sites connected with the three 

archaic buddhas are mentioned, either in Faxian’s report 

or in those of subsequent Chinese visitors. Based 

on surviving images and inscriptions, as well as on further 

data found in the travel accounts of Faxian and 

later Chinese pilgrims, J. Ph. Vogel has suggested that 

the buddha Kaśyapa may have been an especially popular 

object of veneration. 

Twenty-five buddhas. An expanded version of the 

list of seven, totaling twenty-five buddhas in all, is attested 

in the Pali Buddhavam sa, though it appears to 

be little known outside the THERAVADA tradition. This 

list extends still further into the past to begin with the 

buddha DIPAM KARA, in whose presence the future 

Śakyamuni made his initial vow to attain buddhahood. 

Although the story of Dpam kara is not included in 

the Pali collection of JATAKA tales recounting Śakyamuni’s 

former lives, it does appear in the Nidanakatha, 

an introduction to that collection that is generally assigned 

to the fifth century C.E. and quotes directly from 

earlier sources such as the Buddhavam sa and the 

Cariyapitaka. The story is frequently depicted in art 

from the Gandhara region, though it is virtually absent 

from other Buddhist sites, suggesting that it may 


B UDDHA( S ) 

have originated at the northwestern fringes of the Indian 

cultural sphere. 

Though no occurrence of the list of twenty-five buddhas 

of the past has yet been identified in Mahayana 

scriptures, the first buddha in this series, Dpam kara, 

plays a significant role in these texts. Since Śakyamuni 

Buddha was portrayed as having made his initial vow 

to become a buddha in the presence of Dpam kara, this 

motif became quite common in the writings of advocates 

of the bodhisattva path in subsequent centuries. 

Buddhas of the future 

The earliest lists of multiple buddhas referred only to 

Śakyamuni and his predecessors. Around the turn of 

the millennium, however, a shorter list of five— 

consisting of four buddhas of the past (the ancient 

buddhas Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, Kaśyapa, together 

with Śakyamuni) along with one buddha of the 

future (MAITREYA; Pali, Metteyya)—was compiled. 

The weight of this tradition is still anchored firmly in 

the past, but the door was now open to speculation on 

other buddhas who might also appear in the future. 

Besides introducing a buddha-of-the-future for the 

first time, this list was also innovative in its optimism 

about the nature of the present age, for these five figures 

were labeled buddhas of the bhadrakalpa (fortunate 

eon). 

The list of five buddhas remained standard in the 

Theravada tradition, but a longer list of one thousand 

buddhas of the bhadrakalpa frequently appears in 

Mahayana scriptures. An intermediary list, consisting 

of five hundred buddhas of the bhadrakalpa, appears 

to have circulated mainly in Central Asia. In all of these 

systems Maitreya holds pride of place as the next buddha 

to appear in our world. Like all buddhas-to-be, he 

is said to be spending his penultimate life in the Tusita 

heaven, from which he surveys our world to determine 

the right time and place to be born. 

Estimates varied as to the amount of time that 

would elapse between our own age and the coming of 

Maitreya. One of the most common figures was 5.6 billion 

years; other traditions offered a figure of 560 million. 

While many Buddhists worked to acquire merit 

in order to be born here on earth in that distant era 

when Maitreya would at last attain buddhahood, others 

strove to be reborn more immediately in his presence 

in the Tusita heaven. Still others strove for 

visionary encounters with Maitreya, through which 

they could see him in his heavenly realm even before 

departing from this life. 

Buddhas of the present 

All of the traditions discussed above share the assumption 

that only one buddha can appear in the 

world at any given time. Each buddha is portrayed as 

having discovered a truth about reality (i.e., an understanding 

of the dharma) that had, prior to his time, 

been utterly lost. Since a buddha can appear, therefore, 

only in a world without any knowledge of Buddhism, 

only one such figure can exist at a time. 

This restriction applies, however, only if one posits 

the existence of just one world system, and around the 

turn of the millennium some Buddhists began to 

articulate a new view of the universe that consisted 

not of one, but of hundreds or thousands of such 

worlds. This made possible, for the first time, the idea 

that other buddhas might currently be living and 

teaching, albeit in worlds unimaginably distant from 

our own. Scriptures reflecting this perspective speak 

of other world systems located “throughout the ten 

directions”—that is, in the four cardinal directions, the 

four intermediate directions, the zenith, and the nadir. 

Many Indian texts refer simply to these buddhas of 

the ten directions in the aggregate, but occasionally 

particular figures are named, some of whom appear to 

have gained a strong following in India. By far the most 

prominent are the buddha AKSOBHYA, said to dwell in 

a world known as Abhirati (extreme delight) far to the 

east, and the buddha AMITABHA (also known as 

Amitayus), dwelling in the land of Sukhavat (blissful) 

in the distant west. These two figures, together with 

others currently presiding over comparably glorious 

realms, have come to be known in English-language 

studies as celestial buddhas. 

The term celestial buddha has no precise equivalent 

in Sanskrit (nor for that matter in Chinese or Tibetan), 

yet it can serve as a convenient label for those buddhas 

who are presently living and teaching in worlds other 

than our own and into whose lands believers may aspire 

to be reborn. Conditions in these lands are portrayed 

as idyllic, comparable in many respects to 

Buddhist heavens; indeed, this comparison is made explicit 

in scriptures describing the worlds of celestial 

buddhas, such as the Aksobhyavyu ha and the larger 

SUKHAVATIVYU HA-SU TRA. Yet these realms are not 

heavens in the strict sense, but “amputated” world systems, 

shorn only of the lower realms (durgati) of hellbeings, 

animals, and ghosts. 

In addition to inhabiting such glorious places— 

said to be the by-product of their activities as bodhisattvas, 

and in some cases (most notably in the 


73

B UDDHA( S ) 

Sukhavatlvyu ha) described as resulting from specific 

“world-designing” vows—celestial buddhas, like the 

archaic buddhas of our own world, are described as 

having immensely long life spans. Yet the factors that 

elicited these seemingly parallel circumstances are not 

the same. In the case of the archaic buddhas, their long 

life spans are the corollary of their being placed at a 

point in the cycle of evolution-and-devolution where 

human life spans in general stretch to between sixty 

thousand and eighty thousand years; the same is true 

of the future buddha Maitreya, who is scheduled to 

appear in our world when the maximum life span of 

eighty thousand years has again arrived (Nattier 

1991). In the case of celestial buddhas, on the other 

hand, their long life spans are necessitated by their role 

as the presiding buddhas in other realms to which believers 

from other worlds might aspire to be reborn. 

Such an aspiration for rebirth makes sense, of course, 

only if the believer is confident that the buddha in 

question will still be alive when he or she arrives. 

Celestial buddhas are not, however, described as 

immortal; the Aksobhyavyu ha makes much of Aksobhya’s 

eventual parinirvana and autocremation, while 

early translations of the Sukhavatlvyu make it clear 

that Avalokiteśvara will succeed to the position of 

reigning buddha of Sukhavat after Amitabha has 

passed away. Thus the lives of these buddhas—while 

far more glorious in circumstances and far longer in 

duration—still echo the pattern set by Śakyamuni. 

Other developments would subsequently take place, 

such as the claim that Śakyamuni Buddha had already 

attained nirvana prior to his appearance in this world 

and the concomitant assumption that his life span was 

immeasurably, though not infinitely, long, and the 

even grander claim that all buddhas who appear in this 

or any other world are merely manifestations of an 

eternal dharma-body. Throughout most of the history 

of Buddhism in India, however, buddhas continued to 

be viewed as human beings who had achieved awakening 

as Śakyamuni did, even as the list of their qualities 

and their attainments grew ever more glorious. 

See also: Buddhahood and Buddha Bodies; Lotus 

Sutra (Saddharmapundarlka-sutra); Pure Lands 

Bibliography 

The buddha Amitabha, a celestial buddha who resides in the Western 

paradise of Sukhavatl. (Vietnamese sculpture, eighteenth or 

nineteenth century.) © Reunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, 

NY. Reproduced by permission. 

Gómez, Luis O. The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha 

of Measureless Light. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1996. 

Harrison, Paul M. The Samadhi of Direct Encounter with 

the Buddhas of the Present: An Annotated English Translation 

of the Tibetan Version of the Pratyutpanna-Buddha- 

Sam mukhavasthita-Samadhi-Su tra. Tokyo: International 

Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1990. 

Nattier, Jan. Once upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist 

Prophecy of Decline. Fremont, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 

1991. 

Nattier, Jan. “The Realm of Aksobhya: A Missing Piece in the 

History of Pure Land Buddhism.” Journal of the International 


Norman, K. R. “The Pratyeka-Buddha in Buddhism and Jainism.” 

In Buddhist Studies Ancient and Modern: Collected Papers 

on South Asia, no. 4, ed. Philip Denwood and Alexander 

Piatigorsky. London: Centre of South Asian Studies, University 

of London, 1983. 

Sponberg, Alan, and Hardacre, Helen, eds. Maitreya: The Future 

Buddha. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1988. 

Vogel, J. Ph. “The Past Buddhas and Kaśyapa in Indian Art and 

Epigraphy.” In Asiatica: Festschrift Friedrich Weller, ed. Johannes 

Schubert and Ulrich Schneider. Leipzig, Germany: 


JAN NATTIER 


B UDDHAGHOSA 

BUDDHACARITA 

The Buddhacarita (Acts of the Buddha) by AŚVAGHOSA 

is a second-century C.E. biography recounting in ornate 

verse the life of the Buddha from his birth to the 

distribution of his relics. The epic poem comprises 

twenty-eight chapters, only fourteen of which are extant 

in the original Sanskrit. The remainder are preserved 

in Tibetan and Chinese translations. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the; Sanskrit, Buddhist Literature 

in 

Bibliography 

Beal, Samuel, trans. The Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king: A Life of Buddha, 

by Aśvaghosha Bodhisattva. Reprint edition, Delhi: 

Motilal Banarsidass, 1964. 

Johnston, E. H., trans. “The Buddha’s Mission and Last Journey 

(Buddhacarita, xv to xxviii).” Acta Orientalia 15 (1937): 

26–32, 85–111, 231–292. 

Johnston, E. H., trans. The Buddhacarita, or, Acts of the Buddha. 

Reprint edition, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1972. 

BUDDHADA SA 


Buddhadasa (Ngeaum Panich, 1906–1993), a Thai 

Buddhist monk and scholar, was a prolific commentator 

on the Pali literature of the THERAVA DA school 

and an influential preceptor of ENGAGED BUDDHISM. 

Ordained at the age of twenty-one, Buddhadasa became 

widely known for his critical intellect, his interest 

in meditation, and his gifts as a teacher. He founded 

Suan Mokh (Garden of Liberation), an important 

monastery and international center for engaged Buddhist 

thought and training in Thailand. In his voluminous 

writings, Buddhadasa developed the ideas of 

dhammic socialism, spiritual politics, fellowship of restraint 

(saṅgamaniyama), and interfaith dialogue 

based on Buddhist principles of selflessness, interdependence, 

and nonattachment. 

Bibliography 

Jackson, Peter A. Buddhadasa: A Buddhist Thinker for the Modern 

World. Bangkok, Thailand: Siam Society, 1988. 

Santikaro, Bhikkhu. “Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: Life and Society 

through the Natural Eyes of Voidness.” In Engaged Buddhism: 

Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, ed. Christopher 

S. Queen and Sallie B. King. Albany: State University 

of New York Press, 1996. 

Swearer, Donald K., ed. Me and Mine: Selected Essays of Bhikkhu 

Buddhadasa. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

1989. 

BUDDHAGHOSA 


The most famous and prolific of the Pali commentators 

and exegetes, Buddhaghosa was active at the beginning 

of the fifth century C.E. According to the 

Mahavam sa (Great Chronicle), he was an Indian brahmin 

of considerable scholarly genius who hailed from 

the kingdom of Magadha. He was converted to Buddhism 

by a monk named Revata and went to Sri Lanka 

at his teacher’s instigation to study the Sinhalese commentaries 

at the Mahavihara Monastery. The monks 

there tested him by asking him to explicate two 

dharma verses. The result was the Visuddhimagga 

(Path of Purity), a work that remains the greatest compendium 

of THERAVADA thought ever written and that 

has had a lasting impact on the tradition. In three 

parts, the Visuddhimagga thoroughly and systematically 

treats all aspects of the topics of morality, meditation, 

and wisdom. 

Buddhaghosa subsequently went on to write commentaries 

on many works of the Pali CANON. Chief 

among them are separate commentaries on the Vinayapitaka 

(Book of the Discipline); on the Dlgha, Majjhima, 

Sam yutta, and Aṅguttara nikayas (the books of 

long, middle, kindred, and gradual sayings); and on 

the books of the ABHIDHARMA. In these works, which 

contain both exegeses of words and contextual excursi, 

Buddhaghosa succeeded in more or less defining the 

ways scholars have read the Theravada canonical texts 

ever since. Buddhaghosa’s life story may also be found, 

greatly embellished, in a late Pali chronicle known as 

the Buddhaghosuppatti (The Development of the Career 

of Buddhaghosa). 

Bibliography 

Gray, James, ed. and trans. Buddhaghosuppatti or the Historical 

Romance of the Rise and Career of Buddhaghosa. London: 

Luzac, 1892. Reprinted, 1999. 

Law, Bimala Churn. Buddhaghosa. Bombay: Bombay Branch of 

the Royal Asiatic Society, 1946. 



75

B UDDHAHOOD AND B UDDHA B ODIES 

BUDDHAHOOD AND BUDDHA BODIES 

The term buddhahood (buddhatva) refers to the unique 

attainment of buddhas that distinguishes them from 

all other kinds of holy being. Buddhahood constitutes 

the fullest possible realization of ultimate reality and 

total freedom from all that obscures it, together with 

all qualities that flow from such a realization. Buddhahood 

is described in two closely related ways: in 

terms of its distinctive characteristics, and in terms of 

buddha “bodies.” 

Characteristics of buddhahood 

Early Buddhist texts ascribe qualities to Śakyamuni 

Buddha that distinguish him from other ARHATs (those 

who have realized NIRVA N A) and that render him the 

supreme teacher of the world. He was said to possess 

ten unmatched powers of penetrating awareness, four 

peerless forms of fearlessness, and supreme compassion 

for all beings. His body was endowed with thirtytwo 

marks of a great person (mahapurusa), the fruit of 

immeasurable virtue from previous lives (Dlghanikaya 

3.142–179). As the outflow of his enlightenment he 

also possessed supernormal powers (rddhis) superior 

to those of others; these included the power to project 

multiple physical forms of diverse kinds (nirmanas), to 

control physical phenomena, to know others’ minds 

and capacities, to perceive directly over great distances 

and time, and to know and skillfully communicate the 

freedom of nirvana (Majjhimanikaya 1.69–73; Makransky, 

pp. 26–27). Śakyamuni’s enlightened qualities exemplify 

those possessed by all prior buddhas and by all 

buddhas to come, qualities that enable each buddha to 

reintroduce the dharma to the world in each age. 

Buddha bodies (ka yas) 

The Indic term kaya refers to the physical body of a 

living being. It therefore carries the secondary meaning 

of a collection or aggregate of parts. In Buddhist 

texts over time, kaya came to include a third meaning— 

base or substratum, since one’s body is the base of 

many qualities. The term also came to connote the embodiment 

of ultimate truth in enlightened knowledge 

and activity. 

Buddha embodied in dharma and in forms. For 

early Buddhist traditions, Śakyamuni’s body with 

thirty-two special marks constituted his primary physical 

expression of enlightenment. But his power to 

manifest himself to others extended beyond the confines 

of his physical body, since he created a “mindmade” 

body (manomayakaya) to teach his deceased 

mother in a heaven, and occasionally projected copies 

of his body, or created diverse forms, to carry out enlightened 

activities (nirmana). All such manifest forms 

were referred to as ru pakaya, the embodiment (kaya) 

of the Buddha in forms (ru pa). 

Of special importance was the dharma, the truths 

that the Buddha had realized and taught, encapsulated 

in the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, the very source of the 

charismatic power expressed through his physical body 

and teaching. Metaphorically, the dharma itself was 

understood as his essential being, his very body. So the 

Dlghanikaya (Group of Long Discourses) says that the 

Buddha instructed his disciples, when asked their family 

lineage, to reply, “I am a true son of the Buddha, 

born of his mouth, born of dharma, created by the 

dharma, an heir of the dharma. Why? Because buddhas 

are those whose body is dharma (dharmakaya), 

(3.84). 

After the Buddha’s physical death, the distinction 

between his dharma body (dharmakaya) and his form 

body (ru pakaya) grounded two legacies of communal 

practice (Reynolds 1977, p. 376). “Body of dharma” 

(dharmakaya) referred especially to the corpus of 

teachings the Buddha bequeathed to his monastic 

SAṄGHA, whose institutional life centered on the recitation, 

study, and practice of them. On the other hand, 

the relics from the cremation of the Buddha’s physical 

body (ru pakaya) were placed in reliquary mounds 

(STU PAs) at which laity (and monks and nuns as well) 

practiced ritual forms of reverence for the Buddha 

modeled on forms of devotion shown to him during 

his lifetime. 

In THERAVA DA and Sarva stivada traditions, dharmakaya 

also referred to the Buddha’s supramundane 

realizations, his powers of awareness, fearlessness, compassion, 

and skillful means, as noted above. Here dharmakaya 

refers to the Buddha’s “body of dharma(s),” 

where dharmas are pure qualities of enlightened mind 

(Makransky, p. 27). 

The power of Buddha’s nirva n a in the world. 

Scholastics of those schools maintained that the Buddha’s 

final nirvana at his physical death was an unconditioned 

attainment, a total passing away from the 

conditioned world of beings. Yet many practices of 

Buddhist communities seem to have functioned to mediate 

the power of the Buddha’s nirvana to the world 

long after he was physically gone. Stupas containing 

relics of the Buddha, when ritually consecrated, “came 

alive” for devotees with the presence of the Buddha, 



representing the Buddha not only as the field of merit 

for offerings, but as a continuing source of salvific 

power for the world. Thus, many stories tell of Buddhist 

devotees who witnessed miraculous events or had 

spontaneous visions of the Buddha at stupas. The distribution 

of the Buddha’s relics among many stupas 

over time cosmologized the Buddha, ritually rendering 

the power of his dharmakaya (his attainment of 

nirvana) pervasively present to the world through his 

ru pakaya (physical embodiment) in many stupas 

(Strong, p. 119). Statues and paintings of the Buddha 

had similar ritual functions, while also serving as support 

for meditative practices that vividly brought to 

mind the qualities of the Buddha while visualizing his 

physical form (buddhanusmrti). Accomplished meditators 

were said to have visions and dreams of the Buddha, 

and to experience the Buddha’s qualities and 

powers as vividly present in their world. All such ritual 

and yogic practices functioned to render the salvific 

power of his nirvana, even after he was physically gone, 

a continuing presence in the sam saric world. 

Several schools deriving from Mahasam ghika tradition 

appear to have given doctrinal expression to these 

patterns of understanding. They asserted that the Buddha 

was wholly supramundane, that his salvific power 

was all-pervasive, and that his body that had perished 

at the age of eighty was just a mind-made (manomaya) 

or illusory creation (nirmana), not his real body. Rather, 

his real body was pure and limitless, its life endless. 

Theravada and Sarvastivada scholastics had claimed 

that the Buddha’s final nirvana had destroyed the sole 

creative cause of his sam saric experience (defiled 

karma), resulting in a final nirvana beyond creation or 

conditionality. But the Mahasam ghikas, by asserting 

that the Buddha’s ru pakaya was pure and limitless, 

seemed to be saying that his long BODHISATTVA practice 

of prior lives had not only destroyed the impure 

causes of his SAM SA RA, but functioned as pure creative 

cause for his nirvanic attainment to embody itself limitlessly 

for beings. Along similar lines, the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), an early MAHA YA NA 

scripture, declared the Buddha’s life and salvific activity 

to span innumerable eons, beyond his apparent 

physical death. 

Pure buddha fields and celestial buddhas. This 

understanding of a buddha’s nirvana as not just the 

cessation of defilement but also the manifestation of 

vast salvific power was developed in a wide range of 

Mahayana scriptures of early centuries C.E. The centrality 

of bodhisattvas in Mahayana sutras, each of 

whom vows to become a buddha, supported a new 

Buddhist cosmology of multiple buddhas simultaneously 

active throughout the universe. Each such buddha 

wields enlightened power within his own field of 

salvific activity for the beings karmically connected to 

him. On the path to buddhahood, therefore, bodhisattvas 

vow to “purify” their fields, by collecting immeasurable 

amounts of merit and wisdom (as pure 

creative causes for their buddha fields), by training 

other bodhisattvas in similar practices, and by transferring 

their merit to other beings so they may be reborn 

in such fields (Williams, pp. 224–227). The purest 

such fields are heavenly domains of buddhas of infinite 

radiance, power, and incalculable life span, such 

as AMITA BHA or AKSOBHYA, buddhas whose pure fields 

(or PURE LANDS) consist of jeweled palaces and radiant 

natural scenes, where all conditions are perfect for 

communicating and realizing enlightenment. Those 

born near such a celestial buddha, either by the power 

of their own practice or by faith in the power of such 

a buddha, make quick progress to enlightenment. Late 

fourth-century C.E. Mahayana treatises, such as the 

Mahayanasu tralam kara (Ornament of Mahayana Scriptures) 

and Abhisamayalam kara (Ornament of Realization), 

created a new vocabulary for such celestial 

buddhas, referring to them as sambhogakaya, the perfect 

embodiment (kaya) of buddhahood for supreme 

communal enjoyment (sambhoga) of dharma (Nagao, 

pp. 107–112). 

The unrestricted nirva n a of the buddhas and the 

three buddha ka yas. These Mahayana understandings 

developed within a nexus of other developing doctrines. 

Prajñaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) sutras 

and early Madhyamaka treatises declared all phenomena 

to be empty of substantial independent existence 

(svabhavaśu nya), hence illusory. When bodhisattvas 

attain direct knowledge of that truth, they realize that 

all things in their intrinsic emptiness have always been 

in nirvanic peace, that sam sara is undivided from nirvana. 

Through such wisdom, the bodhisattva learns to 

embody the freedom and power of nirvana while continuing 

to act skillfully within sam sara for the sake of 

others. When this bodhisattva path of wisdom and 

skillful means is fully accomplished, its simultaneous 

participation in sam sara and nirvana becomes the essential 

realization of buddhahood. This is referred to 

in Yogacara and later Madhyamaka treatises as a buddha’s 

“unrestricted nirvana” (apratisthita nirvana); it 

is unrestricted because it is bound neither to sam sara 

nor to a merely quiescent nirvana, but possessed of 

limitless and spontaneous activity, all-pervasive and 


77


eternal, radiating its power to beings throughout all existence, 

drawing them toward enlightenment (Makransky, 

pp. 85–87). 

In the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, the term dharmata 

(literally “thinghood”) refers to the real nature 

of things, undivided in their emptiness yet diverse in 

their appearance. In treatises that formalized the concept 

of the buddhas’ unrestricted nirvana, the dharmata 

of all things as the limitless field of the buddhas’ 

enlightened knowledge and power came to be referred 

to as dharmakaya, now meaning the buddhas’ “embodiment 

of dharmata” (of ultimate reality; Makransky, 

pp. 34–37, 199–201). Dharmakaya, as the nondual 

awareness of the emptiness of all things, is undifferentiated 

among buddhas, yet serves as the basis for diverse 

manifestations. It is therefore also etymologized 

as the undivided basis (kaya) of all the buddha qualities 

(dharmas). A synonym for it in such treatises was 

svabhavikakaya, meaning the buddhas’ embodiment 

(kaya) of the intrinsic nature (svabhava) of things. 

The celestial sambhogakaya buddhas, then, represent 

the primary manifestation of dharmakaya, perfectly 

embodying the nonduality of appearance (ru pa) 

and emptiness (dharma). For this reason, the sensory 

phenomena of sambhogakaya pure fields—gentle 

breezes, flowing rivers, even the birds—continually 

disclose the nirvanic nature of things to the bodhisattva 

assemblies arrayed there. 

But formulators of the buddhas’ unrestricted nirvana, 

as noted above, understood the dharmakaya’s 

salvific activity to radiate to beings of all realms, not 

just to those in pure buddha fields. Such all-pervasive 

buddha activity is carried out by innumerable manifestations 

within the empty, illusory worlds of beings. 

In Yogacara and later Madhyamaka treatises, the limitlessly 

diverse ways that buddhahood was said to manifest 

in Mahayana scriptures came to be classified 

under the term nirmanakaya, meaning buddhahood 

embodied in diverse, illusory manifestations (nirmana). 

As such, nirmanakaya encompasses three broad categories. 

First, since the world itself in its empty, illusory 

nature is undivided from nirvana, any aspect of the 

world has the potential to disclose the essence of buddhahood 

(to function as nirmanakaya) when a person’s 

mind becomes pure enough to notice. Second, 

buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas have great power 

to project illusory replicas and visionary forms to beings 

(nirmanas) to help guide them toward enlightenment. 

Such illusory projections further support the 

disclosure of all things as illusory appearances of empty 

reality. Third, all sorts of beings who serve to communicate 

the buddhas’ truths function as agents of buddha 

activity, hence as nirmanakaya, from supreme human 

paradigms like Śakyamuni to the innumerable bodhisattvas 

of Mahayana scriptures who carry out much 

of the Buddha’s teaching and salvific activity, and who 

appear in all walks of life and as all types of beings. 

Thus developed the basic Mahayana doctrine of 

three buddha kayas—dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, 

and nirmanakaya—which informed the buddhalogies 

that developed throughout Asia, contributing to the 

Huayan, Tiantai, Zhenyan, Chan, and Jingtu traditions 

of China, thence Korea and Japan, and to all Tibetan 

Buddhist traditions. Some scholars, seeking to analyze 

the relationship between transcendental and phenomenal 

aspects of buddhahood, divided the three kayas 

into four. So XUANZANG in seventh-century China distinguished 

two aspects of sambhogakaya, while Haribhadra 

in eighth-century India divided dharmakaya in 

two by reference to conditioned and unconditioned aspects 

(Makransky, pp. 216–218). 

In Indian Yogacara and later Madhyamaka treatises, 

the three kaya doctrine was associated with a developmental 

model of path: Buddhahood is to be attained 

by the radical transformation of all aspects of a person’s 

defiled consciousness into buddha kayas and wisdoms. 

Mahayana texts whose central teaching was 

buddha nature (TATHA GATAGARBHA), on the other 

hand, emphasized a discovery model of path: Buddha 

kayas manifest automatically as the mind is purified, 

for the very essence of mind (buddha nature) is already 

replete with their qualities (Nagao, pp. 115–117). 

Tantric Buddhist traditions of India, East Asia, and 

Tibet drew upon both such models. The teaching of 

buddha nature undergirds the “three mysteries” uncovered 

by tantric praxis, through which the practitioner 

discovers that his or her body, speech, and mind 

are undivided from those of the buddhas, which are 

one with the three kayas. Tantric traditions have also 

drawn upon Yogacara and Madhyamaka models of 

transformation to construct homologies expressed in 

MAN D ALAs. Indian and Tibetan praxis of highest yoga 

tantras engages four energy centers in the body, which 

frame correspondences between the fourfold aspects of 

the unenlightened person, the fourfold aspects of path 

that ultimately transforms them, and four resultant 

buddha kayas, all of which take visual expression in the 

four directions of the mandala. Within such a system, a 

fourth kaya representing highest tantric attainment is 

added to the prior three kayas, and is designated by 


B UDDHA 

I MAGES 

terms such as sahajakaya, “embodiment of co-presence 

(of nirvana and sam sara),” or mahasukhakaya, “embodiment 

of great bliss” (the tantrically embodied bliss 

of nondual wisdom and means; Snellgrove, p. 251). 

Japanese PURE LAND BUDDHISM (Jodoshu, Jodo 

Shinshu) has emphasized the transcendental power 

of buddhahood embodied in the sambhogakaya 

Amitabha. Because this is the period of the DECLINE 

OF THE DHARMA (mappo ), it is argued, people are no 

longer able to accomplish the path through their own 

power but must rely upon the buddha Amitabha, 

whose power to take the devotee into his pure field 

at death is received in faith through recitation of his name 

(NENBUTSU [CHINESE, NIANFO; KOREAN, YŎMBUL]). Zen 

traditions, on the other hand, based upon the doctrine 

of buddha nature, have emphasized the immanence and 

immediacy of enlightenment. Through Zen practice, it 

is said, buddhahood complete with all kayas is to be discovered 

intimately within one’s present mind, body, and 

world. So the Japanese eighteenth-century Zen teacher 

HAKUIN EKAKU wrote, “This very place, the pure lotus 

land; this very body, the buddha body.” 

See also: Buddhanusmrti (Recollection of the Buddha); 


Bibliography 

Griffiths, Paul J. On Being Buddha: The Classical Doctrine of Buddhahood. 


La Vallée Poussin, Louis de, trans. and ed. Vijñaptimatratasiddhi: 

La Siddhi de Hiuan-tsang. Paris: Geuthner, 1928–1948. 

Makransky, John J. Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy 

in India and Tibet. Albany: State University of New 

York Press, 1997. 

Nagao, Gadjin. “On the Theory of Buddha-Body (Buddhakaya).” 

In Madhyamika and Yogacara: A Study of Mahayana 

Philosophies, Collected Papers of G. M. Nagao, tr. and ed. 

Leslie S. Kawamura. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1991. 

Reynolds, Frank. “The Several Bodies of Buddha: Reflections on 

a Neglected Aspect of Theravada Tradition.” History of Religions 

16, no. 4 (1977): 374–389. 

Reynolds, Frank E., and Hallisey, Charles. “The Buddha.” In 

Buddhism and Asian History, ed. Joseph M. Kitagawa and 

Mark D. Cummings. New York: Macmillan, 1989. 

Sharf, Robert H. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: 


Snellgrove, David. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Boston: Shambhala, 

1987. 

Strong, John S. The Legend of King Aśoka: A Study and Translation 

of the Aśokavadana. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1983. 

Williams, Paul M. Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. 

New York: Routledge, 1989. 

BUDDHA IMAGES 

JOHN J. MAKRANSKY 

Buddha images—whether they are Indian, Thai, Chinese, 

or Japanese—are usually readily recognizable. 

The date an image was created rarely confuses its identification 

as Buddhist because the iconography of the 

Buddha image has remained constant almost from the 

earliest invention of the image type, even though the 

style of the figure has varied depending on date and 

geographical location. The term iconography refers to 

the forms or characteristics of an image, whereas style 

refers to the ways in which these forms or characteristics 

are crafted or made. 

The iconography of the Buddha image includes representing 

the Buddha as a MONK, wearing a monk’s 

robe, and with his hair shaved. A monk wears two or 

three simple items of clothing, including an untailored 

and unsewn undercloth (antaravasaka), a rectangular 

cloth worn like a skirt that reaches to the ankles and 

is folded under at the waist or belted with a piece of 

cloth. An upper garment (uttarasaṅga), a second rectangular 

cloth held behind the back and thrown over 

the shoulders like a shawl, is worn over the undercloth. 

There are two ways to wear it, either covering both 

shoulders or under the right armpit. A third cloth, 

which is rarely worn, except in cold climates, is sometimes 

folded and placed over the left shoulder during 

special ceremonial occasions. The actual monk’s robes 

are dyed in shades of yellow. This simple attire can usually 

be discerned on Buddha images, although artists 

tended to arrange the cloth in various decorative ways, 

such as producing a perfectly symmetrical fall of the 

robe on both sides of the body, or fashioning the folds 

in rhythmic patterns. 

Monks shave the HAIR on their heads and faces, and 

the Buddha performed the tonsure on himself when 

he left his palace and courtly life for that of a wandering 

mendicant. With a stroke of his sword he removed 

his long topknot, and some texts note that the 

remaining hair formed small curls that turned toward 

the right. Indian artists by the second century C.E. depicted 

the Buddha’s hair as small ringlets over the 


79

B UDDHA 

I MAGES 

head, which came to be called snail-shell curls. In 

some artistic traditions, these curls developed into 

rows of small bumps. 

The Buddha, however, was not simply a monk; he 

was born a great man (mahapurusa) and was identified 

as such by certain bodily signs (laksana). Some of 

these, such as his sweet voice, could not be produced 

in art, but others, such as his cranial protuberance, 

could be depicted. The extent to which the artists attempted 

to reproduce the laksana varied according to 

place and time, but the cranial bump became standard 

for most images. 

There are, of course, many different buddhas, but 

the Buddha of our historic period, Śakyamuni, was a 

human being, and it is overwhelmingly Śakyamuni 

who is represented in the earliest images in India. Thus, 

he consistently has two arms, unlike images of Hindu 

deities from the same period, who often have multiple 

arms. Also associated with Śakyamuni Buddha are certain 

hand positions (mudra) and postures. One popular 

early type depicted the Buddha seated with his legs 

crossed and his right hand held up with the palm out. 

Although artistic depictions of these gestures and postures 

developed over time and came to be associated 

with certain narrative events, they are highly restricted 

in number and reappear again and again. 

Thus, the shared iconography—the monk’s robe, 

shaved hair, certain bodily marks, and limited hand 

positions and body postures—have made it possible 

for the Buddha image, no matter the style, to be identifiable 

across time and geography. 

Two of the most intriguing, yet controversial, questions 

regarding Buddha images are when they were first 

made and why. The earliest images were produced in 

two locations in South Asia: Mathura, a city sixty miles 

south of Delhi, and Gandhara, a region centered on 

Taxila in present-day Pakistan. The first Buddha image 

is usually believed to have been created around the 

first century C.E. The Buddha image types produced in 

these two regions were radically different in style. Although 

the iconographic parameters outlined above 

were generally followed in both places, the Gandhara 

images are related to Western classical (Roman and 

Hellenistic) art, whereas the Mathura images are related 

to the north Indian style seen in earlier anthropomorphic 

sculptures of various local or pan-Indian 

deities, such as YAKSAs. 

The early Mathura type, such as the nine-foot-tall 

Buddha dedicated by the monk Bala, is a monumental 

image that stands with knees locked, staring straight 

ahead, his left arm akimbo with a fist on his hip. The 

robe is thin and transparent, revealing the body. The 

Gandhara type, on the other hand, wears all three garments, 

completely masking the body underneath, the 

emphasis being on the pattern of the heavy, deep folds 

of fabric. 

It is clear to scholars today, however, that the earliest 

images were probably not as sophisticated and 

well-defined as those described above, and some scholars 

have begun to identify groups and individual images 

that suggest an earlier development. While these 

images vary considerably, they share a modest size and 

nascent iconography that includes the uttarasaṅga 

worn not as a covering robe but, like a layman, as a 

bunched shawl. 

Also at issue is the interplay of the development of 

the Buddha image with that of images of other anthropomorphic 

deities of the same period—both 

Hindu and Jain. All three religions were practiced in 

Mathura, and some of the earliest images developed 

there. Of the three religious groups, the Jains probably 

produced the first anthropomorphic icons at Mathura; 

these are tiny figures of their naked Jinas on 

stone reliefs dated to as early as the second century 

B.C.E. It seems reasonable to expect that the three religions 

interacted and competed at Mathura, with their 

anthropomorphic images developing together. Indeed, 

images from Mathura shared the same style, whether 

Jain, Buddhist, or Hindu. 

Given such evidence, it is likely that the first small, 

rather indifferent, Buddha figures were created around 

the first century B.C.E. It is unlikely that such figures 

were the focus initially of worship or an icon cult, although 

by around 100 C.E., when the Bala and Gandhara 

Buddha images were created, such cults were 

certainly in place. 

Still, assuming the Buddha lived in the fifth century 

B.C.E., it is of interest that no anthropomorphic images 

of the Buddha existed until some four hundred years 

after his death. This early period was not without Buddhist 

art, however. Although the famous King AŚOKA 

of the third century B.C.E. was predisposed to Buddhism, 

the only artwork from his reign that might be 

labeled Buddhist is the single lion capital with a wheel 

(cakra) from Sarnath. But from the mid-second and 

first centuries B.C.E., there is an explosion of Buddhist 

art associated with stupas, including those at Bharhut 

and SAN CI. At these and other sites, extensive narrative 

reliefs depicting the Buddha’s life stories and past lives 

(JATAKA) were carved in stone. However, even though 


B UDDHA 

I MAGES 

the Buddha as a human being could be shown in such 

jataka scenes, he is not represented in any reliefs of this 

period. The absence of the Buddha in anthropomorphic 

form is called aniconic in art historical literature. 

How to interpret this absence is at the center of extensive 

scholarly debate, but the initial absence accentuates 

the importance of Buddha images created later. 

The early Buddhist sites in India clearly show that 

the STU PA (and thus the relic enshrined therein) was 

the focus of worship. Other symbolic forms, such as 

the tree or the wheel, were also worshiped. There were 

extensive narrative reliefs associated with these sites, 

particularly with stupas. Eventually, anthropomorphic 

images began to be used in depictions of the Buddha’s 

life stories. It appears that interest in the 

anthropomorphic images lay more in their narrative 

function, and not in their function as icons. The popularization 

of an icon cult may have been an innovation 

of a few clerics, most particularly the monk Bala 

and his associates, who placed enormous Mathura 

Buddha images at several sites in northern India. Very 

quickly, however, the Buddha image became widespread 

in South Asia. 

A single image, without any narrative context, is 

difficult to “read.” Certain places and periods had favorite 

image types, and the different Buddhist schools, 

such as THERAVADA and MAHAYANA, used and interpreted 

Buddha images in different ways. Nevertheless, 

the actual images themselves remain iconographically 

consistent. 

For example, the favorite form that the Buddha image 

takes, whether standing or seated, what arm positions 

are shown, and how the robe is worn, have been 

shown to be determined not so much by religious concerns 

but by artistic traditions. Various regions and periods 

favor certain dominant types of Buddha images, 

with a limited number of secondary forms. Theravada 

Buddha images are extremely limited in their iconography. 

Almost all seated images in Sri Lanka, for example, 

are in meditation. Mahayana Buddhism uses 

the different hand gestures of seated Buddha images 

to construct systems of five, six, and seven image 

MAN D ALA. However, the fact that an image might be 

in earth-touching gesture, for example, is not itself sufficient 

to tell us whether it is Śakyamuni at the moment 

of calling the earth to witness or rather the 

Mahayana Buddha AKSOBHYA. There is no difference 

artistically. This issue calls into question whether we 

can even speak of Mahayana art, at least in terms of 

Buddha images. Rather it is context, not iconography, 

Statue of the Buddha at the eighth-century grotto shrine of Sŏkkuram 

near Pulguksa, South Korea. © Carmen Redondo/Corbis. Reproduced 


that defines the image. Likewise, the Buddha images 

reflect no difference in the way the different bodies of 

the Buddha (the trikaya) are represented. It is only 

when we move to the VAJRAYANA Buddhist systems, 

such as those of Nepal and Tibet, with new definitions 

of the Buddha and his body, that the art becomes 

clearly differentiated. 

See also: Bodhisattva Images; Buddha, Life of the, in 

Art; Jainism and Buddhism; Mudra and Visual Imagery; 


Bibliography 

Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish. The Origin of the Buddha Image. 

New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1972. 

Dehejia, Vidya. “Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems.” 

Ars Orientalis 21 (1991): 45–66. 

Ghose, Rajeshwari, with Puay-peng Ho and Yeung Chun-tong. 

In the Footsteps of the Buddha: An Iconic Journey from India 


81

B UDDHA, LIFE OF THE 

to China. Hong Kong: University Museum and Art Gallery, 

University of Hong Kong, 1998. 

Griswold, A. B. “Prolegomena to the Study of the Buddha’s 

Dress in Chinese Sculpture, Part I.” Artibus Asiae 26 (1963): 

85–131. 

Huntington, Susan L. “Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems: 

Another Look.” Ars Orientalis 22 (1992): 111–156. 

Huntington, Susan L., and Huntington, John C. Leaves from the 

Bodhi Tree: The Art of Pala India (8th–12th Centuries) and 

Its International Legacy. Seattle, WA: Dayton Art Institute, 

1989. 

Lohuizen-de Leeuw, Johanna Engelberta van. “New Evidence 

with Regard to the Origin of the Buddha Image.” In South 

Asian Archaeology 1979: Papers from the Fifth International 

Conference of the Association of South Asian Archaeologists in 

Western Europe Held in the Museum für Indische Kunst der 

Staalichen Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz Berlin, ed. Herbert 

Härtel. Berlin: D. Reimer, 1981. 

Lyons, Islay, and Ingholt, Harald. Gandharan Art in Pakistan. 

New York: Pantheon Books, 1957. 

Menzies, Jackie, ed. Buddha: Radiant Awakening. Sydney, Australia: 

Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2001. 

Pal, Pratapaditya, ed. Light of Asia: Buddha Śakyamuni in Asian 

Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984. 

Quintanilla, Sonya. “Ayagapatas: Characteristics, Symbolism, 

and Chronology.” Artibus Asiae 60 (1990): 79–137. 

Schopen, Gregory. “On Monks, Nuns, and ‘Vulgar’ Practices: 

The Introduction of the Image Cult into Indian Buddhism.” 

Artibus Asiae 49 1/2 (1988–1989): 153–168. 

Snellgrove, David L., ed. The Image of the Buddha. Tokyo: Kodansha 


Zwalf, W., ed. Buddhism: Art and Faith. London: British Museum, 

1985. 

BUDDHA, LIFE OF THE 

ROBERT L. BROWN 

The term buddha (literally, “awakened”) refers to a 

fully enlightened being who has attained perfect 

knowledge and full liberation from REBIRTH. Buddha 

is not a proper name but a general term that may be 

applied to all enlightened beings. Therefore, the historical 

Buddha may be designated using this term from 

the time of his enlightenment (bodhi) only. Before that 

moment, he was a BODHISATTVA, one who was on the 

way of obtaining full enlightenment. At the same time, 

the term buddha is used as an honorary title for the 

founder of the Buddhist religion, the only buddha living 

in the current historical period. 

The dates of the historical Buddha 

There is no reliable information concerning the dates 

of the historical Buddha’s life that has been unanimously 

accepted by Buddhist tradition and by scholars. 

Traditional dates of the parinirvana (the decease 

of the Buddha) range widely from 2420 B.C.E. to 290 

B.C.E. The dates proposed by scholars who contributed 

to a 1988 symposium in Göttingen, Germany, on The 

Dating of the Historical Buddha, vary from 486 B.C.E. 

(the so-called corrected long chronology) to 261 B.C.E. 

The THERAVADA tradition calculates the death of the 

Buddha to have occurred in 544 or 543 B.C.E., 218 

years before the consecration of King AŚOKA (ca. 300– 

232 B.C.E.) as calculated by this tradition. Taking into 

account the obvious error in this chronology, which 

was discovered when exact dates for King Aśoka became 

known, most Western and Indian scholars calculate 

487 or 486 B.C.E. as the date of the Buddha’s 

death. However, early Buddhist texts from mainland 

India belonging to the Mu lasarvastivada tradition, as 

well as two references in the earliest historiographic 

work of the Theravada tradition (the Dlpavam sa or 

The Chronicle of the Island [of Sri Lanka]) date this 

event to one hundred years before the rule of King 

Aśoka, or 368 B.C.E. (the so-called short chronology). 

In addition, later Tibetan and East Asian Buddhist 

texts provide a considerable variety of earlier dates. 

The lists of the so-called patriarchs are of great importance 

for a reliable calculation of the dates of the 

historical Buddha. All early Buddhist traditions list 

only five patriarchs, not enough for an interval of 218 

years between the Buddha’s parinirvana and King 

Aśoka. In Indian tradition, information about the succession 

of teachers was much more reliably handed 

down than any dates. For this and many other reasons, 

including the state of development of Indian society at 

the time of the Buddha, we may conclude that the Buddha 

passed away at a later date than that handed down 

by Theravada tradition, including its variant, the corrected 

long chronology. Although the available information 

does not allow scholars to arrive at an exact 

dating, it is safe to suppose that the Buddha passed 

away some time between 420 B.C.E. and 350 B.C.E. at 

the age of approximately eighty years. 

Sources for the biography of the 

historical Buddha 

On the basis of the available sources it is possible to 

reconstruct a fairly reliable biography of the man who 

was to become the Buddha. The sources are the canonical 

texts of the Theravada, the SARVA STIVA DA AND 



MU LASARVA STIVA DA, and the DHARMAGUPTAKA traditions. 

Only the Theravada texts are fully extant in the 

original Indian version in Pali; the texts of the other 

traditions are fully extant only from Chinese or Tibetan 

translations and partially from incomplete Sanskrit 

texts. These texts do not provide coherent 

biographies of the historical Buddha, but they do offer 

considerable autobiographical and biographical information 

that was handed down during the first three 

to five centuries after the death of the Buddha. Oral 

tradition of the Buddha’s teaching in various local dialects 

was responsible for minor differences in these 

traditions and for the insertion of mythic lore, which 

shall not be considered in the following summary of 

the Buddha’s biography. 

The life of the future Buddha 

Before his departure from home. The historical 

Buddha was born into the Śakya family, which belonged 

to the ksatriya (noble) caste, considered by 

Buddhists to be the highest caste. He was later known 

by the honorary title Śakyamuni, which means “sage 

of the Śakya clan.” The Śakyas were not kings, but they 

formed a class of nobles within a republican system of 

government that held regular meetings of the members 

of the leading families. The future Buddha belonged 

to the Gautama clan, so he was later on known 

as Gautama Buddha. His individual name was Siddhartha 

(Pali, Siddhattha), his father’s name was Śuddhodana 

(Pali, Suddhodana), and his mother’s name 

was Maya. Detailed information on Maya is mainly derived 

from later literature. The family resided in 

Kapilavastu (Pali, Kapilavatthu) at the foot of the Himalayas 

near the present-day Indian-Nepalese border. 

The future Buddha is said to have been born in 

Lumbin, also near the Indian-Nepalese border. In 248 

B.C.E., Aśoka placed a pillar with an inscription commemorating 

the birth of Śakyamuni Buddha (the socalled 

Rumminde inscription) in Lumbin. Therefore, 

it is certain that during the time of Aśoka this place 

was identified as the birthplace of the Buddha. Lumbin 

is considered to be one of the four main Buddhist 

pilgrimage sites on the Indian subcontinent. 

Because Maya died shortly after Siddhartha was 

born, the future Buddha was raised by MAHAPRAJAPATI 

GAUTAMI (Pali, Mahapajapat Gotam), the younger 

sister of his mother and second wife of Śuddhodana. 

The autobiographical passages of the early texts describe 

in much detail the luxurious conditions of the 

bodhisattva’s life in his home. Siddhartha was married 

to Yaśodhara (Pali, Yasodhara), who is also 

called Rahulamata (mother of Rahula) in the early 

texts. RAHULA was their only son. The bodhisattva 

Siddhartha was not satisfied with his sumptuous life 

because he realized that, like all beings, he was subject 

to old age, disease, and death. This perception caused 

him, at the age of twenty-nine, to abandon his home, 

don monk’s robes, shave his head, and go forth to live 

as a homeless ascetic. Early texts explicitly state that he 

did this “though his parents did not consent and wept 

full of affliction.” The legend that Gautama left his 

home in secret is of later origin. 

A noteworthy account of an early contemplative experience 

of the bodhisattva before he left his home is 

reported in the Mahasaccaka-sutta of the Majjhimanikaya 

in the Pali scriptures. Here, the Buddha is 

said to have reported that he had already experienced 

the first DHYANA (TRANCE STATE) as a youth when he 

sat under a rose apple tree while his father conducted 

a ceremony. 

Ascetic life and austerities. After he left home, Gautama 

visited the leading yoga masters of the period: 

A rada Kalama (Pali, A lara Kalama) and Udraka 

Ramaputra (Pali, Uddaka Ramaputta). When Gautama 

did not attain salvation under their direction, he 

went to a site near the river Nairañjana (Pali, Nerañjara) 

and engaged in extreme ASCETIC PRACTICES (Sanskrit, 

duskaracarya; Pali, dukkarakarika) for six years, 

hoping to reach his goal in this way. Five other ascetics 

joined him as followers. However, when he finally 

understood that this extreme austerity would not 

lead to salvation, that it was fruitless, he ended these 

efforts, ate a substantial meal, took a bath in the river, 

and sat down under a tree of the botanical species ficus 

religiosa, which Buddhists thereafter called the 

bodhi tree. It was here, seven years after he had left 

home, that he obtained BODHI (AWAKENING), perfect 

enlightenment, and thereby became a samyaksambuddha, 

or “fully enlightened one.” 

The period of teaching and dissemination. After 

enlightenment, the Buddha remained in meditation 

for several days. In the beginning he was hesitant to 

preach the way to liberation that he had discovered (his 

dharma) because he doubted that others would understand 

it. However, he finally decided to preach, and 

he set out toward the city of Benares (Varanas). On 

the way, he met Upaka, a follower of the A jvika group 

of ascetics, but Upaka did not take the Buddha’s words 

seriously and went his own way. The Buddha then 


83


reached Rsipatana (in other texts called Rsivadana; 

Pali, Isipatana) near Benares, and here he delivered his 

first sermon, the famous Dharmacakrapravartanasu 

tra (Pali, Dhammacakkappavattana-sutta), the discourse 

at Benares by which the wheel of the dharma 

was “Set into Motion.” In this sermon, the Buddha explained 

the middle way between the extremes of luxury 

and asceticism, the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (the truth 

of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the 

truth of the extinction of suffering, and the truth of 

the eightfold PATH leading to the extinction of suffering), 

as well as the impersonality of all beings. The site 

where the Buddha delivered this sermon is now known 

as Sarnath, and it is one of the most important Buddhist 

places of PILGRIMAGE. 

The Buddha accepted his first disciples on this occasion 

and thereby established the SAṄGHA, the Buddhist 

monastic community. He continued teaching his 

doctrine for the next forty-five years. The Buddha’s 

itinerary extended from his hometown Kapilavastu 

and Śravast in the north, to Varanas (Benares), 

Rajagrha (Rajgir), Vaiśal (Besarh), Kauśambi (Kosam), 

Nalanda, and several other places in the Ganges basin. 

Later commentarial texts provide exact information 

about the places where the Buddha took up residence 

during the rainy season of each particular year of his 

teaching period, but it is doubtful that the dates provided 

in these texts are reliable. 

A number of important events occurred during this 

period, including the conversion of ŚARIPUTRA (Pali, 

Sariputta) and MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA (Pali, Mahamogallana), 

who became the Buddha’s two chief 

disciples; the ordination of MAHAKAŚYAPA (Pali, Mahakassapa), 

who was to become the convener of the 

First Buddhist Council (saṅglti or saṅgayana) in 

Rajagrha after the Buddha’s demise; and the visit of 

the Buddha to his home town, where he met his father 

Śuddhodana and his foster mother Mahaprajapat 

Gautam, and where his son Rahula and several 

other members of the Śakya family joined the saṅgha. 

Among them was UPALI, who was considered the most 

proficient monk in questions of monastic discipline 

and who acted as expert in this capacity during the 

First Buddhist Council. A NANDA, a member of the 

Śakya clan and a cousin of the Buddha, accompanied 

the Buddha during the last decades of his life. He was 

instrumental in persuading the Buddha to admit 

women into the saṅgha, thus establishing the Bhiksunl 

Saṅgha. 

Among the important lay followers of the Buddha 

was Bimbisara, the king of Magadha. The Buddha was 

five years older than Bimbisara, and Bimbisara is reported 

to have become a follower of the Buddha fifteen 

years after his accession to the throne. Bimbisara 

dedicated the Venuvana (Pali, Veluvana) grove near 

his residence at Rajagrha to the Buddhist saṅgha; it become 

the first arama (place of permanent residence for 

monks). Until he was imprisoned by his son, Bimbisara 

did whatever he could to promote the Buddhist 

community. 

The Buddha’s adversary was his cousin DEVADATTA, 

who was ordained when the Buddha visited Kapilavastu. 

However, Devadatta later attempted to take the 

Buddha’s place and provoked a schism in the saṅgha. 

Devadatta was supported by Ajataśatru, King Bimbisara’s 

son. Devadatta and Ajataśatru even tried to kill 

the Buddha, but they failed. Ajataśatru then dethroned 

his father and imprisoned him with the order that he 

should be starved to death. Traditional Buddhist 

chronology dates the beginning of Ajataśatru’s reign 

to the eighth year before the Buddha’s death. It seems 

that Ajataśatru, most probably for political reasons, 

supported the Buddha during his last years; the Buddha’s 

public support was too great to oppose. 

The last days of the Buddha. Although the chronological 

order of the events described in the preceding 

paragraphs remains uncertain, there is reliable information 

about the last days in the life of the historical 

Buddha. This information is handed down in the 

MAHAPARINIRVAN A-SUTRA (Pali, Mahaparinibban-sutta), 

which is available in several versions that differ only 

on minor points. The account begins with the visit of 

King Ajataśatru’s minister, Varsakara (Pali, Vassakara), 

on the mountain Grdhrakuta (Pali, Gijjhakuta). 

Varsakara had been sent by the king in order to ask 

the Buddha if a campaign against the Vrji (Pali, Vajj) 

confederation would be successful. The Buddha responded 

by explaining the seven conditions necessary 

for the prosperity of a state, which he had earlier taught 

to the Vrjians. After Varsakara’s departure, the Buddha 

explained to the monks the analogous conditions 

of prosperity of the saṅgha. 

After he delivered a sermon in Pataliputra (modern 

Patna) and crossed the river Ganges, the Buddha traveled 

toward Vaiśal, where he converted the courtesan 

A mrapal (Pali, Ambapal). At that time, the Buddha 

also met leading members of the Licchavi confederation, 

but different texts vary in their versions of this 

event. Afterwards, the Buddha visited Venugramaka 

(Pali, Belugama or Beluvagamaka), where he spent the 

rainy season with A nanda. There the Buddha fell ill 



and was near death, but he recovered. At that time 

A nanda asked the Buddha if there were additional instructions 

that the Buddha had not yet revealed to his 

disciples. The Buddha declared that he had completely 

and openly explained his dharma. 

From Vaiśal the Buddha traveled in the direction 

of Kuśinagara (Pali, Kusinara). In Pava he accepted a 

meal from the smith Cunda, which caused a diarrhea 

that led to his death. The Buddha reached Kuśinagara 

(Pali, Kusinara), where he admonished his disciples to 

continue their endeavor toward the final goal without 

cessation, and he passed away. 

Early legendary expansions 

The preceding paragraphs reduce the record of the 

Buddha’s life to its historical essence. This account relies 

on comparative studies of the ancient texts; these 

include studies of the various early traditions of the 

Mahaparinirvana-su tra, the Mahavadana-su tra, and 

other texts by Ernst Waldschmidt and André Bareau, 

as well as similar investigations made by other scholars. 

The existing texts include a multitude of legendary 

stories that crept in and, step by step, changed the original 

character of the biography of the Buddha. These 

compilations were written down in their final form 

centuries after the Buddha’s death and only after a long 

period of oral transmission. 

Although there is no coherent biographical text of 

the life of the Buddha in the early canonical works, 

later texts provide full biographies, and such works are 

available from various Buddhist traditions. In these 

works, the Buddha’s biography is extended by a multitude 

of myths and legendary accounts. All these accounts 

begin by describing former existences of the 

Buddha; most begin with the story of the former buddha 

DIPAM KARA, who existed many kalpas (world periods) 

ago. When the ascetic Sumedha met Dpam kara, 

Sumedha took the vow to become a buddha himself 

in a future age and he received Dpam kara’s confirmation 

by a prophecy (vyakarana). He thereby became 

a bodhisattva who was eventually to be reborn as the 

historical Gautama Buddha. During the subsequent 

kalpas, Dpam kara confirmed the bodhisattva’s vow 

and received confirmation from the buddhas of these 

kalpas. Finally, he was reborn in the Tusita heaven, 

where he decided to descend to the human world. 

In the human world, the bodhisattva was reincarnated 

as the son of Maya, the wife of King Śuddhodana. 

Several miracles are associated with the 

bodhisattva’s conception and birth. For example, the 

conception took place even though Maya had not had 

sexual relations with Śuddhodana. This myth parallels 

the Christian belief in the supernatural conception of 

Jesus. There was an earthquake on the day of the conception 

because a mahasattva (great being) was to 

come into human existence. The brahmins at the 

court of Śuddhodana predicted that Maya’s son would 

become either a buddha or a universal monarch 

(cakravartin), and several other miracles were observed 

at that time. The bodhisattva is said to have entered 

into the womb of Maya through the right side 

of her chest in the shape of a white elephant. 

Maya decided to visit her parents in the village of 

Devadaha. Before arriving there, she gave birth to the 

bodhisattva in the grove of Lumbin. On the same day, 

the bodhisattva’s future wife and his horse Kanthaka 

were also born. The king named the prince Siddhartha, 

which means “he whose aims are fulfilled.” The traditional 

biographies report that the bodhisattva lived in 

great luxury, and his palaces and other aspects of his 

life are described in detail. The bodhisattva made 

Yaśodhara his first wife, but he is said to have had a 

number of other wives as well. 

Knowing the prophecy that the prince Siddhartha 

would become either a buddha or a cakravartin, his father 

did everything he could to keep the prince from 

seeing signs of old age, sickness, or death. However, 

during visits to the park Siddhartha witnessed a very 

old man, a sick man, a corpse, and finally an ascetic. 

After this he received news of the birth of his son 

Rahula. 

Then one night he witnessed his consorts splayed in 

disgusting array, and he decided to leave the worldly 

life. He ordered his charioteer Channa to saddle his 

horse Kanthaka, he entered his wife’s room for a last 

look at her and at their son, and then he took his leave 

from the world (pravrajya). This story of the four sights 

definitely does not belong to the earliest traditions of 

the life of the historical Buddha, but it became a constituent 

of all biographies of the Buddha at an early 

date. Originally it was derived from the legendary biography 

of a former buddha that is narrated in the 

Mahavadana-su tra in the form of a sermon of the 

Buddha. 

At the time of his departure from his home, the 

bodhisattva was twenty-nine years old. After following 

the instructions of several teachers mentioned earlier, 

and after undergoing extreme ascetic practices, 

the bodhisattva obtained full enlightenment (samyaksambodhi) 

under the bodhi tree at BODH GAYA. 


85


MARA, the evil one, is said to have tried to prevent 

the Buddha from teaching his doctrine to humankind. 

But the Buddha had become invincible by the power 

of his perfections, and he successfully repelled Mara. 

From the moment the Buddha decided to teach the 

dharma, he was the Samyaksambuddha, the “Fully Enlightened 

Buddha” of the current world period. 

The records of the Buddha’s first sermon at Benares 

are certainly based on historical reminiscences. Some 

of the many events that are narrated in the various biographies 

of the Buddha do, in fact, have a historical 

background, especially those events that occurred during 

his period of teaching. However, all these stories 

were greatly exaggerated and many stories were invented 

in the later period. Among them, the JATAKA 

and AVADANA stories are important. These stories claim 

to be narratives of the Buddha’s former existences, before 

he was reborn in his last existence. Such stories 

are already found in later parts of the canonical collections 

of Buddhist scriptures, but many new stories 

of this kind were invented up till the medieval period. 

Similarly, the Buddha’s supernatural powers are also 

described in early canonical texts, but many additional 

supernatural faculties are described in later texts. 

While some features are more or less common to 

all biographies of the Buddha, there are many differences 

in the details. Complete biographies of the Buddha 

seem to have been compiled no earlier than the 

second century C.E., as Étienne Lamotte points out in 

Histoire du bouddhisme indien: Des origines à l’ère śaka 

(pp. 725–736). The most famous biography of the 

Buddha is the BUDDHACARITA, which was composed 

by the poet AŚVAGHOSA, a brahmin who was converted 

to Buddhism. This work was widely read in Buddhist 

countries and transcended sectarian doctrinal differences. 

A Buddha biography from the Mu lasarvastivada 

tradition, probably the most widespread of the socalled 

schools (nikaya) of Buddhism in medieval India, 

has come down to us in a Tibetan translation. This 

text was translated into English by W. W. Rockhill in 

1884. Another famous biography of the Buddha composed 

in mainland India is the LALITAVISTARA. It professes 

to be a work of the Sarvastivada school of 

HINAYANA Buddhism, but in fact shows strong influence 

of early MAHAYANA Buddhism. This is also true 

of the MAHAVASTU which, though a work of the MA- 

HASAM GHIKA SCHOOL of mainstream Buddhism, shows 

many characteristics of “Mahayana-in-the-making” or 

“semi-Mahayana.” Several other Indian texts of this 

genre have survived in Chinese translations only. 

The Theravada tradition of Buddhism includes 

short biographies of the Buddha in late canonical texts 

that may have been composed in India and brought to 

the Island of Sri Lanka in the first or second century 

C.E., at the latest. The earliest available comprehensive 

biography of the Buddha in this tradition, however, is 

the Jatakanidana (ca. fifth or sixth century C.E.). It 

forms the introduction of the commentary on the 

jataka stories. Descriptions of the life of the Buddha in 

East Asian and in Central Asian traditions are greatly 

influenced by the legendary accounts as handed down 

in the later Indian tradition because they are largely 

based on translations of Sanskrit texts composed in 

mainland India. 

Buddhas of earlier ages 

As mentioned earlier, a buddha is not a unique being; 

there were and will be buddhas in the past and in the 

future. However, there is only one buddha in the world 

at any time. The texts describe the biographies of many 

buddhas who lived in earlier periods. The mythical biographies 

of six buddhas of antiquity are described in 

a sermon preached by the historical Buddha. This sermon 

is found in all parallel versions of the early Mahavadana-su 

tra (Pali, Mahapadana-suttanta). Later 

Mahayana texts and Theravada literature have increased 

the number of buddhas of antiquity more and 

more. 

The cult of the relics of the Buddha 

When the historical Buddha passed away, his funeral 

rites were performed in accordance with traditional 

practice. The cremation was carried out by the Mallas, 

who lived in Kuśinagara. The bones left after the cremation 

were divided because King Ajataśatru and 

other influential personalities claimed a share of the 

relics. The relics were enshrined in several STU PAS, and 

soon the cult of stupas developed into an important 

feature of Buddhism. It is believed that relics of the 

Buddha were later further divided and distributed to 

many sacred places. Besides the corporeal relics, material 

objects used by the Buddha, including his alms 

bowl, were venerated as relics and deposited in stupas. 

Buddhas of the future 

Though the dharma as taught by the Buddha is eternal 

and immutable, the tradition of the dharma and 

the process by which it was handed down in the world 

is subject to the universal law of impermanence. After 

a certain period, the dharma will disappear from this 

world, and it will not be known until it is rediscovered 



by the next buddha. Thus, to be a buddha is not only 

a personal quality of a particular being, but rather a 

task to be fulfilled by any bodhisattva in one of the innumerable 

kalpas. As with the buddhas of the past, 

there are similarities in the various biographies of the 

buddhas who are expected to appear in future ages. 

These biographies are largely modeled on the main features 

of the life and legend of the historical Buddha. 

The next Buddha to appear in the world is MAITREYA. 

Throughout the centuries, many texts dealing with 

prophecies concerning the coming of Maitreya were 

composed. 

for the Buddha is found in the ancient sutras announcing 

the coming of a tathagata. The epithets listed 

there are bhagavat (elevated), arhat (holy), samyaksambuddha 

(fully enlightened), vidyacaranasam panna 

(endowed with knowledge and good moral conduct), 

sugata (who has gone the right way), lokavid (who 

knows the world), anuttara (who cannot be surpassed), 

purusadamyasarathi (the charioteer of men 

that need to be tamed), and śasta devamanusyanam 

(the teacher of gods and men). The Mahavyutpatti, a 

classical Buddhist lexicographical work, lists as many 

as eighty epithets for the Buddha. 

Types of Buddhas 

The historical Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist 

religious tradition, was a samyaksambuddha (Pali, 

sammasambuddha); that is, he has reached NIRVAN A 

by his own efforts without receiving instruction from 

anyone else. The Buddha was fully enlightened and 

thus was able to preach the dharma to others. There 

is another type of buddha: the PRATYEKABUDDHA (Pali, 

paccekabuddha), who obtains nirvana by his own efforts 

but is not able to teach the way to salvation to 

other beings. 

In the Mahayana tradition, buddhas are supernatural 

beings who have descended to the human world 

out of compassion. There are several classes of transcendental 

buddhas and transcendental bodhisattvas. 

They are brought into relation with particular buddha 

fields (buddhaksetra), which they are supposed to rule. 

These buddhas and bodhisattvas (e.g., AKSOBHYA, 

AMITABHA or Amitayus, Avalokiteśvara, Bhaisajyaguru, 

Mañjuśr, etc.) became the main object of veneration 

in Mahayana Buddhism. In the later development of 

Mahayana, the concept of A di-buddha, representing 

ultimate reality, was developed. It is to be found particularly 

in the texts of the KALACAKRA system. 

Epithets of the Buddha 

Buddhist literature offers several synonyms for the 

term buddha, as well as epithets mainly or exclusively 

used to refer to buddhas. An ancient term for a buddha 

is TATHAGATA (thus come/gone one). As R. O. 

Franke pointed out, this term refers to an old messianic 

expectation that an enlightened being would appear in 

this world (pp. xiv–xxix). Some epithets relate to particular 

qualities of buddhas, such as samyaksambuddha 

(a perfect enlightened one); other terms relate to the 

buddhas’ intellectual or moral qualities, for example 

sarvajña (omniscient). The most famous list of epithets 

See also: Buddha, Life of the, in Art; Paramita (Perfection) 

Bibliography 

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Netherlands: Nijhoff, 1926. 

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BUDDHA, LIFE OF THE, IN ART 

HEINZ BECHERT 

Because no single account of the Buddha’s life survives, 

many Indian texts, most notably the LALITAVISTARA 

and the BUDDHACARITA, have been used to inspire 

artists seeking to represent important events from the 

Buddha’s biography. Narrations were also composed 

in China and ancient Tibet. The number of events that 

are codified as important varies from four to 108. 

Events that could be associated with particular sites in 

northeast India usually formed the core of the lists; for 

example, the Buddha’s birth in Lumbin, his enlightenment 

in BODH GAYA, his first sermon in Sarnath, 

and his death in Kuśinagara. The Buddha’s previous 

lives are extensively presented as instructive examples 

or parables, so the JATAKAs (birth stories) also inspired 

countless artworks portraying the “life” of the Buddha. 

Different Buddhist traditions and different countries 

chose from among these stories the ones that spoke to 

their particular needs. The life of the Buddha as narrated 

in art also became a model for characterizing the 

lives of other Buddhist teachers and deities. The transcendent 

buddhas of the MAHAYANA and VAJRAYANA 

traditions, for example, are characterized as concrete 

manifestations of Śakyamuni by depicting them with 

attributes and gestures linked to particular events in 

the Buddha’s life. 

It can be argued that since texts refer to the Buddha’s 

life to teach particular doctrines, they put their 

own spin on the events. The same could be said about 

the visual arts because choices must be made about 



A representation of the birth of the Buddha. (From a painting at Yongjusa in Suwŏn, South Korea.) © Leonard de Selva/Corbis. 

Reproduced by permission. 

which events to emphasize and how to interpret their 

meaning. However, the visual images that are used by 

all schools and regions to narrate the Buddha’s life 

seem to provide a more resonant level of clarity to 

the Buddha’s teachings than could be achieved with 

texts alone. 

From the dream of Queen Ma ya to the 

great renunciation 

The Buddha’s mother, Queen Maya (sometimes Mahamaya, 

“Great Illusion”), dreamt that a silvery-white 

elephant, holding a white lotus flower in its trunk, entered 

her right side. Brahmanic priests asked to interpret 

the dream foretold the birth of a son who would 

become either a great monarch or a sage. This miracle 

is portrayed only on early Indian STU PA reliefs in which 

Maya reclines with a small elephant floating above her. 

The symbolism of the elephant probably resonated with 

early patrons as the pan-Indian symbol of supreme royalty 

and of the life-giving rain from thunderclouds. 

Maya gave birth to the future Buddha at Lumbin, 

a village in southern Nepal. She entered a grove of 

trees, reached up to grasp a branch, and the prince 

emerged from her right side. This miraculous birth is 

often depicted on aniconic reliefs that include no image 

of the baby. Maya is shown as a nearly nude Indian 

fertility spirit called a śalabhañjika, a yaksl who 

stands in a dance posture holding the branch of a tree. 

Beginning in the second century C.E. in the Gandhara 

region in present-day Pakistan, a tiny child is shown 

emerging from her side. In artworks from China and 

Japan, Maya is shown as a fully clothed dancer with a 

baby diving out of her long right sleeve. 


89


family. In aniconic representations the horse has no 

rider, but a parasol above the horse indicates 

Siddhartha’s presence. In South and Southeast Asia 

the fact that the Buddha was born to be a prince and 

renounced this privileged life is of great importance 

because by this act he denied both caste and royal 

obligations, and affirmed the value of seeking enlightenment. 

The Buddha cuts his hair as he renounces the world. (Tibetan painting, 

eighteenth century.) The Art Archive/Musée Guimet 

Paris/Dagli Orti (A). Reproduced by permission. 

After the child is born, he is bathed by two streams 

of water. In Indian depictions, the water comes either 

from jars held by gods or from the trunks of elephants. 

In Southeast Asia, the water flows from the mouths of 

mythical serpents called nagas. In the Himalayas and 

East Asia, dragons take over this role. The art of each 

region uses whichever local creature represents the 

power of water to confer royal status (the abhiseka ritual) 

and to purify. In Japan there is an annual lustration 

ceremony of the baby Buddha called Kanbutsu. 

The Buddha’s life as the prince Siddhartha Gautama 

is depicted as one of sheltered dalliance and a time of 

training in the skills needed to rule a kingdom. When 

he was about twenty-nine years old, after he has had a 

son appropriately named Rahula (fetter), Siddhartha 

is motivated to leave the palace to seek an understanding 

of the suffering he sees in the world. This 

event, which is frequently depicted in the art of South 

and Southeast Asia, is called the “great renunciation” 

because it represents the enormous sacrifice of his 

princely lifestyle. Siddhartha rides out on a horse 

whose hooves are supported by demigods (YAKSAs) so 

that the horse makes no noise to wake Siddhartha’s 

From the search for truth to enlightenment 

Siddhartha practiced yogic austerities almost to the 

point of death in his supreme effort to gain higher 

states of consciousness. Artists in the Gandhara region 

sculpted an image of this emaciated figure in what 

would be called today a superrealistic style. Every bone, 

vein, and hollowed surface of his body is shown in glaring 

detail. The CHAN SCHOOL of East Asia also celebrates 

this stage of the Buddha’s life in paintings of a 

scruffy figure emerging from the mountains and in 

sculptures of an emaciated, bearded figure in deep 

thought, although not in a traditional meditation posture. 

The THERAVADA and Chan view of the Buddha’s 

life honors the extremes in his search for truth as he 

pushed his body and mind to their farthest limits. 

When starvation did not reveal the truth to Siddhartha, 

he took nourishment offered by a girl named 

Sujata—an event sometimes shown in Indian reliefs 

and Southeast Asian paintings, and he vowed to sit beneath 

a fig tree in meditation until he became enlightened. 

Images of the Buddha Śakyamuni seated in a 

meditation posture, which appear throughout Buddhist 

Asia, refer to this vow. 

While meditating beneath the bodhi tree, the name 

it acquired after his enlightenment, Siddhartha was 

assaulted by MARA, the Buddhist god of death and desire. 

Called the Maravijaya, or conquest of Mara, this 

event is a common subject of sculptures and paintings 

in all parts of Buddhist Asia. Mara, often riding 

an elephant, leads both his armies of demons and his 

beautiful daughters in an effort to distract Siddhartha 

from his vow. The Buddha is often shown seated in 

meditation in the midst of these figures with his right 

hand reaching down to touch the earth (bhu misparśamudra) 

as he asks the earth to bear witness to his perfection 

and utter commitment to becoming a buddha, 

an awakened or enlightened one immune to death or 

desire. Mara is thus defeated. The earth-touching gesture 

alone also refers to the defeat of Mara and signifies 

the moment when Siddhartha Gautama becomes 

the Buddha. On aniconic monuments, the Buddha’s 



Buddha Śakyamuni and Scenes from the Life of Buddha, copper sculpture with traces of gilding, Nepal, twelfth century. Los Angeles 

County Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Phillips. Reproduced by permission. The center of this image shows the Buddha 

in the bhumisparśa-mudra at the moment of his enlightenment beneath the bodhi tree. Beginning below the Buddha’s left knee, counterclockwise, 

the events represented are: birth and first seven steps at Lumbinl; miracle at Sankisya; first sermon at Sarnath; monkey offering 

honey; the Buddha’s parinirvana surrounded by disciples; Buddha preaching to his mother; miracle at Śravastl; taming the mad 

elephant; and the emaciated Buddha during his search for truth. 


91


enlightenment is represented by an empty seat beneath 

a tree. 

After the Buddha was enlightened, he remained in 

meditation for seven weeks. During this time a torrential 

rain occurred and the serpent king (nagaraja) 

named Mucalinda protected the Buddha from the 

storm by lifting him above the waters and spreading 

his seven hoods out over the Buddha’s head. Images 

of this event are common in Cambodia where the naga 

is especially revered and seen to be the protector of the 

Cambodian king. During the Khmer empire in the 

early thirteenth century, a cult was introduced around 

this image, possibly to honor King Jayavarman VII (r. 

ca. 1181–1219) as both a living buddha and as the protector 

of his kingdom. After this king’s reign ended, 

there was an iconoclastic reaction in Cambodia to 

Jayavarman’s use of the images to have himself worshiped 

as a god. 

From the first sermon to the parinirvan a 

The Buddha delivered his first sermon at the Deer Park 

in Sarnath. Images showing him with the “turning the 

Wheel of the Dharma” gesture (dharmacakra-mudra) 

refer to this event. The importance of this gesture is 

that the Buddha is setting in motion the FOUR NOBLE 

TRUTHS and revealing the middle path by which anyone 

can transcend the sufferings of living in the world. 

This image further represents all of the Buddha’s teachings 

as expounded by the various miracles and doctrines, 

and is therefore used in art throughout Asia. A 

wheel alone can also symbolize the dharmacakra and 

the first sermon, especially if it is surrounded by two 

deer to indicate the context of the teaching. This symbol 

is commonly sculpted on Mahayana and Vajrayana 

monasteries or temples, as well as on early aniconic 

monuments. 

The Buddha taught and performed miracles for 

more than forty years after his enlightenment. Any 

standing Buddha image, often displaying the protection 

(abhaya) and giving (varada) gestures, can be 

viewed as representing this stage in Śakyamuni’s life. 

The walking Buddha image in Thailand represents the 

impact of this part of the Buddha’s life especially well. 

The aniconic version of the Buddha’s ministry is 

equally eloquent: footprints to represent the Buddha’s 

continued presence in this world. The great miracle at 

Śravast, when the Buddha multiplied himself before a 

congregation to demonstrate that his potential exists 

everywhere, is a frequent subject in South Asian and 

Chinese arts, especially in painting, where it may simply 

be shown as a whole mural of identical buddhas. 

When he was approaching nearly eighty years old, 

the Buddha Śakyamuni traveled to a city called Kuśinagara 

and died. In the texts this event is called his 

parinirvana, the Buddha’s complete or final achievement 

of NIRVAN A. The primary symbol of the Buddha’s 

parinirvana is the STU PA, the commemorative monument 

to his death; as the stupa form evolved into the 

mchod rten (chorten), dagoba, and the pagoda, it retained 

this symbolism. Images of the Buddha’s parinirvana 

show him reclining on his right side with his head 

resting on his right hand. Depictions of this “posture” 

vary in size, from tiny to colossal: Huge sculptures of 

the parinirvana can be found in India, Sri Lanka, and 

many sites in East and Southeast Asia. A colossal image 

was erected at the archaeological site of ancient 

Kuśinagara in the twentieth century. The meaning of 

the stupa and the reclining Buddha encompasses the 

promise that any human being can achieve nirvana like 

the Buddha if they follow his last teaching: “work toward 

enlightenment with diligence.” 

See also: Buddha, Life of the; Central Asia, Buddhist 

Art in; China, Buddhist Art in; Dunhuang; India, 

Buddhist Art in; Indonesia, Buddhist Art in; Jataka, 

Illustrations of; Mudra and Visual Imagery; Sañcl; 

Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in; Sri Lanka, Buddhist 

Art in; Theravada Art and Architecture 

Bibliography 

Cummings, Mary. The Lives of the Buddha in the Art and Literature 

of Asia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1982. 

Dehejia, Vidya. “On Modes of Visual Narration in Early Buddhist 

Art.” Art Bulletin 71 (1990): 374–392. 

Dehejia, Vidya. “Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems.” 




Ghose, Rajeshwari, ed. In the Footsteps of the Buddha: An Iconic 

Journey from India to China (exhibition catalogue). Hong 

Kong: University Museum and Art Gallery, University of 

Hong Kong, 1998. 

Huntington, Susan L. “Early Buddhist Art and the Theory of 

Aniconism.” Art Journal 49, no. 4 (1990): 401–408. 

Huntington, Susan L. “Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems.” 


Karetzky, Patricia E. Early Buddhist Narrative Art: Illustrations 

of the Life of the Buddha from Central Asia to China, Korea 

and Japan. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000. 

Pal, Pratapaditya. Light of Asia: Buddha Śakyamuni in Asian Art. 

Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1984. 

GAIL MAXWELL 


B UDDHAVACANA (WORD OF THE B UDDHA) 

BUDDHA-NATURE. See Tathagatagarbha 

BUDDHA NUSMRTI (RECOLLECTION OF 

THE BUDDHA) 

Buddhanusmrti (recollection of the Buddha) is the first 

of a set of up to ten anusmrtis (acts of recollection or 

calling to mind) that are used for both meditative and 

liturgical purposes. The full set of ten anusmrtis comprises 

Buddha, dharma, saṅgha, morality, liberality, 

deities, respiration, death, parts of the body, and peace. 

Buddhist practitioners focus their minds on these subjects 

by reciting a set text or formula listing their salient 

qualities. The recollection of the Buddha was the most 

important anusmrti, eventually becoming an independent 

practice. 

Initially the relevant formula comprised the socalled 

ten epithets or titles of the Buddha, in that practitioners 

were instructed to recall that the Buddha was 

indeed worthy, correctly and fully awakened, perfected 

in knowledge and conduct, blessed, knower of the 

world, supreme, trainer of humans amenable to training, 

teacher of gods and humankind, Buddha, and 

lord. This credal rehearsal of the Buddha’s qualities was 

held by authorities like BUDDHAGHOSA (fifth century 

C.E.) to purify the mind of defilements and prepare it 

for advanced meditation. However, other benefits were 

also ascribed to the practice, so that buddhanusmrti 

was, for example, thought useful for apotropaic purposes, 

for warding off fear and danger, as well as for 

generating merit. 

At some stage buddhanusmrti was augmented to include 

the calling to mind not only of the Buddha’s 

virtues but also his physical appearance. Iconography 

probably influenced this process, which by the second 

century C.E. had given rise to the Mahayanist pratyutpannasamadhi, 

a full-fledged visualization of the spiritual 

and physical qualities of any buddha of the 

present age, not just Gautama. This meditation incorporated 

the earlier form of buddhanusmrti, whose text 

remained the nucleus of the mental operations required, 

even though its recitation was eventually shortened 

to the invocation of the buddha’s name. In 

Chinese Buddhism, consequently, buddhanusmrti is 

known as nianfo, in which the element nian refers both 

to thinking about the buddha (fo) and reciting him, or 

rather his name. Nianfo came primarily to refer to invocation 

of the name of AMITA BHA, on account of the 

importance of that buddha’s cult in East Asia. The 

words Namu amituo fo (hail to the Buddha Amitabha) 

have accordingly become a prime liturgical and ritual 

formula for Chinese Buddhists, who have used them 

in communal worship, in personal devotions, even as 

a Buddhist greeting when answering the telephone. 

Similar developments have occurred in Korea and 

Japan. Even Buddhists who are not devotees of 

Amitabha have been deeply influenced by this practice, 

one example of this being the invocation of the 

DAIMOKU, or the sacred title of the LOTUS SU TRA (SAD- 

DHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), by followers of the 

NICHIREN SCHOOL. 

The persistence of buddhanusmrti and its derivatives 

testifies to the central importance in Buddhism of the 

relationship between those who seek salvation and the 

awakened teacher who shows them the PATH, and it 

reflects the belief that focusing the mind on the qualities 

of the awakened one helps aspirants to liberation 

move closer toward realizing those qualities themselves. 

The latter notion is explicitly developed in MA- 

HA YA NA Buddhism, and even more so in VAJRAYA NA, 

where it informs the tantric practice of “deity yoga.” 

See also: Buddha(s); Chanting and Liturgy; Nenbutsu 

(Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, Yŏmbul) 

Bibliography 

Conze, Edward. Buddhist Meditation. Allen and Unwin: London, 

1956. 

Harrison, Paul. “Commemoration and Identification in Buddhanusmrti.” 

In In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections on 

Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, 

ed. Janet Gyatso. Albany: State University of New 


BUDDHAVACANA (WORD OF 

THE BUDDHA) 

PAUL HARRISON 

The term buddhavacana (word of the Buddha) is the 

designation used by Buddhists to describe the contents 

of the Buddhist CANON, the Tripitaka. By designating 

the Tripitaka the “word of the Buddha,” Buddhism 

identifies its scriptures with the dharma of the Buddha 

and thereby makes an important claim about the authority 

and authenticity of the canon. While employing 

this term to support the authority of the scriptures, 

however, Buddhists have explained the meaning of 


93

B UDDHIST 

S TUDIES 

buddhavacana in two different ways. One explanation 

holds that the Tripitaka is literally the word of the 

Buddha, spoken by him and committed to memory by 

his immediate disciples at the First Council just after 

his death. This literal interpretation maintains that the 

Tripitaka contains all the teachings that the Buddha 

gave from his first words after his enlightenment to his 

last teachings before his parinirvana. 

Another explanation, however, suggests a more liberal 

interpretation of the meaning of the “word of the 

Buddha.” The roots of this interpretation go back to 

the Mahapadesa-sutta of the Pali canon (Dlghanikaya, 

123f.), which sets out a procedure and criteria for determining 

which teachings should be accepted as the 

“word of the Buddha.” This sutra explains that if one 

receives a teaching from a variety of sources, including 

the Buddha, a SAṄGHA gathering, or a wise teacher, 

then one should test it by comparing it with an established 

core of teachings (sutta and vinaya). If the teaching 

in question proves consistent with the authoritative 

core of teachings then it can be declared to be the “word 

of the Buddha.” This second explanation makes the wisdom 

of the Buddha, rather than the historical career of 

the Buddha, the basis for the authority of the canon. 

See also: Councils, Buddhist; Hermeneutics; Scripture 

Bibliography 

Bond, George D. The Word of the Buddha: The Tipitaka and Its 

Interpretation in Theravada Buddhism. Colombo, Sri Lanka: 

Gunasena, 1982. 

Lamotte, Étienne. “La critique d’authenticite dans le bouddhisme.” 

India Antique (1947): 216–232. Leyden, Netherlands: 

Brill, 1947. English translation by Sara Boin-Webb, 

“The Assessment of Textual Authenticity in Buddhism.” 

Buddhist Studies Review 1, no. 1 (1983): 4–15. 

BUDDHIST STUDIES 


Buddhist studies as an umbrella term for the disinterested 

or nonapologetic inquiry into any aspect of Buddhism 

or Buddhist traditions generally refers to the 

modern, academic study of Buddhism in all forms. 

This approach became possible only with the development 

in post-Enlightenment Europe of the notion of 

a comparative study of religions; as a product of this 

tradition, Buddhist studies has always assumed an outsider’s 

perspective, even when the scholars carrying out 

such studies are themselves Buddhists. The field is 

therefore an inherently etic, rather than emic, enterprise. 

This is what separates Buddhist studies, also 

sometimes referred to as Buddhology, from the practice 

of Buddhism, or from what some today call Buddhist 

theology. 

Major trends 

Several major trends may be noticed in the modern 

study of Buddhism, among which is a tendency to emphasize 

scriptures, doctrine, and history, with relatively 

less attention devoted to areas such as RITUAL and material 

culture. These trends may be attributed to a combination 

of individual and social-historical factors. 

Until recently most Westerners who studied Buddhism 

were first trained in the Western classics, and many 

were Christian missionaries, or at least deeply familiar 

with Christian history and thought. Thus, their attempts 

to locate in Buddhism features parallel to those 

they recognized in Christianity led them to concentrate 

their attentions in particular directions. The geographical 

regions of Buddhism that have received 

scholarly attention may also be closely mapped against 

political history: Colonialism and other aspects of 

Western expansion into Asia, including missionary activity, 

account for English scholarly interest in India 

and Ceylon, French interest in Southeast Asia, and 

German and Russian interest in Central Asia, and 

therefore for the comparative emphasis placed on 

those regions by scholars from those countries. Likewise, 

Japanese interest in Chinese Buddhism may be 

correlated not only to geographic proximity and to the 

fact that Japanese Buddhism traces its roots directly to 

China, but also to the period of Japanese military occupation 

of China before and during World War II, 

although these same factors apply in the case of 

Korea, which has nevertheless received considerably 

less Japanese scholarly attention. 

In this light, it is no surprise that, for example, serious 

studies of Japanese Buddhism by Western scholars 

were a rarity until the post–World War II era, since 

the country itself was for most intents and purposes 

inaccessible to outsiders. Likewise, the tremendous 

flowering of studies of Tibetan Buddhism since the 

early 1960s is a direct result of the Chinese invasion of 

Tibet in 1950, and the subsequent escape to India and 

beyond of the DALAI LAMA and tens of thousands of 

other refugees in 1959, thus bringing the literary and 

living resources of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition into 

significant contact with outsiders for the first time. 

Among the most pronounced recent trends in con- 


B UDDHIST 

S TUDIES 

temporary Buddhist studies is a reduced emphasis on 

philological or textual studies and a greater stress directed 

toward cultural or theory-oriented work. 

Traditional approaches 

Of course, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike have examined 

and reflected upon the tradition from a variety 

of perspectives from a very early period. Traditional 

Buddhist histories attest to a long-standing and keen 

interest by Buddhists in their own history: Such histories 

include the Ceylonese Dlpavam sa (Chronicle of the 

Island) and Mahavam sa (Great Chronicle) and other 

histories in Pali; similar Southeast Asian works, often 

in vernacular languages; Tibetan works, including the 

famous histories (Chos ’byung) of BU STON and Taranatha, 

as well as many other, often local, histories; and 

numerous Chinese, Korean, and Japanese works. 

While such histories tend to concern themselves with 

such matters as the relations between the Buddhist 

monastic communities and political rulers, a different 

although sometimes related genre of literature, the 

doxography or classification of tenets, attempts instead 

to provide a “history” of Buddhist doctrine. Perhaps 

the oldest clear example of such a text is Bhavaviveka’s 

Tarkajvala (Blaze of Reasoning), but the genre reaches 

its full glory in the Tibetan grub mtha’ and Chinese 

panjiao doxographical literatures. Such texts, however 

useful, are not histories as such, since their views on 

the developments of thought or what we would call intellectual 

history are polemical and not chronological; 

nor are they disinterested catalogues of doctrines or 

teachings, since they invariably seek to establish the ultimate 

primacy of the positions held by their authors. 

From the non-Buddhist perspective, texts such as Arabic 

“universal histories” and the accounts of early 

Christian missionaries have also noticed and described 

Buddhism since medieval times. 

Most scholars of Buddhism concentrate on the 

study of Buddhism in one particular cultural area, be 

it India, China, Tibet, or the like. There are good reasons 

why this is so. Since Buddhism is so fully integrated 

into the cultural matrix of every land in which 

it is found, to study the Buddhism of a certain region 

requires not only a command of the relevant language 

or languages of a culture area, but also a knowledge 

of its history, literature, and so on. Although less common 

today, when many Buddhist scholars consider 

themselves first and foremost students of Buddhism, 

in earlier generations those who studied Indian Buddhism 

were primarily Indologists, as those who 

studied Chinese Buddhism were Sinologists. While familiarity 

with the wide range of cultural facts about 

India and China, respectively, allowed such scholars 

to approach Buddhism within its cultural context, 

there is also much to be learned by examining Buddhism 

across cultural boundaries, laying emphasis 

upon its translocal unity rather than on, or in addition 

to, its local particularity. The latter approach 

tends to locate the study of Buddhism nearer to religious 

studies, the history of religions, or comparative 

religion than it does to area studies. 

To a great extent, modern Buddhist studies has emphasized 

the investigation of ancient texts and their 

doctrinal contents, with significantly less effort having 

been put into tracing the place of Buddhism within its 

broader social context, or into observation of the activities 

of contemporary Buddhists. The latter lack of 

emphasis may be seen even in the case of scholars who 

reside for long periods in Buddhist environments. 

Thus the great Hungarian scholar Alexander Csoma de 

Kó´rös (1784–1842), who spent several years of intense 

study in Tibet, produced a number of extremely valuable 

studies concerning the mountain of Buddhist literature 

that he read there, but he recorded virtually 

nothing of what he must have observed of Buddhist 

monastic or lay life. This is an imbalance that still remains 

to be redressed sufficiently. 

Focus on India 

Until recently, India, the land of Buddhism’s birth, was 

the prime focus of the majority of scholarly attention 

paid to Buddhism. This tendency may be attributed 

directly to the widespread idea that the essence of a 

tradition is to be discovered in its origins, with subsequent 

developments demonstrating little more than 

the decay of a once pristine core. This idea in turn is 

fundamentally based on the evangelical Protestant 

anti-Catholicism of the nineteenth century, as can be 

seen clearly, for instance, in the case of the great pioneer 

of Indian and Buddhist studies, F. Max Müller 

(1823–1900). This Protestant view may also be seen in 

the priority given to studies of the earliest Buddhist 

scriptures. It can hardly be a coincidence that so many 

of those European scholars who first began to pay attention 

to the later, especially philosophical, literature 

of Buddhism were Belgian and French Catholics, rather 

than English or German Protestants. Japanese scholars, 

for different historical reasons, were traditionally more 

concerned with aspects of the later phases of Buddhism, 

until influenced by Protestant agendas beginning in the 

late 1800s. In particular, the significant attention they 

and other scholars from traditionally Buddhist cultures 


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B UDDHIST 

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have given to doctrine may be explained at least in part 

as a result of their research having evolved from a fusion 

of traditional sectarian scholarship with modern 

Western-influenced methodologies. 

The rigorous study of Indian Buddhism began with 

the investigation of its literature in Pali and Sanskrit. 

Among the most important early publications on Pali 

were Viggo Fausbøll’s 1855 edition of the DHAMMA- 

PADA (Words of the Doctrine) and from 1877 the 

JATAKA (Birth Stories of the Buddha), and Robert Caesar 

Childer’s 1875 A Dictionary of the Pali Language. 

The accessibility of these texts tended to significantly 

influence the ways in which the most ancient Buddhist 

tradition was imaginatively reconstructed, and still 

does even today. In 1881 T. W. Rhys Davids (1843– 

1922) founded the Pali Text Society in London, and it 

is to this society that we owe almost all publications of 

Pali literature in the West, and most of the published 

translations of that literature. Recognition must also 

be given to the philological contributions of Danish 

scholars, chief among them the massive project of the 

Critical Pali Dictionary begun in 1924 and ongoing. 

Given its historically heavy bias toward textuality, 

among the most significant landmarks in the history 

of Buddhist studies must be counted the editions and 

translations of Buddhist scriptures and related materials. 

The publication in Japan between 1924 and 1935 

of the Taisho edition of the Chinese Buddhist CANON 

marks a watershed. For the first time, scholars attempted 

to apply notions of textual criticism to the vast 

corpus of Chinese Buddhist canonical literature, and 

to organize its presentation in a scientific fashion; this 

edition is the standard one in use today. Likewise, the 

Japanese photo-reprint edition of a complete Tibetan 

Buddhist canon (the Peking Bka’ ’gyur [Kanjur] and 

Bstan ’gyur [Tanjur]) in the early 1960s for the first 

time made these treasures widely available to scholars. 

Owing to the disappearance of Buddhism from India 

in roughly the thirteenth century, none of what 

may have been the Sanskrit canonical collections of 

Buddhist literature has survived in its entirety, and its 

treatment has correspondingly been less systematic 

and comprehensive. The study of this literature began 

in 1837, when the British government resident in 

Nepal, Brian Houghton Hodgson (1800–1894), sent 

eighty-eight Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts to Paris. 

These immediately came under the scrutiny of Eugène 

Burnouf (1801–1852), who in the fifty-one years of his 

life produced an astonishing body of work, the value 

of which persists to the present day. He was one of the 

first Europeans to study the Pali language carefully, 

which prepared him well for his work on the Sanskrit 

materials. Burnouf’s Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme 

Indien (1844) made extensive use of these texts, 

as did his copiously annotated translation of the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), published 

in 1852. These works, along with Hendrik Kern’s 

history of Indian Buddhism (1882–1884) and Émile 

Senart’s (1847–1928) study of the life of the Buddha 

(1873–1875), were among the first careful scientific investigations 

of Buddhism carried out on the basis of a 

good knowledge of relevant sources. 

Burnouf, who was perhaps not incidentally Müller’s 

teacher, may be seen as the father of a Franco-Belgian 

school of Buddhist scholarship, for just as the regions 

that were studied may be roughly mapped against a 

political background, so too may we notice national or 

regional traditions of scholarship on Buddhism. To 

this Franco-Belgian school belong, among others, the 

Indologists Léon Feer (1830–1902), Senart, Sylvain 

Lévi (1863–1935), Louis de la Vallée Poussin (1869– 

1938), Alfred Foucher (1865–1952), and Étienne Lamotte 

(1904–1983), as well as the Sinologists Edouard 

Chavannes (1865–1918), Paul Pelliot (1878–1945), 

and Paul Demiéville (1894–1979). Most of these individuals 

in fact contributed significantly to more than 

one field, while nevertheless standing firmly in the 

philological rather than the more recent cultural studies 

camp. Feer, for example, edited, translated, and 

studied texts in Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan, as well as 

other languages, while Lévi contributed to Indian, Chinese, 

Tibetan, and Central Asian studies. 

At almost the same time that Davids and Burnouf 

were engaged in their textual studies, archaeological 

investigations of Buddhist sites by Alexander Cunningham 

(1814–1893), James Burgess (1832–1917), 

and James Fergusson (1808–1886), among others, 

were being carried out across India. In the north in 

particular, efforts to trace the locations central to the 

Buddha’s life were guided by the archaeologists’ reading 

of the recently translated travel account of XUAN- 

ZANG (ca. 600–664), a Chinese monk who visited India 

in the seventh century. This way of using non-Indian 

materials is typical: Until comparatively recently, texts 

in Chinese and Tibetan were studied much less for 

their own sake than for the light they might shine on 

India, and in fact the majority of texts in Chinese and 

Tibetan to which attention was been paid by scholars 

were translations into those languages of texts of Indian 

origin, rather than native works. It is only since 

the 1980s that significant interest has been directed 


B UDDHIST 

S TUDIES 

both at indigenous works and at the ways in which 

translations work not as calques of foreign texts but as 

localized adaptations of those works. 

Despite this archaeological research, strictly historical 

studies of Indian Buddhism have been significantly 

less common than doctrinal investigations, one exception 

being studies devoted to AŚOKA. From the time of 

James Prinsep’s initial decipherment in 1834, the inscriptions 

of the emperor Aśoka have fascinated researchers. 

Subsequently, scholars such as Georg Bühler 

(1837–1898), J. F. Fleet (1847–1917), Sten Konow 

(1867–1948), and Heinrich Lüders (1869–1943) paid 

careful attention to these and other more strictly Buddhist 

Indian inscriptions, although it was not until 

quite recently that attempts have been made to comprehensively 

collect these materials. In a number of innovative 

studies since about 1975, Gregory Schopen 

has revived interest in these vital sources. Inscriptional 

studies of Southeast Asian sources were carried out 

mostly by French scholars, while it is to Japanese scholars 

that we owed most of our materials on Chinese 

Buddhist inscriptions until very recently, when Chinese 

scholars themselves have taken up the task of their 

collection and study. 

In significant respects, the directions taken by Buddhist 

studies have been steered by chance factors. Early 

interest in Pali scriptures was not due only to the idea 

that they reflect the oldest, and thus the most original 

and pure, state of Buddhism, or to the fact that by 

virtue of being written in an Indo-European language 

they seemed linguistically less foreign to Europeans 

than texts in Chinese or Tibetan. It was also essential 

that the texts themselves be physically accessible, something 

that was possible primarily due to the European 

colonial presence in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Correspondingly, 

it was Hodgson’s gifts to Burnouf, and 

the existence of other manuscript collections in European 

libraries, along with the fact that Müller was encouraged 

in this direction by his Japanese students, 

especially Takakusu Junjiro (1866–1945), that facilitated 

and inspired early studies of MAHAYANA scriptures. 

The influences on research priorities, particularly 

of Japanese ways of understanding Buddhist traditions, 

deserve to be further investigated. Great assistance was 

rendered to the investigation of Indian Mahayana literature 

by Franklin Edgerton’s publication in 1953 of 

a dictionary and grammar of Buddhist Sanskrit; its 

importance can be judged by the fact that the dictionary 

is used even by scholars of Japanese and Chinese 


Occasional chance discoveries of manuscript materials 

have also had an important impact on research 

agendas. The so-called Gilgit manuscripts, discovered 

from a stupa in what is now Pakistan and published 

by Nalinaksha Dutt between 1939 and 1959, the Sanskrit 

materials discovered largely by German expeditions 

in Central Asia (and published primarily in the 

series Sanskrithandschriften aus den Tufanfunden), and 

the DUNHUANG manuscripts, mostly in Chinese and 

Tibetan, kept centrally in London, Paris, and Beijing, 

along with more recent finds in Afghanistan and in 

Japanese monasteries, have permitted scholars to uncover 

aspects of Buddhist thought and practice that 

had remained entirely unknown, had become obscured 

in later traditions, or had even been intentionally 

suppressed. The Dunhuang collections in 

particular, along with the wall paintings adorning the 

caves at the site, have proven so important that an entire 

field of Dunhuang studies has sprung up around 

their investigation. In addition to the Lotus Su tra, so 

imporant in East Asian Buddhism and the recipient of 

much scholarly attention since the days of Burnouf, 

the PRAJN APARAMITA LITERATURE has also been much 

studied, most notably by Edward Conze (1904–1979). 

Although Western philosophers and historians of 

philosophy have rarely shown interest in Buddhist 

thought, this is one of the most active areas in Buddhist 

studies. The foremost scholar of Indian Buddhist 

thought was without a doubt la Vallée Poussin, who, in 

addition to producing significant editions of Pali texts, 

edited, translated, and studied Madhyamaka texts such 

as CANDRAKIRTI’s Prasannapada (Clear-Worded Commentary) 

and Madhyamakavatara (Introduction to the 

Madhyamaka) and Prajñakaramati’s Bodhcaryavatarapañjika 

(Commentary on Śantideva’s Introduction to the 

Practice of the Bodhisattva), and texts of the logicians 

such as DHARMAKIRTI’s Nyayabindu (Drop of Logic). La 

Vallée Poussin also translated with copious annotation 

VASUBANDHU’s ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHASYA (Treasury of 

Abhidharma) and Xuanzang’s Yogacara compendium, 

the Vijñaptimatratasiddhi (Establishment of the Doctrine 

of Mere Cognition). In this way he almost singlehandedly 

provided the basis for much of the 

subsequent study of Buddhist thought. Others who 

contributed importantly to this project include Lévi, 

who published a number of important Sanskrit texts, 

including some central to the YOGACARA SCHOOL, his 

Japanese student Susumu Yamaguchi (1895–1976), 

Gadjin Nagao, and Lamotte. Philosophical investigations 

of the Yogacara and Madhyamaka traditions continue 

to occupy many scholars, among whom D. S. 


97

B UDDHIST 

S TUDIES 

Ruegg and Lambert Schmidthausen have produced 

outstanding work. Considerable attention has also 

been given to the later Indian logical tradition since 

the days of Theodore Stcherbatsky (1866–1942) in the 

pre–World War II period. Thanks to the efforts of 

Erich Frauwallner (1898–1974), especially in the 

decade after the war, Vienna became the center of such 

studies, carried on now by Ernst Steinkellner and his 

students and colleagues, including many young Japanese 

researchers. 

Tantric Buddhism, whether that of India, Tibet, 

China, or Japan, has received comparatively little attention 

from scholars, no doubt due, in part, to the extreme 

difficulty of the subject. Its potentially titillating 

aspects have, predictably, attracted many who are more 

concerned with seeing in these traditions either esoteric 

truths or licentiousness, rather than properly understanding 

them as highly developed forms of the 

practical application of the complex philosophical systems 

developed out of the Madhyamaka and Yogacara 

systems. Numerous publications purport to address 

the topic of TANTRA, particularly in Tibetan Buddhism, 

but the utility of most of these works is open to serious 

doubt. 

Tibetan Buddhism 

For a long time, Tibetan Buddhist studies concentrated 

almost exclusively on making available Indian literature 

that had been translated and transmitted in 

Tibetan, despite the fact that among the very earliest 

scholars in the field were Isaak Jakob Schmidt 

(1779–1847), Anton von Schiefner (1817–1879), and 

W. P. Wassiljew (1818–1900), Russians familiar with 

the living monastic traditions of Mongolia in which 

were preserved the tradition of Tibetan Buddhist scholarship. 

Studies such as those of Stcherbatsky and his 

pupil Eugène Obermiller (1901–1935) on Madhyamaka 

philosophy and logic as well as historiography, 

while deeply indebted to Tibetan scholarship, nevertheless 

kept their prime focus on India, and the same 

may be said to some extent of the work of the Japanese 

pioneers of Tibetan studies, although Teramoto 

Enga (1872–1940), Kawaguchi Ekai (1866–1945), Aoki 

Bunkyo (1886–1956), and Tada Tokan (1890–1967) all 

also spent time studying in Tibet itself. Especially since 

the massive Russian collections have never been widely 

accessible, the Japanese collections of Tibetan literature 

accumulated by these travelers, including both Tibetan 

translations of canonical materials and native works, 

were the most important resources available until the 

last quarter of the twentieth century. 

Although some scholars, such as Giuseppe Tucci 

(1894–1984), had indeed studied Tibetan Buddhism 

itself, rather than merely seeing in Tibetan translations 

an otherwise unavailable source of Indian materials, it 

was the flow of Tibetans fleeing Tibet in 1959 that was 

decisive for the development of the study of indigenous 

Tibetan traditions, especially since many of the 

refugees were highly educated native scholars who 

were eager to share their knowledge with researchers 

in England, the United States, and Japan. When the 

Tibetans fled, moreover, they brought with them libraries 

of theretofore inaccessible textual materials 

that, thanks almost single-handedly to the efforts of 

E. Gene Smith of the U.S. Library of Congress, were 

reprinted and distributed around the world, making 

possible for the first time widespread access to the treasures 

of the Tibetan Buddhist literary tradition. A secondary 

factor in the development of Tibetan Buddhist 

studies has been the tremendous religious growth of 

Tibetan Buddhism itself in the West, made possible 

primarily by the presence of these refugee Tibetans, 

and the high profile of the DALAI LAMA on the world 

stage. Since this has contributed to a general interest 

in Tibet, one side effect has been an increasing interest 

in the academic study of Tibetan Buddhism. The 

same may be said for Zen Buddhism, in which the popularity 

of the religious practices has had the additional 

result of inspiring further scholarship on the tradition. 

Chinese Buddhism 

What was true for Tibetan Buddhist studies also applies 

to many studies of Chinese Buddhist materials, 

namely that they were often engaged in with the goal 

of supplementing the study of Indian Buddhism, 

rather than for their own sake. This was the case with 

such works as the comparative catalogues correlating 

Chinese translations with their Pali counterparts, or 

catalogues of Chinese translations of Indian texts. Yet 

significant investigations of Chinese Buddhism also 

have a long history. The combined efforts of scholars 

such as Tang Yongtong (1894–1964), Tsukamoto Zenryu 

(1898–1980), Demiéville, and Erik Zürcher have 

allowed us to begin to understand the overall trends of 

Buddhism in China, and the development of a true 

Chinese Buddhism, while recent studies by Antonino 

Forte, Michel Strickmann (1942–1994), and Victor 

Mair, among others, have opened up new avenues of 

inquiry into topics such as relations between the Buddhist 

monastic establishment and the state, esoteric 

traditions, and the role of Buddhism in the evolution 

of Chinese vernacular literature. 


B UDDHIST 

S TUDIES 

The CHAN SCHOOL of Buddhism, usually known in 

the West by the Japanese pronunciation Zen, has 

elicited much attention, although relatively little of this 

interest has translated into critical scholarship. Japanese 

scholars belonging to both the Rinzai and Soto 

schools have, of course, always been keenly interested 

in their own traditions, but it was the discovery early 

in the twentieth century in the Dunhuang manuscript 

collections of theretofore completely unknown Chan 

texts that shattered traditional mythologies, motivating 

a series of studies by scholars such as Hu Shih 

(1891–1962), Yabuki Keiki (1879–1939), and the famous 

D. T. SUZUKI (1870–1966), as a result of which 

it became more and more difficult to accept as fact the 

Zen tradition’s own stories about itself. A more recent 

generation of scholars, prominent among them young 

Americans, was inspired and taught by Yanagida 

Seizan, Iriya Yoshitaka (1910–1998), and others, and 

continues to contribute to a radical rethinking of all 

aspects of the Chan school. 

Japanese Buddhist studies 

Most research on Japanese Buddhism until quite recently 

has been limited to sectarian histories and doctrinal 

studies, although historians have also taken note 

of Buddhism as a social force in Japanese history. Traditional 

Japanese scholarship produced superb works 

of synthesis, including those concerning works of Indian 

origin in Chinese translation. Many of these have 

been of tremendous assistance to modern scholarship, 

as is the case with Saeki Kyokuga’s 1887 annotated edition 

of the encyclopedic Abhidharmakośa; La Vallée 

Poussin’s debt to this work can be seen on every page 

of his outstanding multivolume French translation 

(L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu, 1923–1931). 

The bulk of Japanese scholarly attention, however, 

has been devoted to the background of contemporary 

Japanese schools, both proximately within Japan and 

more remotely in their Chinese antecedents. Thus 

scholars of Kegon, the Japanese branch of the HUAYAN 

SCHOOL, have studied the HUAYAN JING in Chinese 

translation, works of the Huayan patriarchs, and the 

works of Japanese Kegon scholars, while Tendai scholars 

have studied the Lotus Su tra, and works of ZHIYI 

(538–597) and later TIANTAI SCHOOL masters, and of 

SAICHO (767–822) and his successors. In the course of 

such studies, generally little attention is given to other 

schools or to contextual data. While the value of such 

works, including for the study of Chinese Buddhism, 

should not be underestimated, by the same token its 

limitations must be recognized. Despite excellent 

Japanese scholarship on Indian and Tibetan Buddhism 

beginning in the late nineteenth century, it was only 

well into the twentieth century that Japanese scholars 

began to apply anything like the same approaches to 

their own traditions, and even today most Japanese 

scholarship on Japanese Buddhism would be better 

classified as theology (shu gaku) than Buddhist studies. 

Among the most important research materials resulting 

from this modern traditional scholarship are the 

editions of canonical works of the various sects; some 

of these works, such as the Dainippon Bukkyo Zensho 

(1912–1922), cross over lineage boundaries, while others, 

such as the collected works of great founders such 

as DO GEN (1200–1253), KU KAI (774–835), SHINRAN 

(1173–1263), and so forth, do not. This said, it is hard 

for those not familiar with the Japanese language to 

appreciate how truly vast and comprehensive is Japanese 

scholarship on Buddhism, much of which is not 

limited at all to the Buddhism of Japan. Momentous 

projects, such as Ono Genmyo’s multivolume annotated 

bibliography of almost all Buddhist literature 

then known (Bussho kaisetsu daijiten, 1932–1935), or 

Mochizuki Shinko’s almost simultaneous publication 

of a massive encyclopedia of Buddhism (Bukkyo 

daijiten, 1932–1936), remain basic and essential research 

tools for the study of Buddhism, despite the advances 

the intervening years of study have brought. 

Japanese dictionaries of Buddhist technical vocabulary 

too, beginning with that of Oda Tokuno (Bukkyo 

daijiten, 1917) and including notably the more recent 

work of Nakamura Hajime (Bukkyo go daijiten, 1981), 

have no good parallels in works in other languages. 

Buddhist studies in other traditionally Buddhist 

countries has been less active. Certainly Sri Lankan 

scholars have devoted considerable attention to multiple 

aspects of THERAVADA Buddhism, particularly in 

Sri Lanka itself. The same might be said to some extent 

of scholars in other Southeast Asian countries, not 

to mention the studies of Korean Buddhism undertaken 

by Korean scholars, and very recently of Tibetan 

Buddhism by Tibetans. That much of this work is published 

in little-known languages, however, limits its 

broader influence. 

Anthropological studies 

Somewhat unexpectedly, perhaps, the area of the Buddhist 

world that has received the most attention from 

anthropologists has been Southeast Asia, including Sri 

Lanka. These studies consider not only MONASTICISM, 

but the status of Buddhist institutions in lay society, 

Buddhism and politics, and other issues. The living 


99

B UDDHIST 

S TUDIES 

traditions of Chinese Buddhism received some attention 

from Japanese scholars, especially during the period 

of Japanese occupation, while the meticulous 

studies of Johannes Prip-Møller (Chinese Buddhist 

Monasteries, 1937) and the later investigations of 

Holmes Welch (especially The Practice of Chinese Buddhism: 

1900–1950, 1967) have recorded a world that 

has now almost entirely disappeared. Surprisingly 

little work has been done on the contemporary Buddhism 

of Japan, despite the ease of access to monasteries 

and lay Buddhist centers, or on Tibet, although 

attention paid to the latter has increased recently. Despite 

considerable interest in the Buddhist monastic 

codes (VINAYA) from the earliest days of Buddhist 

studies through the recent work of Hirakawa Akira 

(1915–2002) and Schopen, little has been done to 

compare these classical prescriptive codes with actual 

Buddhist monastic practices. 

Buddhist art 

The study of Buddhist art deserves its own treatment, 

in part because, unfortunately, it has yet to find its 

rightful place in the mostly text-based field of Buddhist 

studies. It remains true that most art historians are 

not sufficiently familiar with Buddhist literature or 

thought, and that most Buddhist scholars have, at best, 

only a passing familiarity with the tools and methods 

of art historians, although some pioneering art historians, 

such as Foucher, were thoroughly familiar with 

literary sources as well, and some textualists, such as 

Dieter Schlingloff, work comfortably with art historical 

materials. Nevertheless, it is impossible to understand 

Buddhism in any cultural context without an 

appreciation of its varieties of artistic expression. Beginning 

with the first modern encounters with Buddhist 

arts, however, scholars have attempted to 

understand their meaning and role. A great deal of attention 

has been given to the sculpture of the Gandharan 

region, most notably because of its obvious 

strong Greek influence, to Chinese monumental sculpture, 

Southeast Asian sculpture, Japanese sculpture 

and painting, and to Tibetan painting and bronze images. 

Studies remarkable for their depth and breadth 

include the Japanese multivolume examinations of the 

YUN’GANG and LONGMEN cave complexes, Tucci’s 

monumental study of Tibetan art (Tibetan Painted 

Scrolls, 1949), and Dutch studies of the BOROBUDUR 

monument in Java. 

Fields such as the study of Buddhist music and 

dance have been almost entirely ignored, despite their 

obvious centrality in Buddhist WORSHIP and the daily 

life of both monastic and lay Buddhism in all cultural 

contexts. Likewise, it is only recently that Buddhist ritual 

has drawn the attention of investigators. 

Thematic studies have occupied an important place 

in Buddhist studies. Chief among the topics of discussion 

for many years were the character of the Buddha, 

the date at which he lived, and the meaning of NIR- 

VAN A. More recently, issues such as the meaning of 

ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) in the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL, 

the status of experience and enlightenment in Chan, 

and, self-reflexively, how Buddhist studies itself should 

be carried out, have attracted considerable attention. 

It is likely that in the years to come, such more conceptual 

and theoretical studies, as well as comparative 

investigations, will become more common. 

See also: Languages 

Bibliography 

Beal, Samuel. The Romantic Legend of Śakya Buddha. London: 

Trübner, 1875. 

Beal, Samuel. Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World. 

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1906. 

Burgess, James. Report on the Buddhist Cave Temples and Their 

Inscriptions: Archaeological Survey of Western India 4. London: 

Trübner, 1883. 

Burnouf, Eugène. Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme Indien. 

Paris: Imprimerie Royal, 1844. 

Burnouf, Eugène. Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi. Paris: Imprimerie 

Nationale, 1852. 

Cunningham, Alexander. The Bhilsa Topes: Or, Buddhist Monuments 

of Central India: Comprising a Brief Historical Sketch 

of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Buddhism; with an Account 

of the Opening and Examination of the Various Groups 

of Topes around Bhilsa. Bombay: Smith, Taylor; London: 

Smith, Elder, 1852. 

Edgerton, Franklin. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary. 

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953. 

Griffiths, Paul J. “Recent Work on Classical Indian Buddhism.” 

Critical Review of Books in Religion 6 (1993): 41–75. 

Jong, J. W. de. A Brief History of Buddhist Studies in Europe and 

America. Tokyo: Kosei, 1997. 

Kern, Hendrik. Geschiedenis van het Buddhisme in Indie. Haarlem: 

H. D. Theenk Willink, 1882–1884. 

La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. Bouddhisme: Opinions sur l’histoire 

de la dogmatique. Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1909. 

La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu. 

Paris: Geuthner, 1923–1931. Reprint, Brussels: Institut Belge 

des hautes Études Chinoises, 1971. 


B URMESE, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

Lamotte, Étienne Paul Marie. Histoire du bouddhisme Indien, 

des origines à l’ére śaka (1958). Reprint, Louvain, Belgium: 

Université de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste, 1976. English 

translation, History of Indian Buddhism: From the Origins to 

the Saka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: 

Université de Louvain, 1988. 

Lamotte, Étienne Paul Marie. Le Traité de la grande Vertu 

de Sagesse. Louvain, Belgium: Université de Louvain, 

1944–1980. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr., ed. Curators of the Buddha: The Study of 

Buddhism under Colonialism. Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1995. 

McRae, John R. “Chinese Religions: The State of the Field.” Part 

2: “Living Religious Traditions: Buddhism.” Journal of Asian 

Studies 54, no. 2 (1995): 354–371. 

Müller, F. Max. Buddhist Texts from Japan. Anecdota Oxoniensia, 

Texts, Documents, and Extracts, Chiefly from Manuscripts 

in the Bodleian and Other Oxford Libraries. Aryan series, Vol. 

1, Part 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881. 

Nagao, Gadjin. “Reflections on Tibetan Studies in Japan.” Acta 

Asiatica 29 (1975): 107–128. 

Obermiller, Eugène (Evgenni Eugen’evich). History of Buddhism. 

(Chos ’byung) by Bu-ston: Part 1: The Jewelry of Scripture. 

Part 1: The History of Buddhism in India and Tibet. 

Heidelberg, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1931–1932. 

Prip-Møller, Johannes. Chinese Buddhist Monasteries: Their Plan 

and Its Function as a Setting for Buddhist Monastic Life. 

Copenhagen, Denmark: Gads Forlag; London: Oxford University 

Press, 1937. 

Strickmann, Michel. “A Survey of Tibetan Buddhist Studies.” 

Eastern Buddhist 10, no. 1 (1977): 128–149. 

Sueki, Yasuhiro. Bibliographical Sources for Buddhist Studies: 

From the Viewpoint of Buddhist Philology. Tokyo: International 

Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1998–2001. 

Takakusu Junjiro. A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised 

in India and the Malay Archipelago (A.D. 671–695) by 

I-Tsing. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896. 

Welch, Holmes. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism: 1900–1950. 

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967. 

BURMA. See Myanmar 

JONATHAN A. SILK 

BURMESE, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN 

Belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, 

Burmese constitutes the primary language of the 

largest ethnic group in Myanmar (Burma). Burmese 

comprises two distinct styles, each with its own set of 

linguistic particles to mark the syntactical relations between 

words. Generally speaking, colloquial Burmese 

is used when people meet and talk; literary Burmese is 

used for published materials. And yet, colloquial 

Burmese sometimes appears in printed form, as in 

books that contain dialogue. Likewise, literary Burmese 

may be used in some spoken contexts, such as when 

news is read on the radio. 

For purposes of this survey, the discussion of 

Burmese Buddhist literature will be divided into two 

parts: The first part distills developments in Burmese 

Buddhist literature from the twelfth century up to and 

extending into the nineteenth century; the second part 

focuses on relevant developments from the nineteenth 

century onwards. 

Twelfth to nineteenth centuries 

Inscriptions or kyok ca (stone-writings) make up the 

only form of extant Burmese writing prior to the midfifteenth 

century, and they continue to be an important 

form of writing throughout Myanmar’s pre-British 

colonial period (the British completed their military 

conquest of Myanmar in 1885; Myanmar gained independence 

in 1948). The earliest Burmese inscriptions 

come from Pagan, a major city-state in central 

Myanmar that reached the zenith of its political and 

cultural development in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 

The inscriptions, primarily in prose, often 

record the meritorious deeds of kings and other laypeople, 

in particular the construction and donation of 

monastic and other religious buildings. The inscriptions 

also sometimes record Buddhist laws set down 

by kings. The earliest Buddhist law inscription, an edict 

on theft, dates to 1249. 

The sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries witnessed 

the development of a large body of legal materials 

composed in manuscript form in Burmese, Pali, 

and other languages (e.g., Mon). These legal materials 

attempt to encode, legislate, and offer precedents for 

Buddhist practice. Common to the legal literature were 

rajasat, which were laws set down by kings, and dhammasat, 

which were law texts written, for example, by 

monks. 

Historical and biographical materials, such as rajavaṅ 

(historical accounts of the lineages of kings), are 

yet another type of Burmese literature with Buddhist 

elements in pre-nineteenth-century Myanmar. These 

materials recount the exploits and intrigues of rulers 

and others, their lines of descent, and their acts of 


101

B URMESE, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

Buddhist patronage. Rajavaṅ have been written since 

the fifteenth century. However, the first rajavaṅ to attempt 

to offer a continuous history of Myanmar was 

U Kala’s Maharajavaṅ krl (Great Chronicle), which 

appeared around 1724 (Herbert and Milner, p. 13). 

Burmese Buddhist poetic literature appears in the 

historical record from about 1450 onwards. Among the 

poetic forms are pyui', lengthy and embellished translations 

of Pali texts that deal with an event or series of 

events in the Buddha’s life or previous lives (jatakas). 

A famous example of pyui'-type poetry is the Kui 

khan pyui' (the pyui' in nine sections), which was authored 

by a monk in 1523 and based on a jataka tale 

about a king who wanted an heir. 

Finally, Burmese commentaries such as nissayas 

have been composed since the mid-fifteenth century. 

Nissayas were used to communicate in Burmese the inflections, 

syntax, and meanings of Pali texts and passages. 

Nissayas and other commentaries continue to 

play a prominent role in the teaching and transmitting 

of Pali texts and ideas up through and extending beyond 

the nineteenth century. 

Nineteenth to twenty-first centuries 

Despite, and partly due to, the political and economic 

challenges that have confronted Myanmar since the 

nineteenth century (e.g., colonial conquest, military 

rule, prolonged economic stagnation), the country has 

witnessed an efflorescence of Burmese Buddhist literature. 

As with the various types of Buddhist literature 

mentioned above, contemporary literature exhibits 

strong continuities with the conceptual and textual 

world of the THERAVA DA Pa li canon, as well as with 

the Buddhist literary traditions of South and Southeast 

Asia. 

In the contemporary period, there are four types of 

Burmese Buddhist literature that overlap with and extend 

several of the pre-nineteenth-century types. By no 

means exhaustive of available contemporary Burmese 

literature, the four highlight the range of literature 

readily accessible to those wishing to investigate Buddhist 

culture and practice in Myanmar. They are: (1) 

historical and biographical literature, (2) commentarial 

literature, (3) legal literature, and (4) devotional and 

meditational literature. Each type of material has been 

and continues to be used pedagogically, ritually, ethically, 

and politically. 

Contemporary historical and biographical literature 

addresses the development and spread of Buddhism. 

Topics include the building of pagodas and other religious 

monuments, the activities of Buddhist-minded 

leaders, and the lives of various monks and laypeople. 

Overall, contemporary Burmese Buddhist histories 

and biographies participate in a predominant tradition 

of South and Southeast Asian religio-historical writing, 

which includes the vam sa literature of Sri Lanka 

and the tamnan literature of Thailand, as well as components 

of the kyok ca and rajavaṅ literatures of 

Myanmar. An example of contemporary Burmese historical 

writing is Mahadhamma Saṅkram ’s Sasanalaṅkara 

ca tam (Ornaments of the Dispensation), 

written in 1831 and considered by many Burmese to 

be an authoritative discussion of the history of Buddhism 

in Myanmar. Phui Kya’s Kyoṅ to ra Rvhe 

kyaṅ Cha ra to bhu ra krl theruppatti (Life of the 

Kyauntawya Shwegyin Sayadaw, 1925) offers a short 

but informative biography of a monk who became abbot 

at the Kyauntawya Monastery in Yangon (Rangoon), 

the capital of Myanmar. 

Commentarial materials fall into at least two broad 

categories. One category consists of materials written in 

the nissaya style of word-by-word translation. Such writings 

appear in a large number of contexts, including, for 

example, monastic cremation volumes like Bhaddanta 

Indacara Antimakharl (Reverend Indacara’s Final Journey, 

1993), which includes nissaya passages that explain 

the Pali notion of sam vega (religious emotion). 

A second category of commentary consists of treatises 

on portions of the Pali canon and other Buddhist 

texts. An example of a commentarial treatise is Arhaṅ 

Janakabhivam sa’s Kuiy kyaṅ abhidamma, which 

typifies the exposition of abhidhamma (metaphysics) 

prevalent in contemporary Myanmar. Since its first 

publication in 1933, Janakabhivam sa’s text has seen 

several editions and an English translation by U Ko 

Lay, Abhidhamma in Daily Life (1999). 

Contemporary legal materials include vinicchaya literature, 

which concerns rulings given by learned 

monks. These rulings are promulgated within different 

monasteries and monastic courts. Whether a given 

vinicchaya is accepted by civil authorities, monks, and 

laypeople as legally valid is by no means a certainty; 

however, when a monastic court has been appointed 

by the state, and the civil and monastic authorities in 

question agree upon a decision, the chances for general 

acceptance increase. 

A representative example of vinicchaya literature 

hails from 1981, when a body of monks made a ruling 

on rebirth theory, which was published as a massive 

tome, complete with documentary photographs, titled 


B U STON (BU TÖN) 

Lu se lu phrac vadanuvada vinicchaya (Court Decision 

on Transmigration). Vinicchaya literature, as well as the 

contexts in which it is produced and deployed, could 

be profitably studied in light of Burmese Buddhist legal 

sources (e.g., rajasats, dhammasats) and culture 

dating to precolonial Myanmar. 

Devotional and meditative literature includes 

handbooks focused on different aspects of daily practice 

associated with the Buddha and his teachings. Such 

handbooks help explain the meaning and dynamics of 

devotional and meditative activity. Examples include 

U Taṅ Cui’s Pu tl cip naññ (Method of Reciting 

Stanzas, 1999) and Muigh Ññhaṅ Cha ra to’s 

Vipassana a lup pe cañ tara krl (Way of Vipassana 

Practice, 1958). The latter volume discusses the intricacies 

of VIPASSANA (SANSKRIT, VIPAŚYANA; insight) 

MEDITATION, which has become popular in South and 

Southeast Asia, as well as in the West. 

In closing, it should be emphasized that there are 

several kinds of material that fall outside the types discussed 

here. These materials include novels, such as 

Gurunanda’s Samavati e* tac bhava sam sara (The Life 

of Samavati, 1991), which draws its story about a queen 

from the fifth-century philosopher BUDDHAGHOSA’s 

commentary on the DHAMMAPADA (a work of verse in 

the Pali canon). Clearly, a vast literature awaits those 

willing to engage the complexities of Burmese and the 

Burmese Buddhist world. 

See also: Myanmar; Myanmar, Buddhist Art in; Pali, 

Buddhist Literature in 

Bibliography 

Bhe Moṅ Taṅ, U . Mranma ca pe samuiṅ (History of Burmese 

Literature). Yangon, Myanmar: Sudhammavat, 1955. 

Chulalongkonmahawitthayalai, et al. Comparative Studies on 

Literature and History of Thailand and Myanmar. Bangkok, 

Thailand: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, 

1997. 

Herbert, Patricia, and Milner, Anthony, eds. South-East Asia: 

Languages and Literatures, a Select Guide. Honolulu: University 


Hla Pe. Burma: Literature, Historiography, Scholarship, 

Language, Life, and Buddhism. Pasir Panjang, Singapore: 

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985. 

Houtman, Gustaaf. “The Biography of Modern Burmese Buddhist 

Meditation Master U Ba Khin: Life before the Cradle 

and past the Grave.” In Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions 

of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Juliane Schober. Honolulu: 


Huxley, Andrew. “Studying Theravada Legal Literature.” Journal 

of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 20, no. 

1 (1997): 63–91. 

Janakabhivam sa, Arhaṅ. Abhidhamma in Daily Life, tr. and ed. 

U Ko Lay. Yangon, Myanmar: Aung Thein Nyunt, 1999. 

Khin Maung Nyunt. An Outline History of Myanmar Literature: 

Pagan Period to Kon-baung Period. Revised edition. Yangon, 

Myanmar: Ca pe Biman, 1999. 

Kratz, E. Ulrich, ed. Southeast Asian Languages and Literatures: 

A Bibliographical Guide to Burmese, Cambodian, Indonesian, 

Javanese, Malay, Minangkabau, Thai, and Vietnamese. London 

and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1996. 

Smyth, David, ed. The Canon in Southeast Asian Literatures: Literatures 

of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, 

Thailand, and Vietnam. Richmond, UK: Curzon, 2000. 

BU STON (BU TÖN) 

JASON A. CARBINE 

Bu ston rin chen grub (pronounced Bu tön rinchendrub, 

1290–1364) was the most illustrious member of 

Zhwa lu Monastery in Gtsang (Tsang), located in west 

central Tibet. He was also the Tibetan scholar most active 

in collating and editing the Tibetan Buddhist 

CANON, the Bka’ ’gyur and Bstan ’gyur. The Bka’ ’gyur 

(Kanjur) is the collection of Tibetan translations of 

works attributed to the Buddha. The Bstan ’gyur (Tanjur) 

is the collection of Tibetan translations of important 

Buddhist commentaries and other related 

materials. The formation of the Bka’ ’gyur and Bstan 

’gyur began with the collecting of manuscripts and 

translations of Buddhist texts into Tibetan in the early 

ninth century. The process culminated in the early 

fourteenth century when, according to the Blue Annals 

(a translation of Gzhon nu dpal’s Deb ther sngon po), 

manuscripts scattered over many monasteries and 

temples in Tibet were gathered together in Snar thang 

(Narthang) Monastery. 

Bu ston then took the Snar thang version of the canon 

to Zhwa lu, where he checked the translations against 

Indian originals, added other works, and produced a 

Bka’ ’gyur and an authoritative version of the Bstan 

’gyur. The Bka’ ’gyur and Bstan ’gyur that Bu ston edited 

is the origin of the majority of the extant Tibetan canons. 

The categories under which he grouped the various texts 

are the most widely used and admired. He gives a detailed 

description of his work in his Chos ’byung (History 

of Buddhism), partially translated into English by 

the Russian scholar Eugène Obermiller in the 1930s. 


103

B U STON (BU TÖN) 

Bu ston was a conservative editor. As D. S. Ruegg 

says in The Life of Bu ston Rinpoche (1966), “Bu ston 

. . . follows an objective criterion of authenticity which 

can be accepted by any editor” (p. 28). In practice this 

led Bu ston to exclude some tantras accepted as authentic 

by the RNYING MA (NYINGMA), or Old School, 

of Tibetan Buddhism on the grounds that no original 

Indian version could be located. 

Bu ston’s collected works (gsung ’bum) include 

more than two hundred titles in seventeen volumes. 

Besides his work on the canon, Bu ston composed important 

commentaries on the yoga set of tantras and 

on the KALACAKRA Tantra. He also wrote a well-known 

commentary on the Perfection of Wisdom sutras 

called Lung gi nye ma, as well as a commentary on the 

Abhidharmasamuccaya of ASAṄGA. Even before Bu 

ston, Zhwa lu Monastery was known for its expertise 

in these two areas, and a Zhwa lu school of Tibetan 

Buddhism is mentioned in earlier histories. After Bu 

ston, the Zhwa lu school went into decline and was 

largely eclipsed by the SA SKYA (SAKYA), BKA’ BRGYUD 

(KAGYU), and DGE LUGS (GELUK) sects, but the tradition 

of studying Bu ston’s works continued. It became 

so widespread that the study of Bu ston’s works (bu 

lugs) became a minor tradition in itself. 

Bu ston’s views were highly influential in his day 

(for example, TSONG KHA PA’s Sngags rim chen mo— 

partially translated into English by Jeffrey Hopkins as 

Tantra in Tibet—draws heavily on Bu ston’s work on 

the yoga tantras) and remain so today. Bu ston’s works 

are still the central texts for study in a number of Tibetan 

monasteries. 


Bibliography 

Eimer, Helmut, ed. Transmission of the Tibetan Canon: Papers 

Presented at a Panel of the 7th Seminar of the International 

Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995. Vienna: Verlag der 

Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997. 

Obermiller, Eugène, trans. History of Buddhism. Heidelberg, 

Germany: Harrassowitz, 1931–1932. 

Ruegg, David Seyfort, trans. The Life of Bu ston Rinpoche. Rome: 

Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estreme Oriente, 1966. 



C 

CAMBODIA 

Cambodia in the twenty-first century understands itself 

as a THERAVADA Buddhist nation. While this selfconscious 

identification as a Theravada nation is fairly 

recent, the history and development of Buddhism in 

the region that constitutes present-day Cambodia extend 

back nearly two millennia. During this time numerous 

transformations occurred that led scholars to 

suppose that the Khmer Buddhism of today is markedly 

different from Khmer Buddhism even two centuries 

ago, before the rise of modern Buddhist institutions in 

Cambodia. Certain major continuities are also evident 

in the past two millennia: the intertwining of Buddhist, 

brahmanist, and spirit practices and understandings; 

the close ties between religion and political power; and 

the important role of Buddhist ideas in the articulation 

of social and ethical values. 

The region known today as Cambodia was inhabited 

two thousand years ago by Khmer-speaking peoples 

who appear to have congregated in small chiefdoms referred 

to as Funan by the Chinese. Archeological evidence 

suggests that Indian merchants, explorers, and 

monks imported Buddhism into this region at least as 

early as the second century C.E. The exact manner of the 

importation of Buddhism, along with other Indian 

ideas, into Southeast Asia, a process called Indianization, 

is not fully understood. A consensus has emerged 

among many historians, however, that Indians probably 

never established a political and economic process 

akin to modern colonization by Europeans in Southeast 

Asia; nor is there thought to have been a large-scale 

movement of Indian emigrants to Southeast Asia. 

Rather, many aspects of the language, arts, and literature, 

as well as philosophical, religious, and political 

thought of Indians, were adopted, assimilated, and 

transformed by Southeast Asians during the first centuries 

C.E., possibly through a combination of economic, 

diplomatic, and religious contacts both with India and 

Indians directly, and also through the cultural medium 

of other Southeast Asian courts and traders. 

Buddhist and brahmanic practices coexisted and became 

intertwined with local animist traditions and 

spirit beliefs in the Khmer regions from the second century 

onward. Buddhist missionaries and pilgrims were 

active during this period, which may have contributed 

to the introduction of Buddhism into Southeast Asian 

courts. Chinese histories indicate that at least one Buddhist 

from Funan, a monk named Nagasena, traveled 

to China in the sixth century. Chinese monks traveling 

to India by sea stopped en route to visit many sites in 

present-day Southeast Asia. While no indigenous Buddhist 

texts from this early period remain, items discovered 

by archeologists at the site of Oc-Eo (a port city 

during the Funan era) include Buddha images associated 

with the MAHAYANA tradition. Chinese records 

from the period describe Buddhist, Śaivite, and spirit 

cults and practices among the Khmer, with the central 

court rituals seemingly concerned with devotion to 

Śiva, especially through the worship of Śiva-lingam. 

Epigraphic evidence for the Buddhist presence begins 

to appear in the seventh century, during the period 

referred to as pre-Angkor, when the Khmer 

regions were apparently dominated by a group of 

chiefdoms or kingdoms referred to in Chinese records 

as Chenla. It is difficult to characterize the nature of 

religious life during this period. Recent historiography 

on the pre-Angkor period resists the tendency of 

older scholarship to overinterpret limited epigraphic 

evidence or conflate European or Indian models of 

105

C AMBODIA 

KINGSHIP and society onto the Khmer context. Inscriptions 

from the period, predominantly in Khmer 

and Sanskrit, suggest that the pre-Angkorian rulers 

were for the most part devotees of Śiva or VISN U, but 

this does not mean that an Indian-like “Hinduism” was 

in existence. Drawing on persuasive linguistic evidence, 

the historian Michael Vickery has pointed to the practice 

among pre-Angkor Khmer of attributing Indian 

names to their own indigenous deities. Most pre- 

Angkor rulers appear to have tolerated and to varying 

degrees supported Buddhism in their courts, but to 

what extent Buddhism was known beyond the courts 

is difficult to gauge. Iconography and historical records 

from the period suggest that Buddhist influences were 

being felt from India, China, Sri Lanka, and other parts 

of Southeast Asia, such as Dvaravat and Champa, with 

more than one form of Buddhism in evidence. Numerous 

Avalokiteśvara figures, as well as a reference to 

“Lokeśvara” (Avalokiteśvara) appearing in an inscription 

dated 791 from the Siemreap area of present-day 

Cambodia, indicate the presence of Mahayana ideas. 

Yet some early Pali inscriptions have also been found 

along with Sri Lankan and Dvaravat style Buddha images 

showing Theravada influence. 

By the end of the pre-Angkor period, kings were expanding 

their territories and centralizing political and 

economic authority, while at the same time seeking to 

align themselves with deities perceived to hold universal 

power. The Khmer political concept of a close 

association between king and deity, known in Sanskrit 

inscriptions as the devaraja cult, must have grown out 

of indigenous traditions linking rulers and local deities 

of the earth. It developed more fully during the Angkor 

period, from the ninth through thirteenth centuries, 

starting with the kingship of Jayavarman II (r. 

802–854). Inscriptions speak of Jayavarman’s patronage 

of a devaraja cult that associated him with Śiva, either 

as “god-king” or as a devotee of Śiva, “king of the 

gods.” While the exact relationship between king and 

deity denoted by this phrase remains controversial 

among scholars, there is no doubt that the power of 

kings and deities were closely interwoven in a cult that 

became a model for the later Angkorian kings. From 

readings of inscriptions, Angkorian art, and other historical 

accounts, scholars have surmised that the considerable 

political and economic influence wielded by 

Angkorian kings was inseparable from their associations 

with fertility and agriculture, their superior moral 

status, and their roles as protectors and propagators of 

religious devotion, associations that were carried into 

the later Buddhist kingships. This range of powers was 

embodied in their building projects, typically of reservoirs, 

images, and mountain temples, such as Angkor 

Wat, the fabulous temple built by Suryavarman II 

(r. 1113–ca. 1150) and dedicated to Visnu. 

During the Angkorian period, a fuller picture of 

Buddhism emerges. While most of the earlier Angkorian 

kings were Śaivite or devotees of the combined 

Śiva-Visnu deity Harihara, Mahayana Buddhism was 

also becoming increasingly intertwined with kingship. 

Yaśovarman, regarded as the founder of Angkor 

(889–900), built three hermitages outside of his capital 

dedicated to Śiva, Visnu, and the Buddha. Rajendravarman 

II (r. ca. 944–ca. 968), Jayavarman V (r. ca. 

968–ca. 1001), Suryavarman I (r. 1001–1050), and 

Jayavarman VI (r. 1080–1107) were all patrons of Mahayana 

Buddhism, though their reigns too remained 

syncretic. Mahayana Buddhism came to the forefront, 

however, during the reign of Jayavarman VII (r. 1181– 

ca. 1218), considered to be the “last great Angkorian 

king.” The complex reasons for Jayavarman VII’s promotion 

of Buddhism over other Angkorian cults, historian 

David Chandler suggests, may have stemmed 

from an apparent estrangement from the Angkor court 

as well as a period spent in Champa, where Mahayana 

Buddhism was influential. After repelling several 

bloody Cham invasions, Jayavarman VII responded to 

the suffering in the aftermath of war with public works 

intended to embody his compassion: roads, rest houses, 

hospitals, and reservoirs. His temples Ta Prohm and 

Preah Kan, built to honor his parents in combination 

with the goddess of wisdom, Prajñaparamita, and the 

bodhisattva Lokeśvara (symbolizing compassion), contained 

inscriptions enumerating the thousands of people 

connected with each temple complex. The BAYON 

temple in the center of his capital contained a central 

image of the Buddha, with four-faced images of the 

bodhisattva Lokeśvara on its towers and exteriors. 

This image has sometimes been interpreted as a likeness 

of the king as well, possibly representing a Buddhistic 

extension of the devaraja concept to linking of 

king and BODHISATTVA. Following Jayavarman, Buddhism 

and kingship have remained closely intertwined 

in Cambodia. 

During the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, 

the same period that Islamization was occurring in 

maritime Southeast Asia, Theravada Buddhism rose to 

prominence throughout mainland Southeast Asia. 

Scholars are unable to wholly account for the spread 

of Theravada Buddhist ideologies and practices during 


C AMBODIA 

A view of Angkor Wat, the great twelfth-century Buddhist–Hindu temple complex in Cambodia. © Chris Lisle/Corbis. Reproduced by 

permission. 

this period, but historiography in general is moving 

away from a clear-cut demarcation between Mahayana 

and Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia, as well as 

the idea that one form of Buddhism simply and rapidly 

supplanted the other. More likely, given the syncretic 

traditions in Southeast Asia, different Buddhist ideas 

and practices became intermingled, just as Buddhism 

itself became interwoven with spirit worship. Theravada 

Buddhism had coexisted with other forms of 

Buddhism for centuries but became gradually more influential 

as the Theravada kingdoms of Pagan and 

SUKHOTHAI (in present-day Myanmar and Thailand) 

developed into larger regional powers. As the dominant 

influence of Angkor waned, increasing contact 

with these kingdoms may have contributed to the 

spread and authority of Theravada ideas in the Khmer 

regions. A Khmer prince, possibly a son of Jayavarman 

VII, is supposed to have been among a group of Southeast 

Asian monks who traveled to Sri Lanka for study 

at the end of the twelfth century; he was ordained in 

the Mahavihara (also known in Southeast Asia as “Sinhalese”) 

order, a lineage they carried back to Pagan. In 

post-Angkorian Cambodia, it has been suggested, a 

backlash against the extravagant Mahayana expressions 

of Jayavarman VII led to a “Hindu revival,” and 

Theravadins may have used this as an opportunity to 

assert their own interpretations and practices. During 

the course of the next two centuries, Theravada Buddhism 

became assimilated into all levels of Khmer society 

and synthesized in court and villages with older 

brahmanic and spirit practices, such as agricultural fertility 

rites and the worship of neak ta (local spirits). 

The post-Angkorian or “middle period,” dated by 

Ashley Thompson from the end of Angkorian influence 

(the thirteenth through fourteenth centuries) until 

the mid-nineteenth century, was until recently 

perceived as one of decline by scholars fixated on the 

disappearance of the great civilization of Angkor. Recent 

scholarship tends to view the middle period in 

terms of multiple shifts: The population and agricultural 

centers of the kingdom shifted geographically 

south; cultural influences moved from, as well as to, 

the Thais; religious devotion continued to be syncretistic 

but with an emphasis on Theravada forms and 

ideas, as reflected in the wooden Theravada viharas 

built adjacent to Angkorian brahmanic stone temples 


107

C AMBODIA 

and the shift in iconography from images of Indian 

deities to images of the Buddha; Pali replaced Sanskrit 

as the language of inscriptions and literature; Khmer 

also came increasingly to be used, and much of the 

classical Khmer literature was composed during this 

time. Theravada ideas of kingship, MERIT AND MERIT- 

MAKING, and KARMA (ACTION); a growing emphasis on 

the biography of the Buddha; and a COSMOLOGY and 

ethical orientation expressed in ideas about birth, RE- 

BIRTH, and moral development in the three-tiered 

world of the Trai Bhum are reflected in the art, epigraphy, 

and literature of the period. At Nogor Vatt, for 

instance, a sixteenth-century inscription translated by 

Thompson refers to the merit produced by a royal couple, 

the king’s subsequent rebirth in Tusita heaven, and 

his resolve to become an ARHAT at the time of the Buddha 

MAITREYA. Buddhist iconography from the period 

focused on the depiction of the Buddha, and vernacular 

literary compositions such as the Ramkerti transformed 

its hero into a Buddhist bodhisattva. 

The eighteenth and much of the nineteenth centuries 

in Cambodia were a period of almost continual 

warfare and unrest, with the Khmer trying to repel invasions 

from both their Siamese and Vietnamese 

neighbors. Historical sources from the period suggest 

that the Buddhist material culture that had been developed 

during the middle period was widely damaged 

or destroyed as a result of warfare and social chaos. Beginning 

in 1848, when Ang Duong (r. 1848–1860) was 

installed on the Khmer throne by the Siamese, a renovation 

of Khmer Buddhism was initiated that would 

last for at least a century. During the rest of the nineteenth 

century, Khmer Buddhists rebuilt damaged 

monasteries and monk-scholars traveled to Bangkok 

to copy lost manuscripts and study Pali. 

The two most prominent Khmer monks of the nineteenth 

century were Samtec Sangharaj Den (1823– 

1913), who became the saṅgha head in 1857, and 

Samtec Sugandhadhipat Pan (1824–1894), the monk 

who is attributed with the importation of the Thammayutnikai 

to Cambodia. Both were educated and ordained 

in Bangkok, which served as the regional center 

for Buddhist education during this period. Den was 

captured as a prisoner of war by the Siamese army as 

a young boy and sent to Bangkok as a slave, where he 

served in the entourage of Prince Ang Duong. He was 

ordained as a novice at the age of eleven and by the 

time he ordained as a monk in 1844, had already won 

attention for his intellectual pursuits. In 1849 Ang 

Duong requested that Den be sent to Cambodia to 

head up the restoration of Buddhism in the kingdom, 

which he undertook until his death in 1913. He resided 

at Vatt Unnalom in Phnom Penh, the chief Mahanikai 

temple. Pan was born in 1824 in Battambang (a Khmer 

province under Siamese control until 1907) and was 

ordained as a novice there. In 1837 he went to Bangkok 

to study Pali, and eventually ended up as a student at 

Wat Bovoranives under Mongkut. The date of his return 

to Cambodia and the founding of the Thammayut 

sect in Cambodia has been attributed both to the reigns 

of Ang Duong and Norodom (r. 1860–1904), either in 

1854 or 1864. Under Norodom, Pan constructed the 

seat of the Thammayut order at Vatt Bodum Vaddey 

in Phnom Penh. In the 1880s he sent a delegation of 

Khmer monks to Ceylon to obtain relics and a Bo tree 

to plant in the new monastery. He died in 1894, with 

the title of “Samtec Sugandhadhipat,” the chief of the 

Thammayut order and the second highest monastic 

rank in the kingdom. 

The new Khmer Buddhism that began to emerge in 

this period was probably unlike the older Buddhism it 

replaced. François Bizot has argued that in spite of the 

presence of Pali inscriptions and literature, Theravada 

Pali scholarship was in fact not well established in 

Cambodia before the nineteenth century, that canonical 

Tipitaka texts were not widely used, and that 

tantric teachings were more prominent in Cambodia 

than in other Theravada areas of Southeast Asia. If this 

theory is correct, traces of this older Khmer Buddhism 

were increasingly destroyed after the mid-nineteenth 

century, and new ideas of Theravada orthodoxy took 

its place. This newly emerging Buddhism had Siamese, 

Khmer, and French sources and influences. 

Although the Thammayutnikai imported from 

Siam and patronized by the royal family never took 

wide hold outside of urban areas, its reformist ideas 

influenced young Khmer monks in the more traditional 

Mahanikai order in Cambodia. These young 

monks, led in particular by Chuon Nath (1883–1969) 

and Huot Tath (1891–1975), pushed for a series of innovations 

in the Khmer saṅgha beginning in the early 

twentieth century: the use of print for sacred texts 

(rather than traditional methods of inscribing manuscripts); 

a higher degree of competence in Pali and Sanskrit 

studies among monks; a vision of orthodoxy 

based on understanding of VINAYA texts for both 

bhikkhu and laypersons; and modernization in pedagogical 

methods for Buddhist studies. These reforms 

were not uniformly accepted within the Khmer saṅgha. 

Early attempts by Nath to introduce print were met 

with resistance from established saṅgha officials and 

led to increasing factionalism between modernists and 


C AMBODIA 

traditionalists within the Mahanikai that continued 

into the 1970s. The reformist efforts led by modernist 

monks did, however, coincide with both the pedagogical 

ideologies and political interests of French colonial 

administrators who backed Nath and Tath in an 

effort to reinvigorate Buddhist education within the 

protectorate. The French administration took on the 

role of saṅgha patron in part to foster European models 

of scientific education but also, fearing Siamese influence, 

to stem the flow of Khmer Buddhist literati to 

Bangkok. The modernist agenda also countered the influence 

of cosmologically oriented Buddhism in the 

provinces, where French rule in the late nineteenth 

century was plagued by peasant insurrections connected 

with predictions of a Buddhist dhammik (righteous 

ruler) who would usher in the epoch of the 

Buddha Maitreya. 

By 1930, when the Buddhist Institute was established 

under the directorship of French curator Susanne 

Karpelès, most of the modern Buddhist 

institutions in Cambodia were in place. For the next 

forty-five years, the Buddhist Institute led the development 

of modern Buddhism in Cambodia, issuing 

frequent publications of critical editions of texts in 

Khmer and Pali, as well as scholarly and popular studies 

related to Buddhism and Khmer literature and history, 

many of which appeared in its important 

publication, Kambujasuriya. Besides its prominent role 

in articulating a modern Khmer expression of Buddhism, 

the Buddhist Institute became a site for imagining 

Khmer nationalism, and monks were among the 

most prominent dissidents against the French colonial 

regime. The institute also helped give rise to the development 

of the Communist Party in Cambodia. 

Mean (Son Ngoc Minh) and Sok (Tou Samouth), later 

leaders of Khmer communism, were both recruited by 

Karpelès for Buddhist education. In spite of this early 

connection between Buddhism and the Communist 

Party, once the Khmer Rouge took power in April 

1975, they quickly sought to eradicate Buddhism in 

Democratic Kampuchea. Many monks were executed 

or forced to disrobe, Buddhist monasteries were destroyed 

or appropriated for other purposes, and Buddhist 

text collections were discarded. Nearly two 

million people died as a result of Khmer Rouge policies 

enacted between 1975 and 1979. 

Since the Vietnamese invasion of 1979 that brought 

an end to the Khmer Rouge regime, Buddhism has 

slowly reemerged in Cambodia, in some ways resembling 

pre-1970 Buddhism and in other ways quite altered. 

The subsequent governments of Cambodia since 

The promenade at Angkor Wat, 1997. AP/Wide World Photos. 


1979 have gradually lifted initial restrictions on Buddhist 

participation and expression, pre-1970 saṅgha 

organization has been restored and many temples 

(vatt) have been rebuilt, often from contributions from 

Khmer living in other countries. New research by anthropologist 

John Marston suggests that older strains 

of Khmer Buddhist thought, such as millenarianism 

and tensions between modernists (smay) and traditionalists 

(puran), have reemerged in this new period. 

Political leaders continue to situate themselves as patrons 

of the saṅgha in order to gain legitimacy. On the 

other hand, the loss of so many monks, intellectuals, 

and texts, as well as an entire generation of young laypeople 

raised without any religious education at all, is 

seen by contemporary Buddhist leaders as a major obstacle 

to the rebuilding process and an irreparable 

break with the past. In addition, the traumatic experience 

of so much of the population has in some cases 

ushered in new kinds of cynicism and questioning of 

basic Buddhist truths, such as the efficacy of the law 

of karma (action). At the same time, other Khmer 


109

C AMBODIA, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

identify even more strongly with Buddhism. Many seek 

to remember the dead through merit-making ceremonies 

or to ease traumatic memories through meditation 

practice. New global Buddhist ideas in the form 

of ENGAGED BUDDHISM (such as Buddhist-led care for 

AIDS patients), human rights education, and conflict 

mediation techniques, taught through the medium of 

Buddhist concepts, are also reaching contemporary 

Khmer Buddhists. One of the best-known monks of 

the post-Khmer Rouge period, Maha Ghosananda, a 

student of Gandhian ideas, began leading peace 

marches across Cambodia in 1989. These marches, 

known as dhammayatra (dharma pilgrimages), have 

crossed war zones and called attention to injustices in 

contemporary society. 

See also: Communism and Buddhism; Khmer, Buddhist 

Literature in; Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Ang Choulean. Les êtres surnaturels dans la religion populaire 

khmère. Paris: Cedoreck, 1986. 

Bhattacharya, Kamaleswar. “The Religions of Ancient Cambodia.” 

In Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia: Millennium 

of Glory, ed. Helen Ibbitson Jessup and Thierry Zephir. 

Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1997. 

Bizot, François. Le Figuier à cinq branches. Paris: École française 

de l’Extrême-Orient, 1981. 

Buddhist Institute. Biography of Samdech Preah Sanghareach 

Chuon-Nath, the Chief of Mahanikaya Order. Phnom Penh, 

Cambodia: Buddhist Institute, 1970. 

Bunchan Mul. “The Umbrella War of 1942.” In Peasants and 

Politics in Kampuchea, 1942–1981, ed. Ben Kiernan and 

Chanthou Boua. London: Zed Press; Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 

1982. 

Chandler, David. A History of Cambodia, 3rd edition. Boulder, 

CO: Westview Press, 2000. 

Chau-Seng. L’Organisation Buddhique au Cambodge. Phnom 

Penh, Cambodia: Université Buddhique Preah Sihanouk 

Raj, 1961. 

Coedès, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, ed. Walter 

F. Vella and tr. Susan Brown Cowing. Honolulu: University 

Press of Hawaii, 1968. 

Forest, Alain. Le culte des genies protecteurs au Cambodge: analyse 

et traduction d’un corpus de texts sur les neak ta. Paris: Editions 

L’Harmattan, 1992. 

Harris, Ian. “Buddhism in Extremis: The Case of Cambodia.” 

In Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia, ed. Ian 

Harris. London: Pinter, 1999. 

Keyes, Charles F. “Communist Revolution and the Buddhist 

Past in Cambodia.” In Asian Visions of Authority: Religion 

and the Modern States of East and Southeast Asia, ed. Charles 

F. Keyes, Laurel Kendall, and Helen Hardacre. Honolulu: 


Khin Sok. Le Cambodge entre le Siam et le Viêtnam (de 1775 à 

1860). Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1991. 

Kiernan, Ben. How Pol Pot Came to Power. London: Verso, 1985. 

Leclère, Adhémard. Le bouddhisme au Cambodge. Paris: E. Leroux, 

1899. 

Mabbett, Ian. “A Survey of the Background to the Variety of 

Political Traditions in South-east Asia.” In Patterns of Kingship 

and Authority in Traditional Asia, ed. Ian Mabbett. London: 

Croom Helm, 1985. 

Mabbett, Ian, and Chandler, David. The Khmers. Oxford: Blackwell 

Press, 1995. 

Osborne, Milton E. The French Presence in Cochinchina and 

Cambodia: Rule and Response (1859–1905). Ithaca, NY: Cornell 


Porée-Maspero, Eveline. Étude sur les rites agraires des Cambodgiens, 

Vols. 1–3. Paris: Mouton, 1962. 

Reid, Anthony, ed. Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era: 

Trade, Power, and Belief. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University 

Press, 1993. 

Tarling, Nicholas. The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Vol. 

1: From Early Times to ca. 1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


Thompson, Ashley. “Changing Perspectives: Cambodia after 

Angkor.” In Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia: Millennium 

of Glory, ed. Helen Ibbitson Jessup and Thierry 

Zephir. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1997. 

Thompson, Ashley. “Introductory Remarks between the Lines: 

Writing Histories of Middle Cambodia.” In Other Pasts: 

Women, Gender, and History in Early Modern Southeast Asia, 

ed. Barbara Watson Andaya. Manoa: University of Hawaii 

Press, 2000. 

Vickery, Michael. Society, Economics, and Politics in Pre-Angkor 

Cambodia: The 7th–8th Centuries. Tokyo: Centre for East 

Asian Cultural Studies for Unesco, Toyo Bunko, 1998. 

Yang Sam. Khmer Buddhism and Politics 1954–1984. Newington, 

CT: Khmer Studies Institute, 1987. 

ANNE HANSEN 

CAMBODIA, BUDDHIST ART IN. See Southeast 

Asia, Buddhist Art in 


C ANON 

CANDRAKIRTI 

Candrakrti (ca. 600–650 C.E.) is best known as a 

Madhyamaka-school Indian philosopher and commentator. 

Little is known of his life, though later Tibetan 

biographies associate him with the north Indian 

monastic university of Nalanda. His two major works 

are the Madhyamakavatara (Introduction to Madhyamaka) 

and Prasannapada (Clear Words). 

The Madhyamakavatara is a versified introduction 

to Madhyamaka thought, organized into ten chapters 

that correspond to the ten perfections (paramita) mastered 

by Mahayana BODHISATTVAS. The sixth chapter, 

corresponding to the perfection of wisdom, is the 

longest and most important. In it, Candrakrti refutes 

a variety of Buddhist and non-Buddhist views, and explores 

the meaning of such basic Buddhist ontological 

categories as the two truths, no-self, and emptiness. 

The Prasannapada is a prose commentary on the 

Madhyamakakarika (Verses on the Middle Way; second 

century C.E.), Nagarjuna’s foundational MADHYAMAKA 

SCHOOL text. In his commentary, Candrakrti brilliantly 

adumbrates Nagarjuna’s critique of philosophical 

categories, and insists, contrary to his predecessor 

Bhavaviveka (ca. 490–570 C.E.) that the Madhyamika 

philosopher must avoid syllogistic reasoning, and must 

defeat opponents solely through drawing out the absurd 

consequences of their own statements. This 

methodological approach was later known as Prasaṅgika 

(consequentialist) Madhyamaka, in contradistinction 

to the approach that favored using formal inference to 

establish Madhyamaka views independently, the 

Svatantrika. 

Candrakrti was influential among later Indian 

Madhyamikas, but achieved his greatest fame in Tibet, 

where he came to be regarded by many as the Madhyamaka 

commentator par excellence. He was particularly 

important for the founder of the DGE LUGS 

(GELUK) tradition, TSONG KHA PA (1357–1419), who 

placed his work at the center of monastic education on 

Madhyamaka, and made him a thinker whose views are 

discussed and debated by Tibetan scholars to this day. 

Bibliography 

Huntington, C. W., and Wangchen, Geshé Namgyal. The Emptiness 

of Emptiness: An Introduction to Early Indian Madhyamika. 


Sprung, Mervyn; Murti, T. R. V.; and Vyas, U. S., trans. Lucid 

Exposition of the Middle Way: The Essential Chapters from the 

Prasannapada of Candraklrti. Boulder, CO: Prajña Press, 

1979. 

CANON 

ROGER R. JACKSON 

There is no such thing as the Buddhist canon. In fact, 

the concepts of canon and canonicity are especially 

problematic in Buddhism, given the wide geographical 

spread and great historical variety of the religion, together 

with the absence of any central authority. If the 

term canon is defined loosely as a more or less bounded 

set of texts accorded preeminent authority and sanctity, 

then each Buddhist school or tradition to evolve 

developed its own canon in the process. While agreeing 

on the centrality of the notion of BUDDHAVACANA 

(WORD OF THE BUDDHA) as capable of leading others 

to awakening, Buddhists may and do differ over what 

actually constitutes this buddhavacana. 

In view of the perennial possibility of disagreement 

and misunderstanding, Buddhists formulated explicit 

guidelines for authenticating religious teachings as 

true buddhavacana and interpreting them correctly. 

These guidelines include the four great authorities 

(mahapadeśa), which directed that teachings were to 

be accepted as authentic if they were heard from (1) 

the Buddha himself; (2) a SAṄGHA of elders; (3) a 

group of elder monks specializing in the transmission 

of dharma (i.e., sutra), VINAYA or matrkas (the matrices 

or mnemonic lists that became the ABHIDHARMA); 

or (4) a single elder specializing therein. But teachings 

heard from any of these authorities could only be accepted 

if they conformed with existing scriptural tradition 

(i.e., with the sutra and vinaya), and also, 

according to a variant formulation, if they did not 

contradict the nature of things (dharmata). Another 

set of principles, not subscribed to by all Buddhist 

groups, held that in receiving and interpreting teachings 

one should follow the four refuges or reliances 

(pratiśarana), relying on the dharma taught in preference 

to the person teaching it, the meaning (or 

spirit) of it rather than the letter, sutras of definitive 

or explicit meaning (nltartha) rather than implicit 

meaning requiring interpretation (neyartha), and direct 

understanding (jñana) rather than discursive 

knowledge (vijñana). 

Even while emphasizing seniority and tradition, 

these interpretative principles place a higher premium 


111

C ANON 

on content and its realization than they do on form 

and obedience to it. Truth (dharma) emerges as the 

primary value, ever the same whether buddhas arise to 

preach it or not, independent of particular formulations 

by particular people, so that eventually the statement 

“All that the Buddha has said is well said” is 

turned around: Whatever is well said (i.e., true) is the 

word of the Buddha. Canonicity is therefore defined 

in functional terms: If a teaching is meaningful, if it is 

in line with the dharma, and if it tends to eliminate the 

defilements and lead to liberation, then any product of 

inspiration (pratibhana) may be accepted as the word 

of the Buddha. Under such conditions, innovations inevitably 

crept in, some of them rejected as not being 

the true word of the Buddha, but some of them finding 

acceptance, especially if they accorded in spirit with 

existing belief. It was in this way that the Mahayana 

sutras eventually came to be accepted by some Buddhists 

as buddhavacana, as did the Buddhist tantras after 

them. Thus Buddhism functioned from early on 

with what is almost a contradiction in terms, an “open 

canon,” in which commonly accepted principles of 

authenticity take the place of a rigidly defined and 

bounded set of texts in a given linguistic form. The latter 

would have been well-nigh impossible in any case 

because Buddhism functioned in a situation of regional 

and linguistic diversity, with Buddhists living in autonomous 

self-governing communities. 

Form, content, and transmission 

Agreement in such circumstances was by consensus, 

despite occasional attempts by kings and emperors to 

enforce orthodoxy. Several so-called councils (sam glti, 

group recitations) are supposed to have been held as 

the fledgling saṅgha tried to maintain unity on what 

was to be accepted as the true word of the Buddha or 

the correct interpretation of the rules of discipline. The 

first council at Rajagrha took place after the death of 

the Buddha. At this council, the disciple A NANDA recited 

the sutras (discourses delivered by the Buddha, 

or others accorded equivalent authority), and UPALI 

recited the vinaya (rules of discipline for renunciants). 

The community accepted their recounting of these two 

bodies of texts, with only some monks dissenting. 

Yet even this account of a saṅgha relatively united 

as to what the Buddha had taught may oversimplify history. 

Later councils (at Vaiśal, Pataliputra, etc.) were 

occasions for more serious disagreements, which led to 

the formation of the different nikayas by sects or schools 

each recognizing the validity of its own ordination lineage 

only. In India it appears that each nikaya came to 

transmit its own set of sacred texts, initially dividing 

them into sutra and vinaya. In some schools, the sutra 

and vinaya were supplemented from about the second 

century B.C.E. onwards by the abhidharma, an even 

more variable set of texts (seven for the Sarvastivadins, 

a different seven for the Theravadins, and so on), which 

systematized the teachings in terms of the particular 

categories they fell under. Some schools rejected this 

third category, but for most the notion of the canon as 

consisting of the three baskets (tripitaka) of sutra, 

vinaya, and abhidharma became standard. The tripitaka 

of one school, as far as scholars know, was never the 

same as that of the next, although the loss of the literature 

of most schools makes it difficult to be certain 

about the extent of difference. Nevertheless, there are 

certain commonalities. For example, the su tra-pitakas 

were divided into sections (nikayas, agamas) according 

to such criteria as length, subject, or numerical category 

(there was also a miscellaneous category, for texts 

that did not fit any of these). The vinayas were divided 

into rules for men and rules for women, these being ordered 

according to the seriousness of the offense, with 

other sections devoted to particular aspects of community 

life (ordination, official acts, property, etc.). 

The resulting collections of texts, which are referred to 

as canons, were therefore quite varied, extensive, and 

structurally complex. 

One of the primary functions of the Buddhist order 

was to preserve and transmit all this literature, at first 

orally, then in writing, from generation to generation, 

even though Buddhists have always had a keen sense 

of the fragility of this enterprise. They believe that this 

effort is bound to fail in the end, due to human weakness, 

so that the work of a buddha will need to be done 

over and over again. Different groups of renunciants 

took responsibility for the transmission of different 

sections of their school’s canon, committing them to 

memory, although occasionally people with prodigious 

mental powers mastered the whole canon. One 

consequence of this “division of labor” is that the same 

text can occur in two or more different places in a given 

canon. Oral transmission also led to extreme redundancy 

and repetition, the same formulas and blocks of 

text recurring in many different contexts. 

From about the first century B.C.E. onward the texts 

began to be committed to writing, on palm leaf, birch 

bark, and other materials. This was only partially successful 

in preserving the texts for posterity, and most 

have been lost. The only canon to survive in its en- 


C ANON 

tirety is that of the Theravadins, written in the Pali 

language. It shows that some schools kept their scriptures 

in ancient tongues, but in the extant fragments 

of other schools’ canons it is apparent that a continuous 

process of Sanskritization was under way. The 

use of various Indian languages is another sign of the 

absence of any central authority. In one sense all Buddhist 

scriptures, even those in Pali, are translations; it 

is not known what language(s) the Buddha himself 

spoke, but he is supposed to have sanctioned his followers’ 

use of their own dialects for transmitting his 

teachings. The Buddhist canon is thus thoroughly 

multilingual. Parts of the canons of many Indian 

schools are extant in Chinese or Tibetan translation, 

as well as in Sanskrit fragments displaying different 

degrees of regularization from earlier Prakritic or 

Middle Indic dialect forms to classical Sanskrit. Thus 

the vinayas of six schools have survived, as well as 

parts of the su tra-pitakas of the Sarvastivadins, the 

DHARMAGUPTAKAs, and the MAHASAM GHIKAs. Abhidharma 

texts from various schools, in particular the 

Theravadins and the Sarvastivadins, also survive. But 

while manuscripts continue to be found, the greater 

part of the Indian Buddhist canons has no doubt vanished 

forever. Buddhist teachings, which emphasize 

the inevitability of transformation and loss, have 

themselves succumbed to it. 

Even when it was fully extant, it is unlikely that 

many Buddhists ever knew their canon in its entirety, 

as a Muslim might know the Qur’an or a Christian the 

Bible. The Buddhist scriptures are simply too extensive, 

so that most members of the order would have 

been familiar with and used only a small number of 

them, a functional partial canon as opposed to an ideal 

complete one. Scholars also believe that Buddhists 

belonging to different mainstream or Śravakayana 

schools would have accepted much of what the other 

groups transmitted as canonical, agreeing on the broad 

principles, and differing only on particular points of 

doctrine, and, more importantly, on points of monastic 

discipline. Some of the most heated disputes in the 

history of the order were over the vinaya. With the advent 

of the MAHAYANA, with its prodigious outpouring 

of new scriptures, the scope for disagreement 

increased, and the bounds of the Buddhist canon became 

less distinct. The Mahayana canon was even 

more open than the mainstream one, and followers of 

that path are in most cases unlikely to have known 

more than a tiny fraction of the literature it generated. 

The same is true of tantric Buddhism, with its many 

A stone tablet carved with a sacred text in Pali, one of 729, each 

housed in its own miniature pagoda at a site in Mandalay, Myanmar 

(Burma). © Christine Kolisch/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

classes of tantras, ritual and soteriological texts, which 

outnumbered even the Mahayana sutras. 

Buddhist canons outside India 

The complexity of this picture increased still further 

when Buddhism spread beyond the greater Indian cultural 

area. Although the Pali canon of the Theravadins 

eventually established itself as the standard in Sri Lanka 

and Southeast Asia, in Central Asia and China different 

schools coexisted, and the Mahayana orientation 

was dominant. The Chinese translated scriptures belonging 

to these different schools and to this new 

movement with great zeal, the result being that the 

Chinese Buddhist canon took on a rather different 

shape. At first the work of bibliographers and cataloguers, 

later the product of imperial decree, authorized 

and funded by the court, the Chinese Buddhist 

canon (Dazangjing, literally “Great Storehouse Scripture”) 

was a far more comprehensive collection. It 


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C ANON 

eventually included Chinese translations of texts from 

the tripitakas of different Indian schools and of huge 

quantities of the Mahayana sutras and Buddhist tantras 

produced in India from approximately the first century 

C.E. onward, as well as commentaries and treatises, 

texts written in China, biographies of monks and 

nuns, lexicographical works, and even the catalogues 

of Buddhist scriptures themselves. The sheer number 

and diversity of texts made the use of the tripartite 

structure of the tripitaka unfeasible. What is more, the 

Chinese retained different translations of the same text, 

often produced many centuries apart, affording modern 

scholars an excellent view of how texts and translation 

techniques developed over time. 

Thus the Chinese Buddhist canon, which became 

the standard in Korea and Japan as well, is vast. It has 

appeared in numerous editions, many of them made 

with imperial patronage, although the one most often 

consulted by scholars today is the Taisho shinshu 

daizo kyo (New Edition of the Buddhist Canon Made 

during the Taisho Reign), published in Japan from 1924 

to 1934 in one hundred volumes, each of which runs 

to about a thousand pages (eighty-five volumes of texts 

containing 2,920 works, twelve volumes of iconography, 

and three of catalogues). Yet, immense as it is, the 

Taisho is not the only edition; many others have survived 

as well, and thus “the Chinese Buddhist canon” 

is itself an abstraction of many highly variable collections. 

This proliferation of editions was in part due to 

state involvement, as each successive set of rulers 

sought to legitimate themselves politically as patrons 

of religion, or aspired for reasons of piety to the merit 

that the propagation of the buddhadharma generates. 

These ideological considerations were instrumental 

in stimulating the invention and spread of PRINTING 

TECHNOLOGIES in East Asia, long before they were 

known in the West. Thus the world’s oldest printed 

works are Buddhist texts, and from the tenth century 

onward the earlier manuscript copies of the Chinese 

Buddhist canon were replaced by printed editions, first 

using carved wooden blocks, then movable metal type. 

The production of these editions required resources 

that in those days only states could muster, although 

in recent times wealthy religious and commercial organizations 

have also become involved. 

The same is true of Tibet, where in the fourteenth 

century the efforts of cataloguers trying to make sense 

of the sheer diversity of Buddhist texts combined with 

the interests of political authorities, intent on their own 

kind of order, to produce the first of many editions of 

the Tibetan canon, the Old Snar thang. Unlike the Chinese, 

the Tibetans were generally disinclined to preserve 

multiple translations of the same text, but their 

canon (upon which the Mongolian canon is also 

based) is equally vast. It has two major divisions, the 

Bka’ ’gyur (the Word Translated; i.e., buddhavacana) 

and the Bstan ’gyur (the Teachings Translated; i.e., 

commentaries and other treatises). The Bka’ ’gyur includes 

the three subdivisions of vinaya (that of the 

Mulasarvastivada school), sutra (predominantly Mahayana 

sutras, in their various categories), and TANTRA 

(also arranged in various classes). The Bstan ’gyur also 

reflects these categories. The arrangement of all these 

texts differs according to edition, and sometimes one 

edition carries works not found in another. 

As is the case with the Chinese canon, the Tibetan 

translations preserve much that is lost in Sanskrit. 

Some of the most prestigious editions (Peking, Sde dge, 

Snar thang, etc.) have been mass-produced woodblock 

prints; others have been manuscript productions, written 

by hand on expensive papers with ink made of precious 

metals and enclosed between ornate covers 

studded with jewels. The resources expended on this 

activity have been enormous, and the results are objects 

of great beauty. For Tibetans, as for other Buddhists, 

the sanctity of the canon derives from the 

sanctity of the liberating truth it contains and of the 

person who uttered it, and therefore the scriptures too 

are the focus of worship and veneration. They are not 

like any other books, but embody a special power, and 

must therefore be treated with reverence and respect, 

in a way similar, but not identical, to the way in which 

Jews approach the Torah, Christians the Bible, and 

Muslims the Qur’an. 

Canon and canonicity are therefore never the same 

from one religion to the next, even if common themes 

can be found. Furthermore, the Buddhist canon turns 

out to be a large family of collections of texts in different 

languages and from different places, all sharing 

descent from a common set of forebears—the divergent 

oral reports of what the Buddha had taught, which 

were circulating among his disciples at his death some 

time in the fifth century B.C.E. Not unitary in content 

or linguistic expression even at the beginning, it is 

unimaginably diverse in both respects two and a half 

millennia later, as it continues to grow with editions 

and translations into English and other modern languages. 

At the same time, the Buddhist canon is unified 

by a common concern with setting out the path 

to salvation. Just as the waters of the ocean, however 

vast, have the same taste of salt at any point, so too all 


C ANON 

A Tibetan book, printed from hand-carved woodblocks. © Tiziana and Gianni Baldizzone/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

the many teachings of the Buddha have a single taste 

everywhere, that of liberation. And as to the path by 

which liberation is attained, Buddhists are fond of 

quoting the verse (Udanavarga 28.1): 

Not doing any evil, accomplishing what is 

good, 

Purifying one’s own mind: this is the teaching 

of the Buddha. 

See also: A gama/Nikaya; Apocrypha; Catalogues of 

Scriptures; Councils, Buddhist; Languages; Scripture 

Bibliography 

Davidson, Ronald M. “An Introduction to the Standards of 

Scriptural Authenticity in Indian Buddhism.” In Chinese 

Buddhist Apocrypha, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. Honolulu: 


Grönbold, Günter. Der buddhistische Kanon: Eine Bibliographie. 

Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1984. 

Harrison, Paul. “A Brief History of the Tibetan Bka’ ’gyur.” In 

Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. Roger Jackson and 

José Cabezón. New York: Snow Lion, 1996. 

Lamotte, Étienne. “La critique d’authenticité dans le bouddhisme.” 

In India Antiqua (1947): 213–222. Leiden, Netherlands: 

Brill, 1947. English translation by Sara Boin-Webb, 

“The Assessment of Textual Authenticity in Buddhism.” 

Buddhist Studies Review 1, no. 1 (1983): 4–15. 

Lamotte, Étienne. “La critique d’interprétation dans le bouddhisme.” 

Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales 

et Slaves 9 (1949): 341–361. English translation by 

Sara Boin-Webb, “The Assessment of Textual Interpretation 

in Buddhism.” In Buddhist Hermeneutics, ed. Donald S. 

Lopez, Jr. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. 

Lancaster, Lewis. “Buddhist Literature: Canonization.” In The 

Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade, Vol. 2. New York: 

Macmillan, 1986. 

Norman, K. R. Pali Literature: Including the Canonical Literature 

in Prakrit and Sanskrit of All the Hlnayana Schools of 

Buddhism. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1983. 

Pagel, Ulrich. “Buddhism.” In Sacred Writings, ed. Jean Holm. 

London and New York: Pinter, 1994. 

Ray, Reginald. “Buddhism: Sacred Text Written and Realized.” 

In The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, ed. Frederick 

M. Denny and Rodney L. Taylor. Columbia: University of 

South Carolina Press, 1985. 

von Hinüber, Oskar. A Handbook of Pali Literature. Berlin: de 

Gruyter, 1996. 

PAUL HARRISON 


115

C ATALOGUES OF S CRIPTURES 

CATALOGUES OF SCRIPTURES 

Catalogues of scriptures (jinglu) are bibliographical 

records of Chinese Buddhist literature of Indian, Central 

Asian, and indigenous provenance. Their beginnings 

can be traced with reasonable certainty to the 

mid-third century C.E., a century after the translation 

of Buddhist literature began in China. Compilation of 

catalogues in China continued throughout subsequent 

centuries, generating a total of approximately eighty 

catalogues by the end of the eighteenth century, though 

only one-third of them are extant today. Catalogues 

were also compiled in Korea and Japan whenever recensions 

of the Sinitic Buddhist CANON were introduced 

and domestic editions compiled. Most Chinese 

catalogues were private undertakings by a single individual, 

usually a monk, although a few are official, 

state-sponsored compilations made by a group of 

learned monks appointed for the task. Buddhist catalogues 

were a natural outgrowth of the Chinese secular 

bibliographical tradition that was in place by the 

first century C.E., and their compilation is a quintessentially 

East Asian phenomenon, there being nothing 

equivalent to them in Indian Buddhist literature. The 

catalogues offer indispensable source material for reconstructions 

of Buddhist history in not only East Asia 

but India as well. 

Some 80 percent of the catalogues date from the 

Tang dynasty (618–907) or earlier, from the period 

when the substantial part of the translations of Buddhist 

scriptures into Chinese was accomplished. The 

primary goal of this group of catalogues was the verification 

of textual history and authenticity, and the 

determination of canonicity—a function of the conditions 

of the time when new translations were continually 

being added to a still-fluid Buddhist canon, 

and texts of indeterminate history or questionable 

identity proliferated. The fact that texts were disseminated 

at this time through hand-copying was a factor 

in this proliferation, for anyone with the means 

and inclination could, and often did, write new manuscripts 

and portray them as authentic Buddhist 

SCRIPTURE. Thus the catalogues of this period were 

both prescriptive and proscriptive in function, in that 

they classified texts to be either included in or excluded 

from the canon. In a real sense, they held the 

key to the fate of texts and, by extension, the formation 

of the Buddhist canon in China. By contrast, 

post-Tang catalogues were essentially descriptive and 

were indexes to the printed canons, merely listing 

their established and fixed entries. 

The Chu sanzang jiji (A Compilation of Notices on 

the Translation of the Tripitaka, ca. 515) by Sengyou 

(445–518) is not only the earliest extant catalogue, but 

also preserves part of an even earlier catalogue by the 

renowned monk-scholar DAO’AN (312–385). The 

value of this catalogue also derives from the fact that 

it set the standard for cataloguing methods by employing 

a minute typological classification based on 

textual and doctrinal characteristics. Most of the cumulative 

list of divisions and categories of Buddhist literature 

that appear in medieval catalogues originated 

in the work of Sengyou: new or old translations; 

anonymous and variant translations; spurious scriptures; 

abridged scriptures; extant and nonextant translations; 

MAHAYANA and HINAYANA literature in the 

three divisions of scripture, discipline, and treatise; 

translator known or unknown. Indigenous compilations, 

such as prefaces to scriptures, histories of Buddhism, 

biographies of monks and translators, and 

Buddhist catalogues themselves were also included to 

illustrate the proper transmission of Buddhism and its 

literature. 

The Lidai sanbao ji (Record of the Three Treasures 

throughout Successive Dynasties, 597) by Fei Changfang 

(d.u.) introduced a chronological catalogue of translations 

arranged according to the dates and dynasties of 

translators, an innovation that was adopted in subsequent 

catalogues. Unfortunately, Fei also altered or 

fabricated numerous translator and author attributions 

to minimize the number of scriptures of questionable 

pedigree, as a way of ensuring the credibility 

of the Buddhist textual transmission. This catalogue 

was a case where criteria for textual authenticity 

were compromised for polemical reasons. A statecommissioned 

catalogue, the Da-Zhou kanding zhongjing 

mulu (Catalogue of Scriptures, Authorized by the 

Great Zhou, 695), kept many of Fei’s arbitrary attributions 

and helped create an enigmatic category of scriptures 

that were both inauthentic and yet canonical. 

The Kaiyuan shijiao lu (Record of Śakyamuni’s 

Teachings, Compiled during the Kaiyuan Era, 730) by 

Zhisheng (d.u.) was the most critical and thorough 

catalogue in its evaluation of textual histories and represented 

the culmination of the art of Buddhist cataloguing 

that had begun nearly half a millennium 

earlier. Its influence is evident in the contents and organization 

of East Asian printed canons, all the way up 

to the modern standard edition, the Taisho shinshu 

daizo kyo (1924–1934). However, even this catalogue, 

with all its critical apparatus, accepted some of the 

problematic attributions that originated in the Lidai 


C AVE 

S ANCTUARIES 

sanbao ji. Thus, despite the wealth of invaluable historical 

material they contain, not all catalogues, or the 

attributions included therein, are uniformly dependable. 

Their data must be used cautiously, by thoroughly 

cross-referencing information found in the different 

extant catalogues. 

See also: Apocrypha; Printing Technologies 

Bibliography 

Hayashiya Tomojiro. Kyo roku kenkyu (Studies on Buddhist Catalogues). 

Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1941. 

Kawaguchi Gisho . Chu goku Bukkyo ni okeru kyo roku kenkyu 

(Studies on Buddhist Catalogues in Chinese Buddhism). Kyoto: 

Ho zo kan, 2000. 

Tokuno, Kyoko. “The Evaluation of Indigenous Scriptures in 

Chinese Buddhist Bibliographical Catalogues.” In Chinese 

Buddhist Apocrypha, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. Honolulu: 


CAVE SANCTUARIES 

KYOKO TOKUNO 

Cave sanctuaries are manmade structures built into 

natural or excavated caves in the side of a mountain, 

canyon wall or cliff. Found in India and Afghanistan, 

at various sites along the SILK ROAD in CENTRAL ASIA, 

and in China, cave sanctuaries range from single chambers 

to enormous monastic compounds that include 

halls for worship and teaching, living quarters for 

monks and travelers, and spaces such as kitchens and 

libraries. As way stations for travelers, these sites played 

an important role in the development and dissemination 

of Buddhism. 

The genesis of cave sanctuaries is unclear. They may 

have their roots in the ancient Indic tradition of asceticism, 

whose adherents had long made use of such 

natural structures in pursuit of their renunciatory 

lifestyles. The earliest rock-cut caves in India were excavated 

in the third century B.C.E. during the rule of 

AŚOKA at sites such as Lomas Rishi and Sudama in Bihar 

province. It should be noted that an inscription on 

the entrance to the Lomas Rishi cave states that it was 

dedicated for the use of the A jvakas, a prominent ascetic 

group. Both Lomas Rishi and Sudama were simple 

structures consisting of an inner circular chamber 

housing a STU PA, and a rectangular outer hall, presumably 

a place where devotees could congregate for 

lectures and other forms of teaching. 

Located about 105 miles south of Bombay, the 

caitya or worship hall at Bhaja is more complicated. 

Extending about sixty feet into the mountainside and 

approximately twenty-nine feet high, it consists of an 

apsidal chamber bracketed by tall columns on both 

sides. The wooden ribs appended to the ceilings of the 

central and side aisles have no structural purpose but 

reflect the use of prototypes of wood, bamboo, and 

thatch in the construction of the earliest cave sanctuaries. 

The columns help to define the path for traditional 

circumambulation (pradaksina) of the stupa 

placed at the rear of the chamber. Vihara 19 at the same 

site consists of two large inner chambers that were used 

communally and smaller individual quarters. Each cell 

contains a raised rock-cut bed with a pillow and a small 

niche in the wall used for holding a lantern. 

The caitya hall at Karli was built between 50 and 75 

C.E. It is 124 feet long, 46.5 feet wide, and 45 feet high, 

and contains thirty-six columns capped with couples 

seated on kneeling elephants. The façade was elaborately 

carved with a large horseshoe-shaped arch that 

defined the primary window. 

Twenty major sites and numerous minor sites patronized 

by individual travelers and wealthy artistic 

and commercial guilds were constructed in western India 

from 100 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. However, the region is 

best known for AJAN T A, a group of twenty-six caves 

built by the ruling elite on both sides of the Waghora 

River in the late fifth century C.E. Ajanta is renowned 

for its delicate but powerful sculptures, such as those 

seen on the façade of cave 19, and its extraordinarily 

beautiful wall paintings, many of which record events 

from the past lives (JATAKA) of the historical Buddha, 

Śakyamuni. Representations of bodhisattvas, worship 

images in the residential halls, and the addition of 

seated buddhas at the front of the stupas in the caitya 

halls illustrate contemporaneous changes in Buddhist 

thought. Other important centers in western India are 

found at Aurangabad and in some structures at Ellora. 

MAN D ALA-like compositions, female deities, and the 

depiction of bodhisattvas with multiple heads in the 

sixth- and seventh-century caves at Aurangabad reflect 

further changes in the religion. 

Noted for its (now destroyed) colossi, BAMIYAN 

(mid-sixth to seventh century C.E.) in Afghanistan is 

the most extensive Buddhist site in that country. One 

of the enormous standing buddhas was about 183 feet 

high, while the other measured about 127 feet. The 

famous seventh-century Chinese pilgrim XUANZANG 

(ca. 600–664) records a third colossus, representing a 


117

C AVE 

S ANCTUARIES 

Some of the earliest representations of the transcendent 

Buddha Vairocana are also found at these sites. 

Caves found farther east in the Turfan area include 

those at Toyok and Bezeklik. Both have suffered substantial 

depredations. 

The interior of cave 19, one of the twenty-six caves of Ajanta, 

constructed in the late fifth century, at Maharashtra, India. The pillars 

and the stupa with the figure of the Buddha in relief were 

carved from the living rock. © Lindsay Hebberd/Corbis. Reproduced 


buddha in final transcendence, or parinirvana, as part 

of the original construction. Bamiyan and the neighboring 

sites of Kakrak and Foladi are also noted for a 

distinctive school of painting that combined Indian, 

Sassanian Persian, and other elements. 

From the fourth to the eighth century, over two 

hundred caves were constructed at the Central Asian 

site of Kizil near the city of Kucha in what is now the 

Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. Kizil 

and related sites such as Kumtura (about a hundred 

caves) and Kizilgara (forty-six caves) were patronized 

by the rulers of Kucha, a prominent oasis kingdom on 

the northern branch of the Silk Road. Many of the 

caves have a unique structure consisting of a front 

chamber linked to a back chamber by two small arcades. 

Sculptures and paintings in shades of gold, blue, 

and green cover the wall. Preaching scenes or encapsulated 

representations of jataka stories are standard. 

China has the largest numbers of cave sanctuaries 

in Asia, and several of the most famous are found in 

Gansu, a province in the northwest with links to the 

Silk Road that played a seminal role in the introduction 

of Buddhism to China. Dating from the fourth to 

the fourteenth century, the nearly five-hundred decorated 

caves at Mogao and those at related sites near the 

city of DUNHUANG provide invaluable information for 

the development of Chinese Buddhist art. Some of the 

earliest caves have a pillar in the center thought to derive 

from the stupas in early Indian construction. Later 

chambers are open or have low-lying platforms at the 

back. Early imagery includes sculptures of buddhas 

and bodhisattvas and paintings of past-lives stories. 

Representations of paradises and illustrations based on 

prominent texts are found in caves dating from the 

sixth to the eighth century, while those excavated in 

the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries contain seminal 

imagery for later Tibetan art. Comparable developments 

are found in the Yulin grottoes, the Western 

Thousand Buddha Caves (Xiqianfodong), and the Eastern 

Thousand Buddha Caves (Dongqianfodong) in the 

same region. The Binglinsi caves near Lanzhou and the 

Maijishan caves near Tianshui, which also contain 

both paintings and sculptures, are among the larger 

sites in Gansu. 

The fifty-three caves at YUN’GANG in Shansi 

province are renowned for the five colossal sculptures 

that dominate caves 16 through 20. Built in the late 

fifth century under the patronage of the Northern 

Wei (386–534) rulers, the Yun’gang caves share the 

iconography found in contemporaneous structures 

at Dunhuang, but they contain no paintings, only 

sculptures. 

LONGMEN near Luoyang in Hebei province was begun 

in the early sixth century. Longmen houses over 

two thousand caves, some large, some small, as well as 

thirty-six hundred inscriptions. About one-third of the 

caves were constructed during the Northern Wei and 

the rest during the Tang dynasty (618–907). The Fengxiansi, 

which was begun under the rule of the Tang 

emperor Gaozong (r. 649–683) and finished around 

675, is the most famous at the site. Four guardians, two 

bodhisattvas, and two monks attend a fifty-foot-high 

seated buddha. The figures are noted for elegant and 


C AVE 

S ANCTUARIES 

The late-seventh-century Fengxiansi at Longmen, Henan Province, China. The seated Buddha is fifty-five feet high. © Robert D. Fiala, 

Concordia University, Seward, Nebraska. Reproduced by permission. 

careful carving. Other centers, many of which were begun 

after the dissolution of the Northern Wei empire 

in the mid-sixth century, include Gongxian and Xiangtangshan 

in Hebei, Tianlongshan in Shansi, and 

other sites in Shandong. Numerous smaller excavations, 

often consisting of a single cave, are also known 

at many sites in northern China. A few sites are also 

found in the south. 

Although not common after the tenth century, cave 

sanctuary construction flourished in the southwestern 

province of Sichuan during the Tang and Song 

(960–1279) dynasties. Several centers are found near 

Dazu. The Sichuan caves contain distinctive imagery 

including scenes of daily life, Chan OXHERDING PIC- 

TURES, and icons common in later esoteric traditions. 

Carefully assembled with cut-stone panels, 

SŎKKURAM, located on top of Mount T’oham on the 

eastern outskirts of Kyŏngju, is a Korean response to 

Indian cave sanctuaries. In contrast to India and 

China, there were no natural caves in Korea, or at least 

none suitable, and Sŏkkuram was entirely manmade. 

Constructed between 751 and 774, Sŏkkuram has a 

round main hall that opens to a rectangular anteroom. 

A large free-standing buddha seated in the center of 

the main hall is attended by bodhisattvas, guardians, 

and other figures carved on the walls in high relief. 

See also: Monastic Architecture 

Bibliography 

Caswell, James, O. Written and Unwritten: A New History of the 

Buddhist Caves at Yungang. Vancouver: University of British 

Columbia Press, 1988. 

Chu goku Sekkutsu (The Grotto Art of China). A series in Japanese 

and Chinese on major Chinese sites. Beijing: Wenwu 

Chubansha; Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1980–. 

Dehejia, Vidya. Early Buddhist Rock Temples: A Chronology. 

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972. 

Howard, Angela Falco. Summit of Treasures: Buddhist Cave Art 

of Dazu, China. Trumbull, CT: Weatherhill, 2001. 

Mitra, Debala. Buddhist Monuments. Calcutta: Sahitay Samsad, 

1971. 

DENISE PATRY LEIDY 


119

C ELIBACY 

CELIBACY. See Sexuality 

CENTRAL ASIA 

Unlike most regions of the world, there is no universally 

accepted definition of what constitutes “Central 

Asia.” The region will be defined in this entry as constituting 

the network of oasis towns comprising the 

ancient SILK ROAD, stretching from Afghanistan to 

DUNHUANG. The grasslands inhabited by nomadic 

peoples to the north, and the Tibetan highlands to the 

south—together commonly referred to as Inner Asia— 

have separate histories and will be treated elsewhere in 

entries on TIBET and MONGOLIA. 

A natural dividing point between western and eastern 

Central Asia is Kashgar, the westernmost city in 

the Tarim basin. Located at the western edge of what 

is today the People’s Republic of China, this city serves 

as a logical boundary for discussions of this region in 

both ancient and modern times. 

Western Central Asia 

The earliest evidence of a Buddhist presence in this 

region dates from the time of King AŚOKA (mid-third 

century B.C.E.), who left inscriptions in Greek and 

Aramaic at Qandahar and Laghman (both in modern 

Afghanistan). Though not specifically Buddhist in 

content—Aśoka’s explicit discussions of Buddhism are 

restricted to a relatively small area in and around the 

territory of ancient Magadha—they do provide concrete 

evidence that Afghanistan had come under the 

control of a Buddhist ruler. 

In the territory of Gandhara (northern Pakistan and 

eastern Afghanistan) and Bactria (northern Afghanistan 

and southern Uzbekistan), Buddhist temple complexes 

excavated at Airtam, Kara-tepe, Fayaz-tepe, and 

Dalverzin-tepe (in some cases accompanied by inscriptions 

by their donors) offer testimony to the importance 

of Buddhism in the region during the Kushan 

period (ca. late first to third centuries C.E.) and possibly 

before (Rhie). Even farther to the west, excavations 

in the Merv oasis (the easternmost part of ancient 

Parthia in modern Turkmenistan) have yielded archaeological 

remains of Buddhist temples, as well as 

Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit dating from the fourth 

to the sixth centuries, including a VINAYA text belonging 

to the Sarvastivada school (Utz). Monasteries excavated 

at Adzhina-tepe and other sites in southern 

Tadjikistan provide evidence of the survival of Buddhism 

in the region down to at least the eighth century 

(Stavisky). 

Afghanistan has also been the site of two spectacular 

manuscript finds in recent years (though the precise 

spots of the discoveries are not known): the British 

Library collection, dating from the first century C.E. 

(Salomon 1999 and 2000), and the Schøyen Collection, 

containing texts from the second to seventh centuries 

C.E. (Braarvig et al. 2000 and 2002). The British Library 

manuscripts include both canonical scriptures (possibly 

associated with the DHARMAGUPTAKA school) and 

local compositions; the Schøyen collection includes a 

number of well-known MAHAYANA scriptures. The fact 

that all of these texts are written in Prakrit or Sanskrit 

rather than translated into local vernaculars (with the 

exception of a fragmentary text in Bactrian, whose precise 

nature is uncertain) is typical of those few Buddhist 

texts found throughout the region, where 

Buddhists seem to have been content to read and transmit 

their scriptures in the “church languages” of India 

(Nattier). 

In contrast to the territories of Gandhara, Bactria, 

and eastern Parthia, where Buddhism flourished for 

many centuries, in the territory of ancient Sogdiana 

(northern Uzbekistan) Buddhist motifs appear only as 

minor elements in non-Buddhist artistic productions, 

confirming the reports of Chinese travelers that attest 

to almost no Buddhist presence in the region. Though 

several figures of Sogdian ancestry played key roles as 

missionaries and translators during the formative period 

of Chinese Buddhism (if the Chinese ethnikon 

Kang does indeed correspond to Sogdian, about which 

there is some controversy), and though one Buddhist 

site may now have been identified in Sogdiana 

(Stavisky), at present it appears that Sogdian Buddhism 

was essentially an expatriate phenomenon. 

Other parts of western Central Asia, such as Ferghana 

and Khwarezm, seem to have had little or no Buddhist 

population at all. 

Buddhists in Gandhara appear to have flourished 

during the first century C.E. under the patronage of 

the Sakas (referred to in Indian sources as Śakas), an 

Iranian-speaking people whose sponsorship of Buddhist 

donations is well attested in inscriptions, and who 

are mentioned in the British Library fragments by 

name. Under the Kushan (Sanskrit, Kusana) dynasty 

(ca. late first to third centuries C.E.) Buddhism continued 

to receive significant support as well. Legends of 

the conversion of the Kushan ruler Kanishka (Sanskrit, 


C ENTRAL 

A SIA 

Kaniska) to Buddhism, however, are probably no more 

than that, for no inscription describes him as a Buddhist 

(or even as making a donation to a Buddhist community) 

and the justly famous images of the Buddha 

on his coins comprise a distinct minority in a vast sea 

of Iranian, Greek, and Indian deities. Recent archaeological 

findings, which point to a drop in trade between 

Bactria and Sogdiana during the Kushan period, suggest 

that, rather than providing a conduit for the transmission 

of Buddhism to East Asia, the Kushans may 

instead have erected a barrier on their eastern frontier 

(Naymark). If this is the case, it would explain the silence 

of Chinese sources concerning Kanishka and his 

successors, and it would suggest that it may have been 

their Saka predecessors rather than the Kushans themselves 

who facilitated the initial diffusion of Buddhism 

to eastern Central Asia and China. 

It has sometimes been suggested that the invasion of 

the Hephthalite Huns (late fifth to early sixth centuries 

C.E.) dealt a serious blow to Buddhism in western Central 

Asia, but accounts by Chinese travelers, such as 

Songyun (early sixth century) and XUANZANG (ca. 

600–664), report that Buddhism continued to prosper 

despite the damage done during the Hephthalite conquest. 

Xuanzang singles out the Lokottaravada branch 

of the MAHASAM GHIKA SCHOOL as being particularly 

influential at BAMIYAN, where two colossal Buddha 

statues (fifty-three and thirty-five meters in height), 

destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, may have expressed 

the distinct buddhological views of this school. 

A more significant threat to the fate of Buddhism 

in the region was the long-term expansion of Islam. 

Beginning in the seventh century, western Central Asia 

began to experience significant Arab incursions, and 

by the end of the tenth century, Buddhism had largely 

disappeared even in Gandhara itself (Stavisky). 

Eastern Central Asia 

A Buddhist presence in northern China is documented 

in historical and literary sources beginning in the middle 

of the first century C.E., and on this basis scholars 

have inferred that Buddhists must have passed through 

eastern Central Asia—that is, the territory of the Tarim 

basin (modern Xinjiang in the People’s Republic of 

China)—no later than the beginning of the first millennium 

C.E. Despite the proximity of this area, which 

would later host several flourishing Buddhist citystates, 

records of the initial phase of Buddhist teaching 

and translation activity in China do not mention 

the presence of missionaries from eastern Central Asia 

(nor for that matter from India itself), but instead from 

western Central Asian territories such as Parthia, Sogdiana, 

and the Kushan realm (Zürcher). 

The earliest evidence of a Buddhist presence in the 

Tarim basin—aside from a manuscript of the Dharmapada 

(in Gandhar language and Kharosth script) 

found near Khotan, which has been assigned to the second 

century C.E. but may have been imported from 

elsewhere—dates from approximately two centuries 

later. A cache of civil documents written in the Gandhar 

language and the Kharosth script from the kingdom 

known to the Chinese as Shanshan (centered at 

Miran, in the southeastern part of this region) has been 

dated to the early third century C.E., and it attests to 

the existence of an incipient Buddhist SAṄGHA, though 

apparently without any full-time and celibate clergy. 

By the fourth century C.E. a significant Buddhist presence 

had been established in the Tokharian-speaking 

city-states of Kucha and Agni on the northeastern 

route, where the Sarvastivada school was especially 

prominent. Buddhism flourished under royal patronage 

and numerous monasteries and convents were 

founded. A substantial number of texts in Sanskrit 

were imported and subsequently copied locally, most 

of them of Sarvastivada affiliation. In contrast to the 

standard practice in western Central Asia, however, 

Buddhists in the Tarim basin began to translate scriptures 

into their own vernacular languages around the 

beginning of the sixth century C.E. The Tokharians appear 

to have been the first to make this move, and texts 

in both Agnean (Tokharian A) and Kuchean (Tokharian 

B) dating to around 500 to 700 C.E. have been discovered. 

This local literature continues to be mainly 

Sarvastivada in content; among cultic figures, the future 

Buddha MAITREYA appears to have been an object 

of special interest. 

Despite the conversion to the Mahayana of KUMARA- 

JIVA (350–409/413 C.E., a native of Kucha and later a 

famous translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese), few 

followed his lead, and non-Mahayana teachings remained 

the norm in Kucha and Agni until at least the 

seventh century. In the kingdom of Khotan (in the 

southwestern Tarim basin), by contrast, Mahayana 

traditions found an early and fervent following. The 

ascendancy of the Mahayana is reported already in 

FAXIAN’s travel report (early fifth century) and The 

Book of Zambasta, an anthology of Buddhist texts recast 

in Khotanese poetry (early eighth century), which 

makes it clear that Mahayana Buddhism was preferred. 

With the fall of the Uygur kingdom in Mongolia in 

842 C.E., Turkic-speaking peoples began to pour into 


121

C ENTRAL A SIA, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

the Tokharian territories of the northeast (though 

some non-Uygur Turks had preceded them). Initially 

they adopted local Sarvastivada traditions, sometimes 

in combination with Manichaean traditions brought 

with them from Mongolia. With the growth of Chinese 

influence, however, the Uygurs increasingly drew 

on Chinese Mahayana scriptures and practices. Most 

of later Uygur literature—including such famous 

works as the SUVARN APRABHASOTTAMA-SU TRA, the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), and 

the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa—is translated from the Chinese 

(Elverskog). 

Buddhism continued to flourish in eastern Central 

Asia down to the beginning of the eleventh century, 

when the Muslim conquest of Khotan in 1004 signaled 

the beginning of the end of Buddhist dominance in the 

region. These territories are today populated almost 

entirely by Turkic-speaking Muslims, who have little 

knowledge of the flourishing Buddhist cultures that 

preceded them. 

See also: Central Asia, Buddhist Art in; Gandharl, 

Buddhist Literature in; Islam and Buddhism; Mainstream 

Buddhist Schools; Persecutions; Sarvastivada 


Bibliography 

Braarvig, Jens; Hartmann, Jens-Uwe; Kazunobu Matsuda; and 

Sander, Lore; eds. Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, 

Vol. 1. Oslo, Norway: Hermes, 2000. 

Braarvig, Jens; Harrison, Paul; Hartmann, Jens-Uwe; Kazunobu 

Matsuda; and Sander, Lore; eds. Buddhist Manuscripts in the 

Schøyen Collection, Vol. 2. Oslo, Norway: Hermes, 2002. 

Elverskog, Johan. Uygur Buddhist Literature. Turnhout, Belgium: 

Brepols, 1997. 

McRae, John R., and Nattier, Jan, eds. Buddhism across Boundaries: 

Chinese Buddhism and the Western Regions. Honolulu: 


Mémoires de la Delegation Archeologique Française en Afghanistan. 

Paris: De Boccard, 1928 (and subsequent volumes in the series). 

Nattier, Jan. “Church Language and Vernacular Language in 

Central Asian Buddhism.” Numen 37, no. 2 (1990): 195–219. 

Naymark, Aleksandr. “Sogdiana, Its Christians and Byzantium: 

A Study of Artistic and Cultural Connections in Late Antiquity 

and Early Middle Ages.” Ph.D. diss. Indiana University, 

2001. 

Rhie, Marylin Martin. Early Buddhist Art of China and Central 

Asia. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1999. 

Rosenfield, John. Dynastic Arts of the Kushans. Berkeley: University 


Salomon, Richard. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara: The 

British Library Kharosthl Fragments. Seattle: University of 

Washington Press, 1999. 

Salomon, Richard. A Gandharl Version of the Rhinoceros Su tra: 

British Library Kharosthl Fragment 5B. Seattle: University of 


Sims-Williams, Nicholas. New Light on Ancient Afghanistan: The 

Decipherment of Bactrian. London: School of Oriental and 

African Studies, University of London, 1997. 

Stavisky, Boris. “The Fate of Buddhism in Middle Asia.” Silk 

Road Art and Archaeology 3 (1993–1994): 113–142. 

Utz, David. “Arsak, Parthian Buddhists, and ‘Iranian’ Buddhism.” 

In Buddhism across Boundaries: Chinese Buddhism 

and the Western Regions, ed. John R. McRae and Jan Nattier. 


Zürcher, Erik. “Han Buddhism and the Western Region.” In 

Thought and Law in Qin and Han China: Studies Dedicated 

to Anthony Hulsewé on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 

ed. W. L. Idema and E. Zürcher. Leiden, Netherlands: 

Brill, 1990. 

CENTRAL ASIA, BUDDHIST ART IN 

JAN NATTIER 

More than half a million years ago, plate movements 

of the earth’s crust, by thrusting up the Himalayas and 

the Tibetan plateau, prevented monsoons from reaching 

the interior and desertified the area to the north; 

yet glacial melt streams from the Kunlun mountains 

and the Tianshan range created extensive fertile oases 

along the edges of the Taklamakan desert. In De la 

Grèce à la Chine (1948), René Grousset memorably described 

the SILK ROAD as a chaplet or rosary of oasis 

towns strung around this great desert. Even today, the 

Keriya river supports well-spaced pastoral households 

over 250 kilometers into the desert, but at one time, 

the ease of growing fruit and grains led to the existence 

of settled and prosperous kingdoms, where Buddhism 

flourished from the third century C.E. onward. Sideby-side 

with translations of the scriptures, the arts of 

architecture, sculpture, and painting had their own 

contribution to make to this exchange of ideas. 

Architecture 

The practice of Buddhism by communities of monks 

required places remote enough for undisturbed meditation, 

yet close enough to centers of population 

whose devotional activities could support them. Cells 

for the monks, undecorated save perhaps for a single 

image of the Buddha in meditation, and larger shrines 



for images of the Buddha and narratives of his life and 

teachings, could easily be hollowed out of the soft rocks 

and gravel or sand conglomerates of the region: At 

some sites hundreds of caves survive, often with a great 

deal of their painted imagery (Kizil and other sites near 

Kucha, Toyuq, Bezeklik, and DUNHUANG). The architecture 

ultimately derives from India, but at Dunhuang, 

the early caves and individual niches show 

features typical of Chinese wooden architecture, such 

as the transverse front chamber with simulated gable 

ceiling. 

Architectural monuments include great stupas 

(Rawak, Endere) and monastic buildings (Keriya, 

Tumshuk, Miran, Gaochang, Beiting). Architectural 

style, particularly of CAVE SANCTUARIES, depends on 

the topography and characteristics of the natural materials 

at each site. The basic plan consisted of an anterior 

cell with the main image centrally placed 

opposite the entrance, and a smaller rear chamber, 

lower in height, with entrances on either side of the 

main image, allowing circumambulation (pradaksina) 

around it. 

Wall paintings 

Both cave sanctuaries and constructed buildings were 

decorated with wall paintings, a great many of which 

have survived, although many have been removed 

from their original sites to museums in London, Paris, 

New Delhi, Saint Petersburg, and Seoul. Mineral pigments 

were used. 

Two Buddhist sanctuaries along the Keriya River 

were excavated in the mid-1990s. The two buildings 

were constructed of wooden pillars with reed and clay 

walls, with a central chamber two meters square, surrounded 

by a 1.5-meter wide corridor. Although the 

walls had collapsed to a height of some twenty to ninety 

centimeters, the scattering of painted fragments and of 

fallen timbers enabled one sanctuary to be reconstructed 

almost in its entirety. In the lower register 

were mural paintings of life-size standing buddhas in 

Indian style, three on each side (except on the entrance 

wall), each buddha with two small buddhas in the upper 

corners, while in the upper part of each wall was a 

series of smaller panels, each with two smaller seated 

buddhas in gray or orange robes, one above the other. 

Two Adoring Bodhisattvas. A wall painting at Kizil, China. (Central 

Asian/Chinese, seventh century.) Freer Gallery of Art Library. 


Sculptures 

Except at Dunhuang, few sculptures remain in situ; archaeological 

explorers removed many of them early in 

the twentieth century. Throughout the region, the 

stucco images are intimately related to the mural decoration: 

Aureoles and nimbi are regularly painted on 

the walls behind them, and share the same style. Often, 

it is these painted features alone that survive, 

clearly indicating whether the lost image was seated or 

standing. 

Rawak stupa, some sixty kilometers north of 

Khotan, still stands in a rectangular enclosure whose 

corners are oriented to the cardinal directions and 

whose walls were lined with large and small clay sculptures 

attached to a wooden armature. Once the form 

had been built up in clay, the surface was smoothed 

and coated with a final thin layer of gypsum plaster, 

and painted, using the same pigments employed for 

the mural paintings. Aurel Stein in 1900 and 1901 and 

Emil Trinkler in 1930 both made partial excavations 

of the site, but because of the fragility of the unbaked 

clay sculptures, some remain buried beneath the sands. 

In the whole region of the Taklamakan, clay stucco 

was the most common form of sculpture. Major elements 

of the imagery were often produced with the aid 

of molds, some of which have survived: They range 

from decorative details and miniature BUDDHA IMAGES 

to heads and individual body parts, such as hands and 

feet, and even whole figures of up to about a quarter or 

a third life-size, such as a complete seated buddha excavated 

near Khotan. From Tumshuk, near Kucha, 

come three almost complete tableaux, each about 

eighty centimeters in height and sixty centimeters wide, 

illustrating crucial episodes in individual JATAKA stories, 

evidently composed using a number of such molds. 


123


A folding carved wooden shrine depicting Amitabha Buddha with the eight great bodhisattvas. (Central Asian, ca. 850–950.) The 

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Reproduced by permission. 

Small wooden images dating from the fifth century 

C.E. onward have been found at sites such as Toyuq 

and Gaochang. These images furnished a means for the 

dissemination of iconography and style, and include 

both single images and narrative scenes. Several examples 

exist in triptych form, in which hinged panels 

with smaller narrative scenes flank the central image; 

when closed, they are fastened by means of a clasp, 

protecting the images within and presenting a tall 

smooth exterior. 

Kucha 

Kucha, on the northern route, is surrounded by Buddhist 

monuments. The cave temples of Kizil, some 

sixty kilometers to the west, are lavishly decorated with 

wall paintings. The sixth-century C.E. dating proposed 

by Albert von Le Coq and Ernst Waldschmidt is slow 

to be discarded in favor of Su Bai’s dating, supported 

by carbon-14 tests at the site, which suggest a thirdcentury 

C.E. start. 

Shrines at Kizil have an entrance leading directly 

into a barrel-vaulted longitudinal chamber, with the 

main image in a niche directly opposite. Large preaching 

scenes appear on the lateral walls below a balcony 

of heavenly figures, while the vault, springing from a 

corbel, depicts individual preaching scenes or jataka 

stories in a diamond lattice. For purposes of pradaksina 

or ritual circumambulation of the main image, a lower 

vaulted passage leads to a narrow rear chamber in 

which the Buddha’s parinirvana is depicted in mural 


C HAN 

A RT 

paintings or in sculptured form. The final element in 

the iconographical program is a half-circular lunette 

over the entrance, often portraying MAITREYA, the 

buddha of the future, sometimes with twin niches beneath 

for smaller stucco or clay sculptures. The largest 

caves at Kizil, with a colossal central image, had up to 

five successive balconies with sculptures instead of 

paintings on the lateral walls. 

Sites along the southern route include Niya, Miran, 

Endere, and Loulan; those along the north include 

Karashahr, Gaochang, Bezeklik, and Toyuq. The two 

routes rejoined near the Chinese border west of Dunhuang, 

where at least one of the fifth-century Northern 

Wei caves (cave 257) displays a narrative depicted 

with iconography and style similar to the same narrative 

at Kizil (cave 224), the only major difference being 

the placing of the story on the crown of the vault 

in Kizil, and at waist level on the side walls in Dunhuang. 

On this occasion at least, the same craftsmen 

must have worked at both sites, changing the placement 

to suit the local architectural schema. 

At the Chinese end of the Silk Road, the huge natural 

cave (no. 169) at Binglingsi, on the Yellow River 

near Lanzhou, bears a date of 420 C.E. The larger than 

life-size clay sculptures modeled on wooden armatures 

are closely related in style to contemporary stone sculptures 

at Mathura, showing how rapid was the transmission 

of both iconography and style, with the 

necessary adaptation to local materials. 

See also: Bamiyan; Central Asia; China; China, Buddhist 

Art in; Monastic Architecture 

Bibliography 

Baumer, Christoph. Southern Silk Road: In the Footsteps of Sir 

Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin. Bangkok, Thailand: Orchid 

Press, 2000. 

Debaine-Francfort, Corinne; Idriss, Abduressul; et al. Keriya, 

mémoires d’un fleuve: archéologie et civilisation des oasis du 

Taklamakan. Suilly-la-Tour: Editions Findakly; Paris: Electricité 

de France, 2001. 

Giès, Jacques, and Cohen, Monique. Sérinde, terre de Bouddha: 

dix siècles d’art sur la route de la soie. Paris: Réunion des 

Musées Nationaux, 1995. 

Gropp, Gerd. Archäologische Funde aus Khotan Chinesisch- 

Ostturkestan: die Trinkler-Sammlung im Übersee-Museum. 

Bremen, Germany: Röver, 1974. 

Härtel, Herbert, and Yaldiz, Marianne. Along the Ancient Silk 

Routes: Central Asian Art from the West Berlin State Museums. 

New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982. 

Howard, Angela Falco. “In Support of a New Chronology for 

the Kizil Mural Paintings.” Archives of Asian Art 44 (1991): 

68–83. 

Maillard, Monique; Jera Bezard, Robert; and Gaulier, Simone. 

Buddhism in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Leiden, Netherlands: 

Brill, 1976. 

Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris. La route de la soie. Paris: 

Arthaud, 1985. 

Nara Prefectural Museum of Art. The Silk Road and the World 

of Xuanzang. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1999. 

Whitfield, Roderick; Agnew, Neville; and Whitfield, Susan. Cave 

Temples of Mogao: Art and History on the Silk Road. Los Angeles: 

Getty Conservation Trust, 2000. 

CEYLON. See Sri Lanka 

CHAN ART 

RODERICK WHITFIELD 

From the point of view of art history, the CHAN 

SCHOOL (Japanese, Zen; Korean, Sŏn), more than any 

other form of Buddhism, has long been associated with 

distinctive modes of visual representation. Looking at 

Japan, for instance, such disparate forms as architecture, 

ceramics, tea ceremony, gardens, sculpture, and 

painting have been viewed as elements of a broad and 

unified Zen aesthetic that cuts across traditional 

boundaries. Since there is no category or concept of 

“Chan art” in surviving texts from the Tang (618–907) 

or Song (960–1279) dynasties, however, when the 

Chan school achieved its peak popularity, the historical 

origins of this aesthetic in China remain murky, at 

best. Indeed, in light of this lack of sources, scholars 

have had to develop their own criteria and definitions. 

A closer look at how these conceptions have evolved, 

particularly with regard to painting, may help illuminate 

the larger question (and problem) of how to define 

Chan art. 

Western interest in art forms connected with Chan 

Buddhism was a natural outgrowth of the broader interest 

in Chan and Zen that began in the early 1900s 

and blossomed over the course of the century. One of 

the first scholars to identify Chan art (especially Chan 

painting) as a specific subcategory of Buddhist art was 

the eminent British Asianist Arthur Waley, whose Introduction 

to the Study of Chinese Painting (1923) contained 

a chapter titled “Zen Buddhism and Its Relation 


125

C HAN 

A RT 

Bodhidharma, putative fifth-century founder of Chan Buddhism, depicted during a legendary meditation in a cave, painted by a Japanese 

Zen monk Fugai Ekun (1568–1654) who himself lived in caves. (Japanese, seventeenth century.) Freer Gallery of Art Library. Reproduced 


to Art” that proved to be enormously influential. (Waley, 

as was typical at the time, uses the Japanese term 

Zen rather than Chan, even when he is writing about 

China.) In particular, Waley’s focus on the notion of 

painting as a vehicle for the expression of religious 

ideals provided a model approach that continues to be 

employed in many discussions of Chan art, even if 

some historians of art and religion have challenged 

some of its underlying assumptions. 

Following Waley’s example, it became common to 

define Chan art primarily in terms of subject matter, 

focusing on images (such as representations of 

BODHIDHARMA, the putative founder of Chan in 

China) that derive from Chan history and literature. 

Such works often carry additional meanings relating 

to Chan doctrine or ideology, as well. For example, 

the great many surviving paintings that depict the 

early Chan patriarchs might be interpreted as a pic- 


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torial counterpart to the concern with issues of lineage 

and transmission that figures so prominently in 

early Chan textual sources. In a similar vein, images 

of monks carrying hoes or chopping bamboo have frequently 

been related to the premium that Chan is said 

to place on the value of manual labor. While these 

kinds of explanatory strategies are relatively straightforward, 

most attempts to define Chan art also introduce 

other important issues concerning Chan ideals 

that merit further scrutiny—in particular, iconoclasm 

and self-expression. 

Art and iconoclasm 

One of the most distinctive attributes of Chan, as characterized 

in popular accounts, is its emphasis on eccentric 

and iconoclastic behavior, and images that 

celebrate these qualities are among the most commonly 

cited examples of Chan art. This repertoire 

would include portraits of such Tang dynasty figures 

as Hanshan and Shide—the wild poet of Cold Mountain 

and his impish sidekick—and the monk Bird’s 

Nest, who took up residence in a tree, as well as other 

subjects equally noted for their unconventional appearance 

and frequently outlandish conduct. 

In several well-known instances, the notion of iconoclastic 

behavior is not merely figurative. One painting, 

attributed to the thirteenth-century painter Liang 

Kai and executed in monochrome ink in an abbreviated 

manner, purportedly shows the sixth Chan patriarch 

HUINENG (638–713) tearing up sutras with 

apparent gusto and evident glee. Another work, by the 

early fourteenth-century painter Yintuoluo, depicts 

“The Monk from Danxia Burning a Wooden Image of 

the Buddha.” In most situations, one would expect 

such acts of desecration to be met with shock and disapproval, 

but what is noteworthy in this context is that 

ripping up a sacred text and burning a religious statue 

are presented not as acts of blasphemy but rather as 

manifestations of spiritual nonattachment. The philosophical 

basis for this view is cleverly demonstrated by 

the literary accounts of the incident depicted in Yintuoluo’s 

painting. 

Once, the monk from Danxia was staying at the Huilin 

Monastery. The weather was very cold, so the Master took 

a wooden statue of the Buddha and made a fire with it. 

When someone criticized him for doing so, the Master 

said: “I burned it in order to extract the sacred relics it 

contained.” The man said: “But how can you extract the 

sacred relics from an ordinary piece of wood?” The Master 

replied: “Well, if it is nothing more than a piece of 

wood, then why scold me for burning it?” (Fontein and 

Hickman, pp. 36–37) 

Another Japanese depiction of Bodhidharma. (Japanese scroll 

painting, late sixteenth century.) © Copyright The British Museum. 


Quite apart from the obviously intentional humor of 

the anecdote (and of its pictorial representation), this 

inversion of sacred and profane is clearly meant to 

demonstrate in a graphic way the Chan school’s avowed 

independence from words and images. 

Art and expression 

In the examples cited thus far, Chan art is essentially 

defined as a function of representation: Subject matter 

(or, more precisely, the correlation between pictorial 

content and Chan doctrine) is given precedence 

over style and authorship. A somewhat different, 

though complementary, approach, postulates that 

there are levels of meaning that can be generated by 


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artistic practice as well as by artistic product—levels of 

meaning, that is, that are a function of the creative act 

itself. From this perspective, an explicit connection 

would be drawn between the so-called splashed ink 

(pomo) mode of painting, characterized by rough and 

seemingly improvisational brushwork, and the emphasis 

on intuition, immediacy, and sudden enlightenment 

commonly associated with orthodox Chan 

teachings. In other words, the meaning of such works 

is located in the manner of execution, and does not depend 

on nor arise from any particular subject matter 

or iconography. 

Some writers go even further, suggesting that there 

are artworks that embody Chan content (or essence) 

in a way that transcends issues of subject matter, style, 

and function altogether. According to this account, a 

new kind of painting developed in China during the 

twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the Chan monasteries 

clustered around the West Lake in Hangzhou. 

Executed by monk-painters, such works came to be 

seen both as a form of religious practice and as a record 

of the painter’s spiritual achievement. As the wellknown 

art historian Michael Sullivan describes it, “In 

seeking a technique with which to express the intensity 

of his intuition, the Chan painter turned to the 

brush and . . . proceeded to record his own moments 

of truth” (p. 148). From this point of view, in short, 

the unique and ineffable quality of Chan painting is 

nothing less than the embodiment of the enlightened 

mind of the painter. 

Bodhidharma Meditating Facing a Cliff, China, late Song dynasty 

(960–1270). Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 116.2 x 46.35 cm. © 

The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003. John L. Severance Fund, 

1972.41. Reproduced by permission. 

The artist who is most often used to exemplify this 

ideal is the thirteenth-century Chinese monk Fachang, 

better known as Muqi, whose Six Persimmons is undoubtedly 

the most frequently reproduced and bestknown 

example of Chan painting. Although this small, 

sketchy, monochrome painting might not seem like 

much at first glance, it has been repeatedly hailed as 

the greatest Chan painting of all time. Appropriately 

enough, it was Waley who first rhapsodized about the 

work, declaring Six Persimmons to be endowed with “a 

stupendous calm” (p. 231). For Waley, as for later 

commentators, this quality stands as a manifestation 

of the painter’s spiritual achievement, as a living expression 

of the painter’s original mind (Pallis, p. 44). 

Put bluntly: Six Persimmons is a great Chan painting, 

the argument goes, because Muqi was profoundly 

awakened. 

Ultimately, this idea of the work of art as the physical 

embodiment of the spiritual realization of its 

maker lies behind the claims that a somewhat unlikely 


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activity such as archery, say, can be a form of Chan art. 

That is, if the absence or presence of Chan essence in 

a painting depends upon the painter’s own achievement, 

it then follows that virtually any activity or product, 

so to speak, will be similarly endowed. From there 

it is only a small step to the countless books and web 

sites that make Zen art forms (in some cases facetiously, 

to be sure) of everything from photography, 

writing, and psychoanalysis, to smoking, ice resurfacing, 

and procrastination. 

Chan art as anti-art? 

If Chan art from Waley onward has been characterized 

as diverging from other forms of Buddhist art both in 

terms of what it represents and how it represents it, it 

has also been portrayed as functioning differently from 

the norm. In comparison to traditional Buddhist art, 

which emphasizes the replication of set iconographical 

subjects and styles that conform to a canonical ideal, the 

Chan emphasis on iconoclasm—both figurative and 

literal—constitutes a kind of anti-Buddhist art. As one 

scholar puts it, “In (Chan/) Zen Buddhism, cult images 

in the traditional sense play as little a part as classic 

Mahayana sutras. After all, (Chan/) Zen is looking for 

‘independence from holy scriptures’ and ‘a special 

transmission outside traditional doctrines.’” Thus, 

while cult images and icons are worshiped by other 

Buddhists, the Chan practitioner “ridicules the popular 

worship of relics” (Brinker 1996, pp. 38–39). Like 

claims about the Chan school itself, in short, Chan 

painting is presented here as unfettered by orthodox 

tradition. 

A serious challenge to the basic assumptions of such 

interpretations has been offered by T. Griffith Foulk 

and Robert H. Sharf (1993/1994) in a detailed study of 

portraits of Chan abbots (a large and important subset 

of Chan-associated images). As they show quite 

convincingly, such portraits played an important role 

in Chan funerary and memorial rituals, and they conclude 

that “the portrait of the abbot, like the living abbot 

on his high seat, is thus properly viewed as a 

religious icon—it is a manifestation of buddhahood 

and a focus for ritual worship. As such, the portrait is 

functionally equivalent to the mummified remains of 

the abbot, to the relics of the Buddha, or to a stupa, in 

that it denotes the Buddha’s presence in his very absence” 

(p. 210). 

Their assertion—that Chan painting here functions 

very much like orthodox Buddhist painting does 

elsewhere—parallels several studies of Chan institutional 

history, which similarly conclude that Chan 

monasticism, contrary to popular perception, did not 

radically differ from supposed mainstream practices. 

That is, regardless of lineage or school affiliation, all 

Buddhist monks in the Song period took part in similar 

practices and rituals (e.g., studying and chanting 

sutras, engaging in seated meditation) that were essentially 

part of the very structure of the monastic institution 

as a whole, and thus did not vary much 

between designated Chan monasteries and other establishments 

(Foulk, pp. 220–221). 

From the perspective of art history, the relative lack 

of differentiation in terms of day-to-day activities and 

procedures between Chan monks and non-Chan 

monks suggests the likelihood of comparable continuity 

with regard to the images employed in support of 

those same activities. It suggests, that is, that Chan 

painting and Buddhist art, far from constituting inverse 

categories, should instead be understood as 

largely coextensive. If the popular conception of Chan 

and Zen doctrine as irrational and free from orthodox 

strictures is essentially a modern misreading (Sharf), 

so, too, must the prevailing definitions of Chan art as 

unfettered embodiments of the enlightened mind be 

seen as the result of the same false premises. There is 

little question that Chan visual culture served particular 

rhetorical and ideological claims, but we must also 

recognize that Chan art served the same sorts of iconic, 

ritual, and social functions as orthodox Buddhist art 

traditions. 

See also: China, Buddhist Art in; Japan, Buddhist 

Art in; Korea, Buddhist Art in; Zen, Popular Conceptions 


Bibliography 

Brinker, Helmut. Zen in the Art of Painting, tr. George Campbell. 

New York: Arkana, 1987. 

Brinker, Helmut. Zen: Masters of Meditation in Images and Writings, 

tr. Andreas Leisinger. Zurich, Switzerland: Artibus 

Asiae, 1996. 

Fontein, Jan, and Hickman, Money. Zen Painting and Calligraphy: 

An Exhibition of Works of Art Lent by Temples, Private 

Collectors, and Public and Private Museums in Japan, Organized 

in Collaboration with the Agency for Cultural Affairs of 

the Japanese Government. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1970. 

Foulk, T. Griffith. “Sung Controversies Concerning the 

‘Separate Transmission’ of Ch’an.” In Buddhism in the Sung, 

ed. Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz, Jr. Honolulu: University 



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Foulk, T. Griffith, and Sharf, Robert H. “On the Ritual Use of 

Ch’an Portraiture in Medieval China.” Cahiers d’Extreme- 

Asie 7 (1993/1994): 149–219. 

Hisamatsu Shin’ichi. “On Zen Art.” Eastern Buddhist new series 

1, no. 2 (1966): 21–33. 

Munsterberg, Hugo. Zen and Oriental Art. Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 

1965. 

Pallis, Tim. “Nanrei Sohaku Kabori and His Teaching of Shikan 

One: A Remembrance.” FAS Society Journal (Summer 1992): 

37–45. 

Seckel, Dietrich. Buddhist Art of East Asia, tr. Ulrich Mammitzsch. 

Bellingham: Center for East Asian Studies, Western 

Washington University, 1989. 

Sharf, Robert H. “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism.” In Curators 

of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism, 

ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1995. 

Sullivan, Michael. The Arts of China, 3rd edition. Berkeley: University 


Waley, Arthur. An Introduction to the Study of Chinese Painting. 

London: Ernest Benn, 1923. 

Weidner, Marsha, ed. Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese 

Buddhism 850–1850. Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, 

1994. 

CHAN SCHOOL 

CHARLES LACHMAN 

The doctrinal assumptions of the Chan school are that 

all beings possess a potential to become a buddha, and 

that potential can be realized through MEDITATION or 

through the removal of obstructing preconceptions and 

attachments. Dissatisfied with existing meditation practices 

and complex philosophies, Chan proposed a 

direct “seeing” of one’s inherent buddhahood, accomplished 

through such means as challenging repartee, intensive 

meditation, and puzzling gong’an (Japanese 

KO AN; Korean, kongan). Such techniques made the role 

of the teacher paramount. To symbolize that the Chan 

teacher was the true, legitimate heir to the Buddha, Chan 

claimed for its teachers an unbroken lineal succession 

to the enlightened mind of the Buddha via the Indian 

monk BODHIDHARMA (ca. early fifth century C.E.). 

Meditators and ascetics from the late sixth century, 

hoping to replicate the enlightenment of Śakyamuni 

Buddha, sought a distinctive MAHAYANA meditation 

practice and list of precepts appropriate for BOD- 

HISATTVAS. They coalesced into several lineages of 

monks united in attempts to create genealogies from 

Bodhidharma. The pupils of Hongren (601–674) obtained 

a following among the metropolitan elite of 

Tang China, which resulted in contests for lineage legitimacy. 

These were ignited around 730 by Shenhui 

(684–758), who accused his rivals of teaching gradual 

enlightenment, not suitable for Mahayana adherents. 

His propaganda prompted a redefinition of Chan. 

Shenhui’s own lineage, which he claimed derived from 

Hongren via HUINENG (638–713), whom he titled the 

Sixth Patriarch, became known as the Southern Lineage 

(nanzong). Shenhui combined Buddhist genealogies 

with a Chinese imperial mourning lineage (zong) to 

forge a link between himself, Huineng, and the Buddha 

via Bodhidharma. This linkage was refined later into a 

unilinear genealogy of twenty-eight Indian and six Chinese 

patriarchs (zu). The term Chanzong, in the sense 

of a Chan lineage, was first used in the 780s and soon 

became the main identifier for the traditions called 

Chan (Korean, Sŏn; Japanese, Zen; Vietnamese, Thiêǹ). 

The word chan was originally part of the term channa, 

a Chinese transcription of the Sanskrit term DHYANA 

(TRANCE STATE), but even the earliest Chan texts devalued 

the four dhyanas, samadhi, and other meditative 

states as mere elimination of sensation, a tranquility easily 

disturbed after withdrawing from those states. Shenhui 

redefined chan as prajñaparamita (the perfection of 

wisdom). The PLATFORM SUTRA OF THE SIXTH PATRI- 

ARCH (LIUZU TAN JING), a text from the 780s attributed 

to Huineng, defined chan as the buddha-nature or the 

ability to “internally see the fundamental nature and not 

be confused.” Eventually chan was equated with the 

essence of Buddhism. Huineng, who had his own sutra, 

was seen as a buddha-incarnate, implying thereby that 

only the Chan lineage transmitted the true, verifiable 

understanding of the Buddha himself. 

Doctrinal and behavioral bases 

The doctrinal foundation of Chan was a mixture of 

TATHAGATAGARBHA (buddha-nature) ideas and prajñaparamita 

analysis. The earliest texts mention a pure, 

original buddha-nature (foxing) inherent in everyone, 

which becomes obscured by mental pollutants or ignorance. 

As a result of ambiguities in Chinese translations 

concerning the tathagatagarbha, disputes arose 

over whether meditation was needed to “see the 

(buddha-)nature” (jianxing) by removing the pollution, 

or whether detachment from habitual conceptualization 

allowed this buddha-identity to emerge 

naturally. This issue was related to whether the realization 

was a gradual buildup to a breakthrough of 

“becoming buddha” (chengfo) or an instantaneous 


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all-at-once enlightenment (wu) or “being buddha” 

(jifo). After Shenhui, Chan lineages favored the latter, 

although some accused Shenhui of intellectualizing 

the process. It was agreed, as in the Platform Su tra, 

that samadhi (ting) and prajña (hui) are indivisible, 

an idea reinforced by the NIRVA N A SU TRA, which 

stated that “because the samadhi and prajña of the 

buddhas are equal, they clearly see the buddhanature.” 

The search for ethical conduct or precepts suitable 

to Mahayana in sixth- and seventh-century China was 

not meant to replace the VINAYA precepts of mainstream 

Buddhism, but to supplement them. Some 

thought bodhisattva precepts to be the true spirit of 

Buddhism. The Nirvana Su tra attracted Chan’s interest 

by stating that only recipients of the bodhisattva 

precepts could see the buddha-nature. The bodhisattva 

precepts advocated intention rather than formal observance, 

such that KARUN A (COMPASSION) could override 

a basic Vinaya precept like that against lying. They 

therefore inspired Chan. The Platform Su tra preached 

the “formless precepts” and the nonexistence of transgression 

in the (pure) mind. One’s own (buddha-) 

nature is thus the nature of the precepts. 

Chan tradition claims that the first monastic code 

of conduct for Chan was issued by Huaihai (749–814) 

on Mount Baizhang. His reputed saying, “A day without 

work is a day without food,” encapsulated three 

themes: the antiformalism derived from the bodhisattva 

precepts; the preexisting Chinese monastic 

custom of monks doing physical labor despite Vinaya 

prohibitions; and agrarian self-sufficiency. Although a 

distinctive Chan canon or “pure rules” (Chinese, qinggui) 

may have only appeared in the eleventh century, 

general procedures for the operation of the monastery 

on Mount Baizhang probably took form over hundreds 

of years, giving Chan a sense of institutional 

independence as an order within the SAṄGHA. This development 

did not make Chan a separate sect or 

denomination, for its clergy still obeyed the Vinaya 

and precepts, and their practices overlapped with 

those of other schools. They often inhabited the same 

monastery with non-Chan clergy. Yet as early as the 

850s, the visiting Japanese Tendai (Chinese, Tiantai) 

monk, Enchin, characterized them as maintaining 

“this mind is the buddha as their theme, the mind with 

no attachments as their practice, and the dharmas are 

empty as their meaning. They transmit the robe and 

bowl from the time of the Buddha, which things are 

passed from master to disciple” as symbols of the confirmation 

of enlightenment. 

Developments in China 

As Chan gained a larger following, it developed a specialized 

literature and branch lineages that tended to 

use differing techniques and contrasting styles. The 

subtlety, ambiguity, and lack of set forms in Chan 

teachings required an audience with a sophisticated 

grasp of Buddhism for it to be understood. Despite 

their rhetoric, Chan monks were well educated in Buddhist 

scriptures, as required for the state certification 

of monks that was commonly imposed in East Asia. 

They encouraged a liberal or meditative interpretation 

of the scriptures, despising scholastic literalism. 

The earliest Chan texts were mostly treatises (lun) 

on topics such as expedient means and the mind, commentaries 

on popular sutras, hagiographical collections, 

hymns, and apocryphal sutras. These forms all 

merged in the Platform Su tra of the 780s, which incorporated 

a pseudo-hagiography of Huineng, sermons, a 

genealogy, dialogues, and verses of transmission. Initially 

controversial, it became the principal Chan scripture 

during the Song dynasty (960–1279). 

The figure of Huineng became a crux, for two lineages 

from him, via DAOYI (MAZU; 709–788) and 

Shitou Xiqian (700–791), led to two branches that subsumed 

or superseded all other lineages. Daoyi taught 

the immanence of “this mind is the buddha,” in which 

enlightenment could occur amid everyday happenings, 

and so “the ordinary mind is the Way.” Daoyi’s 

heirs spread across China and even into Korea. The 

Mazu style, later dubbed patriarchal Chan (zushi 

Chan) to contrast with the intellectual TATHAGATA 

Chan (rulai Chan) of Shenhui, was distinguished by 

shouts and blows, sharp repartee, and the use of 

everyday events as opportunities for enlightenment. 

This was epitomized by Linji YIXUAN (d. 866), an heir 

to the style, who demanded a critical attitude, even 

toward Buddhism and his own teachings, and selfconfidence 

to act upon that attitude: “If you meet the 

Buddha, kill him.” For Yixuan, enlightenment was an 

urgent necessity of the current moment. 

Xiqian’s branch tended to eremitic austerity and poetic 

expression of sophisticated doctrine. This branch, 

including the Caodong house of Dongshan Liangjie 

(807–869) and Caoshan Benji (840–901), expressed 

stages of understanding and enlightenment in diagrams, 

often circles, to illustrate the dialectical progress 

toward complete enlightenment in a return to the 

source, the untrammeled mind. These evolved into the 

popular OXHERDING PICTURES. An intellectual codification 

of Chan practice was even introduced into the 


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radical, iconoclastic Linji house, with formulations 

such as the four selections of the person and environment 

or the three phrases. 

Systematization 

As Chan grew from a small, minority movement in the 

seventh century into a popular and major part of the 

Buddhist establishment by the twelfth century, it took 

on more Chinese features, and had to accommodate 

itself more to the state and the needs of a broad and 

diverse audience. Chan consequently developed a 

characteristically Chinese Buddhist literature and it 

coalesced into several distinct branches with their own 

techniques, styles, and literatures. 

Chan teachers’ words were written down as early as 

the seventh and eighth centuries. Shenhui’s dialogues 

used colloquial language, which may have influenced 

the forerunners of the “recorded sayings” texts attributed 

to Daoyi, Huangbo Xiyun (d. 850), and Zhaozhou 

Congshen (778–987). Covertly recorded by pupils and 

recompiled to include verses and brief biographies, 

these sermons and dialogues in colloquial Chinese depict 

mundane happenings. They differ from Buddhist 

commentaries and treatises in literary Chinese, and 

were less structured. These discourse records (Chinese, 

yulu) constitute the bulk of Chan literature, especially 

from the Song dynasty onward. 

The intellectualization of Chan dates back to 

Guifeng ZONGMI (780–841) of the Shenhui lineage, 

which systematically characterized and ranked the 

Chan lineages, and correlated them with doctrinal formulations. 

Zongmi wrote many sutra commentaries 

and incorporated Huayan philosophy into Chan. 

In reaction to the increasing popularity and immense 

wealth of the Buddhist order, which included 

Chan, Emperor Wu (r. 841–846) launched the xenophobic 

Huichang persecution of Buddhism on economic 

and rationalist grounds. Clergy were laicized 

and monasteries confiscated. The differing reactions to 

the persecution, and the geographic dispersion of some 

Chan groups, induced self-reflection; concerns about 

succession within specific monasteries reinvigorated 

interest in genealogy. As membership had grown, the 

lineages (zong) subdivided into houses (jia) descended 

from Huineng. From the late ninth century, masters 

issued certificates of inheritance, occupation of a 

monastery by a lineage gained significance, styles of 

teaching diverged, and the split of China into ten states 

in the early tenth century promoted regional differences. 

Monks began to ask teachers about their “house 

style” (jiafeng) around this time. Fayan Wenyi (885–958) 

identified five houses—Caodong, Linji, Yunmen, 

Guiyang, and Fayan—and described them in terms of 

the verbal jousts or wenda (questions and answers) between 

masters and pupils. He attacked their sectarianism 

and lack of doctrine as all style and no substance. 

The Fayan house, versed in Huayan philosophy, led 

Chan in the tenth and eleventh centuries, producing 

some of the most important Chan scholars. Yongming 

YANSHOU (904–975) harmonized Chan and doctrine 

(jiao), and melded Chan with nianfo (recollection of a 

buddha’s name). Daoyuan (n.d.) compiled the Jingde 

chuandeng lu (Records of the Transmission of the Lamplight 

[of enlightenment compiled during the] Jingde 

Reign, 1104), a genealogically arranged set of brief hagiographies 

primarily concerned with recording the 

words of enlightenment occasions (jiyu). 

The Fayan house was not alone in its influence, 

however. The momentarily popular Yunmen house 

also contributed to the gong’an evolution through the 

sayings of its founder, Yunmen Wenyan (864–949), 

as it picked out earlier enlightenment exchanges 

(nian’gu), commented on them (zhuyu; Japanese, 

jakugo), and provided substitute answers to questions 

and dialogues (daiyu, bieyu). Eventually the Fayan, 

Yunmen, and Linji houses combined to create the 

gong’an, originally meaning legal precedents. From the 

enlightenment dialogues in chuandeng lu, Yunmen and 

Linji monks selected cases, to which they appended 

verses. These juxtapositions of colloquial dialogues and 

literary poems morphed into collections like the Biyan 

lu (Blue Cliff Record) by Keqin (1063–1135). He and 

Wuzu Fayan (1024–1104), who made famous the 

Zhaozhou wu (Japanese, mu; English, no) gong’an, 

promoted each gong’an as a singular aid to an instantaneous 

enlightenment. Fayan advised practitioners to 

concentrate on the wu word only, and not think of the 

entire dialogue on the buddha-nature. ZONGGAO 

(1089–1163), who took up the wu topic, supposedly 

burnt his master’s Biyan lu anthology because students 

were infatuated with its literary qualities. This was a 

period when “lettered Chan” (wenzi Chan), and indulgence 

in Chan literature, was popular. Led by Huihong 

(1071–1128), a poet of the Huanglong faction of 

the Linji house, this type of Chan was denigrated by 

Zonggao as mere bookishness. He said Huihong’s 

gong’an ignored daily life and were only random poetical 

cases. Zonggao, in contrast, directed attention to 

one word only, wu, or Wenyan’s “dried shit-stick,” in 

order to assist the many lay followers by simplifying 

contemplation practice. 


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Concentration on wu would lead to a breakthrough. 

This single word was called a huatou (key word or critical 

phrase) and “examining the key word” (kanhua) 

was touted as a shortcut method. It had to be experienced, 

like the sword of the barbarian enemy, as an 

immediate problem of life and death. This contemplation 

became mainstream Chan practice in China, 

Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, for it could be used even 

during everyday activities. 

Zonggao attacked MOZHAO CHAN (SILENT ILLUMI- 

NATION CHAN) as the heresy of quietism, which lacks 

self-doubt. The barb was aimed at Hongzhi Chengjue 

(1091–1157) of the Caodong house, and at meeting the 

demands for a patriotic Buddhism after the loss of 

North China to the Jürchens in 1126. Asserting that 

the mundane law is the same as the Buddha Law, Zonggao 

maintained that one had to be active, not pacifist 

and quietist. This patriotic Chan resulted in the building 

of the “Five Mountain and Ten Monasteries” network, 

wherein the state appointed Chan abbots, whose 

sermons and rituals were for the salvation of the state 

and sentient beings. 

Modern Chan 

Having long been part of the Buddhist establishment, 

Chan became less distinguishable from Buddhism in 

general after the Song dynasty. While it maintained the 

distinctively Chan technique of kanhua, it also adopted 

elements of the Pure Land devotions, and fought the 

rising tide of syncretism. 

The state Chan and gong’an practice extended into 

the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), which codified the 

qinggui (pure rules) in 1336. The qinggui and the 

preceding Song-dynasty codes evidence increasing 

monastic bureaucracy, hierarchy, and prayers for emperors. 

The 1336 code essentially remained the rule 

book for Chan thereafter, and the Ming dynasty 

(1368–1644) mandated it as the code for all monks, 

Chan or not. Gaofeng Yuanmiao (1238–1295) clarified 

the technique of DOUBT in kanhua, stating that one first 

needed a basis in FAITH, then furious determination, 

and finally intense doubt. His pupil Zhongfeng Mingben 

(1263–1323) combined kanhua and Yanshou’s 

nianfo Chan, and ZHUHONG (1532–1612) developed it. 

By the late Ming, disputes between the Caodong and 

Linji houses discredited Chan monks, so lay Chan adherents 

rose to prominence in the succeeding Manchu 

Qing dynasty (1644–1912). While many followed the 

ways of Zhuhong and DEQING (1546–1623), laymen 

like Qian Qianyi (1582–1684) claimed that Chan had 

been so formalized that “today’s Chan is not Chan, but 

simply gong’an . . . blows and shouts . . . theories of expedient 

means.” 

In the twentieth century, monastic Chan was revived 

by Xuyun (ca. 1840–1959) and other reformers, 

but was largely confined to the large monasteries of 

Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Linji Chan membership was 

generally nominal, lineage outranked doctrine. Since 

the 1980s, there has been a resurgence of interest in 

Chan, mostly an intellectual curiosity about this most 

Chinese form of Buddhism. 

Monastic routine. Descriptions of monastic routine 

in the first half of the twentieth century show that sitting 

in meditation and concentration on huatou were 

the norm. Although prayers for rain, funeral ceremonies, 

and anniversaries of Chan and monastic 

founders played a part, meditation was still the prime 

practice in major Chan monasteries. With the exception 

of administrators and service-providers, the other 

monks lived, meditated, and slept in the chantang 

(Japanese, zendo ; meditation hall), also called sengtang 

(monks’ hall). Contemplatives sat on meditation 

benches lining the walls, and exercised between meditation 

sessions by circumambulating in the vacant 

center, which contained only an image of Bodhidharma 

or MAHAKAŚYAPA. During intensive meditation 

periods, monks typically meditated nine hours per day, 

slept five hours, rising at 3:00 A.M. and retiring at 10:00 

P.M. The monks could consult the abbot or instructor 

regarding their meditation practice. Summer was for 

pilgrimage, consultations with other teachers, or relaxation. 

Similar routines are maintained in Korea, 

Japan, and Vietnam. 

Internationalization 

The use of Chinese script, the firm establishment of 

Buddhism for several centuries, and a desire to reform 

Buddhism were preconditions for the acceptance of 

Chan Buddhism. Consequently, importation was 

made with the assistance of elites. All traditions later 

attempted to antedate the earliest transmission to create 

an aura of antiquity and further national pride. 

Korea (Sŏ˘n). After scholastic and devotional Buddhism 

were firmly established in Korea, monks traveling 

to China from the Korean state of Silla began to 

encounter Chan in the early to mid-eighth century. 

Chan attracted Korean attention once the exploits of 

Musang (684–762), a scion of the royal house of Silla, 

who became a famous Chan master in Sichuan, were 

reported in Korea. Musang had been an early teacher 


133

C HAN 

S CHOOL 

of Mazu Daoyi, and a considerable number of Silla 

monks, including Toŭi (d. 825), came to study with 

Daoyi and his pupils. However, once they returned to 

Korea, their teachings met strong resistance from the 

established forms of Buddhism. 

Therefore, after earlier abortive attempts to introduce 

Chan, when Toŭi returned in 821 with Mazu 

Chan, he experienced much opposition, and took 

Chan into the mountains and away from the court. 

Eight lineage founders studied under Daoyi’s heirs; 

only one under Caodong. Most had studied teachings 

of the HUAYAN SCHOOL (Korean, Hwaŏm), the dominant 

doctrinal tradition in Silla Korea, but were 

dissatisfied with its abstruse and impractical scholasticism. 

These lineages were collectively called kusan (the 

NINE MOUNTAINS SCHOOL OF SŎN) from 1084. 

The Five Houses were imported early in the Koryŏ 

dynasty (918–1392), and King Kwangjong (r. 950–975) 

introduced the Fayan house (Korean, Pŏban) by sending 

thirty-six monks to study with the Chan monk 

Yanshou in China. The monk ŬICH’ŎN (1055–1101) 

founded the Tiantai (Korean, Ch’ŏnt’ae) school to 

overcome the rivalry of Sŏn and Hwaŏm deeming that 

iconoclastic Sŏn needed doctrinal foundations. Many 

Pŏban monks joined Ŭich’ŏn, and this, plus corruption 

in the saṅgha, weakened Sŏn. 

Consequently, CHINUL (1158–1210) was moved to 

revitalize Sŏn by combining it with Hwaŏm philosophy 

to provide a doctrinal base, inspired by the ideas 

of Zongmi. Unable to make a pilgrimage to the mainland 

to study with Chinese masters, Chinul was successively 

enlightened by his own reading of the 

Platform Su tra, a commentary on the Huayan jing by 

Li Tongxuan (635–730), and by reading the works of 

Zonggao on hwadu (Chinese, huatou). Hwadu was for 

able students; lesser lights could adopt Zongmi’s sudden 

enlightenment followed by gradual cultivation to 

remove residual habits. Subsequently, hwadu practice 

predominated, and the Linji style prevailed among the 

sixteen generations of successors at Chinul’s monastery 

on Chogyesan, something reinforced once the Mongols 

forcibly reopened communications with China. 

Koryŏ monks, particularly T’aego Pou (1301–1382) 

and Naong Hyegŭn (1320–1376), who wanted to improve 

hwadu practice, sought confirmation of their enlightenment 

within the lineage of Wuzu Fayan (1024– 

1104). They attempted to unite the kusan under the 

name of the Chogye order. They also tried to enforce 

monastic disciple through the state, but the saṅgha’s 

corruption and the weakness of Koryŏ allowed the rise 

of the anti-Buddhist Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) and 

a fundamentalist neo-Confucianism. 

Initially the new Chosŏn rulers did not persecute 

Buddhism, which had several able Sŏn monk defenders. 

Restrictions increased, and King Sejong (r. 

1419–1450) forcibly combined the Chogye, Ch’ŏnt’ae, 

and another school into the Sŏnjong. Under later kings 

the repression was so severe that the Sŏn lineage may 

have been severed. All current lineages allegedly revert 

to Pyŏkkye Chŏngsim (late fifteenth century), who had 

been compulsorily laicized. His master is unknown. 

The result was controversy over whether later Sŏn was 

descended from Pou via Chŏngsim, or went back to 

Chinul. The main descendant of Chŏngsim, HYUJŎNG 

(1520–1604), revived Sŏn’s fortunes by leading a monk 

army against the invading Japanese in 1592. 

The revival was temporary, for soon the state herded 

the monks into the mountains or conscripted them 

into labor service. Zonggao’s ideas provided the best 

defense against intolerant neo-Confucianism, allowing 

Sŏn practice to dominate elite Chosŏn dynasty Buddhism, 

but at the cost of infiltration by Confucian values. 

Sŏn practice retreated increasingly into “lettered 

Chan” and ritual, or Pure Land devotions. However, 

Chinul’s ideas continued to have support, and several 

important teachers tried to revive Sŏn. 

The Japanese annexation of Korea (1910–1945) 

brought clashes between a pro-Japanese Soto Zen 

clique and a traditionalist Korean Linji (Imje) faction, 

and between modernizers like HAN YONGUN (1879– 

1944), who advocated married clergy, and conservative 

celibate monks who founded the Sŏn Academy in 

1921. The Chogye order, founded in 1941, included 

pro-Japanese married clergy, as well as nationalistic 

celibates, which led the non-celibates to form the 

breakaway T’aego order in 1970. This also invoked the 

old dispute over the founding patriarch of Sŏn, Chinul 

or Pou, a controversy raised even later by the former 

head of the Chogye order, T’oe’ong Sŏngch’ŏl (1912– 

1993), who championed Pou and rejected Chinul’s 

emblematic soteriology of sudden enlightenment followed 

by gradual cultivation. For Sŏngch’ŏl, once one 

has seen the nature and become buddha, gradual cultivation 

is superfluous. In North Korea, all Sŏn clerics 

are married and retired from the regular workforce, 

being subservient to the state. 

Japan (Zen). The Japanese Hosso (Yogacara) and 

Tendai (Tiantai) schools, without understanding the 

new meaning of chan, imported Chan cultivation as a 


C HAN 

S CHOOL 

subordinate component of their practice from the 

660s. In the mid-twelfth century, communication was 

reopened with Song dynasty China, and Chan’s importation 

was justified in terms of the powers of ascetic 

meditation and “natural wisdom.” Myoan Eisai 

(1141–1215) introduced Linji (Japanese, Rinzai) as 

part of Tendai, while Dainichi Nonin (ca. 1189) attempted 

to establish an independent Zen assembly 

without sanction of a Chinese master, based on “natural 

wisdom” or ORIGINAL ENLIGHTENMENT (HON- 

GAKU). For this Nonin was attacked by Eisai and 

DO GEN Kigen (1200–1253). But Eisai was attacked in 

turn by Tendai prelates, and he retaliated by asserting 

that Zen was the essence of Buddhism, and his pupils 

founded independent Zen monasteries. The Japanese 

saying, “Rinzai (for) shoguns, Soto (for) peasants,” reflects 

the social classes each school aimed at. 

So to . The Soto (Chinese, Caodong) school believed 

that as one is already buddha, anybody can allow that 

status to emerge by a “quietist” sitting in meditation, 

without striving to become buddha. Dogen, venerated 

as the founder of Soto, introduced the Caodong Chan 

of Ruqing (1163–1228), but the practice soon became 

more complex and added ko an to its repertoire. 

Dogen emphasized independence by ascetic meditation 

in the mountains away from the capitals, 

bodhisattva-precepts ordinations apart from the 

Tendai monopoly, and thorough Chan monastic routines. 

Receiving transmission in a Caodong lineage 

from China, he advocated sitting in meditation only 

(shikantaza) as the sole way to enlightenment, and he 

misread the Nirvana Su tra to say “all being is enlightenment.” 

He attacked Zonggao, despised the memorization 

of ko an and dialectical formulae, and even 

disparaged the notion of a Zen school (Zenshu ). He 

claimed that the only transmission of the “Storehouse 

of the Eye of the True Dharma” (sho bo genzo ) came via 

Shitou Xiqian, so he, Dogen, had brought the only true 

Buddhism to Japan. Yet his own magnum opus, the 

Sho bo genzo , a masterpiece in Japanese and Chinese, 

was ignored and not rehabilitated until the 1700s. The 

Soto lineages derived from Dogen, however, spread 

rapidly throughout rural Japan, the powers of meditation 

and the precepts converting warriors and villagers 

alike. Catering to their clients’ needs, Soto created 

country-wide networks of over ten thousand monasteries. 

In doing so, much of Dogen’s “pure Zen” was 

shed for the joint practice of Zen and esoteric Buddhism. 

The arrival of the Chinese O baku monks in the 

1650s stimulated the revival of monastic rules and 

Dogen’s teachings. Scholarship on Dogen Zen and disputes 

over its interpretation continue today, with a 

CRITICAL BUDDHISM scholarship even denying that 

Zen and tathagatagarbha thought are Buddhist. 

Rinzai. Rinzai (Chinese, Linji) used the ko an as the 

primary means to attain enlightenment. Being more 

active in the use of blows, shouts, and witty exchanges, 

this “opportunist” Zen targeted the warrior class. Rinzai 

was restricted to the capitals and mixed with Tendai 

and Shingon until Song-dynasty Chan was implanted 

by Chinese monks fleeing the Mongols in the thirteenth 

century. Attracted by their Chinese culture and 

their disciplined Zen, the warrior rulers invited them 

to Kamakura. These monks brought the Chan of Zonggao 

and the Song as a whole package: language, ko an, 

discipline, and architecture. They also introduced neo- 

Confucianism and the arts, and inspired the imitation 

of the Five Mountains network (gozan) of Song China. 

The Gozan network, which was ranked in three tiers, 

was state-controlled and located in Kamakura and then 

Kyoto, with provincial branches later. The warrior elite 

and emperors patronized Rinzai, especially the Nanzen 

Monastery, making Yishan Yining (1247–1317) and 

Muso Soseki (1275–1351) abbots there. The main role 

of the Gozan was cultural, as centers for the arts. These 

centers were gradually secularized, weakening Zen 

practice; wars in the 1460s ended their influence, although 

a Nanzenji monk introduced Zen to the 

Ryukyu Kingdom in the 1450s. 

The Gozan were superseded by the Daitokuji and 

Myoshinji lineages, which gained merchant supporters. 

These monasteries had been built with the aid of 

Shuho Myocho (Daito kokushi, 1282–1337). Rinzai 

assisted the Tokugawa state control of Buddhism and 

the spread of neo-Confucianism, actions that weakened 

it. But monks like Takuan Soho (1573–1645), the 

last prominent member of the Daitokuji lineage, explained 

neo-Confucianism in terms of Zen and swordfighting 

as the removal of ego, ideas suitable to the 

samurai. The O baku influx stimulated a revival of the 

Myoshinji lineage, with Bankei Yotaku (1622–1693) 

teaching that ko an are too artificial. However, Mujaku 

Dochu (1653–1744) saw the O baku as rivals, railed 

against them, and pioneered Rinzai scholarship. 

HAKUIN EKAKU (1686–1768), the restorer of Rinzai, reacted 

against Yotaku and championed kanna (Chinese, 

kanhua) Zen. Modern Rinzai largely derives from him. 

O baku. This Ming-dynasty form of Chan was introduced 

by Chinese monks fleeing Mount Huangbo in 

Fujian before the Manchu invasion in 1647. Although 


135

C HAN 

S CHOOL 

a Linji lineage, Rinzai and China’s Linji had diverged 

over the centuries, so when the monks arrived in the 

1650s, the Japanese objected to the O baku (Chinese, 

Huangbo) use of nianfo (Japanese, nenbutsu; recollection 

of the Buddha’s name) in Chan. Many Japanese 

were, however, fascinated by the new import, and 

O baku long retained its Chinese style in food, language, 

architecture, ritual, and dress. Abbots of Manpukuji, 

O baku’s monastic headquarters, were always 

to be Chinese, but the last Chinese abbot died in 1784, 

and was succeeded by a Japanese abbot. O baku took 

over some monasteries in the Myoshinji lineage, so 

there was intense rivalry between them. O baku directed 

more attention to study of the sutras and 

discourse records (goroku), and away from decontextualized 

ko an as in the Hekigan roku (Chinese, Biyan 

lu; Blue Cliff Record). They invented their own ko an, 

thinking the Japanese use of ko an courses that encouraged 

rote memorization a form of “lettered Zen” 

of set poetic replies and textbook manuals. 

In 1872 the government permitted monks to marry, 

and so the majority of Zen priests after World War II 

were married, resulting in the inheritance by sons of 

small temples from their Zen priest fathers. To maintain 

the temple, they spend most of their time at funeral 

services or chanting sutras. 

Vietnam (Thiêǹ). Chan probably gained a minor following 

among the ethnic Vietnamese elites beginning 

in the ninth century, although tradition asserts it arrived 

in 580 C.E. with Vintaruci (d. 594), an Indian 

monk who allegedly studied under Sengcan (d. 606). 

Another tradition maintains that Chan arrived in 820 

with Wuyan Tong (d. 826), a supposed pupil of Huaihai. 

During the Lý dynasty (1009–1225), Confucianism 

came to dominate, so court elites, such as the 

monk Thông Bie n (d. 1134), fabricated lineages back 

to China. The Mongol invasions inspired the Trâǹdynasty 

(1225–1407) emperor Nhân-Tông (r. 1279– 

1293), who defeated the invaders, to become a monk 

and found the short-lived Trúc Lâm lineage. The Ming 

conquest (1413–1428) and Lê dynasty (1414–1788) imposed 

a Confucian anti-Buddhist policy, and so Chinese 

Linji monks who fled the Manchu conquest in the 

1660s, headed for the mid-coast of Vietnam, where the 

Nguyêñ warlords held sway. This Linji (Vietnamese, 

Lâm Tê ), combined Chan and Pure Land practice. The 

stronghold of Thiêǹ Buddhism, as the Chan tradition 

became known, remained in the cities of central Vietnam, 

and the saṅgha was nominally Lâm Tê . Thiêǹ had 

a following only among the intellectual, urban elites, 

and since the unification of Buddhism in 1963, Thiêǹ 

has been subsumed into a syncretic Buddhism. 

Conclusion 

Chan is the most Confucian form of Buddhism, and it 

has been in constant rivalry with neo-Confucianism. 

It is also elitist, given the strict requirements for practice 

and the requirements to read literary Chinese, even 

though some popularizers, writing in the colloquial 

vernacular, contributed to the development of national 

languages. However, there was often a gap between 

ideal and practice, for the tradition also had to meet 

the needs of clients, who wanted easier practices, funeral 

rites, and the transfer of merit. This was a constant 

tension, as was the need for the confirmation of 

enlightenment, which led to many genealogical disputes 

and inventions. 

See also: China; Confucianism and Buddhism; Japan; 

Korea; Lineage; Poetry and Buddhism; Syncretic 

Sects: Three Teachings; Vietnam; Zen, Popular Conceptions 


Bibliography 

Baroni, Helen J. O baku Zen: The Emergence of the Third Sect of 

Zen in Tokugawa Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 2000. 

Bodiford, William M. So to Zen in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: 


Buswell, Robert E., Jr., trans. The Korean Approach to Zen: The 

Collected Works of Chinul. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 1983. Reprinted as Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul’s 

Korean Way of Zen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1991. 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist 

Practices in Contemporary Korea. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


Chang, Chung-Yuan, trans. Original Teachings of Ch’an Buddhism: 

Selected from the Transmission of the Lamp. New York: 

Vintage, 1971. 

Collcutt, Martin. Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution 

in Medieval Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 1981. 

Dumoulin, Heinrich. Zen Buddhism: A History, Vol. 1: India 

and China, tr. James W. Heisig and Paul Knitter. New York: 


Dumoulin, Heinrich. Zen Buddhism: A History, Vol. 2: Japan, 

tr. James W. Heisig and Paul Knitter. New York: Macmillan, 

1990. 

Faure, Bernard. The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique 

of Chan/Zen Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1991. 


C HANTING AND L ITURGY 

Faure, Bernard. Chan Insights and Oversights: An Epistemological 

Critique of the Chan Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


Faure, Bernard. The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of 

Northern Chan Buddhism, tr. Phyllis Brooks. Stanford, CA: 

Stanford University Press, 1997. 

Gimello, Robert M., and Gregory, Peter N., eds. Studies in Ch’an 

and Hua-yan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983. 

Gregory, Peter N., ed. Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism. 


Hsu, Sung-peng. A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and 

Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing, 1546–1623. University Park: 


Hubbard, Jamie, and Swanson, Paul L., eds. Pruning the Bodhi 

Tree: The Storm over Critical Buddhism. Honolulu: University 


Keel, Hee-Sung. Chinul: The Founder of the Korean Sŏn Tradition. 

Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series, 1984. 

Korean Buddhist Research Institute, comp. Sŏn Thought in Korean 

Buddhism. Seoul: Dongguk University Press, 1998. 

LaFleur, William R., ed. Do gen Studies. Honolulu: University of 


Lai, Whalen, and Lancaster, Lewis R., eds. Early Ch’an in China 

and Tibet. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series, 

1983. 

McRae, John R. The Northern School and the Formation of Early 

Ch’an Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1986. 

Nguyen Cuong Tu. Zen in Medieval Vietnam: A Study and 

Translation of the Thiêǹ Uyê n Tâ 

° 

p. Honolulu: University of 


Smith, Bardwell L., ed. Unsui: A Diary of Zen Monastic Life, text 

by Eshin Nishimura, drawings by Giei Sato. Honolulu: University 

Press of Hawaii, 1973. 

Thich Thien-An. Buddhism and Zen in Vietnam, ed. Carol 

Smith. Los Angeles: College of Oriental Studies, 1975. 

Welch, Holmes. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism. Cambridge, 

MA: Harvard University Press, 1967. 

Yampolsky, Philip B., trans. and ed. The Platform Sutra of the 

Sixth Patriarch. New York and London: Columbia University 

Press, 1967. 

Yampolsky, Philip B., trans. The Zen Master Hakuin: Selected 

Writings. New York and London: Columbia University 

Press, 1971. 

Yu, Chun-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung 

and the Late Ming Synthesis. New York and London: Columbia 


JOHN JORGENSEN 

CHANTING AND LITURGY 

Chanting and RITUAL are the liturgical means of transforming 

doctrinal and moral ideals into experience. 

The types, uses, and meanings of chants and rituals are 

vast, ranging from those performed by individuals as 

everyday custom, to elaborate temple ceremonies for 

large groups. There are appropriate rituals for serious 

ascetics seeking enlightenment, as well as for casual believers 

seeking worldly benefits such as health, wealth, 

and a good spouse. Defined by scriptures and sectarian 

traditions, chanting and ritual are carried out as 

prescribed actions, but they are also the means by 

which practitioners express their own concerns. The 

repeated performances of certain chants and rituals are 

part of the everyday fabric of Buddhist cultures, and 

give members their religious identities. 

Repetition also invites people to lose or forget the 

doctrinal meanings of chants and rituals. Chanting 

produces liturgical rhythms valued for their audible or 

musical effects rather than their textual messages. Since 

chants consist of words, they have linguistic meaning, 

but chanting often produces sounds that cannot be 

recognized as a regular spoken language. The HEART 

SU TRA (Prajñaparamitahrdaya-su tra), for example, is 

popular in East Asia as a Chinese text about emptiness, 

a fundamental MAHAYANA teaching, but when it is 

chanted in Japan, each Chinese character is given a 

Japanese pronunciation without any change in the 

Chinese grammatical word order of the text. The audible 

result is neither Japanese nor Chinese, but a ritual 

language unto itself. Many Japanese laypersons 

who have memorized the Heart Su tra as a chant do not 

know what it means, but they are untroubled by the 

question of meaning since the value of the chant lies 

in its phonetics rather than its philosophy. This is the 

case for other Chinese Buddhist texts chanted with 

Japanese pronunciations. 

Chanting in this sense supersedes reading. Chanting 

only the first Chinese character on each page of 

an entire scripture is believed to be equal to reading 

every character. Understood as a consummation 

rather than a subversion of reading, chanting first 

characters is based on the idea that single words or 

phrases can evoke the virtue and power that all of the 

words combined are trying to explain. Reading for 

meaning is a useful step for grasping the truth of a 

text, but it is a means, not the final objective. All Buddhist 

traditions emphasize the supreme value of 

experiencing the truth of a text, and chanting aims 

at that objective. Chanting the Heart Su tra without 


137

C HANTING AND L ITURGY 

A monk beats a drum as other monks pray at the Ivolginski Datsan Temple in Buryatiya, Siberia, 2002. © Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images. 


understanding its discursive meaning is not a violation 

of the text, but the fulfillment of it. 

Just as single words can epitomize entire pages, so 

can the title of a scripture embrace its totality. Chanting 

sutra titles is a common practice, and in Japan, 

for example, the basic practice of NICHIREN SCHOOL 

Buddhism is chanting the phrase Namu Myo ho - 

renge-kyo (Homage to the Lotus Su tra). While 

Nichiren Buddhists chant the text of the LOTUS SU- 

TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) as well, chanting 

the Japanese title, Myo ho -renge-kyo , is a necessary 

and sufficient means for relating the truth of the 

sutra to the individual believer and his or her concerns. 

Chanted repeatedly, the title itself bears the 

power of the entire scripture, and is regarded by some 

Nichiren traditions as the main object of worship. The 

popular Sanskrit mantra, OM MAN I PADME HU M (Praise 

be the jewel lotus) and its Tibetan version, not only 

evokes the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara, 

but also epitomizes all of the Buddhist teachings. 

In a similar manner, chanting the name of a deity 

evokes all of its power. One of the most popular practices 

in East Asia is chanting the name of the Buddha 

of the Western Paradise (Sanskrit, AMITABHA; Japanese, 

Amida; Chinese, Amituo). Pure Land Buddhist 

traditions are built on recitations of Amitabha’s name, 

and countless Japanese Buddhists over the centuries 

have chanted the phrase Namu Amida Butsu (Homage 

to Amitabha Buddha) in hopes that they will be reborn 

into Amitabha’s pure land. This practice is known as 

the nenbutsu in Japan, nianfo in China, and yŏmbul in 

Korea. 

All of these terms conflate recitation with MIND- 

FULNESS. Nenbutsu, for instance, means to be mindful 

of a buddha, and does not signify chanting. The term, 

however, is used synonymously with chanting because 

a proper state of mindfulness is essential to it. In addition 

to the formulaic words or phrases, which are 

also known as MANTRA, it is the quality of mind that 

distinguishes chanting from other oral functions such 

as speaking and singing. The effectiveness of mantras 

in bringing about intended effects depends on the 

chanter’s state of mind, as well as the power of the 

words and the format of articulation. 

Chanting is a form of sacred music, and its ritual 

format often includes instrumental accompaniment. 


C HINA 

Bells, gongs, drums, horns, and other instruments are 

used to provide rhythm and emphasis. In East Asia a 

common accoutrement is a hollowed-out piece of 

wood that is hit with a padded stick to produce resonant 

thumps setting the pace. Round in shape, it is covered 

with fish scales and is called the “wooden fish” 

because fish do not close their eyes even when they 

sleep. In shape and sound, the instrument makes a 

point about mindfulness. 

Chanting and ritual give shape to abstract doctrines, 

moral values, individual concerns, and communal 

identity. They provide structures through 

which important transactions take place. Clerical and 

lay participants sing praises, submit petitions, make 

confessions, request absolutions, present dedications, 

give offerings, receive blessings, and transfer the merit 

of the ritual to others, often the deceased. Nearly all 

Buddhists seek their highest spiritual—and often 

worldly—aspirations through ritual means. A few traditions, 

such as Jodo Shinshu in Japan, deny that 

chanting and ritual are mechanisms for salvation, but 

even in this case, believers fervently chant the nenbutsu 

not as a ritual means for gaining REBIRTH in the 

pure land but as an expression of gratitude for having 

already been saved by the grace of Amitabha. 


Entertainment and Performance; Etiquette; 

Language, Buddhist Philosophy of; Meditation; Merit 

and Merit-Making; Mudra and Visual Imagery; Nenbutsu 

(Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, Yŏ˘mbul) 

Bibliography 

Kalupahana, David, ed. Buddhist Thought and Ritual. St. Paul, 

MN: Paragon House, 1991. 

Lopez, Donald S., ed. Buddhism in Practice. Princeton, NJ: 


Nhat Hahn, Thich, comp. Plum Village Chanting and Recitation 

Book. Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 2000. 

Wong, Deborah Anne. Sounding the Center: History and Aesthetics 

in Thai Buddhist Performance. Chicago: University of 

Chicago Press, 2001. 

CHENGGUAN 


Chengguan (738–839) is the reputed fourth patriarch 

of the HUAYAN SCHOOL of Chinese Buddhism. Revered 

for his erudite and prolific scholarship, he was among 

the most influential monks of his time. Although not 

a direct student of the third Huayan patriarch FAZANG 

(643–712), Chengguan was recognized as Fazang’s 

spiritual successor on the basis of his exceptional learning 

and prominence, which made him the Huayan tradition’s 

leading figure among his contemporaries. 

During his formative years, Chengguan became proficient 

in the scriptures of Buddhism and the doctrines 

of other Chinese schools, including the CHAN SCHOOL 

(especially the Niutou and Northern schools), the 

TIANTAI SCHOOL, and Sanlun. His writings also reveal 

mastery of the Confucian classics and the works of early 

Daoist philosophers, especially Laozi and Zhuangzi. 

During his long and highly successful monastic career, 

Chengguan was associated with seven Tang Chinese 

emperors, and his supporters and admirers 

included numerous influential officials and literati. 

The imperial court recognized his achievements by 

granting him the honorific titles of national teacher 

and grand recorder of the clergy. Chengguan’s magnum 

opus is the massive Huayan jing suishu yanyi chao 

(in ninety fascicles), which contains his commentary 

and subcommentary to the eighty-fascicle translation 

of the HUAYAN JING (Flower Garland Scripture). He also 

wrote other exegetical works, including a commentary 

on Prajña’s forty-fascicle translation of the Huayan 

jing, and a few shorter tracts. Chengguan’s key contribution 

to the development of Huayan doctrine is the 

theory of four realms of reality (DHARMADHATU)—the 

realms of: (1) individual phenomena (shi fajie); (2) 

principle (li fajie); (3) nonobstruction between principle 

and phenomena (lishi wuai fajie); and (4) nonobstruction 

among phenomena (shishi wuai fajie). 

Bibliography 

Gregory, Peter N. “Ch’eng-kuan and Hua-yen.” In Tsung-mi 

and the Sinification of Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


CHINA 

MARIO POCESKI 

During its long history in China, which spans nearly 

twenty centuries, Buddhism developed flourishing 

traditions, exerted far-reaching influence on intellectual 

and religious life, and left its mark on virtually all 

aspects of Chinese society and culture. The transmission 

of Buddhism into China involved the wholesale 


139

C HINA 

introduction of (at first) alien complexes of ideas and 

institutions that opened new horizons of intellectual 

inquiry and spiritual exploration, thereby enlarging 

the contours of Chinese civilization and enriching its 

contents. Through their mutual encounter, both Buddhism 

and Chinese traditions were profoundly transformed, 

with Buddhism adding new elements to 

Chinese civilization while at the same time undergoing 

dramatic changes in the process of its adaptation 

to China’s social ethos and cultural milieu. 

Historical overview: First century to 

tenth century 

Buddhism first entered China around the beginning of 

the common era, during the Eastern Han dynasty (25– 

220 C.E.). The first Buddhist missionaries arrived 

through the empire’s northwestern frontier, accompanying 

merchant caravans that traversed the network of 

trade routes known as the SILK ROAD, which linked 

China with CENTRAL ASIA and Persia, with additional 

links to West and South Asia. By that time Buddhism 

had already establish a strong presence within the Central 

Asian kingdoms that controlled most of the trade 

along the Silk Road. Early literary evidence of Buddhism’s 

entry into China links the foreign religion with 

the Han monarchy and its ruling elites. Such connection 

is explicit in the well-known story about Emperor 

Ming’s (r. 58–75 C.E.) dream about a golden deity, 

identified by his advisers as the Buddha. That supposedly 

precipitated the emperor’s sending of a westernbound 

expedition that brought back to China the first 

Buddhist text (and two missionaries, according to a 

later version of the story). Taking into consideration 

the court-oriented outlook of traditional Chinese historiography, 

such focus on the emperor’s role in the 

arrival of Buddhism should not come as a surprise. 

However, in light of the prevalent patterns of economic 

and cultural interaction between China and the outside 

world during this period, it seems probable that 

Buddhism had already entered China prior to Emperor 

Ming’s reign. 

Most of the early Buddhist monks who entered 

China were associated with the MAHAYANA tradition, 

which was increasing in popularity even while it was 

still undergoing creative doctrinal development. The 

foreign missionaries—most of whom were Kushans, 

Khotanese, Sogdians, and other Central Asians—entered 

a powerful country with evolved social and political institutions, 

long-established intellectual and religious 

traditions, and a profound sense of cultural superiority. 

In the course of the initial contacts, some members 

of the Chinese elites found the new religion to be 

inimical to the prevalent social ethos. The institution 

of MONASTICISM, with its stress on ascetic renunciation, 

which included celibacy and mendicancy, was 

alien to the Chinese and went against the Confucianinspired 

mores adopted by the state and the ruling 

aristocracy. 

In response to the initial spread of the alien religion, 

some Chinese officials articulated a set of critiques that 

highlighted perceived areas of conflict between Buddhism 

and the prevalent Confucian ideology. The principal 

object of the criticisms was the monastic order 

(SAṄGHA). Buddhist monks were accused of not being 

filial because their adoption of a celibate lifestyle meant 

they were unable to produce heirs and thereby secure 

the continuation of their families’ lineages. Additional 

criticisms were leveled on economic and political 

grounds. Monks and monasteries were accused of being 

unproductive and placing an unwarranted economic 

burden on the state and the people, while the 

traditional Buddhist emphasis on independence from 

the secular authorities was perceived as undermining 

the traditional authority of the emperor and subverting 

the established sociopolitical system. From a doctrinal 

point of view, Buddhism was perceived as being 

overtly concerned with individual salvation and transcendence 

of the mundane realm, which went counter 

to the pragmatic Confucian emphasis on human affairs 

and sociopolitical efficacy. Finally, Buddhism met disapproval 

on account of its foreign origin, which in the 

eyes of its detractors made it unsuitable for the Chinese. 

Despite these misgivings, by the fall of the Han dynasty 

in 220 Buddhism had managed to gain a foothold 

in China. Its growth sharply accelerated during the period 

of disunion (311–589), the so-called Six Dynasties 

period, which constitutes the second phase of 

Buddhist history in China. It was an age of political 

fragmentation as non-Chinese tribes established empires 

that ruled the north, while the south was governed 

by a series of native dynasties. Ironically, the 

unstable situation encouraged the spread of Buddhism. 

In the eyes of many educated Chinese the collapse of 

the old imperial order brought discredit to the prevailing 

Confucian ideology, which created an intellectual 

vacuum and a renewed sense of openness to new 

ideas. Buddhism was also attractive to the non-Chinese 

rulers in the north, who were eager to use its universalistic 

teachings in their search for political legitimacy. 

Another contributing factor was the growing interest 

in religious and philosophical Daoism. Many upperclass 

Chinese who were familiar with Daoist texts and 


C HINA 

teachings were drawn to Buddhism’s sophisticated 

doctrines, colorful rituals, and vast array of practices, 

including MEDITATION. Buddhist teachings and practices 

bore reassuring (if often superficial) resemblance 

to those of Daoism, while they also provided original 

avenues for spiritual growth and inspiring answers to 

questions about ultimate values. The growth of Buddhism 

was further enhanced by the adaptability of the 

Mahayana traditions that were imported into China. 

The favorable reception of Buddhism was greatly aided 

by its capacity to be responsive to native cultural 

norms, sociopolitical demands, and spiritual predilections, 

while at the same time retaining fidelity to basic 

religious principles. 

During the period of division, Buddhism in the 

north was characterized by close connections between 

the clergy and the state, and by interest in thaumaturgy, 

asceticism, devotional practice, and meditation. 

In contrast, the south saw the emergence of 

so-called gentry Buddhism. Some southern elites (a 

group that included refuges from the north) who were 

interested in metaphysical speculation were especially 

attracted to the Buddhist doctrine of ŚU NYATA (EMPTI- 

NESS), which was often conflated with Daoist ideas 

about the nature of reality. The southern socioreligious 

milieu was characterized by close connections 

between literati-officials and Buddhist monks, many of 

whom shared the same cultured aristocratic background. 

Despite two anti-Buddhist PERSECUTIONS during 

the 452–466 and 547–578 periods, by the sixth 

century Buddhism had established strong roots 

throughout the whole territory of China, and had permeated 

the societies and cultures of both the northern 

and the southern dynasties. Moreover, Chinese Buddhism 

was exported to other parts of East Asia that 

were coming under China’s cultural influence, above 

all Korea and Japan. 

The reunification of the empire under the Sui dynasty 

(589–618) is often designated as the starting 

point for the next phase in the evolution of Chinese 

Buddhism. Under the pro-Buddhist Sui regime, and 

especially during the succeeding Tang dynasty 

(618–907), Chinese Buddhism reached great heights of 

intellectual creativity, religious vitality, institutional 

vigor, and monastic prosperity. Throughout the Sui- 

Tang period, Buddhism was widely accepted and practiced 

by members of all social classes, from poor 

peasants to aristocrats and the royal family. A number 

of Tang emperors offered lavish patronage to Buddhism, 

although such support was usually accompanied 

by efforts to control the religion and harness its 

power and prestige for political ends. By this time, the 

early rapprochements between Buddhism and the Chinese 

state evolved into a close relationship between the 

two. Despite the earlier efforts on the part of monastic 

leaders to secure a semblance of independence for 

the monastic community, Buddhism became firmly integrated 

into the sociopolitical establishment. With 

their prayers and rituals the clergy accrued merit and 

provided supernatural protection for the dynasty and 

the state. Buddhism also provided the rulers with an 

additional source of legitimacy, which was used in an 

especially skillful manner by Empress Wu Zetian (r. 

684–705), the only female monarch in Chinese history 

and one of the greatest patrons of Buddhism. In exchange, 

the state offered political patronage and financial 

support to the Buddhist church, and bestowed 

on the clergy various benefits such as exemption from 

taxation, corvée labor, and military service. The state 

also asserted its right to control key aspects of religious 

life, including bestowal of monastic ordinations, building 

of monasteries, and entry of new texts into the Buddhist 

canon. 

During the Sui-Tang period Buddhism was by far 

the most powerful and creative religious and intellectual 

tradition in the empire, eclipsing both Confucianism 

and Daoism (even though the other two 

traditions also flourished during this period). The 

main schools of Chinese Buddhism, such as Tiantai, 

Huanyan, and Chan, were also formed during this era, 

thereby giving rise to uniquely Sinitic systems of Buddhist 

philosophy and methods of praxis. The strength 

of Buddhism and the durability of its institutions were 

severely tested during the Huichang era of Emperor 

Wuzong (r. 841/842–845), who initiated the most devastating 

anti-Buddhist persecution. The emperor ordered 

destruction of virtually all monasteries in the 

empire and mass return to lay life of the clergy. The 

onset of the persecutions was influenced by a number 

of complex factors, including the influence of the emperor’s 

Daoist advisers, economic considerations, dismay 

over monastic corruption, and latent anti-Buddhist 

sentiments among pro-Confucian officials. Even 

though the persecution was short-lived and Buddhism 

quickly rebounded, many scholars see the persecution 

as a turning point and the beginning of the extremely 

protracted decline of Buddhism in China. 

Historical overview: Eleventh century 

to present 

Late imperial China—covering the period from the 

Song (960–1279) until the end of the Qing dynasty 


141

C HINA 

(1644–1911)—can be taken to correspond to a fourth 

phase in the history of Chinese Buddhism. The history 

of Buddhism during this era is usually told as a narrative 

of decline, punctuated with occasional efforts to 

revive the great tradition’s ancient glories. Some historians 

have argued that such a negative characterization 

of post-Tang Buddhism does not do justice to the 

religious vitality and institutional strength of Song 

Buddhism. It is undeniable that under the Song, Buddhism 

exerted strong influence and attracted a large 

following among members of all social classes. The religion 

continued to enjoy state patronage and the 

monastic vocation attracted many individuals. Buddhist 

influence on Chinese culture was also pervasive, 

as can be observed in the literature and visual arts of 

the period. At the same time, there were signs of creeping 

decline, especially in terms of intellectual creativity, 

notwithstanding new developments in Tiantai 

scholasticism and Chan literature and praxis. The intellectual 

decline is evident in the lack of compelling 

Buddhist responses to the serious challenge posed by 

the Song Confucian revival. The shift of the Chinese 

elite’s interest away from Buddhism and toward Confucianism 

was further boosted by the acceptance of 

neo-Confucianism, as formulated by its great systematizer 

Zhu Xi (1130–1200), as official state orthodoxy 

during the fourteenth century. For the rest of the imperial 

period Buddhism managed to survive, albeit in 

diminished capacity and often on the margins. For the 

most part Buddhism after this point assumed a conservative 

stance, as there was no emergence of major 

new traditions or significant paradigm shifts. 

The beginning of the last phase in the history of 

Chinese Buddhism coincides with China’s entry into 

the modern period. During the final decades of the 

imperial era, China’s inability to adequately respond 

to the challenges of modernity—rudely brought to its 

doorstep by the increasing encroachment of the colonial 

powers on Chinese territory in the nineteenth 

century—led to erosion and eventually disintegration 

of its age-old social and political institutions. After the 

republican revolution of 1912, efforts at creating a 

strong and stable modern state ended in failure. The 

bleak situation was exacerbated by China’s moribund 

economy and rampant corruption. During this tumultuous 

period, the adverse sociopolitical circumstances 

affected Buddhist institutions, and traditional 

beliefs and practices were rejected by many educated 

Chinese as outdated superstitions. In the face of the 

new predicament, Buddhism still managed to stage a 

minor revival. In some quarters, the revitalization 

took the form of renewed interest in traditional intellectual 

and religious activities, such as philosophical 

reflection on Buddhist doctrines and the practice of 

Chan meditation. Others, however, tried to reconstitute 

the Buddhist tradition along modern lines. The 

progressive agenda of the reformers included establishment 

of educational institutions where the clergy 

received modern education. In addition, efforts were 

made to internationalize Chinese Buddhism by establishing 

connections with Buddhist traditions in other 

countries. 

With the communist victory in the civil war and the 

establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, Buddhism 

had to contend with a governing ideology that 

had little sympathy for traditional religious beliefs and 

practices. During the 1950s the new regime was mainly 

concerned with controlling Buddhism by instituting 

policies that restricted the activities of the clergy and 

imposed state supervision over Buddhist organizations. 

The situation rapidly deteriorated during the 

1960s and reached its lowest point with the violent suppression 

of Buddhism (along with other religions) during 

the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution. At 

the time it seemed that the twenty centuries of Buddhist 

history in China might be coming to an end. With 

the institution of more liberal policies during the late 

1970s, however, Buddhism began to stage a slow comeback. 

The modest resurgence of Buddhism in China 

involves restoration of temples and monasteries, ordination 

of clergy, revival of traditional beliefs and practices, 

and increased interest in academic study of 

Buddhism as a part of traditional Chinese culture. Chinese 

Buddhism is also thriving in TAIWAN, as well as 

among immigrant Chinese communities throughout 

Asia and in the West. 

Texts and literary activities 

During the early phases of Buddhism in China, one of 

the primary concerns for both the foreign missionaries 

and the native followers was to produce reliable 

translations of Buddhist sacred texts. The task of translating 

the scriptures and other canonical texts was 

daunting because of the sheer size of the Buddhist 

canon (which was constantly expanding as new texts 

were introduced) and because of the lack of bilingual 

expertise among the foreign missionaries and the native 

clergy, which was exacerbated by the Chinese aversion 

to learning foreign languages. During the early 

period many of the translations were small private undertakings, 

typically led by a foreign monk who was 

aided by Chinese assistants. The early translations of- 


C HINA 

ten display a tendency to render Buddhist ideas by recourse 

to concepts from native Chinese thought. A case 

in point is the putative method of “matching the meaning” 

(geyi), which involved pairing of key Buddhist 

terms with Chinese expressions primarily derived from 

Daoist sources. While this hermeneutical strategy facilitated 

the wider diffusion of Buddhist texts and ideas 

among educated Chinese, it was criticized by eminent 

monks such as DAO’AN (312–385) as an obstacle to the 

proper understanding of Buddhism. 

The situation changed during the fifth century, in 

large part because of the translation activities of KU- 

MARAJIVA (350–409/413), arguably the most famous 

and influential translator in the history of Chinese 

Buddhism. Born in Kucha, Kumarajva arrived in the 

capital of Chang’an in 401. With the generous support 

of the court, which facilitated the formation of a translation 

bureau, Kumarajva and his assistants produced 

a large number of readable translations of key Mahayana 

scriptures and other exegetical works. As a testimony 

to the success of Kumarajva’s efforts, most of 

his translations remained the standard versions 

throughout the history of Buddhism in East Asia. Kumarajva 

also taught a number of talented disciples 

about the fine points of Mahayana doctrines, especially 

the Madhyamaka philosophy of NAGARJUNA (ca. second 

century C.E.). 

A number of influential translators followed in Kumarajva’s 

footsteps, including PARAMARTHA (499–569), 

whose translations of Yogacara texts served as a catalyst 

for the huge Chinese interest in the doctrines of 

this Indian school of Mahayana philosophy. One of 

the last great translators was the famous Tang monk 

XUANZANG (ca. 600–664). After returning from his celebrated 

PILGRIMAGE to India, where for many years 

he studied at the main centers of Buddhist learning, 

Xuanzang spent the last two decades of his life translating 

the numerous manuscripts he brought back to 

China. His work was undertaken under imperial auspices, 

and his numerous assistants included leading 

Buddhist scholars. Despite their superior styling and 

greater philological accuracy, Xuanzang’s translations 

did not achieve the same widespread acceptance as Kumarajva’s 

translations. 

In addition to the translations of canonical texts 

from Sanskrit and other Indic languages, there was also 

a large body of apocryphal texts composed in China 

whose origins were concealed by presenting them as 

translations of Indian texts. The Chinese APOCRYPHA 

included both popular religious tracts as well as texts 

that contained sophisticated explorations of doctrinal 

themes. Works that belong to the first category included 

apocryphal scriptures that dealt with popular 

religious topics, such as moral principles, eschatological 

and messianic beliefs, cultic practices, and preternatural 

powers. They often crossed the porous lines 

separating Buddhism from popular beliefs, and because 

of that they were sometimes criticized by members 

of the monastic elite. On the other end of the 

spectrum, there were apocryphal texts dealing with 

doctrinal issues, which exemplified Chinese appropriations 

of Mahayana teachings that resonated with native 

intellectual concerns and ways of thinking. Even 

though the problematic provenance of these texts was 

frequently noted by medieval Buddhist cataloguers, a 

good number of them achieved wide acclaim and became 

part of the CANON. 

Besides texts translated from foreign languages, the 

Chinese Buddhist canon also came to include a large 

number of texts composed by Chinese authors. These 

texts are written in a number of genres and cover a 

wide range of perspectives on diverse aspects of Buddhist 

beliefs, doctrines, practices, and institutions. 

They include exegetical works (especially commentaries 

on important scriptures), encyclopedias, collections 

of biographies of eminent monks, texts dealing 

with monastic regulations and practices, meditation 

and ritual manuals, historical works, and systematic 

expositions of Sinitic doctrinal systems (such as 

Huayan and Tiantai). A large part of the canon includes 

texts produced by the main schools of Chinese 

Buddhism. An example of that type are the Chan 

school’s records of sayings (yulu) and gong’an (Japanese, 

KO AN) collections. In addition, there are a large 

number of extracanonical works—such as collections 

of miracle tales—that deal with popular Buddhist beliefs 

and practices. Buddhist themes and ideas can also 

be found in secular literary works, such as the poems 

of major Chinese poets, including Wang Wei 

(701–761) and Bo Juyi (772–846) during the Tang, and 

Su Shi (1037–1101) during the Song period. 

Schools and traditions 

The study of Chinese Buddhism in terms of specific 

“schools” (zong), an approach that has commonly been 

adopted by scholars working in the field, is complicated 

by the multivalent connotations of the Chinese 

term zong. In the Buddhist context the term zong can 

mean a specific doctrine (or an interpretation of it), 

an essential purport or teaching of a canonical text, 

an exegetical tradition, or a religious group bound 


143

C HINA 

together by shared ideals and adherence to a common 

set of principles. When the term is used in the last 

sense, it does not denote separate sects, as defined in 

typologies formulated by sociologists of religion. The 

distinct schools of Chinese Buddhism lacked institutional 

independence. They primarily represented distinct 

doctrinal or exegetical orientations, or looselyorganized 

religious groups that were subsumed within 

the mainstream monastic order. It is also important to 

note that as a rule these schools involved only a small 

segment of the monastic elite, and local manifestations 

of Buddhist religiosity among ordinary people mostly 

had little direct connection with them. 

During the early period, the intellectual and religious 

agendas of Chinese Buddhism were largely 

shaped by texts and teachings that originated in India. 

During the fourth and fifth centuries the most influential 

school of Mahayana was the Madhyamaka (Middle 

Way), whose teachings of śunyata attracted the 

attention of Chinese scholiasts. The interest in Madhyamaka 

philosophy was stimulated by the arrival of 

Kumarajva, and it culminated with the formation of 

the Sanlun (Three Treatises) school by Jizang 

(549–623), which is usually described as a Chinese version 

of Madhyamaka. Notwithstanding these developments, 

the sixth century was the beginning of a general 

move within Chinese Buddhism away from the relentless 

apophasis of Madhyamaka doctrine toward 

increased interest in teachings that presented more 

positive depictions of the nature of reality and the 

quest for salvation, especially as articulated by the Yogacara 

and TATHAGATAGARBHA traditions. The strong 

interest in YOGACARA SCHOOL teachings about the nature 

of consciousness and the stages of spiritual practice 

eventually led to the development of the Shelun 

school (based on the Mahayanasam graha of ASAṄGA) 

and the Dilun school (based on VASUBANDHU’s commentary 

on the Daśabhu mikasu tropadśa). Both of them 

were primarily exegetical traditions, centered around 

small groups of elite scholarly monks who were bound 

by shared religious and intellectual interests. 

The tathagatagarbha, together with the closely related 

Buddha-nature doctrine, originally occupied a 

marginal position in Indian Buddhism. Although these 

theories did not give rise to any new Chinese schools, 

they became key doctrinal tenets and articles of belief 

for the new Buddhist traditions that emerged during 

the Sui-Tang period. This new Buddhism is principally 

associated with the teachings of the Tiantai, Huayan, 

Chan, and Pure Land schools. Each of them was a 

unique Sinitic tradition that had no direct counterpart 

in Indian Buddhism, and their emergence is viewed as 

the culmination of the Sinification of Buddhist doctrines 

and practices. Tiantai and Huayan were especially 

renowned for their scriptural exegesis and 

creation of sophisticated systems of Buddhist doctrine 

that represent the highest intellectual achievements of 

Chinese Buddhism. On the other hand, Chan and Pure 

Land offered compelling soteriological frameworks 

and methods of spiritual practice. In the case of Chan 

the main practice was meditation, while the Pure Land 

tradition emphasized faith and devotional practices. 

Chan and Pure Land came to dominate the religious 

landscape of Chinese Buddhism from the late Tang 

onward, with Chan being more popular among the 

monastic elites and their educated followers, and Pure 

Land enjoying a greater following among the masses. 

Interactions with other religious traditions 

The history of Chinese religions is usually discussed in 

terms of the “three teachings”: Confucianism, Daoism, 

and Buddhism. China’s religious history during the last 

two millennia was to a large extent shaped by the complex 

patterns of interaction among these three main 

traditions and popular religion. The history of Buddhism 

in China was significantly influenced by its contacts 

with the indigenous traditions, which were also 

profoundly transformed through their encounter with 


The initial arrival of Buddhism into China during 

the Han dynasty coincided with the emergence of religious 

Daoism. During the early period the acceptance 

of Buddhism was helped by the putative similarities 

between its beliefs and practices and those of Daoism. 

With the increased popularity and influence of Buddhism, 

from the late fourth century onward Daoism 

absorbed various elements from Buddhism. In the literary 

arena, that included large-scale adoption of Buddhist 

terminology and style of writing. The Daoist 

canon itself was modeled on the Buddhist canon, following 

the same threefold division. In addition, numerous 

Buddhist ideas—about merit, ethical conduct, 

salvation, compassion, rebirth, retribution, and the 

like—were absorbed into Daoism. The Buddhist influence 

also extended into the institutions of the Daoist 

church, and Daoist monasteries and temples were to a 

large extent modeled on their Buddhist counterparts. 

During the medieval period, intellectual and religious 

life in China was characterized by an ecumenical 

spirit and broad acceptance of a pluralistic outlook. 

The prevalent view was that the three traditions were 

complimentary rather than antithetical. Buddhism and 


C HINA, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

Daoism were primarily concerned with the spiritual 

world and centered on the private sphere, whereas 

Confucianism was responsible for the social realm and 

focused on managing the affairs of the state. Even 

though open-mindedness and acceptance of religious 

pluralism remained the norm throughout most of Chinese 

history, such accommodating attitudes did not go 

uncontested. In addition to the Confucian criticisms 

of Buddhism, which repeatedly entered public discourse 

throughout Chinese history, there were occasional 

debates with Daoists that were in part motivated 

by the ongoing competition for official patronage 

waged by the two religions. 

More conspicuous expressions of exclusivist sentiments 

came with the emergence of neo-Confucianism 

during the Song period. The stance of leading Confucian 

thinkers toward Buddhism was often marked by 

open hostility. Notwithstanding their criticism of Buddhist 

doctrines and institutions, neo-Confucian thinkers 

drew heavily on Buddhist concepts and ideas. As they 

were trying to recapture intellectual space that for centuries 

had been dominated by the Buddhists, the leaders 

of the Song Confucian revival remade their 

tradition in large part by their creative responses to the 

encounter with Buddhism. 

Throughout its history Chinese Buddhism also interacted 

with the plethora of religious beliefs and practices 

usually assigned to the category of popular 

religion. Buddhist teachings about KARMA (ACTION) 

and REBIRTH, beliefs about other realms of existence, 

and basic ethical principles became part and parcel of 

popular religion. In addition, Buddhist deities—such 

as Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion—were appropriated 

by popular religion as objects of cultic worship. 

The influence went both ways, as popular deities 

were worshiped in Buddhist monasteries and Buddhist 

monks performed rituals that catered to common beliefs 

and customs, such as worship of ANCESTORS. 

See also: Chan School; China, Buddhist Art in; Confucianism 

and Buddhism; Daoism and Buddhism; 

Huayan School; Pure Land Schools; Syncretic Sects: 

Three Teachings; Taiwan; Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Buswell, Robert E., ed. Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha. Honolulu: 


Ch’en, Kenneth. Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey. Princeton, 


Ch’en, Kenneth. The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism. 


Gernet, Jacques. Buddhism in Chinese Society: An Economic History 

from the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries, tr. Franciscus 

Verellen. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. 

Gimello, Robert. “Apophatic and Kataphatic Discourse in Mahayana: 

A Chinese view.” Philosophy East and West 26, no. 

2 (1976): 117–136. 



Gregory, Peter N., and Getz, Daniel A., Jr., eds. Buddhism in the 

Sung. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. 

Teiser, Stephen F. The Scripture of the Ten Kings and the Making 



Weinstein, Stanley. Buddhism under the T’ang. Cambridge, UK: 




Wright, Arthur F. Buddhism in Chinese History. Stanford, CA: 



Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China, 2 vols. Leiden, 


CHINA, BUDDHIST ART IN 

MARIO POCESKI 

In the Asian Buddhist world, China is second only to 

India for its importance in the development and 

preservation of Buddhism and Buddhist art. China became 

the great reservoir and innovator of East Asian 

Buddhism and its art, and inspired important schools 

of Buddhism and Buddhist art in Korea and Japan, as 

well as other regions. The range of Chinese Buddhist 

art is vast, stretching for nearly two thousand years 

from the Later Han dynasty (25 B.C.E.–220 C.E.) well 

into the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Often its sources 

reach directly to India and its contiguous regions, to 

Central Asia, and even Tibet in the later centuries; 

there is also a complex interrelationship with the latter 

two regions. New interpretations and styles formed 

quickly in China, offering an evolving and stimulating 

development frequently reflecting the schools of Buddhist 

thought that emerged in China, as well as imagery 

with popular connotations. Behind the brief 

survey presented in this entry, one must keep in mind 

the incredible richness of the repertoire and of the innumerable 

innovative interpretations offered by China 

in all the arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, cave 


145


temple art, and decorative and ritual arts throughout 

this long period of growth, fluorescence, and development 

that created one of the world’s truly magnificent 

Buddhist art cycles. 

Later Han (25 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), Three Kingdoms 

(220–265/280 C.E.), and Western Jin 

(265/280–317 C.E.) 

Reliable written documents indicate the presence in 

China of Buddhist temples as early as the mid-first century 

C.E., during the Later Han dynasty. By the end of 

the second century, records concerning the military officer 

Zerong describe his construction in Pengcheng 

(northern Jiangsu) of a large storied pavilion “with 

piled up metal plates on top” and a gilded buddha image 

inside. Such a multistoried structure topped by 

plates (chattra) also appears in a rare Later Han tomb 

tile from Sichuan. These examples point to the existence 

of the Chinese-style pagoda or STU PA and the 

presence of gilded buddha imagery by the late Later 

Han period in China. Though the first major Buddhist 

translation activity occurred in Luoyang during the 

second half of the second century with the foreign 

monks AN SHIGAO and Lokaksema, we have yet to see 

any Buddhist art from that center for this period, with 

the exception of the stone fragments of a curb encircling 

a well that bear an inscription mentioning “the 

saṅgha of the four quarters” in Kharosth script, another 

indication of the undoubtedly potent foreign influences 

in this early phase of Buddhist activity in China. 

However, within the last several decades a few remains 

have been presented as probable late Later Han 

Buddhist imagery, most notably the splendid giltbronze 

seated Buddha with flame shoulders in Harvard 

University’s Sackler Museum and a selection of 

stone reliefs at the site of Kongwangshan in eastern 

Jiangsu. The Harvard Buddha, of quite large size, has 

long been cited as a major early sculpture of Gandharan 

form, but has been shown to stylistically relate to Chinese 

tomb art dating to the second half of the second 

century and to sculpture from the site of Khalchayan 

(ca. first century B.C.E. to first century C.E.) excavated 

in southern Uzbekistan in ancient northern Bactria. 

This image, probably the earliest known Buddha image 

from China, appears to have its stylistic sources 

more decisively in the Bactrian rather than the Gandharan 

region. The Kongwangshan site consists of a 

hill with its boulders carved with a variety of sculptures 

in the late Later Han style. Among the images are 

Xiwangmu (Queen Mother of the West), dancing figures 

in foreign dress (Kushan style), a seated and 

standing buddha, a parinirvana scene, and a scene from 

a JATAKA of the sacrifice of the bodhisattva to the starving 

tigress. Though simple, the images are iconographically 

accurate and testify to Buddhist activity 

that was somehow integrated with images of other 

popular beliefs—a typical phenomenon in Late Han. 

From the Three Kingdoms and Western Jin periods, 

a clear distinction emerged between images that 

strictly follow orthodox Buddhist iconography and 

those of popular, mostly funerary, art that incorporate 

Buddhist elements, often with unorthodox changes. 

The latter are various and found in a wide area of distribution. 

They include, for example, small seated buddhas 

on ceramic vessels (some the elaborate hunping 

funerary urns) and bronze mirrors (possibly as auspicious 

talismans) in the south; buddhas on money trees 

and clay tomb bricks in Sichuan; a standing bodhisattva 

on a belt buckle from a tomb dated 262 from 

Wuchang in Hebei; and reliefs in tombs such as at 

Yinan in Shandong. On the other hand, the famous 

gilt-bronze standing bodhisattva in the Fujii Yurinkan, 

probably a MAITREYA, is of mainstream, orthodox imagery, 

stylistically related to contemporary sculptures 

from Swat, Toprak Kala, and Miran. This bodhisattva 

is said to have come from near Chang’an (present-day 

Xi’an), where the great monk DHARMARAKSA was active 

with translating and teaching in the last half of the 

third century. 

By the end of the Western Jin Buddhism was reaching 

a point of viability in China, albeit with the major 

support of foreign monks and the foreign communities 

engaged in trade along the SILK ROAD. Unfortunately, 

just as the fall of the Han dynasty in the early 

third century occasioned turmoil and mass migration 

within China, so too, at the end of the Western Jin, 

northern China collapsed into chaos from famines and 

a series of disastrous invasions and warfare by northern 

minorities. These events threw the country into 

hardship for several decades and virtually transformed 

the demographics of China as the aristocratic families 

of the north fled south or to the Gansu region to escape 

the devastation. 

Eastern Jin (317–420) in the south and the Sixteen 

Kingdoms (317–439) in the north 

The Eastern Jin provided some continuity to this 

volatile, fluid, disruptive period. Most of our knowledge 

of Buddhist art from the Eastern Jin comes from 

written records, which speak of miraculous images, 

King AŚOKA images, colossal buddhas (the oldest, ca. 

370s, being that in DAO’AN’s (312–385) monastery at 



Xiangyang in Henan), wondrous sculptures made by 

Daikui, the famous VIMALAKIRTI wall painting by Gu 

Kaizhi, and so on. We can speculate on the appearance 

of some of these recorded masterpieces of Eastern Jin 

Buddhist art from later replicas. One of the most interesting 

is the case of the inscribed King Aśoka buddhas 

found in Chengdu that date from the mid-sixth 

century but clearly replicate an older, probably fourth 

century, model. Also, the Vimalakrti relief in cave 3 

at LONGMEN, from the early sixth century, may follow 

the fourth-century Gu Kaizhi prototype. Other 

clues come from the invaluable sources of the Korean 

Koguryŏ tomb paintings, such as those at tomb 3 at 

Anak, dated to around 357, and the tomb at 

Tŏkhŭngri, dated to 408 or 409, and others that have 

early examples of Buddhist subjects. 

Most extant remains, however, probably come from 

the North and from Gansu, both areas dominated by a 

series of successive small kingdoms, known as the Sixteen 

Kingdoms, of the five minority nationalities. This 

period in North China is one of the most difficult to 

access, but it is becoming evident that it is prolific in 

Buddhist art remains, generally confirming and complementing 

the important strides made in Buddhism 

under the Chinese masters Dao’an and HUIYUAN 

(334–416) and the overwhelming achievement of the 

translations of KUMARAJIVA (350–409/413 C.E.) in the 

early fifth century. Most images are from small bronze 

buddha altars, which, in the few surviving complete 

examples consist of a dhyanasana buddha on a lion 

throne, a mandorla, a canopy, and a four-footed stand. 

The identity of these small buddhas, most in meditation, 

is not certain, but at least one (datable to 426, 

now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) 

names the buddha as Maitreya. The earliest identifiable 

Guanyin appears around 400 (Asian Art Museum 

of San Francisco) and there are early bronze reliefs of 

such LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) 

themes as Śakyamuni and Prabhutaratna that appear 

as early as the early fifth century. The Buddhist-Daoist 

stele of Wei Wenlang from Yaoxian (north of 

Chang’an), though not without controversy, probably 

dates to 424 and may be the oldest known stone stele 

with Buddhist imagery. A gilt-bronze pendant-legged 

seated buddha, dated (Liu) Song 423, confirms this 

iconographic form as a Maitreya by an inscription on 

the back of its mandorla, which itself is the earliest 

known version in bronze of the elaborate flamebordered 

mandorlas seen in fully developed form in 

numerous bronze sculptures under the Tuoba (Northern) 

Wei later in the century. It is becoming clear that 

many iconographic types and stylistic features that 

were previously thought to be Northern Wei were actually 

formulated earlier, in the late fourth and early 

fifth centuries in the south, around Chang’an and in 

Gansu. 

The Gansu Buddhist materials are probably the most 

significant discoveries of the last forty years in Chinese 

Buddhist art. Though there is currently no consensus 

on the precise dating of all of the early sculptures, paintings, 

cave temples, and stone stupas from Gansu, the 

Amitayus niche in cave 169 at Binglingsi is dated with 

certainty to 420 during the time of the Eastern Qin in 

southern Gansu. Most of the superb painted clay sculptures 

positioned randomly around this large natural 

cave, as well as the surviving wall paintings, which stylistically 

relate to paintings in cave GK20 at Kumtura in 

Kucha, date to this time or earlier. Similarly, the earliest 

caves at Maijishan (caves 78 and 74, each with three 

magnificent large, seated clay buddhas), where the famous 

monk Gaoxuan stayed for a number of years in 

about 415, are probably early fifth century. 

From the central area of Gansu, then known as 

Liangzhou, the cave temples at Tiantishan, southeast of 

Wuwei, and Jintasi near Zhangye, have spectacularly 

rare remains, the former mainly paintings and the latter 

mainly sculpture, both from the period of Northern 

Liang under Juqu Mengxun (r. 401–433). Juqu 

Mengxun is known from literary records to have opened 

caves now believed to be those at Tiantishan, and to have 

made a colossal buddha on behalf of his mother, the 

earliest colossal stone (probably cave) image in China. 

The early caves at both sites contain the earliest use of 

the central pillar cave temple form in China. 

From the western end of Gansu, there are early caves 

at Wenshushan near Jiuchuan and three early caves at 

DUNHUANG (caves 268, 272, 275). Cave 272 includes 

a Maitreya Buddha, and cave 275 has a colossal crossankled 

Maitreya Bodhisattva. Wall paintings in cave 

272 show celestial listeners and the thousand buddhas. 

In cave 275 jatakas and scenes from the Buddha’s life 

are portrayed along the side walls of the long chamber. 

A rare group of stone stupas was discovered from 

Jiuchuan and Dunhuang, most dating from the early 

decades of the fifth century under the Northern Liang. 

The stupas are carved with sutra texts, trigrams with 

trigram figures from the Yijing (Book of Changes), and 

the seven buddhas of the past along with Maitreya Bodhisattva. 

Two other stone stupas have been found in 

Gaochang (Turfan), where the Northern Liang fled after 

the Northern Wei onslaught in 439 and where 


147


Northern Liang survived as the last of the Sixteen Kingdoms 

up to the 460s. 

Northern Wei (386–534), Eastern Wei 

(534–550), Western Wei (535–557), Northern 

Qi (550–577), and Northern Zhou (557–581) in 

the north; (Liu) Song (420–479), Southern Qi 

(479–502), Liang (502–557) and Chen 

(557–589) in the south; unified China under 

the Sui (581/589–618) 

After 439, emphasis shifted to the Northern Wei, which 

developed its Buddhist art rapidly after the harsh Buddhist 

persecution of 444 to 452. Besides numerous 

stone relief images (steles) and magnificent gilt-bronze 

sculptures, the most stupendous achievements occurred 

at the cave site of YUN’GANG near the capital of 

Pingcheng (Datong) from the 460s through the 480s. 

The so-called five Tanyao caves, with their five colossal 

images carved from living rock, in some sense surpass 

in concept even the colossi of BAMIYAN and Kucha, 

both of which probably had several grand colossal buddha 

images by this time. Yun’gang presents a single coherent 

group of five colossi, the identity of which, 

however, is still being debated by scholars. Work continued 

at Yun’gang with the fully embellished twin 

caves 7 and 8, datable to around the 470s, and the twin 

caves 5 and 6, dating from around the 480s, the latter 

with a huge central pillar and fully assimilated new style 

of loose, flared “Chinese” robe design for the buddha 

images. This stylistic change, distinct from Liangzhou 

or Central Asian inspired styles, probably came to the 

north from South China. Caves 7 and 8 appear to be related 

to the sculptural traditions of the northern Silk 

Road, especially that of Tumshuk. 

Though work continued at Yun’gang into the fifth 

century, after the Northern Wei moved its capital to 

Luoyang in 494, attention turned to the new imperial 

cave temple site at Longmen, which became the pièce 

de résistance from the latter years of the Northern Wei. 

It is by way of the groundbreaking studies of both 

Yun’gang and Longmen by Seiichi Mizuno and Toshio 

Nagahiro and the ongoing studies of the Dunhuang 

Research Institute for the Dunhuang caves that we 

have access to and understanding of these enormous 

cave temple sites that represent the truly glorious heritage 

of Chinese Buddhist art. 

The multiple tiers and niches of the oldest cave at 

Longmen, the Guyangtong, have many individual dedications 

and show primary focus on Maitreya. Cave 3, 

on the other hand, which dates to around 515, is an 

imperial cave with a single plan completely executed 

to produce a coherent and spectacular scheme, probably 

centered around the buddhas of the three times 

(past, present, and future) as the main icons. The large 

impressive sculptures are massive heavy shapes beneath 

spreading robes of shallow parallel step pleats 

and elaborately curving hems that flare to the sides or 

cascade over the pedestal as seen in the Śakyamuni 

Buddha on the rear wall. The abstract carving of the 

faces lends a strongly iconic air to the powerful imagery. 

Other caves followed at Longmen and also at Gongxian 

near Luoyang, but the Northern Wei collapsed around 

534 or 535 and its territory was divided between east 

and west for a short time before changing hands again 

to the Northern Qi in the northeast and Northern Zhou 

in the northwest. For Buddhist art, however, this period 

remains one of continued fluorescence. 

Luoyang was a city of magnificent temples and 

pagodas under the Northern Wei, and, as far as we can 

tell from literary records, the same was true of the capital 

(Nanking) of the Liang under Emperor Wu (r. 502– 

549) in the south. We can surmise some of the Liang 

achievements because they are probably reflected in 

the Buddhist art of important finds from Chengdu in 

Sichuan. The hoard of sculptures from the Wanfosi 

contained many complete steles, some of which have 

reliefs of Pure Land imagery that are invaluable for 

documenting the developments of this form of Buddhist 

art, which appears to have begun as early as the 

early fifth century. 

The Xiangtangshan caves in Henan and Hebei testify 

to major cave temple activity under the Northern 

Qi. Besides the magnificent central pillar caves at 

North Xiangtangshan, a large relief of AMITABHA’s 

Western Pure Land from the southern site shows a 

simple setting of pavilions, a lotus pond with reborn 

figures, and images of the Buddha and his attendant 

bodhisattvas portrayed in the smooth, abstract, minimalist 

style of the Northern Qi. The stone sculptures 

from the Xiudesi in Hebei, some with dated inscriptions, 

the popular siwei (contemplative) bodhisattva, 

and the spectacular hoard unearthed in Qingzhou in 

Shandong, many still possessing gilding and original 

paint, amplify the corpus of Northern Qi Buddhist art 

and reveal the wide range and subtle stylistic variations 

in the sculptural repertoire. 

Stone stelae, which rose to prominence during the 

first half of the sixth century and which were frequently 

donated by special groups or religious societies, gave 

way in mid-century to new innovations, such as perforating 

elements of the stele, and to the independent 



stone image, some of great size. Images from the 

Northern Zhou tended to be laden with jewelry in bodhisattva 

figures and to have a sense of natural mass 

and movement, contrary to the Northern Qi’s hermetic, 

aloof, and pristinely pure abstract imagery, 

which was possibly inspired by the styles of the Gupta 

Sarnath school of India. Regional distinctions in imagery 

were particularly pronounced during this period 

and they continued into the Sui dynasty. 

Dunhuang, with its semiautonomous status at the 

far reaches of northwest China, saw continued activity 

throughout the Northern Wei and into the Northern 

Zhou, and the site generally developed its own 

traditions in the second half of the fifth century to 

around the end of the Northern Wei. By the time of 

cave 285 in the Western Wei, however, artists at Dunhuang 

had adopted Chinese style drapery and also incorporated 

some Central Asian iconographic features. 

Maijishan was also active throughout this period, with 

caves of painted clay imagery, wall paintings, and some 

important stone steles, including a rare example that 

depicts the Buddha’s life in narrative scenes. The Tianlongshan 

caves in Shanxi, opened in the Eastern Wei, 

continued with the production of remarkably beautiful 

sculptures in the Northern Qi and Sui. 

Following the Buddhist persecution by the Northern 

Zhou in the late 570s and the unification of China 

under the Sui, Buddhist art gained momentum under 

imperially sponsored restorations and construction 

projects. New cave sites in Shandong at Tuoshan and 

Yunmenshan emerged, and Dunhuang entered one of 

it most flourishing periods, beginning a wave of production 

that carried on into the Tang period and beyond. 

The TIANTAI SCHOOL was strong in China and 

the Lotus Su tra is reflected in the paintings of caves 419 

and 420 at Dunhuang. The regional variations encountered 

in the mid-sixth century continued into the 

Sui with certain developments: Early Sui images became 

more grandiose and monumentalized; during the late 

Sui images began to loosen toward a slightly more naturalistic 

impression, as seen in the painting of Mañjuśr 

Bodhisattva, depicted with superbly confident line 

drawing, in cave 276 at Dunhuang. The great period of 

the abstract icon came to an end in the Sui. Very few 

large pagodas or stupas survive from this period, the 

most striking being the monumental twelve-sided, 

fifteen-story, parabolically-shaped brick pagoda at 

Songshan in Henan, dated to around 520, and a stone 

square-image pagoda with four entrances (simenta), 

dated 611, at the ancient Shentongsi in Shandong. 

Avalokiteśvara as the guide of beings to the halls of paradise. (Chinese 

painting from cave 17 at Dunhuang, tenth century.) © Copyright 

The British Museum. Reproduced by permission. 

Tang dynasty (618–907) and the Five Dynasties 

(907–960) 

Although the collapse of the Sui in 617 and the formative 

decades of the Tang brought an initial hiatus 

in the production of Buddhist art, the eventual longlasting 

cohesion helped to engender unprecedented 

developments in Buddhism and its arts in China. Except 

for Dunhuang, where the opening of new cave 

chapels continued at a more or less constant rate, it 

was not until around the 640s that Buddhist art began 

to appear with prominence in central China, mostly in 

the capital at Chang’an and at Longmen near Luoyang. 

With the return of the monk-pilgrim XUANZANG 

(ca. 600–664) from his astonishing travels to India 

from 628 to 645, the emperor sponsored the building 

of the Great Wild Goose Pagoda in the capital to house 

the manuscripts he brought back. Austere, grand, and 

monumental, this Tang brick pagoda still remains a 


149


beloved landmark overlooking the city. Activity at the 

Longmen caves dominated the latter part of the seventh 

century with the most spectacular work being 

cave 19 (672–675) with its colossal image of Vairocana, 

the mystical/cosmic buddha of the HUAYAN SCHOOL, 

the branch of Buddhism in China founded on the 

study of the HUAYAN JING (Avatam saka-su tra) and 

brilliantly expounded by Huayan masters, such as 

Zhiyan (602–668) and FAZANG (643–712), in the seventh 

century. Cave 19 may have been a conscious reflection 

of the grandeur of the Tang empire, which 

reached a new dimension with its conquests throughout 

the century into Central Asia. 

PURE LAND BUDDHISM flowered in the seventh century 

under Shandao and found expression in depictions 

of AMITABHA’s Pure Land, Sukhavat, many of 

which survive in wall paintings at Dunhuang, beginning 

with the earliest complete representation in cave 

220, dated 642, and evolving throughout the Tang into 

masterworks of huge scale and detailed imagery. These 

paintings particularly followed the Guan Wuliangshou 

jing (Su tra on the Meditation of Amitayus) that incorporates 

the sixteen meditations of Queen Vaideh, as 

seen in the early eighth-century wall painting in cave 

217 at Dunhuang. By the time of cave 148, dated to 

around 775, a vast panoramic vision is presented in the 

boneless technique of using planes of color without line. 

These color washes create a fluid, shimmering, ethereal 

effect on the broad, tilted plane that conjures vast 

space, reflecting developments in Chinese landscape 

painting that evolved during the Tang period. 

During the mid-seventh to early eighth centuries, 

elements of esoteric Buddhism appeared in, for example, 

figures of the eleven-headed Guanyin, but it would 

not be until the second half of the eighth century, with 

the teaching of the Indian monk Amoghavajra, that the 

full panoply of tantric MAN D ALA imagery would become 

well established. A group of marble images dating 

from around 775 from the site of the Anguosi in 

Chang’an offers the best surviving early examples of 

these esoteric teachings, which became especially influential 

at Wutaishan and later in Shingon Buddhism 

(of the yoga tantra type), which was introduced by 

KU KAI (774–835) to Japan following his study in China 

from 804 to 806. 

Sculpture from the first half of the eighth century 

reached a high degree of naturalism, tempered by abstract 

patterning. The Tang caves at Tianlongshan, 

such as caves 21, 14, 6, 18, and 17 (in chronological 

sequence), have the most splendid array of stone sculptures 

from the first half of the eighth century. The 

seated buddha from cave 21 (possibly the cave of the 

707 stele describing the donation made by General Xun 

[of Korean descent] and his wife) is a marvel of powerful 

muscular body, with subtly defined limbs and 

torso. The body is draped with a robe whose rib folds 

form patterns of lines that help to clarify the articulate 

parts of the body in an independent yet complementary 

manner. The moon-shaped face is tense and the 

features carved into strongly modeled eyes and a dramatically 

curled mouth. The styles of the Tianlongshan 

imagery of this time derive from artistic modes of contemporary 

art of Kashmir, Afghanistan, and Central 

Asia, probably stimulated by renewed contact over the 

Silk Road during the seventh century and first half of 

the eighth century. 

By the late eighth to ninth centuries the style of 

sculpture became more mannered and consciously 

antinatural while still retaining naturalistic elements 

that had evolved since the early Tang. Images became 

otherworldly in defiance of weight and normality of 

proportioning. At Dunhuang this development appears 

in the images of cave 159 and in central China 

in the stucco sculptures of the main shrine hall of the 

Foguangsi Monastery at Wutaishan, where the images 

reach a height of manneristic naturalism, combining 

naturalistic qualities with mannered distortions. The 

Foguangsi shrine hall was built in 857 after the third 

and most devastating of the Buddhist persecutions in 

China from around 845 to 847. It remains today as the 

oldest large wooden temple structure in China. The 

main hall of the nearby Nanchansi was built earlier, 

before 782, but it is only a three-bay hall, whereas the 

Foguangsi hall is a seven-bay structure. Foguangsi’s 

monumental Tang style timber construction has 

strong simple bracketing, bold powerful lines in the 

façade, and a rare early method of construction. In the 

words of Liang Sicheng, an early pioneer of architectural 

studies in China, the structural parts “give the 

building an overwhelming dignity that is not found in 

later structures.” 

As the Tang empire declined during the late ninth 

century, Buddhist art diminished in general, except for 

areas such as Sichuan and Dunhuang, both of which 

saw major productions at this time. Dunhuang, which 

had been under Tibetan occupation from the 780s to 

840s, flourished under the local control of the Zhang 

and then the Cao family well into the tenth century. 

Many of the silk paintings found by Aurel Stein in the 

“library” room of cave 17 and taken to the British Museum 

date to this period. The earliest Chan paintings 



appeared during the late ninth to early tenth centuries. 

The CHAN SCHOOL had become one of the major 

movements of Buddhism in China from the seventh 

century. The Luohan paintings by Guanxiu are the earliest 

works related to what came to be known as a Chan 

interpretation. In some paintings Guanxiu used a 

broken-ink technique that, along with the individualistic 

styles of Shike of the tenth century, was destined 

to make a lasting impact on Chinese painting. 

During the Five Dynasties, a formality appeared in 

the sculptures at Dunhuang, and wall paintings tend to 

repeat in minute detail the depictions of various sutras, 

a development that had become popular during the 

later years of the Tang. In the numerous large caves of 

this time the effect is astounding for its detail. In cave 

61, for example, there are large female donor figures 

of the Cao family, and the entire back wall is occupied 

by a mythical “map” of Wutaishan as a sacred place. 

At this point, a real geographic place in China was 

treated as an icon itself, thus merging the concept of 

Pure Land with sacred spaces on earth. In general, the 

art of the Five Dynasties period prolonged the styles of 

Tang into its final, more formalized stage. 

Northern Song (960–1127), Liao (907–1125), 

Xixia (late tenth–1223), Jin (1115–1234), 

Southern Song (1127–1279), and Dali in Yunnan 

(937–1253) 

Though a culturally high period in China, the eleventh 

to the thirteenth centuries were not without fragmentation. 

In the South, at the Yanxiadong during the midtenth 

century in Hangzhou there is an early example 

of the group of sixteen (or eighteen) Luohans with 

Guanyin, a theme that came to pervade this period. 

Guanyin is sometimes shown garbed in a robe covering 

the head and body, a depiction that came to be 

known as the “white-robed” Guanyin. Various forms 

of Guanyin had been growing in popularity since the 

sixth century, but the blossoming and expanding of 

these forms became a major factor in Chinese Buddhist 

art of this period. For example, the independent kingdom 

of Wuyue in the South produced a distinctive bodhisattva 

portrayal with prominent jewel-encrusted 

ornamentation and a stiff and quiet body with a gentle 

face. Throughout the Song period Dazu in Sichuan 

developed into a major site of impressive reliefs that 

connote a great mandala for PILGRIMAGE based in large 

part on the plans of the founding monk, who consciously 

incorporated local popular, as well as esoteric, 

themes into the Buddhist tableaux. In addition, Maijishan 

in Gansu produced numerous stucco images at 

this time. 

Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, seated in a posture 

of royal ease. (Chinese wood sculpture, Liao dynasty, 

907–1125.) The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. 


The Xixia kingdom in the northwest emerged as a 

major state from the late tenth century until its defeat 

by Genghis Khan’s troops in 1223. In addition to Buddhist 

art in a variant of the Song mode, from the late 

twelfth century the Xixia produced a major body of art 

in Tibetan style, especially paintings, probably introduced 

by the BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU) and possibly also 

by SA SKYA (SAKYA) lamas who came to the Xixia court 

from central Tibet. Many of these remains, which are 

also recognized as a major branch of early central Tibetan 

style painting, now reside in the Khara Khoto 

collection in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, 

Russia. Dunhuang is dominated by the Xixia, 

which not only did extensive renovation of the site, but 

also opened important new caves, as it also did at 

Yulin, where esoteric Tibetan style imagery exists side 

by side with Song style imagery. 

Much of the Buddhist art during the Northern Song 

period survives in the Shanxi, Hebei, and Manchuria 

regions; most of it was produced under the Khitan 

Liao. Great temples such as the Duluosi of 984 in 

northern Hebei, the Fengguosi in Manchuria, and the 


151


to the continuing and dominant focus on Guanyin. 

The Luohans also rose to great prominence in this period, 

an early set being the famous ceramic statues 

from Yizhou in Hebei, datable to the early eleventh 

century. These sculptures all exemplify the naturalistic 

trends of the Song period, expressed in the realism 

of the face and hands and the heavy, naturally folded 

drapery, without recourse to abstract patterns. The 

Song image represents a truly humanistic interpretation 

of the most popular Buddhist images, those indicative 

of compassion (Guanyin) and exemplary 

teachers (Luohans), in large part spurred by the active 

Chan and Huayan thought of this time. 

The bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. (Chinese hanging scroll painting, 

Song or Yuan dynasty, thirteenth–fourteenth century.) The Nelson- 

Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Reproduced by permission. 

Upper and Lower Huayansi in Datong (northern 

Shanxi), as well as numerous brick pagodas throughout 

the area, express the activity of the Liao. Ensembles 

tended to center on Guanyin and on esoteric 

imagery of the Five Tathagathas. The tallest and oldest 

wooden pagoda survives in Yingxianin Shanxi; built 

during the mid-eleventh century, it is a marvel of timber 

construction, with each story containing a central 

altar with large stucco statues. Dozens of magnificent 

remains of statues of Guanyin, mostly in polychrome 

and gilded wood and portraying the bodhisattva as 

seated in a rocky grotto in a pose of royal ease, testify 

These trends continued into the Southern Song period. 

Cycles of Luohans, many portrayed in paintings 

following the Li Gonglin model, using rich color and 

a landscape setting, as well as refined depictions of 

Amitabha and his bodhisattvas, are masterful works by 

academic painters or by the ateliers of professional 

Buddhist painters in the South, especially centered in 

Ningpo. The Dali kingdom in Yunnan saw a flourishing 

Buddhist culture at this time that also produced 

exquisite art. However, the most innovative Buddhist 

art comes from the contributions of Chan painters, especially 

the paintings of Liangkai and Muqi during the 

first half of the thirteenth century. Both of these masters 

had the ability to not only offer a fresh interpretation 

of Chan themes, many of which were new to the 

Buddhist art repertoire, but also to express these 

themes in such a way that the very manner of execution 

becomes a Buddhist statement. The depth of understanding 

raised Buddhist art to its highest level, 

where the way in which the subject is painted is as 

much an expression of Buddhist thought as is the Chan 

content of the painting. The work of Liangkai and 

Muqi established a Chan painting tradition that was 

carried on by others into the late thirteenth and fourteenth 

centuries, though never with such resounding 

success as by these two masters. 

Yuan (1234–1368), Ming (1368–1644), and 

Qing (1644–1911) dynasties 

Buddhist art in the Yuan dynasty followed several 

streams. Besides Chan painting, which includes Chan 

legendary characters, portraits of Chan masters, 

Guanyin, nature themes, calligraphy, and so on, there 

was the academic style of colorful paintings, especially 

on the subject of Luohans, of which there are many 

wonderful sets. In sculpture, powerful, heavy images 

of Guanyin seated on craggy rocks—a theme popular 

from the eleventh century and probably representing 



Guanyin from the Gandavyu ha of the Huayan jing— 

continues as a major icon in the Yuan and early Ming 

dynasties, which produced especially powerful examples 

with robes full of movement. Other trends 

evolved in sculpture, especially those with a Nepalese- 

Tibetan cast, such as the styles brought to China by 

Anige, the Nepalese artist introduced to Kublai Khan 

by Phags pha, the influential Sa skya hierarch at the 

Yuan court. The impact of Tibetan Buddhist art on 

China was strong during the Yuan (Mongol ruled) period 

and can be seen in the sculptures of the Feilaifeng 

in Hangzhou, in the magnificent cycle of esoteric 

paintings of Śakya lineage in cave 465 at Dunhuang, 

and at the Buddhist sanctuary at Wutaishan, where the 

enormous Indo-Tibetan style pagoda at the Tayuansi 

dominates the valley. 

The Ming dynasty produced some impressive 

sculptures, such as the colossal one thousand-armed 

Guanyin, and the one thousand-armed Wenshu and 

Puxian bodhisattvas at the Zhongshansi in Taiyuan 

(Shanxi). Many gorgeous paintings and wall paintings, 

often of extraordinarily intense color and skillful drawing, 

such as those at the Fahaisi near Beijing and still 

surviving in many temples of Qinghai province, document 

the flourishing painting schools and active temple 

building and decorating, especially during the early 

Ming. Paintings, sculptures, and superb huge kesi woven 

tapestries made during the Yongle era (1403–1425) 

were often sent to Tibet as gifts, where they influenced 

Tibetan Buddhist art forms during the fifteenth century. 

From this time on, China and Tibet have a particularly 

close interrelation in Buddhist art. This is 

notable during the reign of the Qing dynasty Qianlong 

emperor in the eighteenth century. With the building 

of the Yonghegong in Beijing, a center for the DGE LUGS 

(GELUK), the order of the DALAI LAMAs, the influences 

of Tibetan Buddhism were further solidified. Many of 

the monasteries around Beijing, the Chinese capital 

since the Yuan, have imagery that is strongly Tibetan 

in character and iconography, including the many 

forms of Buddhist icons common to Tibetan tantric 

Buddhist practice, such as those similar to the splendid 

seventeenth-century sculpture of Paramaśukha 

Cakrasam vara. This final productive phase of Buddhist 

art in China was wedded to Tibetan Buddhist traditions, 

but there were also occasional masterworks of 

Buddhist art produced by the leading painters of the 

time and some sculptural styles following older traditions, 

especially in the south. 

Since the 1960s the Chinese continue to discover, 

document, and study major segments of their Buddhist 

art, and specialized studies by Western scholars 

probe new directions, such as the role of patrondonors; 

the interaction with popular art and with 

Daoist art; the beginnings of specific imagery, such as 

Pure Land imagery; the incorporation of data from local 

records; iconographic, religious, and interpretive 

issues; sources of the art; regional distinctions; problems 

of chronologies and dating; the relationships with 

Central Asian art; and the impact of Chinese Buddhist 

art on that of surrounding areas, particularly Korea 

and Japan. All of these diverse and complex studies are 

ongoing and will surely open up new understandings 

of the vast and deep subject of Chinese Buddhist art. 

See also: Arhat Images; Bodhisattva Images; Buddha 

Images; Cave Sanctuaries; Chan Art; Huayan Art; 

Monastic Architecture; Pure Land Art 

Bibliography 

Bunker, Emma C. “Early Chinese Representations of Vimalakrti.” 

Artibus Asiae 30 (1968): 28–52. 

Chu goku sekkutsu (Chinese Stone Caves), 9 vols. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 

1980–1990. 

Gridley, Marilyn L. Chinese Buddhist Sculpture under the Liao. 

New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and 

Aditya Prakashan, 1993. 

Howard, Angela Falco. “Royal Patronage of Buddhist Art in 

Tenth Century Wu Yüeh.” Bulletin of the Museum of Far 

Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm 57 (1985): 1–60. 

Howard, Angela Falco. The Imagery of the Cosmological Buddha. 

Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1986. 

Howard, Angela Falco. Summit of Treasures: Buddhist Cave Art 

of Dazu, China. Trumbull, CT: Weatherhill, 2001. 

Matsubara, Saburo. Chu goku Bukkyo cho koku shiron (A History 

of Chinese Buddhist Sculpture), 4 vols. Tokyo: Yoshikawa 

Kobunkan, 1995. 

Mizuno, Seiichi, and Nagahiro, Toshio. Ryu mon Sekkutsu no 

Kenkyu (Study of the Buddhist Cave Temples at Lung-men). 

Tokyo: Zauho Press, 1941. 

Mizuno, Seiichi, and Nagahiro, Toshio. Yün-kang, 16 vols. Kyoto: 

Jimbunkagaku kenkyusho, 1952–1956. 

Piotrovski, Mikhail, ed. Lost Empire of the Silk Road: Buddhist 

Art from Khara Khoto (X–XIII Century). Milan, Italy: 

Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, 1993. 

Rhie, Marylin M. “A T’ang Period Stele Inscription and Cave 

XXI at T’ien-lung shan.” Archives of Asian Art 28 (1974– 

1975): 6–33. 

Rhie, Marylin M. Interrelationships between the Buddhist Art of 

China and the Art of India and Central Asia from 618–755 

A.D. Naples, Italy: Istituto Universitario Orientale (Supplementum 

to Annali 48), 1988. 


153

C HINESE, BUDDHIST I NFLUENCES ON V ERNACULAR L ITERATURE IN 

Rhie, Marylin M. Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia. 

Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, Vol. 1: 1999; Vol. 2: 2002. 

Sekino, Tei. Ryo kin jidai no kenchiku to sono butsuzo (Architecture 

of the Liao and Jin Dynasties and Their Buddhist Images), 

3 vols. Tokyo: To ho bunka gakuin To kyo kenkyu jo, 

1934–1944. 

Siren, Osvald. Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteen 

Century, 4 vols. London: Ernest Benn, 1925. 

Soper, Alexander C. Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art in 

China. Ascona, Italy: Artibus Asiae, 1959. 

Soper, Alexander C. “South Chinese Influence on the Buddhist 

Art of the Six Dynasties Period.” Bulletin of the Museum of 

Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm 32 (1960): 47–112. 

Soper, Alexander C. “Imperial Cave-Chapels of the Northern 

Dynasties: Donors, Beneficiaries, Dates.” Artibus Asiae 208 

(1966): 241–270. 

Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman. Liao Architecture. Honolulu: University 


Su Bai. Zhongguo shiku si yanjiu (Research on Chinese Stone Cave 

Temples). Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1996. 

Tokiwa, Daij, and Sekino, Tadashi. Shina bunka shiseki, 12 vols. 

Tokyo: Hozokan, 1940. 

Wang, Eugene. “What Do Trigrams Have to Do with Buddhas? 

The Northern Liang Stupas as a Hybrid Spatial Model.” Journal 

of Anthropology and Aesthetics 35 (Spring 1999): 70–91. 


Buddhism, 850–1850. Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, 

1994. 

Whitfield, Roderick. Dunhuang, Caves of the Singing Sands: Buddhist 

Art from the Silk Road, 2 vols. London: Textile and Art 

Publications, 1995. 

Wong, Dorothy C. “Four Sichuan Buddhist Steles and the Beginnings 

of Pure Land Imagery in China.” Archives of Asian 

Art 51 (1998–1999): 56–79. 

Wu Hung. “Buddhist Elements in Early Chinese Art (2nd and 

3rd centuries A.D.).” Artibus Asiae 47, nos. 3–4 (1986): 

263–352. 

Zhongquo meishu juanji (Collection of Chinese Art), 60 vols. 

Shanghai, China: Renmin meishu chubanshe and Shanghai 

renmin meishu chubanshe, 1987–1989. 

MARYLIN MARTIN RHIE 

CHINESE, BUDDHIST INFLUENCES 

ON VERNACULAR LITERATURE IN 

Until the progressive May Fourth Movement of 1919, 

the preferred medium for writing in China for the previous 

three millennia had always been one or another 

form of Literary Sinitic, also called Classical Chinese. 

From at least the Han period (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), and 

perhaps from its very inception, Literary Sinitic was an 

artificial language separated from everyday speech by 

an enormous gulf. Consequently, command of the 

highly allusive literary language was possible only for 

a small proportion of the population, roughly 2 percent, 

who could afford to devote years of study to it. 

With the advent of Buddhism in China during the 

last century of the Han dynasty, a demotic style of writing 

that was closer to speech—here referred to as Vernacular 

Sinitic—gradually began to emerge. The same 

characters were used to write both Literary and Vernacular 

Sinitic, but the morphemes, and especially the 

words, grammar, and syntax differed radically between 

these two kinds of Sinitic writing. 

Buddhism and language 

The question of exactly how a foreign religion like Buddhism 

could have had such an enormous impact on 

linguistic usage in China is extraordinarily complex. 

Some of the factors involved are: (1) a conscious desire 

on the part of Buddhist teachers and missionaries 

(starting with the Buddha himself) to speak directly to 

the common people in their own language; (2) the 

maintenance of relatively egalitarian social values 

among Buddhists in contrast to a strongly hierarchal 

Confucian order; (3) an emphasis on hymnody, storytelling, 

drama, lecture, and other types of oral presentation; 

and (4) the perpetuation of sophisticated Indian 

scholarship on linguistics, which highlighted the importance 

of grammar and phonology as reflected in actual 

speech, in contrast to Chinese language studies, 

which focused almost exclusively on the characters as 

the perfect vehicle for the essentially mute book language. 

Probably of overriding importance, however, 

was the nature of the process of translating texts written 

in Sanskrit and other Indian and Central Asian languages 

into Chinese. This usually involved teams of 

Chinese and foreign monks who knew each other’s language 

only imperfectly. Their discussions on various 

renderings, conducted orally, resulted in bits of vernacular 

seeping into what was otherwise a basically Literary 

Sinitic medium. This vernacular coloration, 

coupled with the massive borrowing of Indic words (it 

is estimated that approximately thirty-five thousand 

new names and terms entered Chinese through the 

agency of Buddhism) and even grammatical usages and 

syntactic structures, led to the creation of a peculiar 

written style that may be referred to as Buddhist Hybrid 

Sinitic or Buddhist Hybrid Chinese. 



As people from various walks of life, both inside and 

outside of the Buddhist establishment, became familiar 

with the notion that it was possible to write down 

elements of spoken language, the length of the written 

vernacular grew from occasional words to a stray sentence 

or two, and then to a few sentences or even a 

whole paragraph. Eventually, entire texts written in 

heavily vernacularized Literary Sinitic came to be composed. 

In this manner, Vernacular Sinitic was born in 

China. 

Dunhuang manuscripts 

The first sizable collection of texts consisting of more 

than a few words or lines that are conspicuously vernacular 

were recovered in the early twentieth century 

from the famous cave library of manuscripts at DUN- 

HUANG, located at the far western end of the northwestern 

province of Gansu. Sealed up during the 

early part of the eleventh century, the cave yielded 

more than forty thousand manuscripts that are currently 

preserved mainly in Paris, London, and Beijing, 

although there are smaller collections in St. 

Petersburg (Russia), Japan, Finland, and elsewhere. 

Most of the manuscripts are sutras that were already 

well known, but there are also several hundred 

uniquely important documents and texts that provide 

detailed information about daily monastic and 

lay life. In particular, the Dunhuang manuscripts include 

about 150 texts dating to the eighth through 

tenth centuries (primarily from the later part of that 

period) that represent the earliest group of vernacular 

narratives in China. 

For the first half century of research on the Dunhuang 

manuscripts, the entire corpus of vernacular 

narratives was referred to as BIANWEN (transformation 

texts), and this loose usage still continues to find 

acceptance in many quarters, largely out of sheer 

habit. Technically speaking, bianwen are characterized 

by, among other features, the prosimetric form 

(alternating between spoken and sung portions), vernacular 

language, the special verse-introductory formula 

“X chu, ruowei chen shuo?” ([This is the] place 

[where X happens], how does it go?), and a close relationship 

to pictures. Bianwen were originally restricted 

to religious themes, but they were later also 

used to describe secular subjects, such as heroes from 

the past and the present. Another significant aspect 

of bianwen is that they were copied by lay students 

and derive from a tradition of oral storytelling with 

pictures, whose most outstanding practitioners were 

women from secular society. 

To be distinguished from bianwen are other Dunhuang 

vernacular genres called jiangjing wen (sutra lecture 

texts, elaborate exegeses of specific scriptures), 

yazuo wen (seat-settling texts, prologues for the sutra 

lecture texts), yinyuan (circumstances, stories illustrating 

karmic consequences), and yuanqi (causal origins, 

tales illustrating the effects of karma). These 

vernacular prosimetric genres, which were strictly religious 

in nature, were used for particular services and 

were characterized by specific pre-verse formulas. Unlike 

bianwen, with its lay background, jiangjing wen, 

yazuo wen, yinyuan, and yuanqi seem to have been produced 

and used by monks of varying status. 

Like bianwen, these vernacular genres were preserved 

only at Dunhuang. Although intensive research 

has demonstrated that such types of literature must 

have been current elsewhere in China, no printed or 

manuscript evidence survives to document them. How 

did it happen that material proof for such popular genres 

survived only in a remote, peripheral region? The 

answer is simple. No one was interested in preserving 

anything written in the vernacular. In other words, vernacular 

manuscripts were not considered worth preserving 

and should, by all rights, have been left to 

disintegrate, which, outside of Dunhuang, is precisely 

what happened. In addition, Dunhuang’s remoteness 

from the mainstream traditions of central China probably 

contributed to the chances for preservation of the 

written vernacular. Until recently, it was considered by 

proper Confucian literati to be almost immoral to write 

in the vernacular, and they certainly would not have 

taken pains to preserve vernacular texts for future generations. 

However, since the Dunhuang cave monasteries 

were so thoroughly Buddhist and located on the 

frontier, the keepers of the libraries there deemed even 

bianwen, jiangjing wen, yazuo wen, yinyuan, and yuanqi 

to be worthy of protection. The dry climate of the desert 

region also played a key role in the preservation of the 

Dunhuang manuscripts. Finally, by sheer chance, the 

Dunhuang manuscripts were placed in a side cave in 

the early years of the eleventh century, where they were 

sealed up, plastered over with wall-paintings, and forgotten 

for ten centuries. When they were rediscovered 

at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was as 

though a time capsule had been opened, preserving unchanged 

a marvelous slice of life, thought, and art from 

Tang (618–907) and Five Dynasties (907–960) China. 

Manifestations in Chan, fiction, and drama 

Not long after Tang lay Buddhists and the monks who 

preached to them decided there was nothing wrong in 


155


trying to write down their stories and sermons more 

or less as they had spoken them, adherents of the CHAN 

SCHOOL of Buddhism began to use the vernacular when 

recording the yulu (dialogues) of their masters. Around 

the same time, a few eccentric lay Buddhists who went 

by such names as Han Shan (Cold Mountain) and 

Wang Fanzhi (Brahmacarin [Devotee] Wang) also liberally 

sprinkled their verse with vernacularisms. 

Once Buddhists had shown the way and it became 

obvious that writing more or less the way one spoke 

was possible, then secular vernacular writing similarly 

became feasible. Imperceptibly, there arose what modern 

scholars have come to call the koine, a sort of proto- 

Mandarin that served as a lingua franca to bridge the 

gap of unintelligibility among the numerous Sinitic 

fangyan (topolects or so-called dialects). The consequences 

of this phenomena for the development of subsequent 

Chinese popular literature were profound. This 

was particularly true of fiction and drama, where many 

of the same linguistic and stylistic conventions that had 

been employed by Buddhists for their vernacular stories 

and lectures persisted in popular literature. 

Thus, with the Buddhist sanctioning of the written 

vernacular, a sequence of revolutionary developments 

occurred that radically transformed Chinese literature 

for all time. Moreover, hand in hand with vernacularization 

came other Buddhist-inspired developments in 

Chinese literature. Aside from Buddhist topics, such as 

the Tang monk XUANZANG’s (ca. 600–664) pilgrimage 

to India that was immortalized in the Ming-dynasty 

(1368–1655) novel Xiyou ji (Journey to the West), the 

very notion that fiction was something fabricated out 

of whole cloth, something created by the mind of the 

author, can be traced to Buddhist sources. Prior to the 

advent of Buddhism, there was no full-blown fiction 

(in the sense that it was something “made up”) in 

China. Instead, there were only short anecdotes, tales 

based on historical events, and what were known in 

the Six Dynasties (222–589) period as zhiguai (accounts 

of abnormalities). Even the latter were thought 

to be based squarely on events that had really happened. 

Hence the role of the author was merely to 

record some extraordinary incident. During the Tang 

dynasty, there arose a genre called chuanqi (chronicles 

of the strange). Like zhiguai, chuanqi were written in 

Literary Sinitic and maintained the pretense that they 

were relating an incident or series of incidents that had 

actually transpired. However, chuanqi are much more 

inventive and elaborate than zhiguai. This sort of 

fertile fictionalizing was fostered by ontological presuppositions, 

such as maya (illusion) and ŚU NYATA 

(EMPTINESS), brought to China with Buddhism. 

Similar developments occurred in drama, where, 

along with increasing vernacularization, came Indian 

practices that were transmitted via Buddhism. Among 

these are the introduction of himself directly to the audience 

by a character upon entry to the stage, face 

painting, fixed puppetlike gestures and postures, and 

so forth. Such resemblances to Indian theater are particularly 

pronounced in southern Chinese drama. 

Another type of Indian fiction and drama that can 

be found in China is dramatic narrative or narrational 

drama. In India, there was a seamless continuum of 

oral and performing arts that ranged from storytelling 

to puppet plays and the human theater. The vast majority 

of genres in this tradition subscribed to the notion 

that a succession of narrative moments or loci was 

being related by the bard or portrayed by actors. Furthermore, 

most Indian oral and performance genres 

that have dramatic narrative as their organizing principle 

consist of a combination of singing and speaking. 

All of these attributes, in fact, apply to the Chinese 

vernacular tradition of oral performance. Thus vernacularization 

is by no means an isolated instance of 

Buddhism’s impact upon Chinese fiction and drama, 

although it may well be the single most distinctive 

characteristic. 

While the Buddhist tradition of vernacular, prosimetric 

narrative became secularized in fiction and 

drama, the religious expression of this literary form 

also continued in such genres as baojuan (precious 

scrolls). Late Ming and Qing accounts reveal that “precious 

scrolls” were very popular as a form of entertainment 

and instruction. 

Ultimate impact 

Despite the enthusiastic favor the written vernacular 

found with the bulk of the populace, who through it 

were increasingly empowered with literacy, to the end 

of the empire in 1911, the mainstream Confucian 

literati never accepted anything other than Literary 

Sinitic as a legitimate medium for writing. To them the 

vernacular was crude and vulgar, beneath the dignity 

of a gentleman to contemplate. But merchants, storytellers, 

craftsmen, physicians, and individuals from 

many other walks of life paid no heed to this opinion 

and proceeded to forge a fully functional written vernacular 

on the foundations that had been laid by the 

Buddhists of medieval China. In the end, they created 

a national language called guoyu, a term that can ulti- 


C HINUL 

mately be traced back to the Sanskrit expression deśabhasa 

(language of a country). 

Although there are a few examples of vernacular elements 

in non-Buddhist texts from before the Tang 

period, they are extremely rare. A careful examination 

of the trajectory of the early written vernacular in 

China reveals that it is unmistakably and overwhelmingly 

related to Buddhist contexts. In other words, it 

is safe to say that Buddhism legitimized the writing of 

the vernacular language in China. 

See also: Apocrypha; Buddhavacana (Word of the 

Buddha); Entertainment and Performance; Languages; 


Bibliography 

Chavannes, Édouard, trans. Cinq cents contes et apologues: Extraits 

du Tripitaka Chinois. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1910–1911. 

Idema, Wilt, and Haft, Lloyd. “Popular Literature: Ci and Bianwen.” 

In A Guide to Chinese Literature. Ann Arbor: Center 

for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1997. 

Jan, Yün-hua. “Buddhist Literature.” In The Indiana Companion 

to Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. William H. Nienhauser, 

Jr. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. 

Liu, Ts’un-yan. Buddhist and Taoist Influences on Chinese Novels. 

Vol. 1: The Authorship of the Feng Shen Yen I. Wiesbaden, 

Germany: Harrassowitz, 1962. 

Mair, Victor H., trans. and ed. Tun-huang Popular Narratives. 

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 

Mair, Victor H. “The Narrative Revolution in Chinese Literature: 

Ontological Presuppositions.” CLEAR (Chinese Language: 

Essays, Articles, Reviews) 5, no. 1 (1983): 1–27. 

Mair, Victor H., ed. A Partial Bibliography for the Study of Indian 

Influence on Chinese Popular Literature. Sino-Platonic 

Papers 3. Philadelphia: Department of Oriental Studies, University 

of Pennsylvania, 1987. 

Mair, Victor H. “Buddhism and the Rise of the Written Vernacular 

in East Asia: The Making of National Languages.” 

Journal of Asian Studies 53, no. 3 (1994): 707–751. 

Mair, Victor H., ed. The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese 

Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. 

Mair, Victor H., ed. The Shorter Columbia Anthology to Traditional 

Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University 

Press, 2000. 

Mair, Victor H. “Buddhism in The Literary Mind and Ornate 

Rhetoric.” In A Chinese Literary Mind: Culture, Creativity, 

and Rhetoric in Wenxin Diaolong, ed. Zong-qi Cai. Stanford, 


Mair, Victor H., and Wagner, Marsha. “Tun-huang wen-hsüeh 

[Literature].” In The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese 

Literature, ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. Bloomington: 

Indiana University Press, 1986. 

Overmyer, Daniel L. Precious Volumes: An Introduction to Chinese 

Sectarian Scriptures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 

Centuries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 

1999. 

Schmid, Neil. “Tun-huang Literature.” In The Columbia History 

of Chinese Literature, ed. Victor H. Mair. New York: Columbia 


Schmidt-Glintzer, Helwig, and Mair, Victor H. “Buddhist Literature.” 

In The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, ed. 

Victor H. Mair. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 

Waley, Arthur, trans. Ballads and Stories from Tun-huang: An 

Anthology. New York: Macmillan, 1960. 

Zürcher, E. “Late Han Vernacular Elements in the Earliest Buddhist 

Translations.” Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers 

Association 12, no. 3 (1977): 177–203. 

CHINUL 


Chinul (“Puril Pojo kuksa”; 1158–1210), founder of the 

CHOGYE SCHOOL of the Sŏn (Chinese, Chan; Japanese, 

Zen) school, is one of the preeminent figures in the history 

of Korean Buddhism. His work contains three related 

but distinct accomplishments. First, he helped 

initiate the practice of kongan (Chinese, gong’an; Japanese, 

KO AN) meditation within the Korean Sŏn tradition. 

Second, he attempted to reconcile the longstanding 

conflict between the Sŏn schools, which focused on 

meditation practice, and the doctrinal or Kyo schools, 

which focused on scriptural study. Third, he formulated 

a theory of enlightenment that sought to bridge 

the sudden-gradual debate that had long troubled the 

Korean Buddhist world. Often termed “sudden enlightenment 

and gradual cultivation,” Chinul’s theory 

posited an initial sudden enlightenment experience that 

ongoing practice would deepen and enrich. 

Three separate enlightenment experiences define 

Chinul’s spiritual journey. He became a monk at the 

age of eight, and at twenty-five passed an examination 

meant to select clergy for high administrative service. 

Instead of taking a post, he left the capital and went 

south, eventually settling at the monastery of Ch’ŏngwŏnsa. 

There, he read the PLATFORM SU TRA OF THE 

SIXTH PATRIARCH (LIUZU TAN JING), which triggered 

the first of his enlightenment experiences. In 1185, at 

the age of twenty-eight, he moved to the monastery of 

Pomunsa and read the Huayan lun (Treatise on the 


157

C HOGYE 

S CHOOL 

Huayan Jing), by Li Tongxuan (635–730), an eighthcentury 

Huayan theorist. It spurred him to intensify 

his meditation practice until he achieved his second 

enlightenment experience. In 1198, at the age of forty, 

he moved to Sangmuju Hermitage on Mount Chiri, 

where he read the Dahui shuzhuang (Recorded Sayings 

of Dahui), the words of Dahui ZONGGAO (1089–1163), 

an influential Chinese Chan thinker of the twelfth century. 

This triggered his third and most important enlightenment 

experience, which led to his descent from 

Mount Chiri. He moved to the monastery of Songgwangsa, 

where he meditated, lectured, and wrote for 

an audience of monks and laypeople until his death 

in 1210. 

Chinul’s written work shows the influence of the 

three texts mentioned above, and exhibits his original 

contributions. Wŏndon sŏngbullon (The Complete and 

Sudden Attainment of Buddhahood) formulates what 

Chinul called the “perfect and sudden approach by 

means of faith and understanding.” The clearest single 

statement of his theory of sudden enlightenment and 

gradual cultivation, however, is found in his treatise 

Pŏpchip pyŏrhaengnok chŏryo pyŏngip sagi (Excerpts 

from the Dharma Collection and Special Practice 

Record), published in 1209, just before his death, which 

draws heavily on the thought of ZONGMI (780–841). 

Arguably, Chinul’s most influential work is a 

posthumously published text called Kanhwa kyŏrŭiron 

(Resolving Doubts about Observing the Hwadu), which 

advocates Dahui’s so-called shortcut approach of 

kongan or hwadu (“critical phrase”) meditation. It contains 

a discussion contrasting what Chinul called “live” 

and “dead” words in the “investigation” of hwadu. 

Chinul warns against dead words, meaning the intellectual 

investigation of the meaning of the hwadu, in 

favor of live words, by which he means full participation 

in the word on a nonintellectual and nondualistic 

basis. 

The book’s legacy has been controversial because its 

theory of the live word and exclusive advocacy of the 

“shortcut” or hwadu method seem to contradict 

Chinul’s own earlier attempts at synthesizing doctrinal 

and meditative practice. This apparent reversal had 

a profound impact on the subsequent history of Korean 

Sŏn. Chinul’s immediate successor, HYESIM 

(1178–1234), abandoned attempts to reconcile Sŏn 

practice with scriptural study in favor of an exclusive 

focus on hwadu meditation—a focus that continues in 

Korean Sŏn to this day. 

See also: Chan School; Nine Mountains School of Sŏ˘n 

Bibliography 



Press, 1983. Reprinted as Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul’s 

Korean Way of Zen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1991. 

Han’guk Pulgyo chŏnsŏ (Collected Works of Korean Buddhism), 

Vol. 4. Seoul: Dongguk University Press, 1982. 

Kang, Kun Ki. Moguja Chinul Yŏn’gu (A Study of Chinul). Seoul: 

Puch’ŏnim Sesang, 2001. 

Keel, Hee-Sung. Moguja Chinul: Founder of the Korean Sŏn Tradition. 

Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series, 1984. 

Shim, Jae Ryong. Korean Buddhism: Tradition and Transformation. 

Seoul: Jimoondang, 1999. 

Yi, Chongik, Kangoku Bukkyo no kenkyu (A Study of Korean 

Buddhism). Tokyo: Kokusho Kankokai, 1980. 

CHOGYE SCHOOL 

SUNG BAE PARK 

The Chogye school, which is unique to Korea, constitutes 

the mainstream of Buddhism in contemporary 

Korea. There have been two distinct Chogye schools 

known in Korean history. One school traces its origins 

to the NINE MOUNTAINS SCHOOL OF SŎN (Kusan 

Sŏnmun) that was active until the mid-Koryŏ period 

(918–1392). These Sŏn schools united into one main 

school after the twelfth century, thus establishing the 

Chogye school. However, this institution came to a 

close in 1424 as a result of the anti-Buddhist policies 

of the Chosŏn government, which favored Confucianism. 

The second Chogye school emerged during the 

Japanese colonial period (1910–1945). The Korean ecclesiastical 

order began to use the name Chogye in 

1941, but it was not until 1962 that the Chogye School 

of Korean Buddhism (Taehan Pulgyo Chogyejong) was 

officially established. 

Both continuity and discontinuity are apparent in the 

history and ideology of the two Chogye schools. Contemporary 

scholarship does not distinguish between the 

two, however, and scholars have developed a variety of 

ideas concerning the origins and the lineage of the 

Chogye school. It is certain that the first Chogye school 

was directly related to the CHAN SCHOOL. Chogye is the 

Korean pronunciation for the Chinese word Caoqi, the 

name of the mountain of residence of HUINENG 

(638–713), the sixth patriarch of Chinese Chan school; 

thus, the name Chogye reflects the fundamental Chan 


C HRISTIANITY AND B UDDHISM 

influence on Korean Buddhism. However, the Chogye 

school in contemporary Korea is not exclusively a Sŏn 

school. Although it professes to be a Sŏn school, it embraces 

various schools of Buddhist doctrine (kyo) as well 

as Pure Land beliefs into its system of thought, making 

the Korean approach to Chan quite different from its 

counterparts in China and Japan. 

One of the lingering issues surrounding the Chogye 

school in contemporary Korea is its dharma lineage. 

The constitution of the school stipulates that Toŭi (d. 

825) was the founder of the school, CHINUL (1158– 

1210) its reviver, and T’aego Pou (1301–1382) its harmonizer. 

In addition, Korean Buddhist scholars have 

developed many different theories regarding Chogye 

lineage. These theories, however, are not always based 

on historical fact, but are a product of ideologically motivated 

attempts to connect Korean Buddhism to the 

“orthodox” lineage of the Chinese Linji Chan tradition. 

Although most Korean Buddhist specialists believe that 

Chinul was not the founder of the Chogye school, it is 

evident that during the Koryŏ period the movement 

was led by his dharma successors, and the Chogye 

school of contemporary Korea adopted the thought of 

Chinul as its theoretical support. 

The origins of the Chogye school, its founder, historical 

development, and dharma lineage need to be 

further clarified with the understanding that there were 

two distinct Chogye schools throughout Korean history. 

This is an extremely important issue because the 

search to understand the exact identity of the school 

itself will, by extension, describe that of Korean Buddhism 

and history. 

See also: Colonialism and Buddhism; Korea 

Bibliography 


Practice in Contemporary Korea. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


Keel, Hee-Sung. “Han’guk Pulgyo ŭi chŏngch’esŏng t’amgu: 

Chogyejong ŭi yŏksa wa sasang ŭl chungsim ŭro hayŏ” (The 

Chogye School and the Search for Identity of Korean Buddhism). 

Han’guk chonggyo yŏn’gu (Journal of Korean Religions) 

2 (2000): 159–193. 

Lee, Peter H., ed. Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, Vol. 1. New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1993. 

Pak, Hae-Dang. “Chogyejong ŭi pŏpt’ong sŏl e taehan kŏmt’o” 

(A Critical Research on the Dharma Lineages of the Chogye 

School). Ch’orhak SaSang (A Journal of Philosophical Ideas) 

11 (2000): 43–62. 

JONGMYUNG KIM 

CH’ŎNT’AE SCHOOL. See Tiantai School 

CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM 

From their beginnings Buddhism and Christianity 

reached out beyond the region of their birth. It was inevitable 

that their paths would cross, but for the first 

fifteen hundred years these encounters were of little 

significance to either faith. A brief period of enthusiasm 

by Christian missionaries for Buddhist teachings 

followed, only to be extinguished by a posture of confrontation 

that lasted for nearly four hundred years. It 

was not until the twentieth century that full and meaningful 

contact between the two religions developed. 

Antiquity 

The greatest missionary effort of Buddhism was concentrated 

between the third century B.C.E. and the 

eighth century C.E., by the end of which it had reached 

virtually all of Asia. Buddhist history records no Constantine 

or Holy Roman Empire to elevate the religion 

to the stature of a multinational force; Buddhism 

participated in no colonial exploits such as those that 

transported Christianity around the globe from the 

sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Emblematic figures, 

such as the Greek king Menander who converted 

to Buddhism in the second century B.C.E., 

Emperor AŚOKA who established a Buddhist kingdom 

in third-century B.C.E. India, and Prince SHO TOKU 

who proclaimed a Buddhist-inspired constitution in 

seventh-century Japan, were able to secure ascendancy 

for Buddhism at a local level, but had no imperial 

designs on neighboring countries, let alone on 

the West. 

The Christian mission was a different story. Already 

from its earliest years it turned east to establish communities 

in predominantly Zoroastrian Persia and in 

India. The Gnostic Christian Mani is said to have traveled 

from Persia to India in the third century, declaring 

the Buddha a special messenger of God alongside 

Moses and Jesus. Despite certain doctrinal coincidences—especially 

in the case of Gnosticism—speculation 

concerning the influence of Buddhism on the 

Essenes, the early Christians, and the gospels is without 

historical foundation. Indeed, aside from a brief 

report in the writings of Clement of Alexandria (200 

C.E.), based largely on Greek historians, there is no extended 

record of Buddhist beliefs in Christian literature 

until the Middle Ages. 


159

C HRISTIANITY AND B UDDHISM 

During the third and fourth centuries Christianity 

spread to the major urban centers of Asia, and in the 

fifth century to China. These small Christian communities 

barely brushed shoulders with the Buddhist faith, 

but even this contact came to an end with the outbreak 

of PERSECUTIONS in the late Tang dynasty against all 

foreign religions. From the tenth to the sixteenth centuries, 

barbarian invasions in Europe and the advance 

of Islam would erect more formidable barriers between 

the West and Asia, further limiting the possibility of 

Buddhist–Christian interaction. 

Late Middle Ages and Renaissance 

Travelers from Europe in the thirteenth century, such 

as Giovanni de Piano Carpini and William of Ruysbroeck, 

were the first to send back to Europe reports 

of Buddhism as a religion whose scriptures, doctrine, 

saints, monastic life, meditation practices, and rituals 

were comparable to those of Christianity. Records of 

the voyages of Marco Polo from 1274 to 1295 include 

expressions of admiration for the religion and mention 

Buddha as a saintly figure lacking only the grace 

of baptism. During the next fifty years Christian monks 

like Giovanni de Montecorino (in 1289), Odorico da 

Pordenone (from 1318 to 1330), and Giovanni Marignolli 

(from 1338 to 1353) traveled more widely and 

confirmed the unity of the Buddhist faith around Asia. 

Mention should also be made of the legend of Barlaam 

and Josaphat, a story of uncertain authorship but 

popularized through an eleventh-century Greek translation. 

It tells of Josaphat, an Indian prince, converting 

to Christianity under the guidance of the monk 

Barlaam. So beloved did the story become that the two 

saints were eventually accepted into the Roman martyrology. 

Only around the middle of the nineteenth 

century was the hoax uncovered: Josaphat was a recasting 

of the Prince Siddhartha based on the firstcentury 

biography of the Buddha. The saints were not 

removed from the liturgical calendar, however, until 

the middle of the twentieth century. 

Many of the first Catholic missionaries to arrive in 

Asia in the sixteenth century sent home idyllic accounts 

of Buddhism. Among them was Francis Xavier, whose 

direct contact with Buddhist monks and scholars in 

Japan from 1549 to 1551 opened the way for successors 

to study Buddhism in greater depth. Relying on 

their reports, the French orientalist Guillaume Postel 

in 1552 ventured to call Buddhism “the greatest religion 

in the world.” Reading his words, missionaries in 

Goa on the coast of India concluded that the Gospel 

must have been preached in these lands already, 

though its truth dimmed over the centuries by the 

darkness of sin. 

This was one side of the picture. When Vasco da 

Gama and the Portuguese colonizers came to Ceylon, 

now Sri Lanka, in 1505, they confiscated Buddhist 

properties across the land, with the full cooperation of 

the Christian missionaries. During the seventeenth and 

eighteenth centuries the Dutch continued the suppression. 

Elsewhere, when Matteo Ricci entered China 

in 1583 he quickly forsook his interest in Buddhism 

for Confucianism, rejecting the former as an inferior 

religion and its monks as the dregs of Chinese society. 

His contemporaries Michele Ruggeri and Alessandro 

Valignano—as indeed did the majority of missionaries 

in China for centuries to come—concurred. 

In THERAVADA lands, the missionaries were often 

more positive. In seventeenth-century Thailand a 

number of French priests actually lived in Buddhist 

monasteries. The century before, in Burma, several 

missionaries had written tracts favorable to Buddhism. 

In Cambodia there are records of a similarly positive 

approach, though it is Giovanni Maria Leria who is 

better remembered for his bitter hatred of the religion, 

rejecting Buddhism as a deliberate wile of the devil to 

transform all that is beautiful in Christianity. His views 

were to become the norm that held throughout most 

of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. An exception 

is Paul Ambrose Bigandet, bishop of Rangoon 

from 1854 to 1856, who mediated an exchange of letters 

between the DALAI LAMA and Pope Clement XII 

in which the latter recognized Buddhism as “leading 

to the happiness of eternal life.” 

The modern age 

It is only with the arrival of Sanskrit studies in Europe 

in the late eighteenth century and the subsequent availability 

of Buddhist texts that one can speak of a proper 

encounter in the West with Buddhism. Esteem for its 

tenets and practices grew apace, and the end of the century 

saw the first examples of Westerners converting 

to Buddhism and even entering the monastic life. Buddhist 

associations were formed in Germany, England, 

and later in the United States. Monks accompanying 

emigrants from several Asian lands to the Americas 

gave additional strength to the presence of Buddhism 

in the West. 

The World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago 

in 1893 symbolized the change in attitude that had 

taken place in the Christian world, though not with- 


C LERICAL M ARRIAGE IN J APAN 

out opposition from the established churches. These 

initiatives prompted favorable responses from several 

quarters of the Buddhist world of Asia. 

While all of this was taking place, the continued role 

of Christianity in the colonizing of Asia was provoking 

a backlash from Buddhists. In Sri Lanka, now under 

British rule, Methodist missionaries had begun to 

study Buddhism in the 1840s as a tool for conversion. 

In the following decades the Buddhists fought back, 

supported by European Theosophists who helped 

them to organize along Western lines. The outbreak of 

riots, followed by a nationalistic fervor that spilled over 

into the twentieth century, exacerbated tensions. It was 

not until the 1960s that steps toward dialogue and cooperation 

could be made. 

Similar confrontations were taking place in Japan. 

When the country opened its doors to the outside world 

in 1854 after two hundred years of seclusion, Japan’s 

Buddhist establishment began to fear its own demise 

and took steps to oppress the Christian missions during 

the 1890s. Subsequent generations abandoned this 

approach and began the long journey to a more creative 

coexistence and dialogue with Christianity. 

The world missionary conference at Edinburgh in 

1910 was the first public forum in the Christian world 

to recommend a constructive approach to the religions 

of Asia. Formal declarations at the Second Vatican 

Council in Rome (1965) and at the Uppsala 

assembly of the World Council of Churches (1968) 

paved the way for more direct rapprochement. Concerted 

efforts to organize Buddhist–Christian dialogue 

through worldwide associations and journals began in 

earnest and reached a groundswell in the 1980s. The 

Society for Buddhist–Christian Studies, based in the 

United States and with active membership both in 

Asia and throughout Europe, lent academic respectability 

to the dialogue. Christian institutes devoted 

to dialogue at the scholarly level already existed 

in several lands of East Asia and in 1981 organized 

themselves into a network based in Japan and known 

as Inter-Religio. An exchange of Buddhist and Christian 

monastics, initiated in 1979, continues in the 

twenty-first century. Christian theological centers 

throughout the West, and increasingly in Asia, are 

deepening their commitment to the encounter with 

Buddhism, and there are clear signs that the Buddhist 

world has begun to respond in kind. 

See also: Entries on specific countries; Colonialism and 


Bibliography 

de Lubac, Henri. Recontre du bouddhisme et de l’occident. Paris: 

Éditions Montaigne, 1952. 

Thelle, Notto R. Buddhism and Christianity in Japan: From Conflict 

to Dialogue, 1854–1899. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 1987. 

von Brück, Michael, and Lai, Whalen. Christianity and Buddhism: 

A Multicultural History of Their Dialogue, tr. Phyllis 

Jestice. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001. 

Zago, Marcello. Buddhismo e cristianesimo in dialogo: Situazione, 

rapporti, convergenze. Rome: Città Nuova, 1985. 

CLERICAL MARRIAGE IN JAPAN 

JAMES W. HEISIG 

Temple wives and families have existed covertly for 

much of Japanese Buddhist history. Since at least the 

time of SHINRAN (1173–1262), the founder of the True 

Pure Land denomination (Jodo Shinshu), clerical followers 

of Shinran have openly married and, frequently, 

passed on their temples from father to son. Shin temple 

wives, known as bo mori (temple caretakers), traditionally 

have played an important role in ministering 

to parishioners, caring for the temple, and raising the 

temple children. The ambiguous term jizoku, referring 

to both the wife and the children of a temple abbot, 

was officially coined in a 1919 Pure Land (Jodo) denomination 

regulation guaranteeing the right of succession 

to the registered child of the abbot (ju shoku) 

in the case of his death. 

Clerical marriage became open and temple families 

general among all denominations of Japanese Buddhism 

following the state’s decriminalization of clerical 

marriage in 1872. Although bitterly resisted for 

decades by the leaders of many non-Shin denominations, 

proponents of the practice advocated allowing 

clerical marriage and temple families as the best way 

to create a vigorous Buddhism capable of competing 

with the family-centered Protestantism, with its married 

ministers, that was making headway in Japan in 

the late nineteenth century. Despite opposition from 

many Buddhist leaders, clerical marriage proved popular, 

spreading to the majority of clerics in most denominations 

of monastic Buddhism by the late 1930s. 

Today, all denominations of Japanese Buddhism 

have granted de facto legitimacy to clerical marriage 

and temple families. Most temples are inherited by either 

the biological or adoptive son of the abbot, and 


161

C OLONIALISM AND B UDDHISM 

temple wives play a vital—although still frequently unacknowledged—part 

in managing the temple, serving 

parishioners, raising the temple family, and participating 

in the religious activities of the temple. 

See also: Meiji Buddhist Reform 

Bibliography 

Jaffe, Richard M. Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage 

in Modern Japanese Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


Kawahashi, Noriko. “Jizoku (Priests’ Wives) in Soto Zen Buddhism: 

An Ambiguous Category.” Japanese Journal of Religious 

Studies 22/1–2 (1995): 161–183. 

Uan Donin. “A Refutation of Clerical Marriage,” tr. Richard M. 

Jaffe. In Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology, ed. Donald 

Lopez, Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 

1999. 

COLONIALISM AND BUDDHISM 

RICHARD M. JAFFE 

If colonialism is defined specifically as the enforced occupation 

of a region or control of a population, subsequently 

maintained through either direct coercion or 

cultural and ideological hegemony, then Buddhist societies 

and cultures have been both subject to, and 

agents of, colonialism throughout the centuries. A 

good example of the association of Buddhism with 

colonial expansionism can be found, for instance, in 

the development of certain forms of Buddhist nationalism 

in Japan in the modern era. During the period 

of the Meiji Restoration in Japan (1868–1912), Japan 

became an increasingly powerful presence in East Asia 

as a result of its victories in the Sino-Japanese (1895) 

and Russo-Japanese (1904–1905) wars and its emergence 

on the world stage as a modern nation-state. As 

an imperial power Japan also annexed Korea (1910) 

and invaded Manchuria (1931), eventually losing control 

of these regions after its defeat in World War II. 

Buddhism as a justification for colonialism 

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 

a number of Buddhist figures, such as Kimura 

Shigeyuki and Mitsui Koshi, upheld the Japanese nation 

not only as the culmination of Buddhist cultural 

development, but also as a legitimating factor in Japanese 

imperial policies. In this context Buddhist nationalist 

movements and key figures such as the Zen 

teacher Soen Shaku (1859–1919) often justified Japanese 

military expansionism in terms of the missionary 

spread of Buddhist teachings and the “upholding of 

humanity and civilization” (Soen; see Sharf). According 

to Tanaka Chigaku (1861–1939), a lay Buddhist 

follower inspired by NICHIREN, the Buddhist teaching 

reached its fulfillment in the particular form of the 

Japanese nation. This, he argued, created a duty on the 

part of Japan to spread its own (MAHAYANA) form of 

the Buddha’s teachings to the rest of the world, with 

the explicit aim of transforming the world into a “vast 

Buddhist country.” In 1914 Chigaku founded the “National 

Pillar Society,” a nationalist movement concerned 

with a spiritual and moral regeneration of 

Japan, and attracted a number of followers, including 

Ishihara Kanji (1893–1981), the military mastermind 

behind the invasion of Manchuria in 1931. 

Modern Japanese examples of the commingling of 

Buddhist tradition and culture with ultranationalist 

and colonialist motivations are striking but not unique 

in Buddhist history, especially when the line between 

national or ethnic allegiance and Buddhist affiliation 

becomes blurred. In the Mahavam sa (Great Chronicle), 

a Sinhalese Buddhist chronicle emerging from the Mahavihara 

Buddhist sect of Anuradhapura, the story of 

King Dutthagaman’s conquests in Sri Lanka, the 

slaughter of his opponents, and the colonization of the 

entire island are all justified on the grounds that the 

non-Buddhists are in fact “not human.” This justification 

and account of the island’s history is, of course, 

all but impossible to reconcile with the Buddha’s own 

emphasis upon compassion and nonviolence. The Mahavam 

sa, however, has played a significant role in underpinning 

the modern historical consciousness of the 

Sinhalese people and the rise of some of the more aggressive 

forms of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism (Sinhalatva) 

in the twentieth century. 

The colonization of Buddhist societies 

On a broader historical scale, however, Buddhist societies 

have generally been subject to, rather than an explicit 

motivating force behind, colonial expansionism. 

The Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, for instance, 

has resulted in an aggressively pursued policy designed 

to suppress Tibetan Buddhist culture and institutions 

in line with the antireligious stance of the Chinese 

Communist regime. One consequence of this, of 

course, has been the Tibetan Buddhist diaspora to India 

and the West in the late twentieth century, most 

notably that of the DALAI LAMA, often referred to as 

“the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people,” and cur- 



rently living in exile in Dharamsala in northern India. 

From the point of view of the ruling Communist Party 

of China the colonization of Tibet is little more than 

a reoccupation of Chinese lands that has afforded the 

liberation of the Tibetan people “from serfdom.” It is 

clear, however, that the history of Tibet, partly for reasons 

of geographical isolation, but also because of its 

long Buddhist history, represents a highly distinctive 

culture and polity and has many affinities with South 

Asian culture and traditions. 

The sixteenth to twentieth centuries witnessed the 

colonization of large parts of the globe by Europeans 

on a scale that was historically unprecedented. European 

colonialism has left an indelible mark upon the 

ways in which Asian Buddhists experience “modernity” 

and their own sense of cultural, national, and religious 

identity. 

On May 27, 1498, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da 

Gama arrived on the southwest coast of India. This was 

a turning point in the history of Asia and Europe. 

There had, of course, been interaction between Asia 

and Europe since long before the common era (e.g., 

along the SILK ROAD), but not to the extent that was 

precipitated by da Gama’s arrival. Portugal, sanctioned 

by the Vatican to expand the Christian empire to the 

East, established an early monopoly in the exploration 

of Asian territories and the plundering of Asian resources. 

Gradually, however, there was wider European 

involvement in the exploration and colonization 

of the Asian world. The spread of the Protestant Reformation 

throughout Europe allowed for a challenge 

to the Portuguese monopoly, based as it was upon papal 

sanction. In the 1590s, for instance, the Dutch took 

control of much of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Indonesia. 

The British were excluded from Indonesia and 

so concentrated on consolidating their interests on the 

Indian mainland and in Ceylon and Burma. The 

French established a few bases on the subcontinent 

(such as in Pondicherry on the southeast coast of India) 

but turned the main focus of their attention to Indochina 

(mainly Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam). 

In broad terms, there were two main waves of Western 

influence upon Asian Buddhism during the colonial 

period. First, the effect of widespread Christian 

missionary activity by Europeans, and then later the 

impact of Western secular models of nationalism and 

scientific rationalist philosophies. Both waves precipitated 

a complex series of responses, leading to the rise 

of Buddhist nationalism and what some scholars have 

called “Protestant Buddhism” (Gombrich and Obeyesekere) 

or “Buddhist modernism” (Bechert) and the 

development of a variety of syntheses between traditional 

Buddhist values and contemporary ideologies 

such as Marxism, free-market capitalism, and scientific 

empiricism. 

In the latter half of the twentieth century, the independence 

gained by many former colonies in South 

and Southeast Asia left a political vacuum into which 

stepped a variety of indigenous interest groups and 

political movements. Some of these movements involve 

implicit (and sometimes explicit) appeal to Buddhist 

traditions and values in the formulation of their 

stances. One feature of this has been the rise of Buddhist 

forms of nationalist politics of varying ideological 

shades. “Buddhist socialism,” for instance, 

developed as a political force in states such as Cambodia 

and Burma. Despite some misgivings by the sizable 

ethnic minority groups, Burma, under the 

leadership of U Nu, recognized Buddhism as the country’s 

official state religion in 1961. A military coup under 

General Ne Win quickly ensued in 1962, however, 

leading to the establishment of a more radical left-wing 

military regime and the disestablishment of Buddhism. 

Burma (renamed Myanmar) remains under military 

rule, although this has not prevented the development 

of pro-democracy movements, focused mainly upon 

the inspirational figure of Aung San Suu Kyi, winner 

of the 1991 Nobel Prize for peace and herself inspired 

by Buddhist principles in her campaign for democratic 

elections. Similarly, in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Buddhist 

nationalist movements have played a significant role 

in postindependence politics. The Sri Lankan example 

serves as an illustration of the impact of European 

colonialism upon indigenous Buddhist traditions and 

institutions. 

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 

Dutch controlled much of Ceylon and Indonesia. Economic 

inducements were offered to local “heathens” 

to convert to Christianity, and this effort was combined 

with vigorous missionary polemics against the 

“idolatrous” and superstitious practices of the Buddhists. 

In 1711 the Dutch issued a proclamation in 

Ceylon that explicitly forbade Christian involvement 

in “the ceremonies of heathenism,” with the penalty of 

a public flogging and a year’s imprisonment for those 

found engaging in such practices. In 1795 the British 

first appeared on the coast and by 1815 they had annexed 

the whole island. 

Three factors have been crucial in the colonial 

transformation of indigenous Asian subjectivities: the 


163


reconfiguration of politics and civil society under colonial 

rule, the transformation of modes of educating the 

population, and the role of the printing press in the 

dissemination of ideas among the indigenous population. 

In the case of Ceylon, the key factor was the introduction 

of the Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms of the 

1830s, which sought to unify the political economy of 

the island, promote laissez-faire capitalism, and establish 

a national educational framework to be delivered 

through the medium of the English language. These 

changes led to the development of a new middle class 

within Sinhalese society that was educated in English 

and empowered by the new social, economic, and political 

reforms. This was to have a profound effect upon 

the Sinhalese population’s appreciation of its Buddhist 

heritage (Scott; Gombrich and Obeyesekere). Similar 

processes were underway throughout the colonized regions 

of southeast Asia at this time. 

The first printing press was introduced to Ceylon 

by the Dutch in 1736 and was immediately put to use 

in the printing of local vernacular translations of 

Christian texts and, later, classical European literature. 

In a speech to the Methodist Missionary Society 

Committee, on October 3, 1831, D. J. Gogerly outlined 

the importance of the printing press as a vehicle 

for undermining the authority of indigenous 

Buddhist traditions. Gogerly stated that “at present, 

it is by means of the Press [that] our principal attacks 

must be made upon this wretched system. . . . We 

must direct our efforts to pull down the stronghold 

of Satan.” Gogerly was a missionary in Ceylon for 

forty-four years and also worked as a translator of the 

Pali Buddhist scriptures into English. It was not until 

1862, however, that, as a result of a gift from the 

king of Siam (now Thailand), Sinhalese Buddhists 

themselves gained access to a printing press and were 

thus able to disseminate their own materials and literature 

to the native population. 

The establishment of a uniform educational system 

by the European colonizers tended to promote European 

Christian forms of education and literacy, either 

through the direct medium of European languages or 

by the study of European and Christian literature in 

vernacular translations. The curriculum and agenda in 

this context usually involved the teaching of Euro- 

Christian values alongside mathematics, science, and a 

Eurocentric version of history. The overall effect of taking 

the burden of educating the population away from 

the Buddhist monastic communities, where it constituted 

one of the traditional roles of the bhikkhus, was 

to undermine the status of the SAṄGHA within society. 

Later the number of Christian missionary schools declined 

and secular government schools increased in 

number. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, 

however, a reformist spirit developed within Buddhist 

circles, partly in response to the criticisms of Christian 

missionary groups, which sought to reform the 

saṅgha. In Ceylon, with the help of the American 

Colonel Henry Steel Olcott and his Buddhist Theosophical 

Society (founded in 1880), three higher education 

institutes and some two hundred Buddhist high 

schools were set up to protect and preserve the study 

of the Buddhist tradition. 

Orientalism and the rise of 

“Protestant Buddhism” 

Many of the westernized middle-class groups that 

emerged in Southeast Asia as a result of European colonial 

reforms first encountered their own Buddhist traditions 

through the mediating lenses of European 

textbooks, literature, and translations of Buddhist sacred 

texts. This reflects an important factor in understanding 

the way in which Buddhism develops and is 

presented in the modern era, namely the role of “BUD- 

DHIST STUDIES” as a Western academic enterprise and 

the enormous authority accorded to Western scholars 

and texts in representing Buddhism during the colonial 

era (King; Lopez). Western interest in understanding 

Asian civilizations precipitated a “discovery” 

and translation of Buddhist sacred texts into modern 

European languages. Western scholars, however, generally 

replicated a series of basic Christian assumptions 

in their approach to Buddhism (Almond; King). There 

was a strong tendency to emphasize Buddhist sacred 

texts as the key feature in determining the nature of 

Buddhism as a religious tradition. This approach 

tended to ignore Buddhist traditions as changing historical 

phenomena and also underplayed the role of 

ritual practices and local networks and beliefs in the 

preservation and renewal of Buddhist forms of life. 

Buddhist sacred literature has traditionally been 

revered in Asian societies, but this reverence rarely led 

to a depreciation of local practices and beliefs that were 

not found in the ancient canonical literature. Buddhism 

as a living tradition tended to be either ignored 

or denigrated by Orientalist scholars as a corruption 

of the original teachings. 

This attitude had a profound effect upon the emerging 

middle-class elites of Asian societies in the nineteenth 

century. This was the case even for nations that 

were not subject to European colonization such as 



Japan (Sharf) and Thailand, illustrating perhaps that 

modernist reformism is not simply a by-product of European 

colonialism. In a Southeast Asian context, 

“Protestant” influence can be seen most clearly in the 

views of reformist leaders such as ANAGARIKA 

DHARMAPALA (born David Hewavitarane, 1864–1933) 

in Sri Lanka and Sayadaw U Ottama (d. 1921) in 

Burma. Both emphasized the need for a “Buddhist Reformation” 

in order to overcome what they saw as the 

decadence of the “superstitious ritualism” of folk or 

“village” Buddhism. This also involved a call for the 

saṅgha to become more socially reformist and serviceoriented 

with regard to the needs of lay society. The 

trends can be seen to involve a number of “Protestant” 

elements. First, there is the desire to return to the purity 

of the Buddha’s original teachings, bereft of popular 

superstitions. Second, there is an emphasis on 

bringing an understanding of Buddhist sacred literature 

directly to the people as the basis for understanding 

the Buddha’s message. Finally, there is also an 

emphasis upon “this-worldly asceticism” to be manifested 

through acts of social service and in some cases 

political activism by the monks. 

Although Western influence is evident in all of these 

trends one should be careful not to read such reformist 

projects merely as mirrored responses to a European 

Christian agenda. This would be to erase the indigenous 

aspects of such responses. “Protestant Buddhism,” 

if one can call it that, not only reflected the 

impact of European ideas upon Asian Buddhists, but 

also represented indigenous protestations against European 

colonialism and the claim that Western civilization 

was morally and spiritually superior to 

Buddhism. The promotion of a socially oriented ethic, 

while clearly a response to centuries of Christian missionary 

criticism of Buddhism as a world-denying tradition, 

was firmly grounded in Buddhist notions of 

compassionate service to all. A key shift that began 

during this period (and which provided the intellectual 

foundation for what has since become known as 

“ENGAGED BUDDHISM”) was the rearticulation of traditional 

Buddhist goals, such as NIRVAN A, in sociopolitical 

and often explicitly anticolonial terms. In 

Burma, for instance, the monk and political activist 

U Ottama explicitly linked the attainment of liberation 

to freedom from social, economic, and colonial 

oppression. In the 1940s this link was rearticulated by 

Aung San (father of Aung San Suu Kyi) in the notion 

of a “mundane liberation” (lokanibbana) of the Burmese 

people from British colonial rule (Houtman). 

The latter half of the twentieth century saw the end of 

European imperialism and the establishment of 

independent states in the former Asian colonies. In 

this context the process of understanding the effects 

that centuries of European colonial influence had 

upon Buddhist civilization and its significance has 

only just begun. 

See also: Christianity and Buddhism; Communism 

and Buddhism; Modernity and Buddhism; Nationalism 

and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Almond, Philip. The British Discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge, 


Bechert, Heinz. “The Buddhist Revival in East and West.” In 

The World of Buddhism: Buddhist Monks and Nuns in Society 

and Culture, ed. Heinz Bechert and Richard Gombrich. 

London: Thames and Hudson, 1984. 

Gombrich, Richard, and Obeyesekere, Gananath. Buddhism 



Houtman, Gustaaf. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics: 

Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League of Democracy. 

Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of 

Asia and Africa, 1999. 

King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, 

and “the Mystic East.” London and New York: Routledge, 

1999. 

Ling, Trevor. Buddhism, Imperialism, and War: Burma and 

Thailand in Modern History. London: Allen and Unwin, 

1979. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr., ed. Curators of the Buddha: The Study of 

Buddhism under Colonialism. Chicago: Chicago University 

Press, 1995. 

Scott, David. Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality. 


Sharf, Robert. “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism.” In Curators 

of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism, ed. 

Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 

1995. 

Soen (Soyen), Shaku. Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot: Addresses on 

Religious Subjects, tr. D. T. Suzuki. New York: Weiser, 1971 

(originally published 1906). 

Tambiah, Stanley. World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A 

Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical 

Background. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1976. 

RICHARD KING 


165

C OMMENTARIAL 

L ITERATURE 

COMMENTARIAL LITERATURE 

Buddhist commentarial writing spans a period of more 

than two thousand years. Its rich production, of which 

only a fragment has survived the vicissitudes of history, 

closely mirrors all facets of the doctrinal and 

many aspects of the cultural and social development 

of the religion. 

One may, in the widest possible sense, conceive of 

all Buddhist scriptures as commentarial: The sutra discourses 

comment on the Buddha’s insights and the 

PATH, the ABHIDHARMA literature comments on the 

teachings given in the discourses, and the MAHAYANA 

literature comments on the meaning of ŚU NYATA 

(EMPTINESS) underlying the teachings. Commentaries 

elaborate on meaning (artha), meaning that demands 

special attention. The writing of commentaries belongs, 

alongside other modes of practice, among the 

ways of preserving and spreading the dharma. In terms 

of cultural history, the significance of commentarial 

literature consists in its capacity to reflect general cultural 

and religious trends and to serve as a venue for 

developing interpretative skills and working out fundamental 

intellectual issues. 

ZANNING (919–1001), a representative of the Chinese 

tradition, explains the significance of Buddhist 

commentaries in his Song gaoseng zhuan (Song Biographies 

of Eminent Monks): “perfecting the way—this is 

dharma; carrying the dharma—this is su tra; explaining 

su tra—this is commentary” (T.2061:50.735b). 

Commentaries by definition are situated downstream 

of the flow of tradition and thus are never able to supersede 

scripture. Yet given the priority of meaning 

(artha) before wording (vacana), commentaries are expected 

to reiterate and bring to light the meaning that 

is hidden within scripture. 

Indian commentaries 

The teachings of the dharma, from the very beginning, 

called for commentary. Thus one not only learns that 

the Buddha was frequently called upon to elaborate on 

teachings he had given, but equally that the Buddha 

considered some of his disciples, such as ŚARIPUTRA, to 

be equally capable of stating the teachings clearly. But 

this stage is still one of oral exegesis. Only with the establishment 

of the Buddhist CANON (tripitaka) did 

monks begin to write commentaries. In the course of 

interpreting the teachings, schools of interpretation 

arose. The two major extant strains of South Asian 

commentarial writing are the THERAVADA commentaries, 

written in Pali, and the SARVASTIVADA AND MU- 

LASARVASTIVADA commentaries in Sanskrit. The latter 

have been translated into Chinese. In addition, a few 

commentaries from other schools are extant. 

At the beginning of the fifth century, BUD- 

DHAGHOSA—on the basis of earlier Sinhala commentaries—composed 

a series of commentarial works on 

the Pali canon. Among them were two commentaries 

on the VINAYA: Samantapasadika (The All-Pleasing) 

and Kaṅkhavitaranl (Overcoming Doubt). The Samantapasadika 

was translated into Chinese by Saṅghabhadra 

in 489 as the Shanjianlü pibosha (T.1462). The 

Kaṅkhavitaranl is a commentary on the Patimokkha 

(Sanskrit, PRATIMOKSA). As was the case with the 

vinaya, once the Suttapitaka had been established, a 

number of commentaries on its texts came to be written. 

Of particular importance are Buddhaghosa’s 

commentaries on the nikayas (Sumaṅgalavilasinl, 

Papañcasu danl, Saratthappakasinl, Manorathapu ranl, 

Paramatthajotika), and on the abhidhamma (Atthasalinl, 

Sam mohavinodanl, Pañcappakaranatthakatha). 

In the case of the Sarvastivada, its writings are for 

the most part preserved only in Chinese. Its single most 

important treatise is Katyayanputra’s Jñanaprasthana 

(Foundations of Knowledge, composed around 50 

B.C.E.), to which are related the six treatises (padaśastra): 

Dharmaskandha, Sam gltiparyaya, Dhatukaya, 

Prakarana, Vijñanakaya, and Prajñapti. The major exegetical 

collection, the Mahavibhasa (Great Exegesis), 

compiled at a council held by Kaniska, is also related 

to the Jñanaprasthana. Six of the seven treatises of this 

abhidharma pitaka were translated by XUANZANG (ca. 

600–664). 

Chinese commentaries 

Though it is difficult to define beginnings, scholars 

know that Zhi Qian (fl. 223–253) and Kang Senghui 

(?–280) were already composing commentaries during 

the third century C.E. But commentaries probably 

gained importance only around the time of DAO’AN 

(312–385). From the biographical literature, one can 

glean indications of a thriving early commentarial literature, 

but it is almost completely lost. Examples of 

this earliest phase are Chen Hui’s (ca. 200 C.E.) Yin chi 

ru jing; Dao’an’s Ren ben yu sheng jing zhu; SENGZHAO’s 

(374–414) Zhu Weimo jing; and FAXIAN’s (ca. 337–418) 

Fanwang jing pusa jie shu. 

Around the beginning of the fifth century, a new 

type of commentary emerged. Dao’an and DAOSHENG 

(ca. 360–434) played major roles in this transition. 

Fayao’s (ca. 420–477) NIRVA N A SU TRA and Zhu Fa- 


C OMMENTARIAL 

L ITERATURE 

chong’s (ca. 268) LOTUS SU TRA commentaries (both 

lost), and Zhu Daosheng’s extant Lotus commentary 

are the earliest examples of this new type of commentary. 

Two extensive commentaries from the first half 

of the sixth century are also extant: one (in seventyone 

fascicles) on the Nirvana Su tra (Da ban niepan jing 

ji jie, 509) collected by Baoliang, the other (in eight fascicles) 

on the Lotus (Fahua jing yiji, 529) collected by 

Fayun (467–529). Both of these commentaries played 

important roles in the formation of the Sinitic Buddhist 

schools, and both reveal an important feature of 

this type of literature, namely, their explicit or implicit 

referencing of earlier exegesis. 

The third phase of Chinese Buddhist commentarial 

writing began with the masters of the Sui dynasty 

(589–618) and was followed by a long series of extremely 

prolific masters of the Tang dynasty (618–907), 

who developed their doctrinal positions in the context 

of systematic exegetic efforts, eventually setting the 

stage for the emergence of schools of exegesis such as 

Tiantai, Huayan, and Faxiang. Noteworthy representatives 

of that phase are the Dilun master Jingying 

Huiyuan (523–596); the Sanlun master Jizang (549– 

623); the Tiantai masters ZHIYI (538–597), Guanding 

(561–632), and ZHANRAN (711–782); the Faxiang masters 

WŎNCH’ŬK (613–696, from Korea), KUIJI (632– 

682), Huizhao (?–714), and Zhizhou (679–723); the 

Huayan masters Zhiyan (628–668), WŎNHYO (617– 

686, from Korea), FAZANG (643–712), CHENGGUAN 

(738–840), and the lay Li Tongxuan (?–730); and the 

esoteric master Yixing (683–727). 

The major exegetes commonly wrote commentaries 

on a broad set of scriptures. Thus one and the same 

scripture is marked by a long series of commentarial 

treatments. The Lotus Su tra, the DIAMOND SU TRA, and 

the HEART SU TRA, respectively, are the scriptures most 

often commentated on in China. There are about 

eighty extant Chinese commentaries on each of these 

sutras. Besides these, the HUAYAN JING, Vimalaklrti, 

Wuliangshou, Amituo, Yuanjue, Nirvana, Laṅkavatara, 

and Fanwang jing also drew much exegetic attention. 

Among the treatises, the AWAKENING OF FAITH 

(DASHENG QIXIN LUN) was most often commentated 

on. The extant commentaries serve as the most important 

sources for information on the formation and 

development of Chinese Buddhist thought. 

Exegesis, the plurality of transmissions, and 

the commentarial context 

The development of Chinese Buddhist commentarial 

literature was influenced by the fact that the transmission 

of scriptures was far from systematic. At almost 

any period a broad set of scriptures of diverse provenance 

was available that reflected various stages of the 

development of Buddhist doctrine. This plurality was 

born from translations in the third and fourth centuries 

of dhyana, prajñaparamita, and tathagatagarbha 

scriptures, in the early fifth century by a series of Madhyamaka 

and Sarvastivada abhidharma works, and in 

the sixth and seventh centuries by the systematic Yogacara 

and abhidharma transmission of Xuanzang. This 

situation necessitated the creation of a method that allowed 

the systematic integration of all available teachings 

under a common roof (panjiao). The premises of 

this method were that all scriptures could be assigned 

to different stages in the Buddha’s teaching career, 

that they all address different audiences according to 

their respective maturity, and that they make the ultimate 

meaning explicit to varying degrees. In terms 

of commentarial practice this translated into a set of 

rules of interpretation. Foremost among these rules 

was the fourfold prop (catuhpratisarana) of Buddhist 

HERMENEUTICS, which emphasized meaning (artha) 

before wording (vacana), complete meaning (nlta) before 

incomplete meaning (neya), and true insight 

(prajña) before cognition and reasoning (vijñana). 

Some Chinese commentators indicate that their 

commentaries were based on lectures, and written commentaries 

were often composed by disciples on the basis 

of lecture notes, so that one can assume that the two 

major contexts of commentary writing are lecturing 

and translating. There is evidence from DUNHUANG 

showing the homiletic context of scriptural interpretation, 

and this background does not seem to have ever 

been completely lost. In the context of translating from 

Indian or Central Asian languages into Chinese, translation 

and interpretation could not be separated because 

translators usually offered explanations of the 

scripture being translated, and the explanations often 

crept into the text itself. Thus, for example, the writings 

of Sengzhao on PRAJN APARAMITA LITERATURE were 

based on his cooperation with KUMA RAJIVA (344– 

409/413), or the commentaries of Kuiji were created in 

the context of the translation academy of Xuanzang. 

Types of commentaries 

The oldest type of Chinese commentary, the zhu (only 

three of which are extant), may derive from an oral context. 

The zhu is a straightforward line-by-line exegesis 

that weaves glosses into the main text. These commentaries 

are prefaced by introductions that interpret the 

title and explain the setting of the discourse and the 


167

C OMMENTARIAL 

L ITERATURE 

reasons for the commentary. This simple type of commentary 

was superseded by the shu commentary, which 

flourished between the sixth and mid-ninth centuries. 

The shu embodies the best of the monastic and scholastic 

tradition, exhibiting all signs of a flourishing exegetic 

culture and displaying a level of sophistication probably 

unsuited for the nonexpert laity. 

Two major features characterize shu commentary, 

namely, its method of segmenting the scripture (kepan) 

and its topical introductions. The topical introductions 

discuss the scope of the commentary and the issues at 

stake for the Buddhist commentator. The introductions 

comprise two major groups of topics: dogmatic 

(the aim of the teaching, the meaning of the title, the 

work’s basic thought, the intended audience of the 

teaching, its relationship to other teachings) and historical 

(the transmissions of the work and the history 

of its promulgation, including places and conventions, 

history of its translation, and its miraculous power). 

This type of commentarial introduction reflects not 

only on Chinese exegesis, but on major issues of Buddhist 

exegesis. Accordingly, VASUBANDHU (fourth century 

C.E.), a major representative of Indian exegesis, 

summarized in his Vyakhyayukti (Practice of Exegesis; 

extant only in Tibetan) the commentarial task: state 

the aim of the teaching (prayojana), state its overall 

meaning (pinda) and its detailed meaning (padartha), 

state its internal consequence (anusam dhika), refute 

objections (codyaparihara) with regard to wording 

(śabda) and meaning (artha), in order to show its perfection 

(yukti). Chinese commentators classify Vasubandhu’s 

first two tasks as independent introductory 

topics; the other three are incorporated into the main 

body of exegesis. 

Vasubandhu presumes that the word of the Buddha 

is perfect, that all scriptures are the Buddha’s word, 

that only perfect words need and deserve commentary, 

and that a person cannot understand scripture unless 

he or she understands the purpose of a certain teaching. 

In particular, one must understand a scripture in 

terms of the audience it is meant to address, especially 

if the audience is not deemed to be mature enough to 

comprehend the scripture’s deeper meanings. This latter 

assumption was a fundamental element in determining 

the liberty a commentator might take in 

interpreting scripture. 

Segmental analysis 

Chinese scholastic commentary is also characterized by 

segmental analysis (kepan), by which the author assigns 

to scripture a chain of exegetic terms. The most 

obvious aspect of this approach, which gained importance 

after the fifth century, consists in the segmenting 

of scripture into (1) introduction (xu), which gives 

the setting of the discourse (location, participants, occasion); 

(2) main body (zhengzong), which consists in 

the discourse proper, and (3) eulogy (liutong), which 

describes the joy of the listeners and the promise of the 

spread of the dharma. This triple partition of sutra may 

have derived from the Fodi jing lun (T.1530.26:291c). 

Although segmental analysis is related by tradition to 

Dao’an, the oldest extant example of its application can 

be found in Fayun’s Lotus Su tra commentary (Fahua 

jing yiji, T.1715.33:574c). 

Beneath this first tripartite level, scholastic commentaries 

have further layers of segmentation, which 

consist of a sequence of exegetic terms (often several 

hundred) assigned to designated passages of scripture. 

One group of exegetic terms specifically marks off parts 

of scripture as phases of dialogue between the speaker 

and the interlocutor. Since most sutras are in the form 

of dialogues between the Buddha and his disciples, it 

is possible that the first step a commentator might have 

taken was to segment the sequence of speech acts. Indeed, 

in some of the older commentaries of the early 

Tang period, the exegetic chain is built around a dialogic 

baseline. Knowing that an exegetic chain may include 

several hundred terms, the modern reader may 

wonder how any reader could be expected to keep track 

of the commentary’s expository structure. In order to 

remedy this situation, graphic charts displaying the exegetic 

structure were developed. Although it may seem 

otherwise, most kepan and their accompanying charts 

are probably rooted in the homiletic situation, and are 

not a product of a culture dominated by writing. In 

fact, the kepan structures point back to the earliest stage 

of Buddhist exegesis, where they may have served as 

mnemonic aids for oral interpretation. 

After the Tang period, kepan-style exegesis yielded 

to other methods, and scholastic introduction in general 

was replaced by newer, simpler forms. The genre 

of commentarial literature as a whole from the Song 

dynasty (960–1279) onward shows a process of simplification, 

a transformation that probably resulted, in 

part, from the advent of new PRINTING TECHNOLOGIES. 

This simplification process was also part of a major 

transformation of the social context of exegesis. 

Whereas before the Song, commentators were mainly 

monks, from the Song onward a substantial body of 

commentaries were written by lay Buddhists. In addi- 


C OMMUNISM AND B UDDHISM 

tion, the CHAN SCHOOL and its rhetoric of immediate 

insight without reliance on words found support in the 

fundamental notion of the ineffability of the ultimate 

meaning of the dharma, which may have substantially 

impeded the further development of formal scriptural 

exegesis. Despite these factors, and though many assume 

that the genre of Buddhist exegesis passed its 

zenith centuries ago, commentaries on Buddhist teachings 

are still being written. 

See also: Canon; China; India; Scripture 

Bibliography 

Gómez, Luis O. “Exegesis and Hermeneutics.” In “Buddhist Literature,” 

in Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 2, ed. Mircea Eliade. 

New York: Macmillan, 1987. 

Kim Young-ho. Tao-sheng’s Commentary on the Lotus Su tra: A 

Study and Translation. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1990. 

Lamotte, Étienne. “Assessment of Textual Interpretation in 

Buddhism.” In Buddhist Hermeneutics, ed. Donald S. Lopez, 

Jr. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. 

Maraldo, John C. “Hermeneutics and Historicity in the Study 

of Buddhism.” Eastern Buddhist 19, no. 1 (1986): 17–43. 

COMMUNISM AND BUDDHISM 

ALEXANDER L. MAYER 

Buddhism faced one of its greatest challenges during 

the twentieth century when the majority of Asian nations, 

which were traditionally Buddhist, became involved 

with communism. Mongolia was the first Asian 

country to become communist (1924), followed by 

North Korea (1948), China (1949), Tibet (1951), Vietnam 

(1975), Cambodia (1975), and Laos (1975). 

Initial encounter 

At the early stages of the Buddhist–communist encounter, 

coexistence did not seem impossible. Those 

who hoped for peaceful coexistence speculated on the 

similarities between communism and Buddhism: Neither 

Buddhists nor communists believe in a creator deity, 

and both Buddhism and communism are based on 

a vision of universal egalitarianism. In fact, the Buddhist 

community (SAṄGHA) was even compared with 

a communist society. 

The seeming compatibility, however, was overshadowed 

by a number of conflicting ideologies. Communism 

is based on materialism, whereas in Buddhism 

primacy of the material world is rejected in favor of 

NIRVAN A. To communists, environments determine a 

human being’s consciousness, whereas Buddhism emphasizes 

the individual practitioner’s capacity to overcome 

human limitations through spiritual cultivation. 

In addition, Buddhism holds nonviolence and compassion 

as the core of its teaching, whereas communism 

foregrounds conflict between different social 

classes and endorses the use of violence in support of 

the proletarian revolution and the communist agenda. 

Despite these differences, communism and Buddhism 

managed a coexistence for a brief period. In its 

early stages, communism gained support because it 

was recognized as the antithesis of foreign dominance 

in Asian nations at the final stage of imperialist history. 

People in Mongolia supported communists in 

their efforts to free the nation from Chinese dominance. 

North Korean communism gained power as a 

buffer against Japanese colonialists and American capitalist 

imperialism. Chinese communism set itself up 

as a defense against the threat created by the invasion 

of the Western powers at the beginning of the twentieth 

century. Vietnamese communists claimed to be nationalists 

fighting for the independence of Vietnam 

from the imperialist French and capitalist Americans. 

Because the Buddhist tradition had existed in Asia for 

more than fifteen hundred years, it could be seen by 

communists as a confirmation of national identity, 

while communism was seen as a means of defending 

a nation against foreign invasion. Thus, a coalition between 

Buddhism and communism seemed possible. 

Conflict 

Buddhists soon faced reality. Once communist groups 

won the wars and communist nation-states began to 

take shape, Buddhists were forced to realize that the 

basic antagonism of Marxism toward all religion could 

not be challenged. Religion in Marxist philosophy is 

“the opium of the people.” Communists view religion 

as a fantasy and superstition that deludes people about 

their social condition. According to communism, religion 

is a tool used by the bourgeoisie to exploit the 

proletariat and thus delay the proletarian revolution. 

Only a few years after Asian nations fell to communism, 

the initial tolerance toward Buddhism was 

replaced by extreme antagonism. Communist parties 

launched severe PERSECUTIONS of Buddhists and instigated 

an irreparable dismantling of Buddhist traditions. 

By the late 1930s more than fifteen thousand 

monks in the Mongolian People’s Republic were 

declared enemies of the state and deported to Siberian 


169


Chinese vice-premier Chen Yi enters Lhasa in 1956 to attend ceremonies marking the incorporation of Tibet into the Chinese state. He 

is accompanied by the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama went into exile in 1959. © Bettmann/Corbis. Reproduced 


labor camps, where they soon perished from starvation 

and overwork. During the late 1940s communists 

in North Korea conducted a systematic removal of religion 

from society, followed by the complete eradication 

of all religious practice during the 1960s and 

1970s. Immediately after the establishment of the communist 

government in China, opportunities for religious 

practice were reduced and ordination was 

restricted. At the outset of the Cultural Revolution in 

the mid-1960s, Buddhist practice all but disappeared 

from China. In Vietnam, repression of religion began 

with the victory of the communists in April 1975, after 

which communists destroyed or confiscated Buddhist 

pagodas and Buddhist office buildings. By 1982 

there were only about twenty-three hundred monks 

left in Cambodia, a drastic decrease from the sixty 

thousand monks in Cambodia in 1975 when the nation 

first became communist. The situation in Tibet is 

unique in that the communists were not Tibetans but 

Chinese who claimed Tibet as their territory. Before 

the Chinese invasion, there were more than six thousand 

monasteries in Tibet; fewer than twenty monasteries 

survived persecution by Chinese communists. 

The spiritual and political leader of Tibet, the fourteenth 

DALAI LAMA, was exiled to India in 1959. 

Since the communist persecutions began, Buddhists 

have generally held fast to the Buddhist teaching 

against injuring others. Vietnamese monks performed 

SELF-IMMOLATION as a protest against communist persecution, 

and for half a century the Dalai Lama has appealed 

to the world to stop the suffering of the Tibetan 

people and the destruction of Tibetan Buddhism, but 

Buddhists have refused to resort to violence to settle 

the tragedy brought upon Buddhism and Buddhist followers. 

The Buddhist message of nonviolent protest 

has brought awareness to the world of the importance 

of the peaceful resolution of conflicts and the urgency 

of human rights issues. Through their faithfulness to 

Buddhist teachings and their belief in human values in 



A Chinese police officer watches as Buddhist monks celebrate the Tibetan New Year at a Tibetan Buddhist temple in Beijing, 1999. © 

AFP/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

a time of suffering, Buddhist monks and nuns in persecuted 

nations were able to demonstrate the value of 

religion in human societies. 

In the 1990s communist governments began to 

show relative tolerance toward Buddhism, and religious 

practices began to resurface as Buddhist monasteries 

were renovated and Buddhist objects were 

recognized as national treasures. In Tibet, despite increasing 

tolerance toward Buddhism, the Chinese 

continue to refuse to allow the Dalai Lama to be repatriated. 

In countries where Buddhism faces a revival it 

still has obstacles to overcome. After decades of persecution 

and restrictions on ordination, a new generation 

of Buddhist young people has not emerged to 

succeed aging monks and nuns. How the Buddhist revival 

will fill the gap and make up for the lost decades 

remains unclear. 

See also: Modernity and Buddhism; Nationalism and 


Bibliography 

Benz, Ernst. Buddhism or Communism: Which Holds the Future 

of Asia?, tr. Richard Winston and Clara Winston. Garden 

City, NY: Doubleday, 1965. 

Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho (Dalai Lama XIV). Freedom in Exile: The 

Autobiography of the Dalai Lama. New York and San Francisco: 

Harper, 1990. 

Harris, Ian. “Buddhism in Extremis: The Case of Cambodia.” In 

Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia, ed. Ian 

Harris. London and New York: Pinter, 1999. 

Ling, Trevor. Buddha, Marx, and God: Some Aspects of Religion 

in the Modern World. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979. 

Nhat Hanh, Thich. Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire. New York: 

Hill and Wang, 1967. 

Queen, Christopher S., and King, Sallie B., eds. Engaged Buddhism: 

Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. Albany: State 

University of New York Press, 1996. 

Schecter, Jerrold L. The New Face of Buddhism: Buddhism and 

Political Power in Southeast Asia. New York: Coward- 

McCann, 1967. 


171

C OMPASSION 

Schwartz, Ronald D. “Renewal and Resistance: Tibetan Buddhism 

in the Modern Era.” In Buddhism and Politics in 

Twentieth-Century Asia, ed. Ian Harris. London and New 

York: Pinter, 1999. 

Sin Pŏpt’a. Pukhan Pulgyŏ yon’gu. A Study of Buddhism in North 

Korea in the Late Twentieth Century. Seoul: Minjoksa, 2000. 

Stuart-Fox, Martin. “Lao: From Buddhist Kingdom to Marxist 

State.” In Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia, 

ed. Ian Harris. London and New York: Pinter, 1999. 

Welch, Holmes. Buddhism under Mao. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 


COMPASSION. See Karuna (Compassion) 

CONCENTRATION. See Meditation 

JIN Y. PARK 

CONFESSION. See Repentance and Confession 

CONFUCIANISM AND BUDDHISM 

Chinese religions are traditionally divided into the 

three teachings of Confucianism (Rujiao), Daoism 

(Daojiao), and Buddhism (Fojiao). Because Chinese 

cultural patterns (wen) were disseminated, primarily 

in the form of writing, throughout East Asia, these 

three teachings spread to Korea, Japan, and parts of 

Southeast Asia. Confucians (ru) were scholars who 

took as their principal task the administration and 

maintenance of an ordered society, which they hoped 

to achieve by remaining active participants in it (zaijia). 

Buddhists lived as monks and nuns in monastic 

communities (SAṄGHA), renouncing the world (chujia) 

behind walls and gates to free themselves and others 

from the bondage of the cycle of life and death 

(SAM SARA). Over the course of two millennia of close 

interaction in China, Confucians and Buddhists 

clashed on issues ranging from bowing to the emperor 

and one’s parents to the foreign ancestry and routines 

of the Buddhist faith. Even so, indigenous Chinese 

Buddhist doctrines and practices stimulated developments 

within the late-imperial Confucian renaissance 

known in Western scholarship as neo-Confucianism. 

Historical and cultural considerations 

The history of interaction between Confucianism and 

Buddhism in China is the history of Chinese Buddhism 

in the public and social sphere. Because Confucian 

teachings were initially transmitted to Korea and Japan 

principally by Buddhist monks, successful, separate, 

and local Confucian traditions did not develop in 

Japan or Korea until the neo-Confucian era; the relationship 

between Buddhism and Confucianism that 

developed in China is representative of wider trends 

throughout the East Asian region. 

Confucianism became a religious and philosophical 

tradition (ruxue) with the establishment of the five 

classics (wujing) as the basis for official education in 

136 B.C.E. The five classics include the Shijing (Classic 

of Poetry), the Shujing (Classic of History), the Yijing 

(Classic of Changes), the Liji (Record of Rites), and the 

Chunqiu zuozhuan (Zuo Commentary to the Annals of 

the Spring and Autumn Period). In addition to these 

books, the sayings of Confucius (Kong Qiu, 551–479 

B.C.E.), called the Lunyu (Analects), and the teachings 

of Mencius (Mengzi, Meng Ke, ca. 371–289 B.C.E.) and 

Xunzi (Xun Qing, d. 215 B.C.E.), among other classical 

commentaries, as well as state-promoting ritual 

manuals and cosmological treaties, were sponsored by 

early Confucians (rujia). 

Scholars and the clergy: The question of 

Buddhist patronage 

During the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), Buddhism 

remained essentially an elusive, foreign creed, 

practiced primarily among the many Central Asian 

merchant communities that grew in Chinese trade 

centers. Buddhism did not pose an institutional threat 

to the burgeoning Confucian orthodox tradition of 

statecraft or to the emergent Huang-Lao proto-Daoist 

religious groups. During the interval between the fall 

of the Han and establishment of the Sui dynasty 

(581–618), however, piecemeal Buddhist doctrines 

and practices—especially teachings about DHYANA 

(TRANCE STATE) and ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) as explained 

in the PRAJNAPARAMITA LITERATURE—were of 

great interest to both non-Chinese rulers in the north 

and southern aristocrats. Serindian monks and their 

Chinese counterparts in the north and south after 310 

C.E. began to trade verses of poetry with aristocrats to 

communicate Buddhist theories in a Chinese context. 

The outcome of these exchanges between Confuciantrained 

aristocrats, Buddhist monks, and Daoist adepts 

is known as “dark learning” (xuanxue). “Pure talk” 

(qingtan) exchanges that included discussions about 


C ONFUCIANISM AND B UDDHISM 

poetry and comparisons between MAHAYANA Buddhist 

thought and the Laozi and Zhuangzi—two Chinese classical 

texts that later became associated with Daoism— 

resulted from this interaction. 

Because Confucianism at this time comprised a diffuse 

category of aristocratic pursuits and interests (at 

least in part because the failings of Confucian statecraft 

were considered responsible for the downfall of the 

Han) rather than an exclusive set of doctrines and precepts, 

Buddhism began to surface as a formidable religious 

institution. During the early decades of the fifth 

century, full translations of Indian Buddhist monastic 

codes (VINAYA) were completed; the vinaya regulated 

the lives of monks and nuns in Chinese monasteries in 

ways that were more consistent with Indian societal 

norms. This development prompted Emperor Wudi (r. 

424–451) of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534) to 

initiate the first anti-Buddhist PERSECUTIONS at the request 

of both his Daoist and Confucian ministers Kou 

Qianzhi (d. 448) and Cui Hao (381–450). Both advisers 

wished to transform the state into a more sinified 

society, and saw members of the recently disciplined 

saṅgha as world-renouncing and discourteous to the 

emperor and secular worthies. Emperor Wudi of the 

Northern Zhou (557–581) also accepted this rationale 

and instigated anti-Buddhist persecutions that resulted 

in the widespread defrocking of monks and nuns and 

the confiscation of monastic property. These policies 

indicate that by 446 the institutional footprint of the 

Buddhist church was broad enough to challenge indigenous 

Chinese power blocks. 

With the establishment of Sui hegemony over north 

and south China by 589, the Buddhist church became 

both an instrument of state promotion through its 

Buddhist relic (śarlra) distribution campaigns, and the 

object of censure by Confucians and Daoists critical of 

Buddhist economic and social influence throughout 

China. During the early decades of the Tang dynasty 

(618–907), Confucian and Daoist advisors submitted 

memorials to the throne condemning the Buddhist 

church for myriads of reasons, including claims of illegal 

ordinations, religious arrogance, commercial activities, 

and tax evasion, which led emperor Gaozu (r. 

618–627) in 626 to proclaim Confucianism and Daoism 

the two pillars of the state. Prior to Empress Wu 

Zhao’s (r. 690–705) foundation of the short-lived 

Zhou dynasty and the An Lushan rebellion (755–763), 

the Tang court and its Confucian administrators 

adopted a policy of tepid tolerance toward Buddhism 

and allowed it to expand. Emperor Taizong (r. 627– 

650) famously sponsored XUANZANG’s (ca. 600–664) 

translation projects after his return from India with 

hundreds of Sanskrit manuscripts. 

Empress Wu Zhao forever changed the world of 

Confucians and Buddhists in China. Her rise to power 

conflicted with traditional Confucian ideology favoring 

male rulers, which prompted her to institute sweeping 

reforms in the Confucian official examination system. 

Wu Zhao employed an open examination system for 

officials in order to counter the power of the ingrained 

aristocratic families who were hostile to her. Thus, the 

examination system originally set up during the Han, 

and institutionalized during the Sui, became a vehicle 

to promote scholars who did not necessarily hail from 

aristocratic or influential families. When the Tang ruling 

house was reestablished under emperor Xuanzong 

(r. 713–755), the cultivation of belles lettres—defined 

as refined knowledge of the classics and the composition 

of poetry (shih)—remained the basis for receiving 

the highest honors in the palace examinations as “presented 

scholars” (jinshi). Confucian learning during 

Xuanzong’s reign was memorialized in the writings of 

Wang Wei (701–761), Li Bai (701–762), and Du Fu 

(712–770)—three of China’s greatest poets—while bureaucrats 

implemented imperial decrees designed to 

restrain the institutional power of Buddhist monasteries, 

which had been extravagantly patronized by Wu 

Zhao. In 725 Xuanzong traveled to sacred Mount Tai 

to perform the Confucian state rites of feng and shan, 

and during his reign he received Indian esoteric Buddhists 

at court and helped to establish a small esoteric 

Buddhist institution in China. 

The most significant anti-Buddhist persecution in 

China occurred during the Huichang era (841–845). 

Emperor Wuzong took note of memorials to the throne 

by Confucian stalwarts like Han Yu (768–824)—who, 

after witnessing a procession of a finger-joint relic of 

the Buddha in 819, wrote the polemical Lun fogu biao 

(Memorial on the Buddha’s Bone)—and adopted policies 

to suppress the influence of Buddhism throughout 

Chinese society. Wuzong ordered the seizure of monastic 

properties, expelled monks and nuns from monasteries, 

and prohibited youths from taking tonsure. By 

845 Wuzong’s policies had led to the defrocking of 

260,000 nuns and monks and the destruction of more 

than 4,600 monasteries and 40,000 shrines. Wuzong’s 

antiforeign decrees also effectively eradicated Zoroastrianism, 

Nestorian Christianity, and Manichaeism 

from China in an attempt to address the threat that 

the Uighurs and Tibetans posed from the northwest 

and west. 


173

C ONFUCIANISM AND B UDDHISM 

Han Yu’s memorial, however, epitomized the antiforeign 

sentiment from a Confucian standpoint by 

suggesting that Buddhism was a barbarian cult, and 

that the Buddha himself was a barbarian—meaning 

someone who does not know the proper relationship 

between ruler and minister, father and son, or who 

does not wear ancient Chinese garb. Hence, if the Buddha 

were to arrive in China the emperor would merely 

give him an audience, a banquet, and award him a suit 

of clothes, after which he would be escorted under 

guard to the border. Han Yu thought that Buddhism 

threatened the Confucian administration of Chinese 

society by inciting people to publicly worship the Buddha 

bone. 

Confucian and Chinese patriarchs 

During the Song dynasty (960–1279) Confucian 

scholars and Buddhist monks were both bitter enemies 

and close allies. The early Song court supported 

new Buddhist translation projects, awarded exceptional 

patronage to followers of the CHAN SCHOOL, 

and facilitated debates between Confucian officials 

about fiscal, educational, and social policies. After the 

An Lushan rebellion, patronage for Buddhism and its 

institutions fell to a new southern gentry class, 

formed through the massive population shift southward 

as people fled the war-torn north. Between 742 

and 1200, the population of north China grew by 58 

percent, while it doubled or tripled in the south. Most 

of the new southern gentry were not connected to the 

elite families that provided the pool of civil-service applicants 

between the Han and Tang dynasties. Therefore, 

the Song imperial examinations provided the 

basis for a much more loyal and dynamic Confucianeducated 

bureaucracy than ever before. On the borders 

of Song territory, non-Chinese states threatened 

the Confucian world order, and the gentry literati 

(wenren) produced by the examination system responded 

in two ways: the “learning of culture” and 

neo-Confucianism. 

Adherents of the learning of culture approach, including 

the poet and scholar Su Shi (1036–1101), argued 

that Chinese (Confucian) culture endured 

through literature, including the cultivation of poetry 

and prose. To Su Shi, Buddhist doctrines did not clash 

with Confucian principles, and Buddhist monks, especially 

from the Chan lineage, could appreciate the 

value of cultural patterns and transmit them too. Those 

who supported neo-Confucianism, however, vehemently 

condemned the renunciant lifestyle and popular 

appeal of Buddhism. Initially, Zhou Dunyi 

(1017–1073) and the Cheng brothers—Cheng Yi 

(1033–1107) and Cheng Hao (1032–1085)—and later 

Zhu Xi (1130–1200) advocated studying the path of 

ancient Confucian sages, in particular Mencius, in order 

to rectify one’s character, become a moral leader 

of society, and follow the principle, rather than the 

manifested phenomena (ji), of the ancients. Zhu Xi, in 

particular, encouraged followers to study the “four 

books” in addition to the traditional five classics: the 

Analects, the teachings of Mencius, Daoxue (Great 

Learning), and Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean). Later 

followers sometimes included the Xiaojing (Classic of 

Filial Piety) instead of Mencius. Neo-Confucians contended 

that they transmitted the knowledge and foundation 

for dynastic and social legitimacy (zhengtong), 

which had been ignored since the time of Mencius. 

Even though neo-Confucian notions of transmission 

and self-cultivation were directly borrowed from the 

Chan school, Chan Buddhists became the principal focus 

of neo-Confucian indignation. 

Gentry and popular Buddhism 

It was not until 1313 that the neo-Confucian approach 

to official education outlined in the Cheng-Zhu school 

was adopted as the state orthodoxy. During subsequent 

dynasties, tensions grew between Cheng-Zhu 

trained officials and Buddhist monks and nuns. Without 

learning of culture supporters, the Chinese 

saṅgha, which was now dominated by members of the 

Chan lineage, became more focused on obtaining patronage 

from local gentry than from the state. During 

the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Confucian official 

Wang Yangming (1472–1529) turned to Chan Buddhist 

practices and teachings to create a Confucian 

meditation practice known as quiet sitting (jingzuo). 

Monasteries received largesse from local gentry and 

became centers of learning and culture at a time when 

the state could no longer support local Confucian 

academies. Buddhism during the Ming and Qing 

(1644–1911) dynasties became an integral part of the 

three teachings triad of institutionalized Chinese religions. 

This occurred despite the increasing divide 

between Confucian officials and Buddhists, and Buddhist 

rhetoric to the contrary, which was influenced 

by foreign imperial houses importing Tibetan and 

Mongolian Buddhist traditions into the Chinese capital 

of Beijing. 

See also: China; Daoism and Buddhism; Syncretic 

Sects: Three Teachings 


C ONSCIOUSNESS, THEORIES 

OF 

Bibliography 

Bol, Peter K. “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in 

T’ang and Sung China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University 

Press, 1992. 

Brook, Timothy. Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation 

of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China. Cambridge, MA: 

Harvard University Press, 1993. 




Zürcher, E. The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and 


Netherlands: Brill, 1959. Reprint, 1972. 

GEORGE A. KEYWORTH 

CONSCIOUSNESS, THEORIES OF 

The English word consciousness usually translates the 

Sanskrit word vijñana (Pali, viññana), although in 

some contexts vijñana comes closer to the concept of 

subconsciousness. In Buddhism in general (except in the 

Yogacara tradition), vijñana is considered to be synonymous 

with two other Sanskrit words—citta and 

manas—that roughly correspond to the English word 

mind. Buddhism denies the existence of a substantial 

and everlasting soul (atman), but unlike materialistic 

traditions, Buddhism never negates the existence of 

consciousness (or mind). From a Buddhist point of 

view, consciousness is differentiated from the soul in 

that the former is an ever-changing, momentary, and 

impermanent element. Consciousness, however, is 

considered to continue like a stream and is thought to 

be somehow transmitted from one life to the next, thus 

enabling karmic causality over lifetimes. This continuity 

of consciousness represents, in a sense, the personal 

identity. Consciousness also keeps the body alive 

and distinguishes animate beings from inanimate elements. 

Therefore, consciousness is one of the key factors 


When the word consciousness is used, it appears to 

refer mainly to the cognitive function directed to its 

object. Thus, this word is defined in the Sam yuttanikaya 

(Kindred Sayings) III:87 as: “Because it recognizes 

[something], it is called consciousness.” 

More specifically, six types of consciousness are 

enumerated in Buddhist texts: visual consciousness, 

auditory consciousness, olfactory consciousness, gustatory 

consciousness, tactile consciousness, and mental 

consciousness. These six consciousnesses must be 

supported by the corresponding, unimpaired sense 

faculties (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) in 

order to recognize their respective objects (color/form, 

sound, smell, taste, tactile sensation, and concepts). 

When these three elements (sense faculty, object, and 

consciousness) come together (“contact,” sparśa), cognition 

comes about. 

The word consciousness, however, often appears 

without specification regarding sense faculty or object, 

as, for example in the list of the five SKANDHA (AG- 

GREGATE): body/matter (ru pa), sensation (vedana), 

ideation (sam jña), volition (sam skara), and consciousness 

(vijñana). This type of bare “consciousness” 

is also found in several other important contexts. 

Rebirth and the theory of 

dependent origination 

The notion of consciousness plays a cardinal role in 

the context of REBIRTH, within the large framework of 

PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINATION). In 

those early scriptures that propound very simple forms 

of Buddhist causation there are two basic patterns: one 

centering on consciousness and psycho-physical existence 

(namaru pa), and the other centering on desire 

(trsna) and appropriation (upadhi, upadana). According 

to the scriptures that put forth the first pattern, as 

long as the consciousness has objects (alambana) to be 

conceived and to be attached to, it stays in the realm 

of SAM SA RA, and the psycho-physical existence will enter 

the womb (i.e., one will be reborn in the next life 

without being liberated from sam sara). Scriptural admonitions 

to guard the “doors” of one’s sense faculties 

so that one does not grasp at cognitive objects 

would be closely related to this idea of consciousness. 

Since several expressions meaning desire also appear 

in the context of consciousness attached to its objects, 

these two patterns are in fact closely related. Eventually 

these two patterns were combined into more developed 

systems of dependent origination, consisting 

of ten or twelve items. Even the full-fledged system of 

the twelve causal links basically consists of two portions: 

the first (one through seven; ignorance through 

sensation) centering on consciousness, and the second 

(eight through twelve; desire through old age and 

death) centering on desire. (Later Sarvastivada and 

Yogacara interpretations of dependent origination, 

though differing greatly from each other, also support 

this division.) Therefore, the full-fledged theory of 

dependent origination is in a way an elaboration of 

the simpler causation theories described above. In this 


175


OF 

system also, the third item, consciousness, is usually 

understood as the consciousness at the moment of 

conception, and thus it retains its nature as described 

in the very early texts. 

According to Yogacara tradition, at the time of one’s 

death, a powerful attachment to one’s own existence 

arises and makes one’s consciousness grasp the next 

life. Furthermore, according to both the Sarvastivada 

and Yogacara schools, the consciousness in the INTER- 

MEDIATE STATE sees the parents making love. If the being 

is about to be reborn as a boy, he is attached to the 

mother and hates the father. If the being is about to be 

reborn as a girl, she is attached to the father and hates 

the mother. Driven by this perverted thought, the being 

enters the womb, and the consciousness merges 

with the united semen and “blood,” after which the 

semen-blood combination becomes a sentient embryo. 

Even when a being is about to be reborn in a hell, it 

misconceives the hell as something desirable, and driven 

by its attachment to the “desirable place,” it hastens 

to the hell. Thus, in these cases also, the basic 

structure of consciousness attached to some object and 

bound to the realm of sam sara resembles the structure 

of consciousness found in the less developed stage of 

Buddhist causation theory. 

The a layavijña na theory and the theory of 

the eight consciousnesses 

In the YOGA CA RA SCHOOL, consciousness that merges 

with the semen-blood combination is understood as 

the storehouse consciousness (ALAYAVIJNANA). According 

to this school, the storehouse consciousness, the 

deepest layer of one’s subconsciousness, maintains all 

the residue of past KARMA (ACTION) as “seeds,” which 

will give rise to their fruits in the future. This theory 

enabled the Yogacara school to explain the problems 

of reincarnation and karmic retribution without resorting 

to the concept of substantial soul. 

The storehouse consciousness is also linked to the 

idealistic theory propounded by Yogacara. Buddhism 

had an idealistic tendency from the early stages of its 

history, and the state of the external world was linked 

to the collective karma/desire of SENTIENT BEINGS. An 

interesting example is found in a Buddhist cosmogonical 

legend, which states that as the desire of sentient 

beings became more gross, the surrounding world became 

less and less attractive. On the basis of meditative 

experiences, the Yogacara tradition elaborated this 

tendency into a sophisticated philosophical system in 

which the world that people experience is actually a 

projection of their own consciousness. The seeds kept 

in the storehouse consciousness are considered to be 

the source of this projected world. 

Another important function of the storehouse consciousness 

is the physiological maintenance of the 

body. Since the early stages of Buddhism, consciousness 

was considered to be the element that distinguishes 

animate beings from inanimate matter. Unless 

consciousness appropriates (i.e., maintains) the body, 

the body becomes a senseless corpse. Since, however, 

the stream of consciousnesses on the surface level is 

sometimes interrupted (as in the states of dreamless 

sleep, fainting, or deep absorption), it was difficult to 

explain how the body is maintained during those unconscious 

periods. Because the storehouse consciousness 

continues to operate even when the surface 

consciousnesses do not arise, the introduction of the 

storehouse consciousness solves the problem of physiological 

maintenance of the body. 

In addition to the storehouse consciousness, the 

Yogacara school introduced another subconscious 

layer of mind, namely the defiled mind (klistamanas). 

This is a subconscious ego-consciousness that is always 

operative in the depths of the mind. According to the 

Yogacara system, the defiled mind is always directed 

to the storehouse consciousness and mistakes the latter 

for a substantial self. By introducing the concept of 

defiled mind, the Yogacara school pointed out that the 

subconscious ego-mind is hiding behind the scene 

even when one is trying to do good things on the conscious 

level. Thus, from this point of view, the minds 

of deluded, ordinary sentient beings are always defiled, 

regardless of the moral nature of the surface consciousnesses. 

Thus, in addition to the conventional six 

types of consciousness, the Yogacara school introduced 

two subconscious layers of mind—defiled mind and 

storehouse consciousness—and constructed a system 

of eight types of consciousness. These eight consciousnesses 

are linked to citta, manas, and vijñana in 

the following way: The storehouse consciousness corresponds 

to citta, the defiled mind to manas, and the 

conventional six consciousnesses to vijñana. 

Simultaneous versus successive operations 

of plural consciousnesses 

Since the Yogacara model of eight consciousnesses 

means that two layers of unconscious mind are always 

operating behind the conventional six consciousnesses, 

it naturally presupposes the simultaneous operations 

of different types of consciousness. This position, however, 

was not uncontroversial among Buddhist traditions. 

Since the stream of consciousness represents a 



OF 

personal identity in Buddhism, there was a strong 

opinion that more than one stream of consciousness 

could not exist simultaneously in any sentient being at 

a given moment. According to this position, strongly 

advocated by the Sarvastivada school, when one feels, 

for example, that one is seeing something and listening 

to something at the same time, the visual consciousness 

and the auditory consciousness are in fact 

operating in rapid succession and not simultaneously. 

It is recorded that some schools belonging to the Mahasam 

ghika lineage did not share this opinion, but it 

seems to have been widely accepted by other schools. 

The SAUTRANTIKA (Those Who Follow Sutras) tradition, 

which, according to the common view, was an offshoot 

of the Sarvastivada school, was considered to have 

shared the Sarvastivada opinion on this matter, but this 

has been questioned recently by some scholars. 

Sautrantika theories of consciousness 

The exact identity of the tradition called “Sautrantika” 

is one of the biggest problems in current Buddhist 

scholarship. Sautrantika is commonly believed to have 

been preceded by a tradition called Darstantika (Those 

Who Resort to Similes). However, the exact relationship 

between these two traditions is a matter of dispute. 

Generally speaking, both Darstantika and Sautrantika 

seem to have had nominalistic tendencies; thus 

they challenged the realistic system of Sarvastivada on 

many points. For example, in both the Sarvastivada 

and Yogacara schools, consciousness(es) are considered 

to be associated with various psychological factors 

(caitta), such as lust and hatred, which are 

themselves distinct elements. The Darstantika tradition, 

on the other hand, treats psychological factors as 

something not distinct from the consciousness itself. 

The Darstantika and Sautrantika traditions also tend 

not to admit a causal relationship between two simultaneous 

elements. In order for a cause to bring about 

a result, the cause must be at least one moment prior 

to the result. Thus, the cognitive object, which is considered 

to be a cause of consciousness, must precede 

the cognition of that object. In addition, what one perceives 

is the cognitive image of an object within one’s 

consciousness; one cannot directly perceive the object 

itself. The existence of the external object, however, is 

inferred from its cognitive image. 

Theory of consciousness in 

Buddhist epistemology 

The Darstantika and Sautrantika traditions are considered 

to have exerted a strong influence over Buddhist 

epistemologists such as DIGNAGA (ca. 480–540) 

and DHARMAKIRTI (ca. 600–660). At the same time, 

Dignaga also clearly inherited the idealistic system of 

Yogacara, as is shown in the theory of cognition cognizing 

itself (svasam vitti) in the Pramanasamuccaya 

(verses 1.8cd–12). 

Further, one of Dignaga’s important contributions 

(Pramanasamuccaya [Collected Writings on the Means 

of Cognition], verses 1.2–8ab) was the redefinition of 

perception (pratyaksa) and its strict differentiation 

from inference (anumana). He maintained that the 

cognition of the five sense consciousnesses (from visual 

through tactile) are always perception, and that 

the mental consciousness operates in both perception 

and inference. This distinction between the five sense 

consciousnesses and the mental consciousness is in line 

with the theories of Sarvastivada and Yogacara. 

Relationship with the tatha gatagarbha theory 

Another development in the theory of consciousness 

is the association of the storehouse consciousness with 

the TATHAGATAGARBHA (embryo of tathagata, or 

buddha-nature) theory. The storehouse consciousness 

was originally conceived as the root of the deluded 

mind and the defiled world, and thus is itself defiled. 

It was to be transformed into pure wisdom when one 

attains awakening, but the storehouse consciousness 

before the transformation was not considered to be a 

pure element in the original Yogacara system. However, 

some lines of the Yogacara tradition, most notably 

the position presented in the LAṄKAVATARA- 

SU TRA (Discourse on the Occasion of the [Buddha’s] Entry 

into Laṅka) came to associate, and even identify, 

the storehouse consciousness with the tathagatagarbha, 

the pure element latent in deluded, ordinary 

beings. Since some Indian masters who transmitted 

the Yogacara doctrine to China, most notably PARA- 

MARTHA (499–569), were heavily influenced by these 

lines of thought, the exact relationship between the 

storehouse consciousness and the tathagatagarbha became 

an important issue in Chinese Buddhism. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Philosophy; 

Psychology; Sarvastivada and Mulasarvastivada 

Bibliography 

Aramaki, Noritoshi. “On the Formation of a Short Prose 

Prattyasamutpada Sutra.” In Buddhism and Its Relation to 

Other Religions: Essays in Honour of Dr. Shozen Kumoi on His 

Seventieth Birthday, ed. Kumoi Shozen Hakushi Koki Kinenkai. 

Kyoto: Heirakuji Shoten, 1985. 


177

C ONSECRATION 

Hattori, Masaaki, ed. and trans. Dignaga, on Perception, Being 

the Pratyaksapariccheda of Dignaga’s Pramanasamuccaya 

from the Sanskrit Fragments and the Tibetan Versions. Cambridge, 


Kritzer, Robert. Rebirth and Causation in the Yogacara Abhidharma. 

Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische 

Studien, Universität Wien, 1999. 

Schmithausen, Lambert. A layavijñana: On the Origin and the 

Early Development of a Central Concept of Yogacara Philosophy. 


1987. 

CONSECRATION 

NOBUYOSHI YAMABE 

Consecration has been broadly defined as “an act or 

ritual that invests objects, places, or people with religious 

significance, often by way of power and holiness” 

(Bowker, p. 234). In terms of Buddhism, consecration 

has been characterized as a ritual that transmutes an 

image or a STU PA from a mundane object into the nature 

of a Buddha (Bentor 1997). Consecrated objects 

include not only images and stupas, but representational 

paintings, books, and other objects. Abhiseka, 

the Sanskrit term ordinarily translated as “consecration,” 

expands this signification to include KINGSHIP 

(rajabhiseka) and designates the act or ritual specifically 

as one of sprinkling or anointing with sacred water. 

This entry deals with the ritual techniques for 

sanctifying objects that figure specifically in Buddhist 

devotional practice, in particular images and stupaenshrined 

relics, to the exclusion of sacred places such 

as monasteries and revered personages such as monks 

and kings. Furthermore, even though water lustration 

features prominently in consecration rituals, this essay 

broadens the meaning of abhiseka beyond the act of 

anointing to include various techniques and devices by 

which these objects are sacralized, making them powerful 

and auspicious both for what they symbolize or 

represent and what they become via the act of consecration. 

For example, a consecrated BUDDHA IMAGE simultaneously 

both represents and is the living presence 

of the Buddha, while an unconsecrated image merely 

symbolizes the Blessed One. 

An image of the Buddha or a Buddhist saint becomes 

an icon in the sense that it partakes of the substance 

of that which it represents by means of a 

consecration ritual. By contrast, a bodily relic of the 

Buddha (śarlradhatu) by its inherent nature partakes 

of the Buddha’s very substance. Consequently, a stupa 

becomes an icon when it enshrines a relic, and a relic 

may be placed inside a Buddha image for the same purpose. 

A bodily relic so employed serves as one of the 

means by which Buddha images and stupas are consecrated. 

The Chinese practice of venerating the mummified 

body of an eminent monk can be seen as the 

ultimate expression of such iconization, the complete 

fusion of an image of a saint and relic-body. 

As different signs or material artifacts of use and 

association—footprint, bodhi tree, alms bowl, image, 

and even book—came to signify the presence of the 

absent (“parinirvanized”) Buddha, so various ritual 

techniques evolved for instilling them with the presence 

and power of the Buddha. Not surprisingly, the 

primary signs were associated with the most important 

venues of devotional practice, namely, stupa enshrined 

relics and Buddha images. Throughout Buddhist Asia 

from India to Japan, stupas, pagodas, and image halls 

became major features of that part of the monastic complex 

referred to as the “Buddha’s dwelling place” (buddhavasa), 

complementing the “monk’s dwelling place” 

(saṅghavasa). As these terms suggest, the monastery 

served and continues to serve not only as a place where 

monks pursue the paths of meditation and study but 

participate in devotional practices as ritual functionaries. 

One of the ritual acts performed by monks 

that is central to venerating the Buddha (buddhapu ja) 

includes consecrating icons. 

Making the Buddha present 

Not surprisingly, all consecration rituals throughout 

Asia are not the same. They reflect different Buddhist 

traditions as well as the particular cultures in which 

they flourished. Although no one ritual fits all cases, 

there are commonalities. Preeminently, Buddha images 

and relics as well as other material artifacts associated 

with the Buddha make the Buddha available to 

a particular time and place. In doing so they serve as 

the Buddha’s functional equivalent or double, especially 

in ritual contexts. 

The Kosalabimbavannana (The Laudatory Account 

of the Kosala Image), a thirteenth-century Pali Sinhalese 

text, describes how the image functions as the 

Buddha’s double. Like the better known Mahayana 

version of the story associated with King Udayana, the 

Buddha’s absence becomes the occasion for the construction 

of an image of the Blessed One. In the Pali 

rendition, King Pasenadi of Kosala pays the Buddha a 

visit only to find him away on a journey. When the 

Buddha returns the following day, the king laments 


C ONSECRATION 

how disappointed he was not to see the Buddha and 

requests that an image in the likeness of the tathagata 

be made for the benefit of the whole world. The Blessed 

One acquiesces, adding that whoever builds an image 

of whatever size and material accrues an immeasurable, 

incalculable benefit. Returning to his residence, 

King Pasenadi (Sanskrit, Prasenajit) orders a Buddha 

image made of sandalwood displaying the thirty-two 

marks of a Great Person (Sanskrit, mahapurusa; Pali, 

mahapurisa) inlaid with gold and clothed in yellow 

robes. After its completion he invites the Buddha to 

see the image housed in a bejeweled shrine. As the Buddha 

enters the shrine, the statue behaves as if it were 

animated, rising to greet the Fully Enlightened One 

who states that after his parinirvana the image will perpetuate 

his teaching (dharma) for five thousand years. 

The story stipulates that presencing the Buddha 

through material relics, in this case an image, provides 

the locus for the expression of religious sentiment and 

the opportunity to make merit through ritual offerings. 

Furthermore, in materializing the Buddha and 

the dharma—a key feature of consecration ritual— 

such representations ensure the perpetuation of the religion 

(sasana). 

Consecration as transformation 

Phenomenologically, consecration rituals transform images, 

caitya, and other material signs of the Buddha into 

Buddha surrogates. As recounted in the MAHAPARINIR- 

VAN A-SUTRA, at the Buddha’s cremation his body is 

transmuted into corporeal relics, not by water as in an 

abhiseka rite, but via fire. The parinirvaned body assumes 

a new, dispersed form in bodily relics, objectified 

artifacts of the Buddha’s charisma. Regarding 

Buddha images, the Kosalabimbavannana and other 

textual accounts ascribe qualities of the living Buddha 

to the icon, including animation. “Opening the eyes of 

the Buddha,” the pan-Buddhist term for image consecration 

rituals, conveys a similar meaning. A mere object, 

in this case an anthropomorphic representation 

rather than a crystalline relic, becomes a buddha. In 

East Asia eye-opening rituals were also believed to enliven 

portraits of charismatic monks as well as empower 

ancestral tablets (Japanese, ihai) enshrined in 

monasteries and home altars. 

In Southeast Asia such transformation involves a 

mimetic ritual process informed, as Bernard Faure suggests 

in his study of the flesh icons of mummified Chan 

monks, by the “logic of metonymy and synecdoche in 

which the shadow or trace becomes as real as the body” 

(p. 170). The northern Thai consecration ritual begins 

at sunset and concludes at sunrise, mirroring the three 

watches of the night of the bodhisattva’s achievement 

of buddhahood. During the course of the evening, 

monks recite the story of the future Buddha’s renunciation 

of worldly goals, his years as a wandering ascetic, 

MARA’s temptations, and his final awakening. In 

Cambodia and northern Thailand reenactments of 

episodes from the Buddha’s biography, in particular 

Sujata’s offering of milk and honey rice gruel, highlight 

the performative nature of the ritual. At sunrise 

monks chant the auspicious verses attributed to the 

Buddha upon his awakening: “Through many a birth 

I wandered in sam sara, seeing, but not finding the 

builder of the house. Sorrowful is birth again and 

again. O house-builder! You are seen. You shall build 

no house again. All your rafters are broken; your ridgepole 

is shattered. My mind has attained the unconditioned; 

the end of craving is achieved.” 

The physical space in which the consecration ritual 

is conducted also mimetically replicates the Buddha’s 

biography. Throughout the ceremony the main 

image being consecrated is placed on a bed of grass 

under a bodhi tree sapling in a monastery’s image 

hall. The area is designated as the bodhimanda, the 

throne of enlightenment that miraculously grew from 

a grass mat, the dana gift provided the future Buddha 

by Sottiya, the forester. An auspicious cord extends 

from the previously consecrated temple image 

around the bodhimanda, thereby forging a conduit to 

the first Buddha image authenticated by the Buddha 

himself. Other ritual paraphernalia symbolize specific 

episodes in the story of the bodhisattva’s enlightenment 

quest, as well as the tathagata Buddhas of the 

current age. 

During the ceremony the heads of the images placed 

within the bodhimanda are shrouded by a white cloth 

and their eyes covered with beeswax. They have been 

sequestered, much as the future Buddha left his palace 

and sought the solitude of the forest. At sunrise, monks 

chant the gatha (verse) of awakening and the head and 

eye coverings of the images are removed, symbolizing 

that with the opening of the eyes, the images have been 

infused with the qualities of Buddhahood: “The Buddha 

filled with boundless compassion practiced the 

thirty perfections for many eons, finally reaching enlightenment. 

I pay homage to that Buddha. May all 

these qualities be invested in this image. May the Buddha’s 

boundless omniscience be invested in this image 

until the śasana ceases to exist.” In different Buddhist 

cultures the act of opening the eyes of the image takes 

different forms. Eyes may be symbolically or literally 


179

C ONSECRATION 

painted on the image or the eye lightly scratched with 

a needle; regardless of its form, however, it is by opening 

an image’s eyes that it becomes a living cult icon. 

The ritual process that transforms mere image to 

iconic Buddha substitute imprints the Buddha’s story 

on the image. Narratives play an equally important role 

in the transformation of other material artifacts into 

representations of the Buddha and Buddhist saints. 

Stupa enshrined relics dot the map of the Buddha’s 

itinerary throughout greater Asia: The generous distribution 

of HAIR relics, predictions of the future discovery 

of bone relics by righteous monarchs, and 

footprints embedded in stone and earth witness to the 

continuing presence of the Buddha. Stories associated 

with these events figure prominently not only in the 

creation of sacred sites but in annual reconsecration 

and renewal ceremonies. 

That a corporeal relic may be inserted into a Buddha 

image and images may be enshrined in a stupa together 

with relics points to the belief that both serve 

as living Buddha icons. As further evidence of this belief, 

image consecration rituals in northern Thailand 

may include the insertion of a set of internal organs 

made from silver into the image. When a cavity in the 

back of the sandalwood image brought to Japan by the 

Japanese Buddhist pilgrim Chonen (938–1016) and 

enshrined at Seiryoji in Kyoto was opened up in 1954, 

it was found to contain a similar set of internal organs 

made from silk. 

Buddhahood requires extraordinary mental and 

physical attainments. Consequently, instilling these 

miraculous qualities into the image figures prominently 

in consecration rituals. In northern Thailand, 

the Buddha image consecration sutta infusing mental 

and spiritual perfections (parami) into the image is recited, 

monks reputed to have achieved higher states of 

mental awareness and power are said to “pour” (phae) 

them into the consecrated images while seated in meditation 

around the bodhimanda. In the Tibetan tradition 

sadhana meditation techniques are at the core of 

the consecration (rab gnas) of images and stupas. 

Elaborate visualization procedures involve several 

stages: dissolving the object to be consecrated into 

emptiness; visualizing the chosen Buddha (yi dam) 

out of emptiness; inviting this Buddha and its visualized 

form into the image; transforming them into 

nonduality; and finally transforming nondual emptiness 

into the original appearance of the image. (Bentor 

1997). 

Consecration as dharmicization 

On the night of his enlightenment, the Buddha perceived 

the cause of suffering and the path to its cessation. 

This awakening resulted in penetrating the 

illusions that obscure understanding the nature of things 

(dharma) as ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE) and causally coarising 

and interdependent (PRATITYASAMUTPADA). In 

short, the terms buddha and dharma are mutually inclusive; 

buddhahood necessitates dharmicization. Consequently, 

stupas, images, and other signs of the Buddha, 

such as the bodhi tree, represent the dharma as well, recalling 

the statement attributed to the Buddha, “Whoever 

sees me, sees the dharma.” Consecration rituals, 

therefore, not only Buddhacize objects, they also 

dharmicize them. 

Dharmicization as a function of consecration rituals 

takes several different forms. Copies of sutras and 

other texts may be placed in larger than life-size images 

or stupas during consecration rituals. This practice 

contributed to the “cult of the book” as a material 

relic of the Buddha, especially in the Mahayana tradition. 

Evidence for the practice of magically infusing the 

formula of dependent origination (“Those dharmas 

which arise from a cause/the tathagata has declared 

their cause/and that which is their cessation/thus the 

great renunciant has taught”) into images ad stupas exists 

from the second century C.E. and continues to the 

present as a pan-Buddhist practice. In the Tibetan tradition, 

ATISHA (982–1054) refers to the mantric use of 

this formula in consecration rituals, and it is currently 

employed in conjunction with mirror divination in 

Chinese and Korean Buddha image consecrations. 

Other Buddhist traditions employ signature sutras as 

a central feature of image consecration. In the Japanese 

NICHIREN SCHOOL it is believed that placing the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) before 

an image during its consecration guarantees that 

it will become a Buddha of pure and perfect teaching 

(Stone). 

In Southeast Asia elaborate techniques developed 

for dharmacizing Buddha images and stupas. In northern 

Thailand the construction of a Buddha image or a 

stupa included attaching dharmic yantras (diagrams) 

to it, and in Cambodia implanting dharmic marks 

(Sanskrit, laksana; Pali, lakkhana) plays a central role 

in the consecration of a Buddha image. The officiating 

monk touches various parts of the body of the image 

while chanting Pali phrases (DHARAN I), thereby creating 

a dharmic body of doctrinal concepts corresponding 

to the bodily parts of the image. This transmutation 


C ONSECRATION 

enables a representation made from wood or bronze, 

already rendered living by the opening of the eyes, to 

become a cult icon worthy of veneration (Bizot). 

Consecration as empowerment 

The cult of relics, images, portraits, mummified remains, 

and other representations of the Buddha and 

Buddhist saints reflect a thaumaturgical belief that the 

miraculous powers associated with extraordinary spiritual 

attainment can be objectified in material form. 

Thus, consecration rituals incarnate the Buddha and 

ARHATs not primarily as idealized spiritual mentors 

and personifications of the dharma but as wonderworkers, 

protectors, and grantors of boons. Consecration 

rituals, therefore, infuse into these icons a variety 

of powers associated especially with the mental and 

physical attributes acquired through ascetic practices, 

especially meditation. 

Since from the outset the Buddha was venerated not 

only as a teacher but as a miracle worker, representations 

of the Blessed One can be seen in similar terms. 

The cult of the power of relics and images should not 

be understood as a later, degenerate form of Buddhist 

piety but as one of the ingredients of Buddhist belief 

and practice from its earliest days. Consecration rituals, 

in this regard, can be seen as a practical means by 

which this aspect of Buddhism spread and flourished 

throughout Buddhist Asia. 

In Cambodia the consecration ritual infuses not 

only the Buddha’s supernal qualities associated with 

his awakening into the image but various protective 

powers, including the power of gods and spirits, the 

souls of ancestors, and tutelary deities. During the 1989 

consecration of the repaired stupa atop Doi Suthep 

mountain overlooking the northern Thai city of Chiang 

Mai, the powers of the protective spirits of the 

mountain, the spirits of wonder-working ascetics who 

dwell on the mountain, and Chiang Mai’s renowned 

kings were invoked, as well as the power of the Buddha 

relics enshrined there. 

Annual rituals reconsecrating images and relicenshrined 

stupas are often accompanied by stories 

bearing witness to their miraculous powers. Relics 

radiating brilliant rays appear before awed onlookers, 

or valued images reputed to have previously disappeared 

or been stolen may suddenly reappear in order 

to be lustrated and otherwise venerated by the 

faithful. Moreover, consecration rituals are not only 

occasions to enliven and empower new or repaired 

images. Devotees may bring previously consecrated 

home shrine images, AMULETS AND TALISMANS, and 

other representations of the Buddha and Buddhist 

saints to be reconsecrated time and again, thereby increasing 

their perceived protective power and their 

real economic value. 

Buddhist consecration rituals embody the complexity 

of the religion’s rich cultural tapestry. In particular, 

they open a window to a more nuanced understanding 

of Buddhist devotionalism where images, relics, and 

other material representations of the Buddha and Buddhist 

saints occupy a central place. 

See also: Initiation; Relics and Relics Cults; Reliquary; 

Space, Sacred 

Bibliography 

Bentor, Yael. Consecration of Images and Stu pas in Indo-Tibetan 

Tantric Buddhism. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1996. 

Bentor, Yael. “The Horseback Consecration Ritual.” In Religions 

of Tibet in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton, NJ: 


Bizot, François. “La consecration des statues et le culte des 

morts.” In Recherches nouvelles sur le Cambodge, ed. François 

Bizot. Paris: École Francaise d’Extreme-Orient, 1994. 

Bowker, John, ed. Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Oxford 

and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 



Press, 1991. 

Gombrich, Richard. “The Consecration of a Buddha Image.” 

Journal of Asian Studies 26, no. 1 (1966): 23–36. 

Ruelius, Hans. “Netrapratisthapana-eine Singhalesische Zeremonie 

zur Weihe von Kultbildern.” In Buddhism in Ceylon 

and Studies in Religious Syncretism in Buddhist Countries, ed. 

Heinz Bechert. Götttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck und 

Ruprecht, 1978. 

Stone, Jacqueline. “Opening the Eyes of Wooden and Painted 

Images.” In The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin. Tokyo: Soka 

Gakkai, 1999. 

Swearer, Donald K. “Hypostasizing the Buddha: Buddha Image 

Consecration in Northern Thailand.” History of Religions 34, 

no. 3 (1995): 263–280. 

Swearer, Donald K. Becoming the Buddha. Princeton, NJ: 


Thompson, Laurence G. “Consecration Magic in Chinese Religion.” 

Journal of Chinese Religions 19 (1991): 1–12. 

DONALD K. SWEARER 


181

C ONVERSION 

CONVERSION 

In most times and places allegiance to Buddhism has 

not been an exclusive affair. Buddhist devotees have 

felt comfortable worshipping various local deities, as 

well as earning merit by making offerings to non- 

Buddhist mendicants (in India), embracing Confucian 

as well as Buddhist values (in China), or visiting Shinto 

shrines as well as Buddhist temples (in Japan). The 

inscriptions of the Indian king AŚOKA (ca. mid-third 

century B.C.E.)—the earliest surviving written Buddhist 

records—portray him both as affirming his own 

Buddhist identity and as supporting other religious 

groups. The English word conversion, usually understood 

to mean the complete abandonment of one religion 

and exclusive adherence to another, has little 

relevance in such a setting. 

The closest analogue to the Western notion of individual 

conversion is the act of becoming a lay brother 

(upasaka) or lay sister (upasika), portrayed in early 

scriptures as a formal act of affiliation involving “taking 

refuge” in the three jewels (buddha, dharma, and 

SAṄGHA) and vowing to uphold the five lay PRECEPTS. 

Similar rituals are still performed today in many Buddhist 

societies, ranging from Sri Lanka to Taiwan. An 

alternative analogue might be found in the experience 

of becoming a stream-enterer (Pali, sotapanna), at 

which point one is said to attain a firsthand conviction 

of the truth of the Buddha’s teachings. This generally 

takes place, however, only after a prolonged period of 

practice, demonstrating once again the lack of fit between 

the idea of conversion and Buddhist maps of 

the PATH. 

Most commonly, adherence to Buddhism has not 

been the result of individual acts of faith but of a choice 

made by a ruler (e.g., in Sri Lanka in the third century 

B.C.E. or in Japan and Tibet in the seventh century C.E.) 

in the course of political consolidation and imposed 

upon the population at large. Such top-down or societal 

conversion (Horton) has been the standard mode 

of transmission of Buddhism outside India, with the 

notable exceptions of China and the West. Such exclusive 

state sponsorship has often been temporary, 

with a return to the norm of accommodating other local 

religious practices once a new political equilibrium 

has been achieved. 

Examples of conversion in the exclusivist sense are 

easiest to find in Buddhist societies that have been significantly 

affected by a Western colonial or missionary 

presence, such as Sri Lanka (where the public conversion 

to Buddhism by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott under 

British colonial rule in the late nineteenth century 

has left a lasting legacy) or South Korea (where the 

growth of Protestant Christianity in recent decades has 

led to a strong polarization between Buddhists and 

Christians). Some Buddhist-based “new religions” in 

Japan, above all the SO KA GAKKAI, also require their 

followers to renounce all other religious beliefs and 

practices. 

Ironically, the Western notion of conversion appears 

to be falling out of favor among new adherents 

of Buddhism in the West, who often describe themselves 

as “taking up the practice of Buddhism” rather 

than “converting to the Buddhist religion.” This reluctance 

to use the term conversion reflects not only 

the traditional absence of a sharp boundary between 

Buddhist and non-Buddhist practices in Asian societies, 

but also the profound changes currently taking 

place in the very notion of what constitutes “religion” 

in the modern West. 

See also: Colonialism and Buddhism; Local Divinities 

and Buddhism; Ordination 

Bibliography 

Adikaram, E. W. Early History of Buddhism in Ceylon. Colombo, 

Sri Lanka: M. D. Gunasena, 1953. 

Beltz, Johannes. Mahar, Bouddhiste, et Dalit: conversion religieuse 

et emancipation sociopolitique dans l’Inde des castes. 

Bern, Switzerland: Lang, 2001. 

Gregory, Peter N. “Describing the Elephant: Buddhism in 

America.” Religion in American Culture 11, no. 2 (2001): 

233–263. 

Hammond, Phillip E., and Machacek, David W. So ka Gakkai in 

America: Accommodation and Conversion. Oxford: Oxford 


Horton, Robin. “African Conversion.” Africa 41, no. 2 (1971): 

85–108. 



Press, 2000. 

Nattier, Jan. “Who Is a Buddhist? Charting the Landscape of 

Buddhist America.” In The Faces of Buddhism in America, 

ed. Charles S. Prebish and Kenneth K. Tanaka. Berkeley: 


Prothero, Stephen. The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of 

Henry Steel Olcott. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 

1996. 

Thapar, Romila. Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 2nd edition. 

Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1973. 


C OSMOLOGY 




JAN NATTIER 

4. All beings are continually reborn in the various 

realms in accordance with their past KARMA (AC- 

TION); the only escape from this endless round 

of REBIRTH, known as SAM SARA, is the knowledge 

that constitutes the attainment of NIRVAN A. 

COSMOLOGY 

Although the earliest Buddhist texts of the MAIN- 

STREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS—the nikayas or agamas 

(fourth to third century B.C.E.)—do not set out a systematic 

cosmology, many of the ideas and details of 

the developed cosmology of the later traditions are, in 

fact, present in these texts. Some of these have been 

borrowed and adapted from the common pool of early 

Indian cosmological notions indicated in, for example, 

the Vedic texts (1500 to 500 B.C.E.). The early ideas and 

details are elaborated in the later texts of systematic 

Buddhist thought, the ABHIDHARMA (third to second 

century B.C.E.), and presented as a coherent and consistent 

whole, with some variation, in the exegetical abhidharma 

commentaries and manuals that date from 

the early centuries C.E. Three principal abhidharma traditions 

are known to contemporary Buddhism and 

scholarship, those of the THERAVADA, the Sarvastivada, 

and the Yogacara. The Theravada or “southern” tradition 

has shaped the outlook of Buddhism in Sri 

Lanka and Southeast Asia. The Sarvastivada or “northern” 

tradition fed into the abhidharma system of the 

MAHAYANA school of thought known as “yoga practice” 

(yogacara) or “ideas only” (vijñaptimatra), and 

their perspective on many points has passed into the 

traditions of East Asian and Tibetan Buddhism. The 

elaborate cosmology presented by these abhidharma 

systems is substantially the same, differing only on 

points of detail. This traditional cosmology remains of 

relevance to the worldview of ordinary Buddhists in 

traditional Buddhist societies. 

Along with many of the details, the four basic principles 

of the developed abhidharma Buddhist cosmology 

are assumed by the nikaya and agama texts: 

1. The universe has no specific creator; the sufficient 

cause for its existence is to be found in the 

Buddhist cycle of causal conditioning known as 

PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINATION). 

2. There is no definite limit to the universe, either 

spatially or temporally. 

3. The universe comprises various realms of existence 

that constitute a hierarchy. 

Levels of existence 

The abhidharma systems agree that sam sara embraces 

thirty-one principal levels of existence, although they 

record slight variations in the lists of these levels. Any 

being may be born into any one of these levels. In fact, 

during the course of their wandering through sam sara 

it is perhaps likely that all beings have at some time or 

another been born in most of these levels of existence. 

The most basic division of the thirty-one levels is threefold: 

the realm of sensuality (kamadhatu, -loka) at the 

bottom of the hierarchy; the realm of pure form or 

subtle materiality (ru padhatu, -loka) in the middle; and 

the formless realm (aru padhatu, -loka) at the top. 

The realm of sensuality is inhabited by beings endowed 

with the five physical senses and with minds 

that are in one way or another generally occupied with 

the objects of the senses. The sensual realm is further 

divided into unhappy destinies and happy destinies. 

Unhappy destinies comprise various unpleasant forms 

of existence consisting of a number of HELLS, hungry 

ghosts (preta), animals, and jealous gods (asura, which 

are, according to some, a separate level, but to others, 

a class of being subsumed under the category of either 

hungry ghosts or gods). Rebirth in these realms is as a 

result of unwholesome (akuśala) actions of body, 

speech, and thought (e.g., killing, taking what is not 

given, sexual misconduct, idle chatter, covetousness, ill 

will, wrong view, and untrue, harsh, or divisive speech). 

The happy destinies of the sensual realm comprise various 

increasingly pleasant forms of existence consisting 

of human existence and existence as a divinity or god 

(deva) in one of the six heavens of the sense world. Rebirth 

in these realms is a result of wholesome (kuśala) 

actions of body, speech, and thought, which are opposed 

to unwholesome kinds of action. 

Above the relatively gross world of the senses is the 

subtler world of “pure form.” This consists of further 

heavenly realms (reckoned as sixteen, seventeen, or 

eighteen in number) occupied by higher gods called 

brahmas, who have consciousness but only two senses— 

sight and hearing. Beings are reborn in these realms as 

a result of mastering increasingly subtle meditative 

states known as the four DHYANA (TRANCE STATE). 

These are attained by stilling the mind until it becomes 


183

C OSMOLOGY 

completely concentrated and absorbed in an object of 

meditation, temporarily recovering its natural brightness 

and purity. The five highest realms of the form 

world are known as the pure abodes, and these are occupied 

by divinities who are all either nonreturners 

(spiritually advanced beings of great wisdom who are 

in their last birth and who will reach enlightenment 

before they die) or beings who have already gained enlightenment. 

All the beings of the pure abodes are thus 

in their last life before their final liberation from the 

round of rebirth through the attainment of NIRVA N A. 

The subtlest and most refined levels of the universe 

are the four that comprise “the formless realm.” At this 

level of the universe the body with its senses is completely 

absent, and existence is characterized by pure 

and rarified forms of consciousness, once again corresponding 

to higher meditative attainments. 

World systems 

The lower levels of the universe, that is, the realms of 

sensuality, arrange themselves into various distinct 

world discs (cakravada). At the center of a cakravada 

is the great world mountain, Sumeru or Meru. This is 

surrounded by seven concentric rings of mountains 

and seas. Beyond these mountains and seas, in the four 

cardinal directions, are four great continents lying in 

the great ocean. The southern continent, Jambudvpa 

(the continent of the rose-apple tree), is inhabited by 

ordinary human beings; the southern part, below the 

towering range of mountains called the abode of snows 

(himalaya), is effectively India, the known world and 

the land where buddhas arise. At the outer rim of this 

world disc is a ring of iron mountains holding in the 

ocean. In the spaces between world discs and below are 

various hells; in some sources these are given as eight 

hot hells and eight cold hells. An early text describes 

how in the hell of Hot Embers, for example, beings are 

made to climb up and down trees bristling with long, 

red hot thorns, never dying until at last their bad karma 

is exhausted (Majjhimanikaya iii, 185). 

On the slopes of Mount Sumeru itself and rising 

above its peak are the six HEAVENS inhabited by the 

gods of the sense world. The lowest of these is that of 

the Gods of the Four Kings of Heaven, who guard the 

four directions. On the peak of Mount Sumeru is the 

heaven of the Thirty-Three Gods, which is ruled by its 

king, INDRA or Śakra (Pali, Sakka), while in the shadow 

of Mount Sumeru dwell the jealous gods called asuras, 

who were expelled from the heaven of the Thirty-Three 

by Indra. Above the peak is the Heaven of the Contented 

Gods or Tusita, where buddhas-to-be, like the 

future MAITREYA, are reborn and await the time to take 

birth. The highest of the six heavens of the sense world 

is that of the Gods who have Power over the Creations 

of Others, and it is in a remote part of this heaven that 

MARA, the Evil One, lives, wielding his considerable resources 

in order to prevent the sensual world from losing 

its hold on its beings. The six heavens of the sense 

world are inhabited by gods and goddesses who, like 

human beings, reproduce through sexual union, 

though some say that in the higher heavens this union 

takes the form of an embrace, the holding of hands, a 

smile, or a mere look. The young gods and goddesses 

are not born from the womb, but arise instantly in the 

form of a five-year-old child in the lap of the gods (Abhidharmakośa 

iii, 69–70). 

Above these sense-world heavens is the Brahma 

World, a world of subtle and refined mind and body. 

Strictly, brahmas are neither male nor female, although 

it seems that in appearance they resemble men. The 

fourteenth-century Thai Buddhist cosmology, the 

Three Worlds According to King Ruang, describes how 

their faces are smooth and very beautiful, a thousand 

times brighter than the moon and sun, and with only 

one hand they can illuminate ten thousand world systems 

(Reynolds and Reynolds, p. 251). A Great Brahma 

of even the lower brahma heavens may rule over a 

thousand world systems, while brahmas of the higher 

levels are said to rule over a hundred thousand. Yet it 

would be wrong to conclude that there is any one or 

final overarching Great Brahma—God the Creator. It 

may be that beings come to take a particular Great 

Brahma as creator of the world, and a Great Brahma may 

himself even form the idea that he is creator, but this 

is just the result of delusion on the part of both parties. 

In fact the universe recedes upwards with one class 

of Great Brahma being surpassed by a further, higher 

class of Great Brahma. Thus the world comprises “its 

gods, its Mara and Brahma, this generation with its ascetics 

and brahmins, with its princes and peoples” 

(Dlghanikaya i, 62). 

The overall number of world systems that constitute 

the universe in its entirety cannot be specified. The 

nikaya/agama texts sometimes talk in terms of the 

thousandfold world system, the twice-thousandfold 

world system, and the thrice-thousandfold world 

system or trichilicosm. According to north Indian traditions, 

the last of these embraces a total of one billion 

world systems, while the southern traditions say a trillion. 

But even such a vast number cannot define the 

full extent of the universe; there is no spatial limit to 

the extent of world systems. 


C OSMOLOGY 

Cycles of time 

The temporal limits of the universe are equally elusive. 

World systems as a whole are not static; they themselves 

go through vast cycles of expansion and contraction 

across vast eons of time. World systems 

contract in great clusters of a billion at a time. Most 

frequently this contraction is brought about by the destructive 

force of fire, but periodically it is brought 

about by water and wind. This fire starts in the lower 

realms of the sense-sphere and, having burnt up these, 

it invades the form realms; but having burnt up the 

realms corresponding to the first dhyana, it stops. The 

realms corresponding to the second, third, and fourth 

dhyanas and the four formless realms are thus spared 

destruction. But when the destruction is wreaked by 

water, the three realms corresponding to the second 

dhyana are included in the general destruction. The 

destruction by wind invades and destroys even the 

realms corresponding to the third dhyana. Only the 

subtle realms corresponding to the fourth dhyana and 

the four formless meditations are never subject to this 

universal destruction. 

The length of time it takes for the universe to complete 

one full cycle of expansion and contraction is 

known as a mahakalpa (great eon). A mahakalpa is made 

up of four intermediate eons consisting of the period 

of contraction, the period when the world remains 

contracted, the period of expansion, and the period 

when the world remains expanded. The length of a 

great eon is not specified in human years but only by 

reference to similes: 

Suppose there was a great mountain of rock, seven miles 

across and seven miles high, a solid mass without any 

cracks. At the end of every hundred years a man might 

brush it just once with a fine Benares cloth. That great 

mountain of rock would decay and come to an end 

sooner than even the eon. So long is an eon. And of eons 

of this length not just one has passed, not just a hundred, 

not just a thousand, not just a hundred thousand. 

(Sam yuttanikaya ii, 181–182) 

The Buddha is said to have declared that sam sara’s— 

that is, our—beginning was inconceivable and that its 

starting point could not be indicated; the mother’s 

milk drunk by each of us in the course of our long 

journey through sam sara is greater by far than the 

water in the four great oceans (Sam yuttanikaya ii, 

180–181). 

Within this shifting and unstable world of time and 

space that is sam sara, beings try to make themselves at 

ease. The life spans of beings vary. In general, beings who 

inhabit the lower realms of existence live shorter, more 

A Tibetan thang ka (scroll painting) depicting the Wheel of Life. 

© Earl and Nazima Kowall/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

precarious, lives, while the gods live longer; at the highest 

realms, gods live vast expanses of time—up to eightyfour 

thousand eons. Yet the happiness that beings find 

or achieve cannot be true happiness, not permanently 

lasting, but merely a relatively longer or shorter temporary 

respite. Beings in the lowest hell realms experience 

virtually continuous pain and suffering until the results 

of the actions that brought them there are exhausted. In 

contrast, beings in the higher brahma worlds experience 

an existence entirely free of all overt suffering; but while 

their lives may endure for inconceivable lengths of time 

in human terms, they must eventually come to an end 

once again when the results of the actions that brought 

them there are exhausted. 

Cosmology and psychology 

An important principle of the Buddhist cosmological 

vision lies in the equivalence of cosmology and PSY- 

CHOLOGY, the way in which the various realms of 

existence relate rather closely to certain commonly 


185

C OSMOLOGY 

(and not so commonly) experienced states of mind. 

Buddhist cosmology is at once a map of different 

realms of existence and a description of all possible experiences. 

This can be appreciated by considering more 

fully the Buddhist understanding of the nature of 

karma. Essentially the world we live in is our own creation: 

We have created it by our own karma, by our 

deeds, words, and thoughts motivated either by greed, 

hatred, and delusion or by nonattachment, friendliness, 

and wisdom. The cosmos is thus a reflection of 

our actions, which are in turn the products of our 

hearts and minds. For in this fathom-long body with 

its mind and consciousness, said the Buddha, lies the 

world, its arising, its ceasing, and the way leading to 

its ceasing (Sam yuttanikaya i, 62). 

Essentially the states of mind that give rise to 

unwholesome actions—strong greed, hatred, and 

delusion—lead to rebirth in the unhappy destinies or 

realms of misfortune. A life dominated by the mean 

spiritedness of greed leads to rebirth as a hungry ghost, 

a class of being tormented by unsatisfied hunger; a life 

dominated by the mental hell of hatred and anger leads 

to rebirth in one of the hell realms where one suffers 

terrible pain; while a life dominated by willful ignorance 

of the consequences of one’s behavior leads to 

rebirth as an animal, a brute existence ruled by the 

need to eat and reproduce. On the other hand, the generous, 

friendly, and wise impulses that give rise to 

wholesome actions lead to rebirth in the happy realms 

as a human being or in one of the six realms of the 

gods immediately above the human realm, where beings 

enjoy increasingly happy and carefree lives. By developing 

states of deep peace and contentment through 

the practice of calm meditation, and by developing 

profound wisdom through insight meditation, one is 

reborn as a brahma in a realm of pure form or formlessness, 

which is a reflection of those meditations. 

In short, if one lives like an animal, one is liable to 

reborn as an animal; if one lives like a human being, 

one will be reborn as a human being; if one lives like 

a god, one will be reborn as a god. But just as in dayto-day 

experience one fails to find any physical or mental 

condition that is reliable and unchangeable, that can 

give permanent satisfaction and happiness, so, even if 

one is reborn in the condition of a brahma living 

eighty-four thousand eons, the calm and peaceful condition 

of one’s existence is not ultimately lasting or secure. 

Just as ordinary happiness is in this sense DUH KHA 

(SUFFERING) or unsatisfactory, so too are the lives of 

the brahmas, even though they experience no physical 

or mental pain. 

Nirva n a and buddhas 

The only escape from this endless round is the direct 

understanding of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS—suffering, 

its cause, its cessation, and the PATH leading to 

its cessation—and the attainment of nirvana. Significantly 

nirvana is not included in the thirty-one realms 

of rebirth, since these define the conditioned world of 

space and time, and nirvana is precisely not a place 

where one can be reborn and where one can exist for 

a period of time. Nirvana is the unconditioned, the 

deathless, beyond space and time, known directly at 

the moment of enlightenment. Some beings may find 

the path to nirvana by their own efforts and become a 

PRATYEKABUDDHA (solitary buddha), but most must 

await the appearance in the world of a samyaksam buddha 

(perfectly and fully awakened one), like Gautama, 

the buddha of the current age. Such buddhas tread the 

ancient path of all buddhas, and can show others the 

way to release. Yet they appear in the world only rarely, 

though views on precisely how rarely vary. According 

to the Theravada, some eons like our present are auspicious 

(bhadda) with a total of five buddhas, of whom 

Gautama (Pali, Gotama) was the fourth and Maitreya 

(Pali, Metteyya) will be the fifth. Other eons may have 

no buddhas at all. 

A buddha’s sphere of influence is known as his buddha-field 

(buddhaksetra) and is not confined to the 

particular world system into which he is born. The 

Theravada sources (e.g., Visuddhimagga xiii, 31) distinguish 

his (1) field of birth, which extends to the ten 

thousand world systems that tremble when he is conceived, 

born, gains enlightenment, teaches, and attains 

final nirvana; (2) field of authority, which extends to 

the hundred billion world systems throughout which 

the utterance of the great protective discourses (mahaparitta) 

is efficacious; and (3) field of experience, 

which potentially extends to infinite numbers of world 

systems. 

Maha ya na perspectives 

The basic cosmology outlined above with some variation 

is assumed by the Mahayana sutras, as well as the 

authors of the systematic treatises of Indian Mahayana 

Buddhist thought. However, the Mahayana cosmological 

vision increasingly expands its attention beyond 

“our” world system and our buddha to include other 

buddhas and their spheres of influence. Early Buddhist 

writings and the non-Mahayana schools such as the 

Theravada and Sarvastivada emphasize the impossibility 

of the appearance in the world of two buddhas 

at the same time (for how could there be two “bests”?). 


C OUNCILS, BUDDHIST 

But this raises the question of what precisely constitutes 

the world. Mahayana writings tend to respond by 

suggesting that while it is true that there can be only 

one buddha at a time in a single trichilicosm (set of a 

billion world systems), since there are innumerable 

trichilicosms, there can in fact be innumerable buddhas 

at the same time in these different trichilicosms. 

Thus Mahayana writings tend to focus on the universe 

as made up of innumerable clusters of world systems, 

and each of these sets of world systems has its own series 

of buddhas. Since these sets of world systems are 

not absolutely closed off from each other, we even now 

in our part of the universe—called the Saha world— 

have access to the living buddhas of other parts. A cluster 

of vast numbers of world systems constitutes in 

effect the buddha-field or potential sphere of influence 

of a buddha. It is this buddha-field that a bodhisattva 

seeks to purify through his wisdom and compassion 

on the long road to buddhahood. The notion of a purified 

buddha-field is related in the development of 

Mahayana thought to the notion of a buddha’s pure 

land, such as Sukhavat—the Realm of Bliss of the buddha 

AMITABHA/Amitayus, where the conditions for attaining 

enlightenment are particularly propitious if 

one can but be reborn there. But the question persists 

whether such PURE LANDS are to be found in some far 

flung part of the cosmos or are here now, if we had 

but the heart to know it. 

The Mahayana notion of buddha-fields with their 

buddhas and bodhisattvas finds expression in the 

HUAYAN JING in a wondrous cosmic vision of a universe 

constituted by innumerable world systems, each 

with its buddha, floating in the countless oceans of a 

cosmic lotus, of which again the numbers are countless. 

This vision ends in the conception of a multiverse 

of worlds within worlds where the buddha, or buddhas, 

are immanent. 

See also: Divinities; Realms of Existence 

Bibliography 

Boyd, James W. Satan and Mara: Christian and Buddhist Symbols 

of Evil. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1975. 

Cleary, T., trans. The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation 

of the Avatamsaka Sutra, 3 vols. Boston: Shambala, 1984–1987. 

Gethin, Rupert. “Meditation and Cosmology: From the 

Aggañña Sutta to the Mahayana.” History of Religions 36 

(1997): 183–219. 

Gombrich, Richard F. “Ancient Indian Cosmology.” In Ancient 

Cosmologies, ed. Carmen Blacker and Michael Loewe. London: 

Allen and Unwin, 1975. 

Gombrich, Richard F. Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism 

in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon. Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 1971. Second edition: Buddhist Precept and 

Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon. 

Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991. 

Kirfel, Willibald. Die Kosmographie der Inder. Bonn and Leipzig, 

Germany: Schroeder, 1920. 

Kloetzli, Randy. Buddhist Cosmology: From Single World System 

to Pure Land. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983. 

Kongtrul, Jamgön Lodrö Tayé. Myriad Worlds: Buddhist Cosmology 

in Abhidharma, Kalacakra, and Dzog-chen. Ithaca, 

NY: Snow Lion, 1995. 

Ling, Trevor O. Buddhism and the Mythology of Evil: A Study in 

Theravada Buddhism. London: Allen and Unwin, 1962. 

Reprint, Oxford: Oneworld, 1997. 

Marasinghe, M. M. J. Gods in Early Buddhism: A Study in Their 

Social and Mythological Milieu as Depicted in the Nikayas of 

the Pali Canon. Vidyalankara: University of Sri Lanka, 1974. 

Masson, Joseph. La Religion populaire dans le canon bouddhique 

pali. Louvain, Belgium: Bureaux du Muséon, 1942. 

Reynolds, Frank E., and Reynolds, Mani B., trans. Three Worlds 

According to King Ruang: A Thai Buddhist Cosmology. Berkeley: 

University of California, 1982. 

Sadakata, Akira. Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origin. 



Thailand. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1970. 

COUNCILS, BUDDHIST 

RUPERT GETHIN 

Before the Buddha died, his statements to the monks 

that they might abolish all the lesser and minor disciplinary 

precepts and work out their own salvation with 

diligence provided ample bewilderment to the members 

of the early SAṄGHA. Because these statements 

were open to ecclesiastic interpretation, the early community 

decided to hold periodic councils designed to 

encourage tacit agreement with regard to matters of 

doctrine and discipline. In so doing, it was hoped that 

uniformity would be affirmed and sectarianism discouraged. 

Whether the early councils were truly historical 

events has long been a matter of contention in Buddhist 

communities. While most Asian Buddhists 

believe that the first council was a historical event, its 

historicity is questioned by virtually all Buddhist 

scholars. They argue that while it was not unlikely that 


187

C OUNCILS, BUDDHIST 

a small group of Buddha’s intimate disciples gathered 

after his death, a council held in the grand style described 

in the scriptures is almost certainly a fiction. 

On the other hand, almost all scholars agree that the 

second and following councils were historical events. 

Of special importance is the Vaiśal or second council, 

which paved the way for the first great schism in 

early Buddhism. 

The first council was said to have been held in Rajagrha, 

India, in the year of the Buddha’s death, generally 

thought to have occurred in the fourth or fifth 

century B.C.E. Fearful that the community would dissolve 

through uncertainty over the founder’s teachings, 

the saṅgha held a council to preclude that possibility. 

MAHAKAŚYAPA, one of the Buddha’s chief disciples, was 

appointed president of the council and selected five 

hundred ARHAT monks as participants. Another disciple, 

UPALI, recited the disciplinary rules known as the 

Vinayapitaka (Basket of Discipline), while A NANDA recited 

the Buddha’s discourses, establishing the Su trapitaka. 

Functionally, this important event established 

authority for the group in the absence of its leader. 

The Vaiśal council, deemed the second Indian Buddhist 

council in all accounts, occurred about one hundred 

years after the Buddha’s death. It was convened 

to resolve a dispute over supposedly illicit monastic 

behavior, such as accepting gold and silver. To resolve 

the conflict, a council of seven hundred monks met in 

Vaiśal. Revata was appointed president of the council, 

and Sarvagamin was questioned on ten points of 

possibly inappropriate monastic behavior. Each point 

was rejected by Sarvagamin, the offending practices 

outlawed, and concord reestablished, although significant 

disagreements had obviously begun to appear in 

the still-unified Buddhist community. It has been postulated 

that Buddhist sectarianism began shortly after 

the Vaiśal council, with the Mahasam ghika school 

and Sthavras emerging as individual sects following a 

non-canonical council held shortly after the Vaiśal 

event. 

Another council was held in Pataliputra around 

250 B.C.E. during the reign of King AŚOKA. Aśoka convened 

the council under Moggaliputta Tissa with the 

intention of establishing the orthodoxy of the 

dharma. A thousand monks were assembled, and, under 

Tissa’s guidance, various viewpoints were considered 

and either sanctioned or rejected, with the 

proponents of rejected views being expelled from the 

city. This council is mentioned only in the Pali 

records, and for this reason it is often referred to as 

the third THERAVADA council. 

A Theravada council was held under King Vattagaman 

of Sri Lanka in 25 B.C.E., following a famine 

and in the midst of schismatic unrest in the Buddhist 

community. Vattagaman convened the conference in 

the capital city of Anuradhapura at the monastery 

known as Mahavihara. The meeting committed the 

Pali Buddhist scriptures to writing, thus “closing” the 

three baskets of scriptures in the Theravada tradition. 

Around 100 C.E. another council was held under the 

Kushan king Kanishka, probably in Gandhara. A great 

scholar named Vasumitra presided, assisted by the 

learned AŚVAGHOSA. In addition to compiling a new 

Vinaya, they prepared a commentary called the Mahavibhasa 

(Great Exegesis) on the ABHIDHARMA text 

Jñanaprasthana (Foundation of Knowledge), which became 

the standard reference work for all Sarvastivada 

abhidharma issues. 

Almost seven centuries later, around 792, a council 

was held in Lhasa, Tibet, under King Khri srong lde 

btsan. It was convened at the recently completed 

monastery BSAM YAS (SAMYE) in order to resolve differences 

between Chinese and Indian notions of practice 

and enlightenment. Tibetan sources claim that the 

Chinese position was defeated, continuing an Indian 

basis for the development of Tibetan Buddhism. 

In modern times, a council was held in Rangoon, 

Burma (Myanmar), in 1871; this council is sometimes 

referred to as the fifth Theravada council. Convened 

during the reign of King Mindon Min, this council was 

charged with revising the Pali texts. The revised texts 

were inscribed on 729 marble tablets, and enshrined 

in stupas to ensure their survival. 

Finally, a council considered to be the sixth Theravada 

council was held in Rangoon in 1954 to recite 

and confirm the whole Pali canon. This council was 

scheduled to coincide with the celebration of the 

2,500th anniversary of the Buddha’s death. The prime 

minister of Burma, U Nu, delivered the opening address 

to the approximately twenty-five hundred monks 

in attendance. The council was a national festival in 

Burma, and helped established solidarity for Theravada 

Buddhists throughout the world. 

See also: Bsam yas Debate; India; Mahasam ghika 

School; Mainstream Buddhist Schools; Pudgalavada; 


Bibliography 

Bareau, André. Les premiers conciles bouddhiques. Paris: Presses 

Universitaires de France, 1955. 


C RITICAL B UDDHISM (HIHAN B UKKYO) 

Bareau, André. Les sectes Bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule. Saigon, 

Vietnam: École Française d’Extrême Orient, 1955. 

Prebish, Charles. “A Review of Scholarship on the Buddhist 

Councils.” Journal of Asian Studies 33, no. 2 (1974): 239–254. 

CHARLES S. PREBISH 

CRITICAL BUDDHISM (HIHAN BUKKYO ) 

The term critical Buddhism (hihan Bukkyo ) refers to 

Hakamaya Noriaki (1943– ) and Matsumoto Shiro’s 

(1950– ) critique of Buddha-nature (TATHAGATAGAR- 

BHA) and ORIGINAL ENLIGHTENMENT (HONGAKU) as 

not Buddhist. Theological and apologetic in nature, yet 

using the traditional textual and philological methods 

of academic scholarship (both scholars are specialists 

in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist studies), critical Buddhism 

asserts that Buddha-nature and similar doctrines 

are examples of Hindu-like thinking of a 

substantial self (atman), which Buddhism opposes 

with the doctrines of no-self and causality (pratltyasamutpada). 

Critical Buddhism further asserts that 

these monistic doctrines deny language and thinking 

in favor of an ineffable and nonconceptual mysticism 

contrary to the discriminating awareness (prajña) 

and selfless compassion that constitutes Buddhist 

awakening. 

Critical Buddhism is therefore critical in at least two 

senses: It is critical of certain widely held Buddhist doctrines, 

and it asserts that the critical discrimination of 

reality and the judicious use of reason and language to 

teach that reality are the hallmarks of buddhahood. 

A third aspect of critical Buddhism is a fierce critique 

of Buddhist schools, thinkers, and social programs 

that, based on the triumphalism inherent in a 

doctrine of ineffable truth, support the status quo and 

perpetuate social injustice. Hakamaya and Matsumoto 

are especially concerned with the role of Buddhist doctrine 

in various forms of Japanese nationalism and, as 

ordained Zen monks teaching at Zen universities, single 

out their own Soto Zen teachings for particular criticism, 

raising questions about how the founder DO GEN 

(1200–1253) has been interpreted within the Soto 

school and about the proper role of theology within 

academic as well as sectarian practice. They have also 

written about HO NEN (1133–1212), SHINRAN (1173– 

1263), Myoe (1173–1232), the Kyoto School, and others, 

as well as critiquing the ideal of objective academic 

scholarship in the study of Buddhism. 

See also: Chan School; Hinduism and Buddhism; 


Bibliography 

Bodiford, William. “Zen and the Art of Religious Prejudice: Efforts 

to Reform a Tradition of Social Discrimination.” Japanese 

Journal of Religious Studies 23 (1996): 1–28. 

Heine, Steven. “After the Storm: Matsumoto Shiro’s Transition 

from ‘Critical Buddhism’ to ‘Critical Theology.’ ” Japanese 

Journal of Religious Studies 28 (2001): 133–146. 

Hubbard, Jamie, and Swanson, Paul, eds. Pruning the Bodhi 



JAMIE HUBBARD 


189


D 

DAIMOKU 

The term daimoku, literally “title,” refers specifically to 

the title of the Lotus Su tra (Myo ho -renge-kyo in Japanese 

pronunciation) or to its invocation, usually in the 

form “Namu Myoho-renge-kyo.” The daimoku was 

chanted in various liturgical and devotional settings in 

Japan’s Heian period (794–1185) and was later given 

a doctrinal foundation by Nichiren (1222–1282). It is 

the central practice of the NICHIREN SCHOOL. 

See also: Chanting and Liturgy; Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarlka-sutra) 

Bibliography 

Dolce, Lucia Dora. “Esoteric Patterns in Nichiren’s Interpretation 

of the Lotus Sutra.” Ph.D. diss. University of Leiden, 

2002. 

Stone, Jacqueline I. “Chanting the August Title of the Lotus Su tra: 

Daimoku Practices in Classical and Medieval Japan.” In Re- 

Visioning “Kamakura” Buddhism, ed. Richard K. Payne. 


DAITOKUJI 

JACQUELINE I. STONE 

Daitokuji, founded in 1326 as a Rinzai Zen monastery 

by Shuho Myocho (Daito Kokushi, 1282–1338), occupies 

a vast forested precinct at Murasakino in northwest 

Kyoto. Built initially with imperial patronage, 

Daitokuji rose to the head of the Gozan (Five Mountains) 

system. After its destruction by fire and war in 

the 1450s to the 1460s, patrons from the warrior and 

merchant classes funded Daitokuji’s renewal under the 

leadership of IKKYU Sojun (1394–1481). After demotion 

from the Gozan ranks in 1486, Daitokuji became 

independent. 

Daitokuji consists of the main complex (garan) of 

gates and communal structures aligned on a northsouth 

axis, surrounded by semi-independent subtemples 

(tatchu ) spreading out in all directions. Each 

subtemple includes an abbot’s quarters, which served 

as a mortuary site (bodaisho) for both patrons and 

abbots who are jointly commemorated on the central 

altars and in mortuary precincts. Many of these 

abbots’ quarters are surrounded by dry landscape 

gardens, with interior spaces graced by paintings 

produced by the finest painting workshops of the sixteenth 

and later centuries. Subtemple storehouses 

contain an extraordinary inventory of paintings, calligraphies, 

books, documents, and other objects, 

many of them imported from China and Korea. Today 

most of the twenty-three remaining subtemples 

are closed to the general public except during designated 

openings. 

Perhaps even more than Zen, Daitokuji owes its 

continuing reputation and patronage to the world of 

tea (chanoyu) in the lineage of Sen no Rikyu 

(1522–1591). In 1589 Rikyu rebuilt Daitokuji’s Sanmon 

Gate, and designated the Jukoin subtemple as his 

family mortuary site. 

See also: Japan, Buddhist Art in; Monastic Architecture 

Bibliography 

Covell, Jon Carter, and Yamada Sobin. Zen at Daitokuji. Tokyo: 

Kodansha, 1974. 

191

D A KINI 

Kraft, Kenneth L. Eloquent Zen: Daito and Early Japanese Zen. 


Levine, Gregory P. “Switching Sites and Identities: The 

Founder’s Statue at the Zen Buddhist Temple Korin’in.” 

Art Bulletin 83, no. 1 (2000): 72–104. 

D A KINI 

KAREN L. BROCK 

The term dakinl is already seen in the fourth to fifth 

centuries B.C.E. in the works of the Sanskrit grammarian, 

Panini. There, the term refers to a type of flesheating 

female deity that appears in the retinue of the 

goddess, Kal. Over the following centuries, dakinls 

continued to be a part of the Indian pantheon, though 

only as relatively minor figures. In the eighth century 

C.E., however, as Buddhist TANTRA was taking shape, 

dakinls began to acquire a greater importance. Initially 

it seems that the term was used to refer to human 

women who gathered around sacred sites and rituals. 

Portrayed as typically low caste—prostitutes, washerwomen, 

and the like—these women would serve as 

consorts for the male tantric practitioners. These socially 

liminal women were held to have a mysterious 

and dangerous power, and before long dakinls were 

cast as enlightened beings in their own right, Vajrayogin, 

Vajravarah, and Ekajati being some better known 

examples. 

The Yogaratnamala (Garland of Jewel-like Yogas), an 

Indian commentary on the Hevajra Tantra, derives the 

term dakinl from the Sanskrit root, dai, meaning “to 

fly.” The accuracy of this derivation has been debated 

by Western scholars, but it was clearly accepted by Tibetans 

when they chose to translate the term as mkha’ 

’gro (sky dancer). The dakinl thus described is often 

understood as able to move freely through the space 

of reality, the DHARMADHATU. 

In Tibet, dakinl can refer either to a living woman 

Buddhist teacher or to a spirit of ambivalent nature. 

Regarding the latter type, the idea has persisted that 

dakinls are attracted by Buddhist practitioners, drawn 

in swarms to powerful meditators like mosquitoes to 

blood. Tibetans further distinguish two kinds of 

dakinls: gnostic (ye shes) and flesh-eating (sha za), also 

called “otherworldly” and “worldly”—the former being 

helpful for one’s progress along the Buddhist PATH, 

and the latter harmful. Telling one type from the other 

is famously difficult, so that, just as was the case in 

eighth-century India, dakinls in Tibet continued to 

hold a dangerous power. The Buddhist practitioner’s 

difficulty in judging them is made worse by a tendency 

for each type to blur into the other, so that a gnostic 

dakinl can suddenly become dangerous, and a flesheating 

dakinl can provide assistance. Ultimately, the 

meditator is advised not to fall victim to either dualistic 

conceptualization of these gossamer beings. 

The dakinl ’s enigmatic nature has helped it to serve 

a mercurial role in Tibetan Buddhism, slipping easily 

between the human realm and those of the buddhas. 

For followers of the RNYING MA (NYINGMA) school, 

this role has placed dakinls at the center of the “treasure” 

(gter ma) revelation process. A dakinl often 

guides the treasure revealer to the discovery site, and 

then the treasure teachings themselves are typically received 

in the condensed language of the dakinls (mkha’ 

’gro skad). Like the dakinl herself, the symbolic syllables 

(mkha’ ’gro brda yig) of her language are polyvalent, 

their significance difficult to determine. The 

process for decoding these encrypted teachings is a 

mysterious one, involving the revealer opening his 

body’s cakras to allow the treasury of the Buddhist 

teachings to flow forth unimpeded. Thus the dakinl ’s 

language suggests a shimmering field of possibilities 

rather than a single determinate meaning. 

See also: Women 

Bibliography 

Dowman, Keith. Sky Dancer: The Secret Life and Songs of the 

Lady Yeshe Tshogye. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 

1984. 

Gyatso, Janet. Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies 

of a Tibetan Visionary. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1998. 

Klein, Anne. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists, 

and the Art of the Self. Boston: Beacon, 1995. 

Snellgrove, David. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists 

and Their Tibetan Successors. Boston: Shambala, 1987. 

DALAI LAMA 


The position of Dalai Lama, dating in its present form 

from the mid-seventeenth century, is a uniquely Tibetan 

institution, embodying the most important secular 

and religious presence in Tibet. Dalai is the 


D ALAI 

L AMA 

Mongolian translation of the Tibetan name Rgya 

mtsho (pronounced “Gyatso”), which means “ocean,” 

and bla ma (pronounced “LAMA”), a general Tibetan 

name for a respected religious teacher. 

The name Dalai Lama was first used by Altan Khan, 

a Tumed Mongolian chieftain, for his teacher Bsod 

nams (Sonam) rgya mtsho (1543–1588). Bsod nams 

rgya mtsho and his followers then gave the name 

posthumously to Dge ’dun (Gendun) rgya mtsho 

(1476–1542) and Dge ’dun grub (Gendun Drup, 

1391–1474), a student of the great scholar TSONG KHA 

PA (1357–1419), saying that each later Dalai Lama was 

the reincarnation of the earlier. The followers of Tsong 

kha pa, later called the DGE LUGS (GELUK) or Yellow 

Hat sect, probably saw the prestige that was gained 

through the system of reincarnation by older sects like 

the Karma BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU), and borrowed the 

idea of reincarnation from them. 

The fourth Dalai Lama was the grandson of Altan 

Khan. He was soon followed by the “Great Fifth” Dalai 

Lama, Ngag dbang (Ngawang) rgya mtsho (1617– 

1682). The Great Fifth Dalai Lama and his teacher, Blo 

bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan (Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen, 

1567–1662), forged a coalition between the Dge 

lug, the RNYING MA (NYINGMA) sect, parts of the Tibetan 

aristocracy, and the most powerful of the competing 

Mongolian factions to overcome the Karma 

Bka’ brgyud and their Gtsang (Tsang) patrons of west 

central Tibet. 

Fifth and sixth Dalai Lamas 

The coalition created a new government called the 

Tusita Palace (Dga’ ldan pho brang) based in Lhasa. 

The Dalai Lamas headed this government and lived, 

after its completion, in the colossal POTALA palace 

started by the Great Fifth Dalai Lama in 1645 on the 

ruins of a palace built by the early Tibetan emperor 

Srong btsan sgam po (Songtsen Gampo). After his 

death, the Great Fifth’s prime minister (some say natural 

son) Sangs rgyas (Sangyay) rgya mtsho finished 

the palace that came to symbolize and dominate Tibet 

in 1695. After the founding of the Dga’ ldan pho brang 

government and the building of the Potala, the Dalai 

Lamas were not just head lamas of ’Bras spung 

(Drepung), the largest of the Dge lugs pa monasteries; 

they were heads of the government of Tibet as well. 

For his help in spiritual and political matters, the 

fifth Dalai Lama gave the name Pan chen bla ma 

(PANCHEN LAMA) to his teacher Blo bzang chos kyi 

rgyal mtshan, abbot of Bkra shis lhun po (Tashi 

Lunpo), the largest Dge lugs pa monastery in Gtsang. 

From this period comes the theory of the Dalai Lamas 

as emanations of Avalokiteśvara, here conceived as the 

BODHISATTVA of compassion, and Panchen Lamas as 

emanations of AMITABHA. In tantric Buddhism there 

are five buddha families, each headed by a buddha. 

The head of Avalokiteśvara’s buddha family is 

Amitabha, reflecting the esteem the Dalai Lama had 

for his teacher. The association of Dalai Lamas with 

Avalokiteśvara reflects the great importance the 

bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara has throughout Tibet and 

the ubiquitous presence of his mantra, OM MAN I 

PADME HU M . 

The sixth Dalai Lama (1683–1706) was in many respects 

a tragic figure. Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho concealed 

the death of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama until completing 

the construction of the Potala in order to forestall 

the difficulties inherent in an interregnum period. 

Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho prevented the new incarnation, 

Tshe dbyangs (Tseyang) rgya mtsho, from contact with 

the outside world, and he set up an elaborate subterfuge 

to make the people think the fifth Dalai Lama 

was in a long retreat. As he grew up, Tshe dbyangs rgya 

mtsho rebelled against the life of the celibate monk expected 

of a Dalai Lama, and he took to frequenting 

Lhasa taverns disguised as an ordinary layman. He had 

affairs with young women whom he met there, and expressed 

his longing to be with them obliquely in his 

poems, which are widely known and sung even today 

throughout Tibet. 

Though beloved by ordinary Tibetans, Tshe 

dbyangs rgya mtsho offended the Quoshot Mongol 

leader Lhasang Khan, who was shocked by what he saw 

as Tshe dbyangs rgya mtsho’s immoral behavior. 

Lhasang Khan killed the prime minister, captured Tshe 

dbyangs rgya mtsho, and took him to the ’A mdo region 

of eastern Tibet, where he died at the age of 

twenty-four in 1706. Lhasang Khan set up his own relative 

as an alternative sixth Dalai Lama, a move that 

alienated Tibetans. 

After the death of Tshe dbyangs rgya mtsho, Tibetans 

opposed to Lhasang Khan’s candidate turned to 

the Dzungars, a powerful western Mongolian tribe 

with deep devotion to the Dalai Lamas. This alarmed 

the Manchu-Chinese emperor Kangxi, who saw the 

Dzungars as a threat to Manchu interests. Manchu 

troops invaded Tibet and the seventh Dalai Lama, Skal 

bzang (Kelsang) rgya mtsho (1708–1757), was finally 

installed in Lhasa, after much negotiation, as Dalai 

Lama in 1720, with Manchu backing. Apart from 


193

D ALAI 

L AMA 

replacing the post of prime minister with a council of 

ministers call the Bka’ shag (Kashag), Skal bzang rgya 

mtsho devoted himself to Buddhist studies and gained 

some fame as a writer of religious books. The Bka’ shag 

met in Lhasa and was answerable only to the Dalai 

Lamas or, when the Chinese presence was powerful, to 

the Chinese representatives (ambans). 

For nearly 150 years from the death of Skal bzang 

rgya mtsho until the twelfth Dalai Lama ’Phrin las 

(Trinlay) rgya mtsho, effective political power was in 

the hands of regents appointed from among the powerful 

Dge lugs pa lamas, monks, and nobility. The 

eighth Dalai Lama, ’Jam dpal (Jampel) rgya mtsho 

(1758–1804), remained detached from political affairs. 

The ninth through the twelfth Dalai Lamas all died 

young: the ninth—Lung rtogs (Lungtok) rgya mtsho 

(1805–1815); the tenth—Tshul khrims (Tsultrim) rgya 

mtsho (1816–1837); the eleventh—Mkhas grub (Khedrub) 

rgya mtsho (born 1855 and died within a year 

of birth); and the twelfth—’Phrin las rgya mtsho 

(1856–1875). 

The procedure for choosing Dalai Lamas evolved 

over time. Dreams of respected religious figures and 

visions of oracles have always been important. Since 

the time of the third Dalai Lama, Bsod nams rgya mtsho, 

in the sixteenth century, visions appearing on the 

surface of a sacred lake near Chos ’khas rgyal (Chökhar 

Gyal) in south central Tibet have been considered significant. 

In the case of the seventh Dalai Lama, lines 

from Tshe dbyangs rgya mtsho’s poem—“I will not fly 

far. I will come back from Li thang”—were considered 

an important clue by those charged with locating the 

place of rebirth. Such seemingly innocuous statements, 

or in some cases actual letters detailing a birthplace, 

remain an important part of the selection process, as 

does the ability of the child candidate to differentiate 

items belonging to the earlier Dalai Lama when they 

are placed alongside similar items. 

The influence of China on the selection of Dalai 

Lamas stems from the turbulent years after the death 

of the sixth Dalai Lama and the Manchu intervention 

in the early eighteenth century. The Manchu general 

Fu Kang’an delivered a golden urn from the Manchu 

emperor to be used for the selections of high lamas. 

The Manchu representatives (ambans), who remained 

in Tibet after the Chinese army returned to Tibet, witnessed 

the procedure of choosing a name from the 

golden urn. From this period also comes the schism 

between the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, as the Manchus 

exploited the traditional rivalry between central Tibet 

and western Gtsang to counterbalance the power of the 

Dge lugs pa sect. The Manchus backed the Gtsangbased 

Panchen Lamas strongly. 

Thirteenth and fourteenth Dalai Lamas 

The thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thub bstan (Tubten) 

rgya mtsho (1876–1933), who, like the fifth, is called 

the “Great,” overcame entrenched Dge lugs pa 

monastic power and reasserted the authority of the 

Dalai Lama as a political institution. After surviving 

an attempted assassination, Thub bstan rgya mtsho 

introduced reforms, first in the large Dge lugs pa 

monasteries and then in the government ministries 

led by members of the Bka’ shag. According to 

Melvyn Goldstein in A History of Modern Tibet 

(1989), the thirteenth Dalai Lama attempted two reforms 

of Tibetan society in particular that would have 

better prepared Tibet for the difficulties of the modern 

world: modernization of the army and introduction 

of a democratically elected assembly. He failed 

in both reform efforts because of entrenched conservatism 

and vested interests. 

The thirteenth Dalai Lama skillfully governed Tibet 

during the time of the “Great Game,” the rivalry for 

control of the Central Asian regions that lay between 

the empires of czarist Russia and British India. Fearful 

of Russian influence, the viceroy of British India, Lord 

Minto, sent out an army under Colonel Francis Edward 

Younghusband that invaded Tibet in 1904. The 

Dalai Lama fled to Mongolia and then to China. When 

the Chinese invaded Tibet five years later the Dalai 

Lama in turn fled to British India, making his way to 

Darjeeling. He was hosted there by Sir Charles Bell, a 

British political officer, whose book A Portrait of the 

Dalai Lama: The Life and Times of the Great Thirteenth 

(1946) introduced the Dalai Lama to the Englishspeaking 

world. 

Before his death in 1933 the Great Thirteenth Dalai 

Lama wrote a letter, now viewed as his political testament, 

in which he foresaw great change and suffering 

for the Tibetan people if they did not adapt quickly to 

the modern world. Unfortunately the leaders of Tibet 

during the regency period were unable to rise to this 

difficult task, and the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Bstan 

’dzin rgya mtsho (Tenzin Gyatso), was destined to perform 

the nearly impossible task of leading a people 

clinging to a country disintegrating before their eyes 

into an uncertain future. 

Born Hla mo don grub (Lhamo Dhundup) to an 

ordinary farming family in 1935, the fourteenth Dalai 


D ALAI 

L AMA 

Lama was given the name Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho when 

he became a monk. Bstan ’dzin means “holder of the 

Buddha’s doctrine.” Out of respect, Tibetans call him 

Sku ’dun (pronounced “Kundun”), which means literally 

“the presence before us.” The regent, Rva streng 

(Reting) rin po che, guided a search party to the northeastern 

region of Tibet after a sign given after death by 

the thirteenth Dalai Lama, whose body had miraculously 

turned to face in that direction. A house like the 

future fourteenth Dalai Lama’s had also appeared on 

the surface of the sacred lake. When special marks were 

observed on Hla mo don grub’s body and he was able 

to distinguish items belonging to the thirteenth Dalai 

Lama from among similar items, Rva streng rin po che 

declared him the reincarnation. After payment of a 

large ransom to the local Chinese warlord, Rva streng 

had the young boy brought to Lhasa, where he was enthroned 

in 1940 at the age of five. 

The fourteenth Dalai Lama divided his early years 

between the Potala and the Nor bu gling kha summer 

palace, studying Buddhism under the supervision of 

learned Dge lugs pa monks. This changed abruptly in 

1950 when, at the age of fifteen, a political crisis forced 

the Tibetan government to ask him to assume both political 

and spiritual authority. 

In China, decades of civil war and instability ended 

with the dominance of the Chinese Communist Party 

led by Mao Zedong. Mao immediately declared Tibet 

an integral part of the Chinese motherland and China’s 

Red Army marched in, easily defeating the badly 

equipped Tibetans in 1950 at Chamdo, on the traditional 

border between central and eastern Tibet. In 

desperation, Tibet’s political leaders invested the 

young Dalai Lama with full political authority. In 1951 

China forced a totally defeated Tibet to sign the Seventeen 

Point Agreement in which it was declared that 

Tibet had always been a part of China. 

The fourteenth Dalai Lama finished his traditional 

studies in 1959. Soon after, when the Chinese army 

suppressed a Tibetan uprising in Lhasa protesting 

tightening Chinese control, the Dalai Lama fled as a 

refugee to India. He was eventually followed by about 

100,000 of his people. 

In India, as Thubten Samphel says in The Dalai 

Lamas of Tibet (2000), “the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has 

managed to transform a medieval Central Asian institution 

into a positive force recognized globally” (p. 68). 

He reorganized the Tibetan government in exile along 

more democratic lines and spearheaded attempts to introduce 

modern education to Tibetan children. In his 

The fourteenth Dalai Lama, Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho (Tenzin Gyatso), 

travels widely to promote his ideas for peace and reconciliation 

in Tibet and the world. Here he is seen speaking in 

California in 2001. © David McNew/Getty Images. Reproduced 


campaign against the Chinese presence in Tibet, the 

fourteenth Dalai Lama has preached accommodation 

and nonviolence. In 1987, in an address to the U.S. 

Congress, he unveiled a five-point peace plan that envisions 

Tibet as a neutral zone of peace. The next year, 

in Strasbourg, France, he announced his willingness to 

accept that Tibet is a part of China if there were a 

strong devolution of power that would allow Tibet to 

be self-governing and to retain its distinctive identity. 

For these efforts he received the Nobel Prize for peace 

in 1989. 

The religious beliefs of the fourteenth Dalai Lama 

are summed up in a verse of the eighth-century Indian 

saint ŚANTIDEVA that he often quotes: “As long as space 

endures, as long as suffering remains, may I too remain, 

to dispel the misery of the world.” The fourteenth 

Dalai Lama travels widely, giving explanations 

of Buddhist teaching and exchanging ideas with scientists 

and leaders of other faiths. 

See also: Communism and Buddhism; Tibet 


195

D A NA 

( GIVING) 

Bibliography 

Bell, Charles. A Portrait of the Dalai Lama: The Life and Times 

of the Great Thirteenth. London: Collins, 1946. 

Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho (Dalai Lama XIV). My Land and My 

People. New York: McGraw Hill, 1962. 

Goldstein, Melvyn. A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: 

Demise of the Lamaist State. Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1989. 

Samphel, Thubten, and Tendar. The Dalai Lamas of Tibet. New 

Delhi: Lustre Press, 2000. 

DA NA (GIVING) 


It is difficult to overstate the centrality of generosity 

and gift giving (dana) in Buddhism. Dana is a supreme 

virtue perfected by BODHISATTVAS, a key practice of 

providing economic support to monks and nuns and 

the Buddhist establishment, and a means of generating 

religious merit. 

Dana is first in the lists of the PARAMITA (PERFEC- 

TION) that a bodhisattva cultivates through the many 

eons of lives that culminate in buddhahood. Giving in 

this context is not only an instance of renunciation 

of material possessions, it also illustrates the bodhisattva’s 

infinite compassion and regard for others in 

need. One of the best-known stories in the Buddhist 

world is the tale of Siddhartha Gautama’s penultimate 

life in which he completes the final perfection of generosity 

as the bodhisattva Vessantara (Sanskrit, VIŚ- 

VANTARA). Vessantara’s extraordinary perfection is the 

gift of his children and wife to a greedy brahman, a gift 

so magnificent that it causes the earth to quake. Other 

celebrated acts of the bodhisattva’s generosity include 

occasions described in the JATAKA literature in which 

he offers up his limbs, his eyes, and even his life to 

those in hunger or in need. 

In addition to being a moral ideal of a bodhisattva, 

dana is also a practice with considerable social and economic 

significance in Buddhist cultures. Basic to the 

Indian traditions in which Buddhism first developed 

is the distinction between householder and renouncer. 

Dana, a term broadly employed in South Asian religions, 

should be understood within the context of the 

relationship of complete economic dependency of 

monks and nuns on royal gifts and the alms of lay 

householders. The LAITY give food and other requisites 

to monks and nuns through daily ritualized alms 

rounds or through the making of offerings at monasteries. 

Although monks and nuns are not expected to 

reciprocate these gifts, they can offer the gift of the 

Teaching (dharmadana), which is often exalted as the 

highest gift. 

Laypeople are motivated to give dana in part because 

it provides them with religious merit. Dana, 

when given joyfully and graciously, generates karmic 

merit that results in worldly benefits in this life, as well 

as a fortunate rebirth in the next life. Important factors 

determining the merit one earns by making a gift 

are the motivations of the donor, the propriety and 

suitability of the gift, and the worthiness of the recipient. 

The logic of this last variable ensures that laypeople 

will want to give to the worthiest “field of merit,” 

ideally a learned and pious monk, to earn the most 

merit from the gift. While some traditions within Buddhism, 

particularly within the MAHAYANA, extol giving 

without discrimination to the poor and needy, there is 

in dana ideology a general preference for ensuring support 

for esteemed monks and nuns. 

While texts on lay morality stress the generosity of 

the laity, donative inscriptions across the Buddhist 

world record gifts given by pious monks and nuns, as 

well laypeople, to building and supporting Buddhist 

institutions. Gifts of kings, such as those of King AŚOKA 

(third century B.C.E.), of almshouses and monasteries 

to Buddhist communities, record the importance of 

royal patronage in the establishment, development, 

and preservation of Buddhism. 

See also: Ethics; Merit and Merit-Making 

Bibliography 

Cone, Margaret, and Gombrich, Richard F., trans. The Perfect 

Generosity of Prince Vessantara: A Buddhist Epic. Oxford: 

Clarendon Press, 1977. 

Endo, Toshiichi. Dana: The Development of Its Concept and Practice. 

Colombo, Sri Lanka: Gunasena, 1987. 

Schopen, Gregory. Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected 

Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic 

Buddhism in India. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1997. 

Sizemore, Russell, F., and Swearer, Donald K., eds. Ethics, 

Wealth, and Salvation: A Study in Buddhist Social Ethics. Columbia: 

University of South Carolina Press, 1990. 

MARIA HEIM 


D AOISM AND B UDDHISM 

DAO’AN 

Dao’an (312–385 C.E.) is a pivotal figure in all main 

developments within Chinese Buddhism during its period 

of adaptation within early medieval Chinese society. 

His life coincided with the brutal political situation 

in the country following the collapse of the Han dynasty 

in 220. Until age fifty-three, he migrated through 

many parts of northern China, where he built up several 

Buddhist communities that were later forced to 

disperse due to calamities of the time. Around 365, he 

settled in Xiangyang (Hubei), where he headed a distinguished 

Buddhist community of more than three 

hundred members for about fifteen years. In 379, Fu 

Jian (357–387) of the Former Qin dynasty destroyed 

Xiangyang, forcing Dao’an to move to Chang’an, 

where he died six years later while serving as the main 

leader of the local SAṄGHA and adviser to the emperor. 

Dao’an’s rich contributions can be divided into 

several categories. First, he changed the rules for 

translating Buddhist texts into Chinese when he demanded 

that the geyi (matching the meaning) system 

of translation be abolished and proper Chinese Buddhist 

terminology be developed. Second, his influential 

commentaries explained the DHYA NA (TRANCE 

STATE) techniques, specifically in translations attributed 

to AN SHIGAO (late second or early third century 

C.E.). Third, Dao’an systematized the Chinese tripitaka. 

In 374 he published Zongli zhongjing mulu (Comprehensive 

Systematic Catalogue of Scriptures), in which he 

divided translations made by known translators from 

the anonyms, successfully establishing new criteria of 

authenticity for the Chinese Buddhist CANON. The criteria 

were applied to Buddhist texts in Chinese by later 

scholars including Sengyou (445–518), Fajing (fl. late 

sixth century), DAOXUAN (596–667), and Zhisheng (fl. 

early eighth century). Fourth, Dao’an developed the 

VINAYA literature and monastic practice within China. 

In the absence of complete translations of the Vinayapitaka, 

he designed his own strict rules for monks, including 

the practice of changing their surnames to Shi 

(from the Chinese transliteration Shijiamouni for the 

Sanskrit Śakyamuni). Due to Dao’an’s untiring advocacy, 

the Sarvastivada-vinaya was finally translated 

into Chinese by KUMARAJIVA (350–409/413). Fifth, he 

developed a form of prajñaparamita philosophy, 

specifically the doctrine of the wuben (essential nonbeingness), 

which served as a precursor to the Chinese 

reception of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) expounded 

during the second century C.E. by NAGARJUNA. 

In addition to these scholarly achievements, Dao’an 

established good communications between the saṅgha 

and secular governments. Despite the political hardships 

he endured, he was able to organize sponsorship 

from several political leaders; his friendship with Fu 

Jian and Emperor Xiaowu (r. 373–397) of the Jin dynasty 

are particularly notable. Dao’an’s advocacy built 

the worship of the future Buddha MAITREYA into one 

of the most important East Asian Buddhist cults. His 

outstanding disciples, who influenced development of 

Chinese Buddhism in the next generation, included 

HUIYUAN (334–416), the vaunt-courier in the PURE 

LAND SCHOOLS, and Zhu Fatai, the leader of Buddhism 

in Yangzhou. 

See also: Catalogues of Scriptures; China; Commentarial 

Literature 

Bibliography 



Link, Arthur. “Biography of Tao-an.” T’oung Pao 46 (1958): 

1–48. 

T’ang, Yung-t’ung. Han Wei liang Jin Nanbeichao fojiaoshi (History 

of Buddhism during Han, Wei, two Jin, and Southern and 

Northern Dynasties). Shanghai: Shang Wushuguan, 1938. 

Ui Hakuju. Shaku Do an Kenkyu (Research on Shi Dao’an). 





DAOISM AND BUDDHISM 

TANYA STORCH 

Modern scholars use the term Daoism to denote a wide 

variety of Chinese social groups and attitudes. Almost 

any activity engaged in by the elite that was not associated 

with governance has been labeled Daoist. In this 

entry, the term will be restricted to the Daoist religion, 

here defined as the collection of cognate and loosely 

organized Chinese religious organizations, first attested 

during the first century C.E., that “practiced the 

Dao” (Way) and traced their understandings to revelations 

emanating from the Dao at various times in human 

history. The most important among these 

revelations was that of the deified Laozi, who brought 


197


new understandings of the text historically ascribed to 

him, the Daode jing (The Way and Its Power), to Zhang 

Daoling, the first Celestial Master and founder of 

Zhengyi (Correct Unity) Daoism, in 142 C.E. Likewise, 

the term Daoist will refer to those—generally priests, 

but also a few lay practitioners—who devoted their 

lives to Daoist practice. 

These are necessarily vague definitions, for Daoism 

was never a single ism, since its organization, doctrines, 

practices, and even history were constantly being 

reimagined; nor did it require, except in its earliest 

stages, strict adherence to a creed. In the process of its 

unstructured development, Daoist practice came to incorporate 

a wide spectrum of beliefs, attitudes, and 

goals, all allegedly finding their source in the Dao. In 

fact, the endurance of the religion in Chinese society 

stemmed from its permeable belief system and relative 

lack of organizational structure. These features softened 

the religion’s outlines and allowed for strategies 

of eclecticism and co-option that assured the spread of 

Daoism, though Daoists were few, throughout two 

millennia of Chinese history. 

As the Chinese struggled to understand the Buddhist 

religion, they naturally did so on their own terms, most 

often through recourse to indigenous traditions of practice 

and worship. Buddhist sutras had to be translated 

into Chinese, and Buddhist doctrine had to be explained 

in native terms. Daoism either informed or recorded 

native understandings by adapting Buddhist doctrine 

and practice to its own uses. As a result, literally everywhere 

one looks in the record of Chinese Buddhism— 

RITUAL, iconography, monastic economy, PHILOSOPHY, 

and even translation and the creation of sutras—one 

finds elements that might be elucidated by reference to 

Daoist parallels. While successive dynasties, and some 

Buddhists as well, sought to clarify the boundaries between 

the two religions, beyond the walls of the 

monastery this attempt proved less than successful. 

Proponents of the Daoist religion brought further 

political pressures on Buddhism. Often, Daoist organizations 

defined themselves with respect to devotees 

of popular sects and Buddhists, whose practices did not 

accord with theirs. By redefining the doctrines and 

practices of other religions in their own terms, such 

Daoist groups would attempt to supplant them. In the 

case of Buddhism, the goal was to replace the foreign 

religion with a “more authentic” Chinese version. Several 

imperial moves to repress the Buddhist religion 

are directly traceable to this attempted co-option. 

The interplay of Buddhism and Daoism can thus be 

characterized as a complex dance of appropriation and 

accommodation, interspersed with periods of suspicion 

and antipathy. This entry will present in diachronic 

perspective a few of the highlights of this 

diverse history. 

First to sixth centuries C.E. 

The earliest interactions between the two religious 

complexes reveal Chinese attempts to naturalize the 

foreign religion. The putative use of “Daoist” terms to 

translate early Buddhist scriptures has perhaps been 

overemphasized, since the Daoism of the first to the 

third centuries could claim little unique religious terminology 

beyond that found in the Daode jing, the 

Zhuangzi, and other widely used texts. It is nonetheless 

significant that both religions drew upon a common 

fund of Chinese terms, with their established 

connotations, to express their central concepts. For example, 

Buddhist vihara, or monasteries, and Daoist 

meditation chambers were both called jingshe, a term 

that originally designated a pure chamber used in 

preparation for ancestral sacrifice and that later referred 

to a Confucian study hall. 

Several of the earliest mentions of Buddhism in 

Chinese historical texts record that the Han emperor 

Huan (r. 147–167) performed joint sacrifices to the 

deified Laozi, the Yellow Emperor, and the Buddha. 

Around the same time, the notion arose that Laozi, 

who was reputed to have disappeared in the west after 

composing his Daode jing, had become the Buddha. 

This legend was repeated, and greatly expanded, 

in Daoist sources, including a circular distributed 

among Zhengyi groups in northern China in 255, to 

show the superiority of Daoist practices over those 

crafted specifically for unruly barbarians. Around 

300, a scripture was produced, the Huahu jing (Scripture 

of [Laozi’s] Conversion of the Barbarians). This 

text, with later accretions, continued to play a role in 

religious controversy into the fourteenth century. 

Versions of the legend were also taken up in early 

Buddhist apologetic treatises and indigenously composed 

sutras, where it was argued that Laozi and other 

venerated figures of Chinese history were in fact disciples 

of the Buddha. 

By the latter half of the fourth century, Daoist scriptural 

traditions originating in the south reveal the extent 

to which Buddhism had come to transform 

Chinese worldviews. The Shangqing (Upper Purity) 

scriptures revealed to Yang Xi (ca. 330–386) show 

vague traces of Buddhist concepts, such as REBIRTH. 



Several hagiographies granted to Yang mention the 

practice of Buddhism, though these are clearly regarded 

as only one way to approach the proper study 

of transcendence found in Daoist scriptures. In addition, 

Yang’s transcripts include a series of oral instructions 

from celestial beings that borrow heavily 

from the early Chinese Buddhist Sishier zhang jing 

(Scripture in Forty-two Sections). Descriptive flourishes 

in Shangqing depictions of deities and heavenly locales 

also betray new emphases introduced with Buddhism. 

The Lingbao (Numinous Treasure) scriptures, compiled 

during the late fourth and early fifth centuries, 

represent an attempt at religious synthesis that encompassed 

both Buddhism and early forms of Daoism. 

Lingbao cosmology, soteriology, attitudes toward 

scripture, ecclesiastical organization, and ritual practice 

all were adapted from the Buddhism that is attested 

to in the works of such early translators as Zhi 

Qian (fl. 220–250) and Kang Senghui (d. 280). Most 

strikingly, the Lingbao scriptures contain reworked 

passages from the works of these translators, as well as 

passages drawn from earlier Daoist texts, all purportedly 

revealed in their original form, in earlier worldsystems. 

In this way, the Lingbao scriptures were 

portrayed as replacing all earlier sources of religious 

knowledge, and they were so represented to the emperors 

of the Liu-Song dynasty (420–479). 

Scholars have yet to fully explore what this remarkable 

synthesis can reveal of the Buddhist practice 

of this period. What is clear is that the idea of SAM SA RA, 

with its various postmortem destinies and salvation 

through transfer of merit, was already widely accepted 

among the Chinese populace. The Lingbao scriptures 

did not, however, hold NIRVAN A as a goal. Rather, 

salvific practice was aimed at securing either REBIRTH 

into the heavens or into a favorable earthly destination, 

such as the family of a “prince or marquis.” This 

acceptance of nearly all aspects of Buddhist soteriology 

except nirvana was to characterize Daoism from 

this time forward. In the competition for ritual patronage, 

Daoists would claim that Buddhism was the 

“religion of death,” while their practices were dedicated 

to “life.” Insofar as the ritual practice of Daoism 

took its initial form in these early Lingbao texts, such 

attitudes toward Buddhism became a feature of future 

interactions between the two religions. 

Sixth to tenth centuries 

One might construct a history of the vicissitudes of the 

two religions on the basis of imperial patronage, beginning 

with Liang Wudi’s (r. 502–549) suppression of 

Daoism, through Zhou Wudi’s (r. 560–578) attempt to 

ban Buddhism, the Sui emperors’ support of Buddhism, 

and the favoritism toward Daoism shown by 

the early Tang emperors, who held that they were descended 

from Laozi. This account, however, would 

misrepresent the intense interactions between Buddhism 

and Daoism during this period. While Buddhists 

composed new sutras that foretold the apocalyptic DE- 

CLINE OF THE DHARMA, provided charms for personal 

protection, accommodated Chinese filial practice or 

announced the potential utility of Buddhism as a support 

for the state, Daoists produced a number of 

lengthy scriptures, such as the Yebao yinyuan jing 

(Scripture on Karmic Retribution and Conditions) and 

the Benji jing (Scripture on the Origin Point), that exposed 

similar Daoist concerns while also elaborating 

Daoist versions of key Buddhist concepts. These doctrinal 

developments were catalogued in Daojiao yishu 

(Pivot of the Dao), which contains sections on “the 

three vehicles,” the fashen (dharmakaya), and Daonature, 

which can be compared to Buddha-nature. 

In terms of both doctrine and practice, the Tang dynasty 

saw further efforts to harmonize the “Three Religions”—Buddhism, 

Daoism, and Confucianism. 

Imperial patronage and efforts at control resulted in 

doctrinal and organizational systematization for both 

Buddhism and Daoism. Daoists created initiation 

grades based on the canonical organization of their 

scriptural traditions and constructed monasteries 

throughout the kingdom, leading to the emergence of 

a fully-formed monastic Daoism. Monasteries were the 

sites of large-scale ritual performances, such as the 

Buddhist Ullambana ritual and the Daoist Retreat of 

the Yellow Registers, based on a procedure found in 

the early Lingbao scriptures. Both of these rites were 

designed to secure the release of the dead from the 

HELLS and guide them into more fortunate paths of rebirth 

or ascension into the heavens. In this and other 

respects, one begins to see, at least among the elite 

classes for whom there is a written record, the beginnings 

of competition between Buddhist and Daoist 

priests to provide ritual services that were often quite 

similar in aim and content. 

Eleventh to fourteenth centuries 

With the better documentation provided by the widespread 

use of printing and the spread of literacy, an 

extremely lively religious scene becomes apparent. 

Daoism’s shift from court to local centers, noticed by 

modern scholars, is perhaps merely the result of 

increased documentation revealing what had been 


199


occurring beneath the surface all along. While elite 

practitioners continued to be enamored of distinctive 

practices leading to personal transcendence, as found 

in Chan or Daoist Inner Alchemy, it now becomes apparent 

how thoroughly Buddhism and Daoism had 

blended at the local level. In both Buddhist and Daoist 

contexts, there are examples of minor Buddhist deities 

cast in the role of protector deities in local cults; rites 

of “universal salvation” whereby the dead were rescued 

from the hells and brought into the ritual space for 

transfer; and ritual masters who embodied deities and 

caused child-mediums to become possessed by diseasedemons, 

so that these might be interrogated and expelled. 

This latter practice derives from Tantric rituals, 

with their warrior deities and therapeutic aims. 

Just as local gods were added to the Daoist pantheon, 

new modes of scriptural production and lay association 

were incorporated into Daoism and began to 

play a central role in the development of Chinese religious 

life. An example is the cult of the god Wenchang, 

a local deity from Sichuan later recognized officially as 

the god of literature. A book detailing his epiphanies 

and support of the “Three Religions” of Confucianism, 

Daoism, and Buddhism was revealed by spirit-writing 

in 1181. 

One of the several influential schools of Daoism begun 

during this period was Quanzhen (Way of Complete 

Perfection), founded by Wang Zhe (1112–1170). 

Quanzhen, which is the dominant form of officiallyrecognized 

Daoism in modern China, teaches 

celibacy, asceticism, strict monasticism, moral instruction, 

and self perfection through inner alchemy. 

In many ways, Quanzhen self-consciously modeled itself 

on Chan Buddhism. Quanzhen masters gained the 

patronage of the Mongol Yuan rulers and, during the 

mid-thirteenth century, were accused by Buddhists of 

occupying monasteries, running them as Daoist institutions, 

and spreading a version of the Huahu jing. 

The literary legacy of Quanzhen Daoism is vast and 

includes volumes of didactic verse and dialogic 

records similar to Chan yulu. 

Another influential school was the Qingwei (Pure 

Tenuity) school of ritual practice, which incorporated 

Tantric rites, MUDRA, and MAN D ALA practice into traditional 

Daoist cosmogenic transformation rituals. 

These ritual innovations have been preserved by 

Zhengyi practitioners into the twenty-first century. 

Fifteenth century to the present 

The ethnically Han emperors of the Ming dynasty 

(1368–1644) tended to favor Daoism, but strove to 

bring all public religious expression under strict regulation. 

They gave official approval to the Zhengyi 

school over Quanzhen, which had dominated the previous 

period, and they patronized the printing of the 

Daoist canon in 1445 and a supplement in 1598. These 

remain major resources upon which scholars and 

practicing Daoists alike rely. Nonetheless, such official 

oversight tends to purge from the official records 

much that is vital to understanding the growth of the 

religion. 

Elite neo-Confucians of this period adapted both 

Buddhist and Daoist thought to their own ends. In 

some cases, such as that of Lin Zhao’en (1517–1598), 

a self-styled “Master of the Three Teachings,” attempts 

were made to popularize these beliefs. Lin’s “Three in 

One Teaching,” influential throughout southeastern 

China for about 150 years, was meant to eliminate all 

other denominations under a Confucianism supported 

by the subsidiary doctrines of Buddhism and Daoism. 

More problematic from the state’s point of view was 

the proliferation of lay, scripturally-based, sectarian 

groups such as the White Lotus Society. Such groups, 

unlike the Wenchang cult, cannot be categorized as 

other than eclectic. These societies based their practice 

of scriptural recitation and meditation on scriptures 

that innovated freely with beliefs and practices extracted 

from the canonical writings of both Buddhism 

and Daoism, overlain with “Confucian” moral concerns 

that by this time had become the property of both 

religions. Sectarian scriptures and personalized fortunes 

in verse form were often produced through 

spirit-writing sessions conducted in Daoist and, to a 

lesser extent, Buddhist temples. Such new religious 

groups, patronized even by officials and their wives, 

provided an alternative to institutionalized religion. 

Qing dynasty (1644–1911) efforts at control were no 

more successful than those of preceding dynasties. 

While Tibetan Buddhism was the religion of the Qing 

emperors, recognition was given, as it is in China today, 

to the two Daoist schools Zhengyi and Quanzhen. 

But the tendencies toward simplification and syncretism 

of the preceding centuries precluded categorical 

taming of the vibrant religious scene. For instance, 

while modern Quanzhen venerates Wang Changyue 

(d. 1680), the officially-recognized first abbot of the 

Baiyun guan in Beijing, another influential patriarch of 

the school, Min Yide (1758–1836), is perhaps better 

representative of the times, and certainly better remembered 

today. While fulfilling his father’s wishes 

and serving as an official in Yunnan, Min supposedly 


D AOSHENG 

met the mysterious Man of the Way of Chicken-foot 

Mountain, who bestowed upon him the inner alchemical 

practices of the Heart School of West India through 

two scriptures. One of these concerns the methods of 

salvation propounded by the three sages—Confucius, 

Laozi, and Śakyamuni—while the other was a DHA RAN I 

text spoken by the Buddha. In addition, Min received 

a Northern Dipper meditation text containing mantras 

to be pronounced in imitation of Sanskrit. 

In contemporary China, Taiwan, and other Chinese 

communities, there are continued official attempts to 

distinguish Daoism from Buddhism through the creation 

of governing organizations, the registration of 

priests, and local oversight—all familiar in the history 

of Chinese religion. Nonetheless, the most prominent 

characteristic of Chinese religion as it is practiced and 

imagined remains its eclectic, all-embracing character. 

See also: Apocrypha; Confucianism and Buddhism; 


Bibliography 

Andersen, Poul. “Taoist Talismans and the History of the 

Tianxin Tradition.” Acta Orientalia 57 (1996): 141–152. 

Berling, Judith A. The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en. New 


Bokenkamp, Stephen R. “The Yao Boduo Stele as Evidence for 

the Dao-Buddhism of the Early Lingbao Scriptures.” Cahiers 

d’Extrème-Asie 9 (1996–1997): 54–67. 

Bokenkamp, Stephen R. Early Daoist Scriptures. Berkeley: University 


Bokenkamp, Stephen R. “Lu Xiujing, Buddhism, and the First 

Daoist Canon.” In Culture and Power in the Reconstitution 

of the Chinese Realm, 200–600, ed. Scott Pearce, Audrey 

Spiro, and Patricia Ebrey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 2001. 

Boltz, Judith M. A Survey of Taoist Literature: Tenth to Seventeenth 

Centuries. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, 

1987. 

Davis, Edward L. Society and the Supernatural in Song China. 


Dean, Kenneth. Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast 

China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 

Kohn, Livia. Laughing at the Tao: Debates among Buddhists and 

Taoists in Medieval China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1995. 

Kohn, Livia, ed. Daoism Handbook. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 

2000. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr., ed. Religions of China in Practice. Princeton, 


Robinet, Isabelle. Taoism: Growth of a Religion, tr. Phyllis 

Brooks. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. 

Schipper, Kristofer M. “Purity and Strangers: Shifting Boundaries 

in Medieval Taoism.” T’oung Pao 80 (1984): 61–81. 

Schipper, Kristofer M. The Taoist Body, tr. Karen C. Duval. 

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. 

Yoshioka Yoshitoyo. Do kyo to bukkyo (Daoism and Buddhism), 

3 vols. Tokyo: Kokusho Kanko kai, 1959, 1970, 1976. 

Zürcher, Erik. “Buddhist Influence on Early Taoism.” T’oung 

Pao 66 (1980): 84–147. 

Zürcher, Erik. “Prince Moonlight.” T’oung Pao 68 (1982): 1–75. 

DAOSHENG 

STEPHEN R. BOKENKAMP 

Daosheng (355–434) was an influential Chinese 

scholar-monk. He was popular as a lecturer with the 

educated classes and famous for advancing the theory 

of a “sudden” experience of enlightenment. Ordained 

at a young age, Daosheng gave his first Buddhist lecture 

at fifteen. In 397 he traveled to Lushan where he 

studied for seven years under HUIYUAN (334–416) and 

Saṅghadeva. Daosheng then journeyed to Chang’an 

with three other disciples of Huiyuan to learn and assist 

KUMARAJIVA (350–409/413), probably helping in 

Kumarajva’s translations of the Vimalaklrti-su tra and 

the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). Of 

his many monographs only his commentary on the 

Lotus Su tra is extant; but Daosheng’s opinions are often 

quoted in other works, allowing scholars to reconstruct 

his core ideas. 

Daosheng was severely criticized for his stubborn refusal 

to accept the accuracy of the first translation of 

the Mahayana NIRVAN A SU TRA because of its claim that 

all sentient beings possess the buddha-nature except for 

the evil ICCHANTIKA. After returning to Lushan in 430, 

he was exonerated and praised for his insight when a 

new, expanded translation of this sutra that had removed 

the icchantika exclusion was brought to him. 

Daosheng was perhaps the first person in China to 

see the marga (PATH) implications of the buddhanature 

doctrine famously extolled in the Nirvana Su tra. 

This sutra preaches the positive aspects of NIRVAN A as 

pure, eternal, personal, and so on, and Daosheng 

linked this with the buddha-nature concept to affirm 

a pure, blissful “true self” that can only be realized 

suddenly. If the buddha-nature is indivisible, he argued, 

then it is realized completely or not at all. He 


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D AOXUAN 

advocated a gradual path of training to prepare one for 

this sudden flash of insight, thereby completing the 

path in that moment of epiphany. This led to heightened 

interest in the Nirvana Su tra and serious debate 

in China and Tibet over sudden versus gradual conceptions 

of the path. 

See also: Bodhi (Awakening); Tathagatagarbha 

Bibliography 

Kim, Young-ho. Tao-sheng’s Commentary on the Lotus Su tra: A 

Study and Translation. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1990. 

Liu, Ming-Wood. “The Early Development of the Buddha- 

Nature Doctrine in China.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 

16 (1989): 1–36. 

MARK L. BLUM 

of the Buddha in his protection and that he was the 

reincarnation of the sixth-century monk Sengyou. 

See also: Biographies of Eminent Monks (Gaoseng 

zhuan); History; Vinaya 

Bibliography 

Shinohara, Koichi. “Changing Roles of Miraculous Images in 

Medieval Chinese Buddhism: A Study of the Miraculous Images 

Section of Daxuan’s Ji-shenzhou Sanbao Gantonglu.” In 

Images, Miracles, and Authority in Asian Religious Traditions, 

ed. Richard Davis. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. 

Shinohara, Koichi. “The Kasaya Robe of the Past Buddha 

Kaśyapa in the Miraculous Instruction Given to the Vinaya 

Master Daoxuan (596–667).” Chung-hwa Buddhist Journal 

13 (2000): 299–367. 


DAOXUAN 

Daoxuan (596–667) was one of the most versatile and 

prolific Chinese monks of the medieval period. Son of 

a prominent official, he became a monk at an early age 

and soon earned a reputation for erudition and industry. 

Although sources disagree on Daoxuan’s place 

of origin, he lived for most of his adult life in or near 

the Tang capital at Chang’an, where he worked for a 

brief period at the translation center of the great translator 

XUANZANG (ca. 600–664) and served as abbot of 

Ximing Monastery. Daoxuan’s writings include a catalog 

of Buddhist texts, various historical works, numerous 

works on the monastic regulations, and 

records of his visionary encounters with divine beings. 

Daoxuan’s most influential historical works are a 

large compilation of accounts of monks titled Xu 

gaoseng zhuan (Further Biographies of Eminent Monks) 

and Guang hongming ji (Expanded Collection of the 

Propagation of Light), a collection of documents by 

more than 130 authors relating for the most part to 

debates between Buddhists and their detractors at 

court. Daoxuan’s most important work on the monastic 

regulations, Sifenlü shanfan buque xingshichao 

(Notes on Conduct: Abridgements and Emendations to 

the Four-Part Regulations), attempts to provide a handbook 

for monastic practice based on the Dharmaguptakavinaya 

(Chinese, Sifen lü). 

Various legends circulated about Daoxuan’s life, the 

most famous of which were that a spirit placed a tooth 

DAOYI (MAZU) 

Mazu Daoyi (709–788) is one of the main figures in 

the history of the CHAN SCHOOL. The appearance of 

Mazu and his disciples represented a key point in the 

historical development of Chan, as the fragmented 

schools of early Chan were replaced by a new orthodoxy 

identified with his Hongzhou school. Because of 

his great influence on the subsequent growth of Chan, 

Mazu is widely recognized as the leading Chan teacher 

during the tradition’s putative “golden age” during the 

eighth and ninth centuries. 

Born in the western province of Sichuan in a local 

gentry family, Mazu entered religious life as a teenager. 

His early teachers were noted Chan monks in his native 

province. During the mid-730s he traveled to Hunan, 

where he studied with Huairang (677–744), an 

obscure disciple of the “Sixth Patriarch” HUINENG 

(638–713). Mazu then went on to establish monastic 

communities in southeast China. After his move to 

Hongzhou (the provincial capital of Jiangsi), during 

the final two decades of his life, Mazu emerged as a 

highly popular religious teacher who attracted a large 

number of eminent monastic and lay disciples. 

Mazu did not leave any written records. His Mazu 

yulu (Mazu’s Discourse Record), which was compiled 

during the eleventh century and contains diverse materials 

with varied provenances, is still widely read and 

recognized as a principal text of the Chan canon. 

Among his best-known teachings, succinctly expressed 


D EATH 

as popular Chan adages, are “Mind is Buddha” and 

“Ordinary mind is the Way.” 

Bibliography 

Cheng-chien Bhikshu, trans. Sun-Face Buddha: The Teachings 

of Ma-tsu and the Hung-chou School of Ch’an. Berkeley, CA: 

Asian Humanities Press, 1993. 

DEATH 

MARIO POCESKI 

As in all religions, death is an event of monumental 

importance for Buddhism. From one point of view 

death may appear as a nonissue in Buddhism because 

the assumption of transmigration guarantees that 

death is not final. Death nevertheless reminds the Buddhist 

that human life is the best existence from which 

to pursue liberation, but it is relatively short; moreover, 

as an unusual reward of meritorious KARMA (AC- 

TION), human life cannot be taken for granted as one’s 

next REBIRTH and may not come again for a long time. 

Death also reminds the Buddhist that repeated rebirths 

do not guarantee progress toward realizing NIRVAN A; 

in fact each existence in SAM SARA is difficult to control 

and so permeated by DUH KHA (SUFFERING) in one 

form or another that it is exceedingly difficult to cease 

producing karma and escape. Belief in transmigration 

thus does not remove the sense of insecurity that accompanies 

death, and for that reason the goal of nirvana 

is often described as “deathless” (amrta) because 

it eliminates all such anxieties. The journey of the 

prince Siddhartha outside the palace walls in the biographies 

of the Buddha similarly show the centrality 

of death as a religious problem: It is after seeing a 

corpse that Siddhartha grows morose and troubled, 

setting up the next and final encounter with a mendicant 

who not only shows him the possibility of pursuing 

a spiritual life, but explains his own motivation 

as seeking “that most blessed state in which extinction 

is unknown.” 

Considering the complexity of the impact death has 

on Buddhism, it may be helpful to approach the matter 

in four thematic ways: (1) in doctrine, (2) in praxis, 

(3) in memorializing the death of the Buddha, and (4) 

in funerary culture. 

Doctrinal death and mythical roots 

Philosophical associations with death abound in the 

various credos that Buddhism has produced over the 

centuries. In the early tradition, the FOUR NOBLE 

TRUTHS define humankind’s central problem as 

duhkha and indicate how it can be overcome. But the 

tradition also analyzes duhkha itself as fourfold: birth, 

aging, disease, and death. Similarly, the last of the 

twelve “limbs” in the PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPEN- 

DENT ORIGINATION) formula is “aging and death,” indicating 

the inevitable dissolution of all sentient life. 

Even the “three characteristics” of all conditioned existence—ANITYA 

(IMPERMANENCE), duhkha, and anatman 

(nonsubstantiality)—imply the centrality of 

death because the deepest resonance of this truth is not 

the desire for permanent sources of happiness, but a 

permanent source of our own existence. 

Death itself is described in various ways throughout 

the canon. The DHAMMAPADA and Suttanipata 

frame it poetically (“just as ripe fruit falls quickly from 

the tree” or “like a cow being led to slaughter”), but 

the later nikayas and ABHIDHARMA literature are more 

analytical. Here death is explained as the cessation of 

the continuity of the five SKANDHA (AGGREGATES), the 

crumbling of the body, and the ending of the ayus (life 

span) or jlvitendriya (faculty of living). Generally the 

jlvitendriya is the force that sustains human life 

through the continuous changes to the five aggregates, 

and is held to be of predetermined length. This is 

death in “due time,” and it is contrasted with “untimely” 

death caused by encountering unexpected circumstances, 

such as being murdered, being eaten by 

a wild animal, succumbing to illness, and so on. In the 

THERAVADA commentarial tradition, final moments of 

consciousness are described in some detail, when past 

karmic deeds or signs of such “settle” on the individual, 

and then a vision of one’s future destiny occurs, 

such as the appearance of fire signifying hell, a 

mother’s womb indicating rebirth in the human 

realm, or pleasure groves and divine palaces for a future 

in a heavenly realm. Then comes a momentary 

“death awareness” (cuticitta) followed immediately by 

“rebirth linking consciousness” (patisandhiviññana) 

signifying the next life. The relationship between these 

two is said to be one of neither identity nor otherness; 

likened to an echo it is caused by previous events but 

not identical to them. 

As the skandhas are formed from a collectivity of 

causes and conditions that are temporary in nature, 

the skandhas themselves are impermanent, constantly 

arising and ceasing. Death from the point of view of 

this “momentariness” doctrine is in fact something 

that recurs moment after moment. In this and the 

“end of a lifetime” notions of death, how the karmic 


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D EATH 

identity continues is a key question. The dissolution 

of the self never means the dissolution of karma. 

Some schools speak of four stages of life: birth, the 

period between birth and death, death, and the period 

between death and rebirth. According to the ABHI- 

DHARMAKOŚABHASYA and Yogacara literature, one explanation 

of this process is that in the presence of a life 

span the jlvitendriya holds onto bodily warmth and 

consciousness symbiotically and unceasingly until the 

“due time.” At that point all three—life, warmth, and 

consciousness—abandon the body and death ensues, 

described as akin to throwing off a piece of wood, 

whereupon karma forces the three to seek another 

body. Here it would seem that the physical body is 

something other than these three animating functions 

and that only in combination is a finite lifetime produced. 

Another doctrine posits the antarabhava, an 

INTERMEDIATE STATE between death and the next life 

wherein one is transformed into an entity called a 

gandharva, originally a semidivine being associated 

with fertility and the god Soma in pre-Buddhist Indian 

myths. Possessing subtle versions of all five aggregates 

reflective of one’s next birth, for most people in this 

state some perception is possible but willpower is limited 

to finding an appropriate womb to descend into, 

and the common view gives the gandharva forty-nine 

days to accomplish this task. Advanced practitioners 

known as nonreturners, however, can attain nirvana 

from this state. This conception was readily accepted 

into the MAHAYANA, where it gave rise to a variety of 

beliefs and practices designed to help the recently deceased 

alter their destined rebirth. 

The gods Yama and MARA reflect another mythical 

aspect of the Buddhist concept of death. Son of a gandharva, 

Yama is depicted in the Rg Veda as the first 

mortal; deciding to remain among the dead, Yama becomes 

the lord of that realm. In the Atharva Veda he 

acquires a messenger, Mrtyu, who later appears in the 

KALACAKRA as death lurking within the body of sentient 

beings. Otherwise, King Yama’s role is generally 

restricted to the unseen world of the dead, where he 

becomes the judge before whom the deceased must 

stand to receive karmic sentencing to determine their 

status in the next birth. Yama is thus a negative symbol 

of sam sara itself, and he can be seen holding the 

six-realm wheel of life in the VAJRAYANA, which also 

includes a deity, Yamantaka, who represents his defeat. 

If Buddhists fear Yama in the next world, they fear Ma- 

ra, also called the “king of death” (Suttanipata), in this 

one. From his attempts to dissuade the bodhisattva 

from attaining enlightenment via the enticement of 

lust and the fear of attack, Mara symbolizes personal 

death, the death of Buddhism as a religion, and the 

evils of destruction and uncontrolled desire. Derived 

from a verb meaning to die or kill (mr), there are various 

forms of Mara, residing within the aggregates, in 

the kleśas (defilements), in one of the heavens of the 

desire-realm (kamaloka), and so on. Although in one 

sense Mara is death itself, he is most commonly depicted 

as a deity who is resentful of the dharma and 

devoted to hindering the spiritual progress of the practitioner. 

Death as a theme of praxis 

Meditations on death run throughout the Buddhist 

tradition. This comes from the fact that the Buddha 

identified death as the ultimate and therefore most potentially 

instructive form of duhkha. Death as a theme 

in focused RITUAL or MEDITATION is similarly called 

the key to the “gate of deathlessness.” From very early 

there have been two famous forms of death-praxis, 

known as death-mindfulness (maranasmrti) and meditation 

on pollution (aśubhabhavana). These are mentioned 

in various places in the Pali canon, but their 

fullest descriptions are found in the Visuddhimagga by 

BUDDHAGHOSA. 

Mindfulness of death is aimed at fostering existential 

acceptance of the reality of death and allowing that 

realization to influence one’s life fully. The Buddha was 

appalled at how common it was for people to go 

through life as if they were not going to die, and this 

form of meditation uses eight topics for the practitioner 

to contemplate: 

1. death as executioner, 

2. death as ruinous of all forms of happiness and 

success, 

3. death as inevitable for everyone regardless of 

their power, 

4. death as coming about by an infinite number of 

causes, 

5. death as close at hand, 

6. death as signless, or coming without warning 

signs, 

7. death as the end of a life span that is in fact short, 

8. death as a constant in life. 

This practice aims at liberating individuals from natural 

attachments to their own existence, and thus leads 


D EATH 

to mindfulness of the three marks of existence: anitya, 

duhkha, and anatman. 

Meditation on pollution is similarly aimed at deepening 

one’s acceptance of the reality of death, but in 

this practice the point is driven home by actually going 

to look at decaying human corpses. As described 

in the Suttanipata (202–203), when the practitioner 

sees the corpse, he “sees the body as it (really) is” and 

thinks, “As is this (body of mine), so is that (corpse); 

as is that, so is this.” Statements like this express one 

strain in Buddhist thought that regards the body as 

essentially foul and not the locale of one’s identity. But 

despite one’s proximity to corpses in various degrees 

of decay—a remarkably bold concept considering 

the contagious nature of pollution in Hinduism— 

Buddhaghosa tells us that ultimately the meditator 

comes away from this exercise feeling not angst but joy 

because now that he has accepted the reality of death, 

he knows he is on the path to defeat it. In Thailand 

this meditation is often performed at morgues. 

Belief that one’s state of mind at the moment of 

death not only passively reflects but can actively influence 

what happens after death led to the corresponding 

belief that the true purpose of all praxis is 

preparation for that final moment. For example, the 

Dantabhu mi-sutta points to this final “act of time” 

(kalakriya) as something “tamed” or “untamed.” 

In East Asia, a variation of death-mindfulness is the 

use of death as an existential KO AN in the CHAN 

SCHOOL. This is apparent in the charismatic Chinese 

teacher YANSHOU (904–975), who believed that suicide 

“reciprocated the kindness of the dharma” if done with 

the proper state of mind. He saw this as a way to actualize 

the perfection of giving (danaparamita) and 

thereby attain enlightenment. Yanshou reflects Buddhist 

ambivalence about suicide, manifesting the principle 

that one’s life is only a tool that can be 

manipulated or even given away when necessary. 

Death also shows up prominently in the rhetoric of 

Japanese Zen during the Tokugawa period (1603– 

1868). Suzuki Shosan (1579–1655), for example, was 

motivated to pursue Zen practice by an obsession with 

death, and he felt grateful to death for having deepened 

his practice. The great Rinzai teacher HAKUIN 

EKAKU (1686–1768) is famous for teaching the imperative 

of an explosive spiritual breakthrough he called 

the “great death.” In a similar vein, Shido Bunan 

(1603–1676) wrote: 

Die while alive, and be completely dead, 

Then do whatever you will, all is good. 

About which the modern Zen master Shibayama 

Zenkei (1894–1974) comments, “The aim of Zen training 

is to die while alive, that is, to actually become the 

self of no-mind, and no-form, and then to revive as 

the True Self of no-mind and no-form” (p. 46). In this 

form of spiritual death, one’s known identity is dissolved, 

rather abruptly according to Hakuin, yielding 

a new, more genuine self untainted by discursive, judgmental 

thinking and totally free to think and act as one 

pleases. 

Memorializing the death of the Buddha 

The Mahaparinibbana-sutta (DN 2:140–142) describes 

in some detail the circumstances of the Buddha’s 

passing, how he viewed his upcoming death, and 

how his body was treated afterward. Despite his admonition 

against attaching value to his corpse— 

“What is there in seeing this wretched body? Whoever 

sees dharma, sees me.”—the Buddha instructed his attendant 

A NANDA to give him a funeral like a “king of 

kings,” explained as wrapping the body in five hundred 

layers of cloth, placing it inside an iron vessel, 

and then burning it on a funeral pyre. He also authorized 

the building of one STU PA at a crossroads to 

house his remains, extolling the welfare it would bring 

believers who visited and paid their respects. But even 

this bow to relic worship was not enough: There was 

such a clamoring for his śarlra (relics) by the eight 

kings of the region that all were given portions after 

the cremation, leading initially to the construction of 

eight stupas containing them, with two more later 

erected that enshrined the bowl used to collect the 

relics and the ashes from the pyre. The sutra also 

promises rebirth in heaven for anyone who makes PIL- 

GRIMAGE “with hearts of reverence” to four sites 

memorializing the Buddha’s historical presence— 

where he was born, achieved enlightenment, delivered 

his first sermon, and passed away. 

The sutra is probably only canonizing pilgrimage 

routes that began immediately after the Buddha’s 

death. Stupa worship increased during the third century 

B.C.E. under King AŚOKA, who is said to have 

opened up the original ten stupas and distributed the 

relics therein among eighty-four thousand new stupas 

built throughout the land. Images of the Buddha also 

served as public memorials to the founder after his 

death, though they appear in mass quantities somewhat 

later. Their similarity to stupas in this regard can 

be seen in the fact that both often contain relics, symbols 

of their animation. Stupas and images thus became 

symbols of the corporeal presence of the Buddha 


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D EATH 

and his enlightened followers; at times they evolved 

into mausoleums of architectural sophistication, as at 

the great stupa complex at SAN CI in central India where 

the relics of ŚARIPUTRA and MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA are 

said to be enshrined and where BUDDHA IMAGES from 

Mathura were brought in. Relics for the consecrations 

of stupas and images were exported to other Buddhist 

nations such as Sri Lanka and China, allowing a physical 

“presence” of the Buddha in death over an expanded 

area that could not have taken place while he 

was alive. 

One oddity within the Mahaparinibbana-sutta is 

how the narrative deals with the paradox of a buddha 

dying when he himself professed his ability to continue 

living until the end of the kalpa. The Tathagata 

relates to A NANDA how Mara has repeatedly appeared 

before him and requested that he relent and die on 

the spot, but he has consistently found excuses to put 

him off. This time, however, he has decided to go 

ahead and let his time run out. Almost akin to a pronouncement 

of suicide, the sutra reads, “And now, 

A nanda, the Tathagata has today at Chapala’s shrine 

consciously and deliberately rejected the rest of his allotted 

time” (5:37). A nanda swiftly responds by beseeching 

the Buddha three times to remain in the 

world, living until the end of the kalpa, but each time 

the Buddha refuses. He then describes no less than sixteen 

previous occasions when he remarked to A nanda 

how much he liked a particular place and could remain 

there for the duration of the kalpa, hinting that A nanda 

should ask him to do so. But each time A nanda did 

not understand, and the Buddha now explains that 

without such an outside request, he is powerless to alter 

his historical fate. To beseech the Buddha now as 

he approaches death is too late: “The time for making 

such a request is past.” A nanda’s dim-wittedness is 

thus made the scapegoat for humankind having to suffer 

century upon century without a buddha. 

Funerary culture 

Putting aside the death of the founder, which has 

unique historical significance, it may be useful in considering 

the various ways in which the living relate to 

the dead in Buddhist cultures throughout Asia to divide 

such expression into the care and treatment of the 

uncommon dead, the common dead, and the unknown 

dead. Under the rubric of uncommon dead, would be 

saints, kings, and lesser religious and political leaders 

who are typically memorialized in ways that manifest 

their power and influence. Relations between the 

common dead and the living is typically dominated by 

familial concerns regarding how kinfolk can assist the 

recently deceased in their postmortem “journey,” and 

the flip side of this relationship, which is how the dead 

can either enhance or disrupt the lives of the living depending 

on how appropriately such assistance is rendered. 

The unknown dead appear most commonly in 

pious efforts to help all beings born in the lower realms 

of hell and what are usually referred to as hungry ghosts. 

In all cases, the care and treatment of corpses naturally 

reflect different attitudes about the expected relationship 

between the deceased and those left behind. 

Two universal principles are often evident in all 

three categories of funerary culture. First is that in 

every society in Asia that may be considered traditionally 

Buddhist, indigenous belief structures regarding 

the dead that were operative before the assimilation 

of Buddhism persist and form an integral part of that 

assimilation. This has resulted in a hybridization of funerary 

practices under the guise of Buddhist rituals and 

rhetoric. Within each nation there is considerable diversity 

in how the dead are treated, and these differences 

in local culture expose any notion of ethnic 

homogeneity as political myth. This is particularly true 

in the care and treatment of the common dead, where 

the Buddhist input into that amalgam varies widely. 

There has been easy acceptance of the doctrine of 

transmigration in Tibet, for example. By contrast, in 

China deep traditions of family obligations beyond the 

grave have meant less than full acceptance of the presumption 

that each rebirth places the individual into 

a new family wherein the previous family is completely 

forgotten. It was thus normative in China to use the 

surname of the Buddha upon taking the tonsure, signifying 

a public shift of filial affiliation to the SAṄGHA. 

Monks are intimately connected with funerary culture 

in all Buddhist countries, usually in ways that 

combine Buddhist and non-Buddhist beliefs about 

death, and it has been common for monasteries to derive 

significant revenue from related activities such as 

cremation, burial, and services for the family. While 

cremation has been the norm in India since before the 

birth of Buddhism, this was not so for the rest of Asia, 

and although there is no scriptural demand for cremation 

in Buddhism, its adoption on the continent 

came with the dissemination of Buddhist culture. Thus 

did the arrival of Buddhism bring cremation as a common 

approach to the care and treatment of the dead 

in much of the Buddhist world. But burial has remained 

the norm in Mongolia, and in Tibet the body 

is brought to a mountaintop, broken up, and fed to 

birds. In China cremation appears to have been wide- 


D EATH 

The funeral and cremation of a revered Korean monk. © Nathan Benn/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

spread only during the Song and Yuan dynasties and 

the period since the Communist revolution in 1949; 

here resistance stems from the ancient belief that the 

dead emerge in the afterlife with a kind of ethereal body 

that needs to be fully intact to function properly. 

The second principle is that when we speak of how 

the dead are viewed by the living, we should recognize 

that they are merely one part of another reality wherein 

are also found a host of supernatural entities such as 

celestial beings, spirits, fairies, gods of one sort of 

another, Mara, Yama, future and past buddhas, bodhisattvas, 

and so forth. This other world is not separate 

from ours but for the most part is hidden to us. 

We can glimpse traces of it, however, through unorthodox 

states of mind experienced in meditative 

trance, dreams, portents, miraculous manifestations, 

and occasional encounters with individuals from that 

realm. 

The Mahaparinibbana-sutta defines four types of 

uncommon dead by identifying who deserves to be 

memorialized by means of building sacred stupas over 

their graves: buddhas, PRATYEKABUDDHAS, śravakas, 

and righteous wheel-turning kings (cakravartin). The 

sutra states that these four groups are worthy of memorial 

stupas because when a believer looks upon their 

grave-mound and thinks “This is the stupa of . . . ,” 

the heart of that person will be made calm and happy, 

and when that believer dies this personal experience 

will result in rebirth in a heavenly realm. The sutra thus 

canonizes the belief that stupas built to mark the graves 

of sacred historical persons will be embodied with the 

power to transform believing pilgrims who make contact 

with those stupas such that their karmic status will 

be so purified that rebirth in heaven is assured. This is 

just one example of the fact that belief in the religious 

power of material expressions of the uncommon dead 

begins very early in Buddhism. In Mahayana countries, 

cremated remains of eminent monks were often inspected 

to find relics in the form of jewels or shining 

bone nuggets, confirming their status as bodhisattvas 

and prompting burial under stupas. In China there are 

numerous stories of the cremated bones of saints 

found linked in a chain. 

Many have pointed to the presence of relics 

in stupas and other funerary paraphernalia as the basis 

of their power, and indeed relics have played a 


207

D EATH 

prominent role in sanctifying not only stupas, but 

monasteries, shrines, statues, and so forth. The extreme 

form of sanctifying the corporeal remains of a 

saint is to display the mummified body on an altar. 

This tradition was not uncommon in Mahayana countries, 

reflecting the belief that an “attained” individual 

leaves behind a “diamond-like” body that remains 

erect. This view is of a piece with the early belief that 

buddhas were inevitably marked with thirty-two major 

and eighty minor physical abnormalities, such as 

long ears and tongues or webbed hands and feet, stemming 

from the principle that spiritual achievement 

brought corporeal manifestations, much like the stigmata 

in Europe. Numerous mummified monks can 

still be viewed in China and Japan today, and in 2002 

a deceased rin po che (teacher) in Mongolia was discovered 

in this form. We know that the drinking of 

lacquer, a poison that ended the saint’s life but also 

stiffened his joints, preceded some of these mummified 

deaths. 

But a tomb does not need a relic to be considered 

sacred. In Japan, where the relics of famous monks are 

frequently kept on the altars of monasteries, the uncommon 

dead typically have multiple tombs with or 

without something material of the individual interred 

therein. For example, the fact that the body of Oda 

Nobunaga (1534–1582), the general who reunited the 

country after a hundred years of war, was never recovered 

did not impede the establishment of at least 

sixteen “empty” burial sites to honor him. While such 

gravesite mimes are not universal, the stupa or pagoda, 

its architectural variant, did become a universal burial 

marker for the uncommon dead throughout Buddhist 

Asia. Typically these house relics of the deceased in the 

form of śarlra, bone fragments remaining after cremation. 

As with the Buddha, such burial edifices frequently 

have become both the objects of pilgrimage 

and centers for monastic communities. 

The burial sites of the uncommon dead may also 

serve as focal points of sectarian identity. When this 

occurs, other expressions of collective identity, such as 

larger mausoleums and the pilgrimage routes, typically 

accompany it. In Japan, this pattern is particularly 

striking, having led to the custom of interring the common 

dead at the burial sites of saints, such as KU KAI 

and SHINRAN, both founders of their major denominations. 

The recent dead are thereby thought to be purified 

by their proximity to the sacred dead, improving 

their karmic status for achieving rebirth in Tusita 

Heaven or AMITABHA’s Pure Land. Since family members 

in Japan often want the remains of their loved 

ones to be kept nearby yet also desire to help them after 

death, what is left of the body (ashes and bits of 

bone after cremation, whole bones when the flesh has 

disappeared after an earth burial) may be divided and 

two graves created—one at a local cemetery, and another 

at the site of the saint. The Honganji branch of 

Shinran’s denomination has been selling spots for interment 

at the grave of Shinran since at least the sixteenth 

century, a policy that has created both revenue 

and a deep sense of fealty among the branch’s nonclergy 

members. 

It should also be noted that rebirth in the Pure Land 

of Amitabha has slowly grown into a kind of normative 

objective of postmortem ritual for most of the Mahayana 

world, from Tibet to Japan, since the seventh 

century, cutting across a range of schools, beliefs, and 

sectarian identities. The rhetoric of attaining the Pure 

Land promises nonbacksliding status and swift progress 

to buddhahood, yet it also includes the imperative to 

postpone buddhahood in order to return to sam sara to 

help others attain a similar postmortem peace. 

One of the important principles guiding relations 

between the dead and their deceased kin or intimates 

is that of merit transfer (parivatta, parinama), a fundamental 

theme in funerary rituals devoted to raising 

the recently deceased to the Pure Land, for example. 

Adopted from earlier Brahmanic rites for the dead 

called śraddha that elevated the status of the recently 

deceased from unstable ghost (preta) to divinity 

(deva), Buddhism similarly began with tales of ghosts 

who are incapable of initiating action to improve their 

situation. In the Theravada text Petavatthu, the ghost 

of a deceased person may appear to someone in his or 

her family requesting that offerings be made to the 

saṅgha with the merit ritually transferred to the ghost. 

If the ghost is morally capable of appreciating the 

goodness of the act, he or she can be transformed into 

a deity, just as in Brahmanism. 

In the Mahayana, the practice of merit transfer is 

greatly expanded, but it shares with Theravada a presumption 

that the efficacy depends upon the ability of 

the deceased to perceive religious messages ritually 

sent to him or her and to appreciate their meaning. 

It is widely believed in Mahayana countries that in 

the intermediate state one has the potential to refuse 

the sam saric body offered and, if one can steer clear 

of distractions, awaken to the truth and proceed directly 

to nirvana. The so-called TIBETAN BOOK OF THE 

DEAD is meant to guide the dead when confronted 

with different choices as to what path to follow in that 

realm. Kinfolk and close friends gather repeatedly to 


D EATH 

The funeral procession of a Tibetan monk in Darjeeling, India, 1989. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

chant sutras and make donations to the saṅgha, producing 

a store of merit that is ritually transferred to 

the deceased. 

Care of the unknown or nonkin dead typically occurs 

on an individual basis, such as when a pilgrim dies 

on the road, but there is also a famous institutional example 

in the Chinese GHOST FESTIVAL. Here Chinese 

notions of ravenous ghosts and Indian concepts of 

preta fused into the hungry ghost image—beings in the 

preta realm that are obsessed with hunger as they try 

to fill a large belly with a tiny mouth; the hungry ghost 

can never get enough to feel satisfied. Based on the indigenous 

Yulanpen jing, a ritual tradition began in the 

medieval period for a yearly festival to transfer merit 

to all beings in the preta realm by making donations 

to the saṅgha. This festival is still practiced throughout 

East Asia, and is particularly vibrant in Japan. 

See also: Abortion; Ancestors; Buddha, Life of the; Cosmology; 

Ghosts and Spirits; Hells; Mahaparinirvan a- 

sutra; Merit and Merit-Making; Rebirth; Relics and 

Relics Cults 

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Japan.” Western Folklore 9, no. 3 (1950): 217–228. 

Benard, Elisabeth. “The Tibetan Tantric View of Death and Afterlife.” 

In Death and Afterlife: Perspectives of World Religions, 

ed. Hiroshi Obayashi. New York and London: Greenwood 

Press, 1992. 

Blum, Mark. “Stand by Your Founder: Honganji’s Struggle with 

Funereal Orthodoxy.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 

27, nos. 3–4 (2000): 180–212. 

Bond, George. “Theravada Buddhism’s Meditations on Death 

and the Symbolism of Initiatory Death.” History of Religions 

19 (1980): 237–258. 

Bowker, John. “Buddhism.” In The Meanings of Death. New 

York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 

Cuevas, Brian. “Predecessors and Prototypes: Towards a Conceptual 

History of the Buddhist Antarabhava.” Numen 43 

(1996): 263–302. 

Ebrey, Patricia. “Cremation in Sung China.” American Historical 

Review 95, no. 2 (1990): 406–428. 

Gielen, Uwe P. “A Death on the Roof of the World: The Perspective 

of Tibetan Buddhism.” In Death and Bereavement 


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across Cultures, ed. Colin M. Parkes, Pittu Laungani, and Bill 

Young. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. 

Holck, Frederick, ed. Death and Eastern Thought: Understanding 

Death in Eastern Religions and Philosophies. Nashville, 

TN: Abingdon Press, 1974. 

Holt, John C. “Assisting the Dead by Venerating the Living: 

Merit Transfer in the Early Buddhist Tradition.” Numen 28, 

no. 1 (1981): 1–28. 

Keyes, Charles. “From Death to Birth: Ritual Process and Buddhist 

Meanings in Northern Thailand.” Folk (Copenhagen) 

29 (1987): 181–190. 

King, Winston. “Practicing Dying: The Samurai-Zen Death 

Techniques of Suzuki Shosan.” In Religious Encounters with 

Death: Insights from the History and Anthropology of Religions, 

ed. Frank Reynolds and Earl Waugh. University Park: 


Klein, Anne C. “Buddhism.” In How Different Religions View 

Death and Afterlife, 2nd edition, ed. Christopher Jay Johnson 

and Marsha McGee. Philadelphia: Charles Press, 1991. 

Nanamoki Bhikkhu, trans. The Path of Purification by Bhadantacariya 

Buddhaghosa. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication 


Reynolds, Frank E. “Death as Threat, Death as Achievement: 

Buddhist Perspectives with Particular Reference to the Theravada 

Tradition.” In Death and Afterlife: Perspectives of World 

Religions, ed. Hiroshi Obayashi. New York and London: 

Greenwood Press, 1992. 

Shibayama Zenkei. A Flower Does Not Talk, tr. Sumiko Kudo. 

Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 1970. 

Tambiah, S. J. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in Northeast Thailand. 




Thurman, Robert, trans. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. New 

York: Bantam, 1994. 

Wayman, Alex. “Studies in Yama and Mara.” Indo-Iranian Journal 

3, nos. 1–2 (1959): 44–131. 

Wayman, Alex. “The Religious Meaning of Concrete Death in 

Buddhism.” In Sens de la mort dans le Christianisme et les 

autres religions, ed. Mariasusai Dhavamony. Rome: Gregorian 


Welter, Albert. “Life, Death and Enlightenment: Buddhist Ethics 

in a Chinese Context.” In Life Ethics in World Religions, ed. 

Dawne C. McCance. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998. 

Wijesekera, N. D. “Beliefs and Ceremonial Associated with 

Death in Ceylon.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Ceylon 

Branch) New Series 8, no. 2 (1963): 225–244. 

Yetts, W. Perceval, “Notes on the Disposal of Buddhist Dead in 

China.” Journal, Royal Asiatic Society (1911): 699–725. 

MARK L. BLUM 

DECLINE OF THE DHARMA 

The first of the “three marks of existence”—ANITYA 

(IMPERMANENCE), anatman (no-self), and DUH KHA 

(SUFFERING)—holds that all conditioned (that is, 

causally produced) phenomena are transitory. With 

striking consistency, most Buddhists over the centuries 

have believed this to imply that Buddhism itself—as a 

historically constructed religious tradition flowing 

from the life and teachings of a particular individual— 

must also have a finite duration. While the truth about 

the nature of reality (dharma) propounded by Śakyamuni 

and other buddhas before him is considered to 

be unchanging, particular expressions of that truth, 

and the human communities that embody them, are 

viewed as conditioned, and thus impermanent, phenomena. 

According to this widely held understanding, 

each buddha discovers the same truth about reality as 

that realized by his predecessors, and then he teaches 

it to a community of followers. After a certain period 

of time, however (commonly ranging from five hundred 

to five thousand years), this truth will be forgotten, 

thus necessitating its rediscovery by another 

buddha in the future. 

In addition to this general assumption of transitoriness, 

Indian Buddhists have shared with their Jain 

and Hindu counterparts the idea that the present age 

is part of a cycle of decline. The entire cosmos, and 

with it the moral and spiritual capacity of human beings, 

is viewed as being on a downward cycle, with each 

succeeding generation being less spiritually adept than 

the last. In this context it is not surprising that Buddhists 

have anticipated a gradual erosion both in the 

quality and quantity of the transmitted teachings and 

in the karmic character of their practitioners. Such expectations 

have been recorded in a wide range of 

prophecies of the decline and eventual disappearance 

of Buddhism found in Buddhist canonical texts. 

Timetables of decline 

The earliest tradition offering a specific figure for the 

duration of the dharma predicts that Buddhism will 

endure for only five hundred years. This prophecy, 

found in the VINAYA texts of several different ordination 

lineages (nikaya) and dating from perhaps a century 

or so after the Buddha’s death, is generally 

intertwined with the claim that Buddhism would have 

survived for a full one thousand years were it not for 

the fateful decision made by Śakyamuni to ordain 

women as well as men. As a direct result of the pres- 



ence of NUNS within the monastic community, the life 

span of the Buddhist teachings will be cut in half. 

Early in the first millennium C.E., however, as the 

Buddhist community became aware that this initial figure 

of five hundred years had already passed, new traditions 

extending the life span of the dharma beyond 

this limit began to emerge. A 1,000-year timetable 

seems to have been especially popular in Sarvastivada 

circles, appearing in a wide variety of literary genres 

(including sutras, VINAYA texts, and AVADANA tales, as 

well as in scholastic works) associated with this lineage. 

The figure of 1,000 years also appears in several MA- 

HAYANA texts, including the Bhadrakalpika-su tra and a 

commentary on the larger Prajñaparamita-su tra (Perfection 

of Wisdom Su tra) preserved only in Chinese (Da 

zhidu lun). 

With the passage of time even this extended number 

proved insufficient, however, and still longer 

timetables were proposed. Later Mahayana scriptures 

offer figures of 1,500 years, 2,000 years, and 2,500 

years, of which the latter became especially influential 

in East Asia. In THERAVADA circles a still longer 

timetable of 5,000 years was adopted; this timetable has 

been known since at least the fifth century C.E., when 

it appeared in BUDDHAGHOSA’s commentary on the 

Aṅguttaranikaya. The figure of 5,000 years has also become 

standard in Tibetan Buddhism, drawn perhaps 

from the Byams pa’i mdo (*Maitreya-su tra), which survives 

in two Tibetan translations. A slightly different 

figure of 5,104 years is also used by Tibetan Buddhists, 

calculated on the basis of an apocalyptic prophecy 

found in the Kalacakra Tantra. 

According to all of these traditions, after the requisite 

time has elapsed Buddhism will completely disappear 

from this world. Only at the time of the next 

buddha, MAITREYA (commonly calculated at 5.6 billion, 

or sometimes 560 million, years from now), will 

the truth discovered by Śakyamuni and prior buddhas 

be made available again. In East Asia, however, calculations 

of the life span of the Buddhist religion took 

a different turn, based on the development of a system 

of three periods in the history of the dharma. According 

to this system, the third period in the life span 

of the dharma was generally described as lasting for 

10,000 years—a number that implies “infinity” in East 

Asia. As a result, for East Asian Buddhists the life span 

of the dharma has been radically extended, even as 

this final period is described as one of decadence and 

decline. 

The periodization of decline 

Texts predicting that the Buddhist religion will last only 

five hundred years do not subdivide this figure into 

smaller periods. With the advent of longer timetables, 

however, Buddhists began to identify discrete stages or 

periods within the overall process of decline. A wide 

range of periodization systems can be found in Indian 

Buddhist texts, ranging from two 500-year periods (in 

the Mahavibhasa) to a 1,000-year period followed by a 

500-year period (in the Karunapundarlka-su tra) to five 

500-year periods (in the Chinese translation of the Candragarbha-su 

tra). Clearly there was no consensus 

among Indian Buddhists on the total duration of the 

dharma or its periodization once the initial agreement 

on a 500-year life span had been left behind. 

Amid this great variety, however, a twofold periodization 

scheme came to be widely influential in Indian 

Mahayana circles. According to this system 

(which seems to have been formulated early in the first 

millennium C.E.), after the Buddha’s death there would 

first be a period of the true dharma (saddharma), followed 

by a period of the “semblance” or “reflection” 

of the true dharma (saddharma-pratiru paka). During 

the first period, the Buddhist teachings are still available 

in their full form, and liberation can still be attained; 

during the second, at least some elements of 

the Buddhist repertoire remain available, but conditions 

for spiritual practice are far less propitious. The 

term saddharma-pratiru paka has sometimes been 

wrongly translated into English as “counterfeit 

dharma,” a concept that does appear elsewhere in Buddhist 

literature, though not in the context of this twoperiod 

scheme. It is quite clear, however, that Buddhist 

writers viewed the period of the “reflected dharma” as 

a time when access to genuine Buddhist teachings was 

still available, albeit in a diluted and rapidly disappearing 

form. 

The distinction between saddharma and saddharmapratiru 

paka appears to have been most useful as a conceptual 

bridge between the older system of five hundred 

years and longer systems, and as the expected 

duration of the dharma moved beyond 1,500 years to 

still longer figures, this twofold periodization system 

seems to have gone out of use. Though references to 

the saddharma and the saddharma-pratiru paka continued 

to appear occasionally in other Mahayana texts 

(for example, in the LOTUS SU TRA, where they play a 

prominent role), longer periodization schemes for the 

duration of the dharma that were formulated in India, 

including the 5,000-year system now used in the Theravada 

world and the comparable 5,000-year system 


211


employed in Tibet, generally proceed without reference 

to these terms. 

In East Asia, however, these expressions played a 

central role in calculations of the duration of the 

dharma. The concepts of saddharma and saddharmapratiru 

paka appeared in China by the third century 

C.E., where they were translated as zhengfa (correct 

dharma) and xiangfa (image [or semblance] dharma), 

respectively, by DHARMARAKSA (Zhu Fahu, fl. 265–309 

C.E.). Combining these neatly parallel Chinese terms 

with a third expression, moshi (final age; used to translate 

the Sanskrit paścimakala, “latter time”), subsequent 

generations of Chinese thinkers constructed 

a three-part periodization scheme consisting of the 

“correct dharma” (zhengfa), “semblance dharma” 

(xiangfa), and “final dharma” (mofa). This third and 

final period, which is unknown in Indian sources, was 

understood as a period when Buddhism is still known, 

but human spiritual capacity is at an all-time low. In 

China this third and final period was commonly calculated 

as having begun in 552 C.E.; in Japanese sources 

(drawing on different translated scriptures) the more 

common date for the onset of mofa (Japanese, mappo ) 

is 1052. In both cases, however, it was expected to endure 

for the foreseeable future, a period regularly described 

as lasting “10,000 years and more.” 

Causes of decline 

On one level, the decline and eventual disappearance 

of the dharma is viewed in Buddhist sources as automatic, 

simply resulting from the principle of the transitoriness 

of all conditioned things. On another level, 

however, Buddhists have sought to identify specific 

factors that may contribute to—or conversely, that 

may inhibit—the ongoing process of decline. 

As noted above, the earliest tradition points to the 

presence of women in the monastic order as the critical 

factor in Buddhism’s early demise. Other explanations 

soon appeared, however, many of which point to 

internal causes—that is, the conduct of members of the 

Buddhist community themselves—as bringing about 

the disappearance of Buddhism. These include lack of 

respect toward various elements of the Buddhist tradition, 

lack of diligence in meditation practice, and carelessness 

in the transmission of the teachings. Other 

accounts point to sectarian divisions or the appearance 

of false teachings as the cause of decline. Finally, excessive 

monastic association with secular society also 

regularly appears as a contributing cause. 

Other accounts, however, link the decline of the 

dharma to forces impinging on the Buddhist community 

from without. Modern secondary sources have 

often blamed declining Buddhist fortunes on PERSE- 

CUTIONS or foreign invasions, but when Buddhist 

scriptures point to external causes it is generally not 

persecution or conquest but excessive patronage of the 

Buddhist community that is blamed for its decadence 

and decline. 

Responses to the idea of decline 

Though most Buddhists before the modern period 

have shared the idea that Buddhism is in the process 

of decline, responses to this idea have varied widely. In 

Sri Lanka, for example, the steady decline of the 

dharma spelled out in the writings of Buddhaghosa is 

associated with an emphasis on the importance of preserving 

the written teachings, and it also harmonizes 

well with the widespread assumption that it is no longer 

possible to attain arhatship in this day and age. In Tibet, 

by contrast, where the dharma is also expected to 

last for 5,000 years, there is far greater optimism about 

the possibilities for practice and attainment in the present 

age, due in part to the assumption that tantric 

practice offers a short-cut to enlightenment. 

In East Asia the concept of mofa effectively overshadowed 

worries about the eventual disappearance of 

Buddhism, leading instead to a focus on the challenge 

of practicing Buddhism during this prolonged and 

decadent final age. In China concern with mofa appears 

to have peaked in the sixth and seventh centuries 

C.E., when it inspired such figures as Daochuo 

(562–645) and Shandao (613–681) to emphasize the 

necessity of relying on the Buddha AMITABHA in this 

difficult time. Xinxing (540–594), founder of the SAN- 

JIE JIAO (THREE STAGES SCHOOL), by contrast, held that 

even greater efforts were needed in order to make 

progress in such a decadent age. After the seventh century, 

attention to mofa appears to have receded in 

China, and it is of relatively little importance (except 

as a rhetorical flourish used in critiques of the monastic 

saṅgha) in most of East Asia today. 

In Japan, however, mappo has remained a central 

and governing concept, above all for members of PURE 

LAND SCHOOLS and the NICHIREN SCHOOL. Zen Buddhists, 

by contrast, have often dismissed the relevance 

of the idea, claiming that what could be accomplished 

in Śakyamuni Buddha’s time is equally accessible today. 

Though agreeing on little else, Pure Land and 

Nichiren Buddhists share the idea that the age of map- 


D ESIRE 

po constitutes a new dispensation requiring an easier 

and more universal religious practice. 

See also: Dharma and Dharmas 

Bibliography 

Chappell, David W. “Early Forebodings of the Death of Buddhism.” 

Numen 27 (1980): 122–153. 

Durt, Hubert. Problems of Chronology and Eschatology: Four Lectures 

on the Essay on Buddhism by Tominaga Nakamoto 

(1715–1746). Kyoto: Scuola di Studi sull’Asia Orientale, 

1994. 

Hubbard, Jamie. Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood: The 

Rise and Fall of a Chinese Heresy. Honolulu: University of 


Nattier, Jan. Once upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist 

Prophecy of Decline. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 

1991. 

Stone, Jacqueline I. “Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age: 

Mappo Thought in Kamakura Buddhism.” Eastern Buddhist 

18, no. 1 (1985): 28–56 and 18, no. 2 (1985): 35–64. 

DEQING 

JAN NATTIER 

Hanshan Deqing, or Deqing Chengyin (1546–1623), is 

one of the so-called Four Eminent Monks of the Ming 

Dynasty, whose prolific works influenced and reflected 

the syncretistic trends of his days in Chinese Buddhism. 

Of patriarchal stature later in both the Chan 

and PURE LAND SCHOOLS, he advocated the combined 

practice of “recitation of the Buddha’s name” and the 

“investigation of the critical phrase” (kan huatou) for 

the greater part of his missionary career. Later in his 

life, he grew singularly devout to Pure Land, noticeably 

after he founded the Fayun Chan Monastery in 

1617 with the intent of re-creating the paradigmatic 

Pure Land community of the first patriarch HUIYUAN 

(334–416). 

Deqing’s extensive learning in Confucianism and 

Daoism made him a vocal and celebrated figure among 

literati and officials. Though the imperial favor long 

granted to him was interrupted when he was (possibly 

falsely) charged with illicitly establishing monasteries, 

and as a result was removed from the governmentappointed 

abbotship of the Haiyin Monastery in 1596, 

his monastic status was returned to him by 1615, earning 

him a heightened reputation. During exile, he was 

invited to serve as abbot at the fabled Caoxi site of the 

Sixth Patriarch of the Chan school, HUINENG, where 

he revitalized many of its purportedly “original” institutional 

traditions. 

Deqing was well known in both his lectures and 

written works for his simultaneously harmonizing and 

polemical treatment of the Three Religions (Buddhism, 

Confucianism, and Daoism). His syncretistic 

agenda extended to the doctrinal reconciliation of 

most of the viable Buddhist schools of his days. An anthology 

of his works was compiled under the title Hanshan 

dashi mengyou ji (Complete Works of the Great 

Master Hanshan [Written] while Roaming in a Dream). 

See also: Chan School; Confucianism and Buddhism; 

Daoism and Buddhism; Syncretic Sects: Three Teachings 

Bibliography 

Hsu, Sung-peng. A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and 

Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing. University Park: Pennsylvania 

State University Press, 1979. 

Wu, Pei-yi. “Spiritual Autobiography of Te-ch’ing.” In The Unfolding 

of Neo-Confucianism, ed. William de Bary and the 

Conference on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Thought. New 

York and London: Columbia University Press, 1975. 

DESIRE 

WILLIAM CHU 

In contemporary Western discourse, the complex and 

culture-bound term desire is sometimes used as an approximate 

equivalent for Buddhist concepts that denote 

different aspects of appetition, in preference to 

older, and more common, renderings of Asian concepts 

such as the passions, lust, sensual pleasure, and 

craving. Terms in the latter family of words have been 

preferred perhaps because of their association with 

Western notions of asceticism and abstinence. 

In religious traditions with ascetic leanings the disappointments 

of love are seen as signs that attachment 

is inherently painful. But even the trite aphorism that 

“love always brings pain” may be seen as only a vague 

reference to the set of complex problems one faces 

when considering the psychological and philosophical 

relationship between satisfaction and dissatisfaction, 

longing and disappointment, attachment and love 

soured or lost. 


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D EVADATTA 

Attempts to understand and control the longing 

that leads to disappointment and pain form an important 

dimension of ascetic and philosophical ideals 

in the West among the Stoics and their Christian heirs, 

and in several strands of Indian religious thought. 

Among these strands, the principle of the primacy of 

desire takes a particularly important place among Buddhist 

traditions, where it assumes the position of a 

canonical creed: Desire is the root of REBIRTH and suffering. 

In its strongest form the doctrine may state that 

“the world is lead by thirst (tanha), the world is 

dragged around by thirst; everything is under the 

power of this single factor, thirst” (Suttanipata 1. 7. 3 

Tanhasutta, vol. 1, p. 39). 

The “burden” of the SKANDHAS (AGGREGATES) is defined 

as craving, an unquenchable “thirst that leads to 

repeated birth, is tied to delight and passion, desires 

now this now that. This is the thirst of sense desire, the 

thirst for existence, the thirst for cessation” (Suttanipata, 

3. 1. 3 Bharasutta, vol. 1, p. 26). 

The juxtaposition of formulas of this kind suggests 

that the central concept is not “desire” in its normal, 

restricted sense, but “desire” in the broad sense of the 

drive or impulse that makes us want to achieve or possess, 

including the drive to live on and the wish to stop 

the pain of living. Although the dominant theme in 

Buddhist traditions has been desire as sense desire, it 

is often presented in complementary contraposition to 

displeasure (hatred, animosity, disgust), and indifferent 

ignorance (cognitive stupor or blindness). These 

three modes of thinking, feeling, and acting may be 

summarized in the three terms: desire, disgust, and 

unawareness—a triad known as the “three poisons” or 

the fundamental kleśas (defiling afflictions). These 

three summarize or epitomize the factors that lead to 

suffering and REBIRTH. 

Thirst is therefore a superordinate term that includes 

and signifies primarily passionate desire, but 

that also includes the drive to hate or repel, and the 

wish not to know (the drive to remain unaware). It is 

willful desire and passionate desire and delight, but 

it is also the mental act of holding on to that which 

is wanted (upayu padana cetaso) and the complex 

process of claiming possession, dwelling on something, 

and being inclined or predisposed to something 

(adhitthanabhinivesanusaya; Suttanipata, 3.1. 3.1 

Bharasutta, vol. 1, p. 26). 

As the tradition shifts emphasis to either one of the 

fundamental kleśas, its understanding of desire changes 

in important ways. Desire as concupiscence is associated 

with the ascetic leanings of the monastic tradition; 

an emphasis on the noxious effects of disgust and displeasure 

is associated with the bodhisattva’s compassion 

and toleration for the vicissitudes of SAM SARA; 

and, more consciously in the development of the tradition, 

an understanding of desire as unawareness is 

associated with the idea that insight liberates from 

craving and suffering. Thus, the famous lines from 

the MAHAVASTU, “desire I know your root, you arise 

from conceptual representation,” is quoted by the 

MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL as proof that the royal road to 

vanquishing suffering and craving is seeing through the 

emptiness of the constructions that underlie the objects 

of desire. 

This particular turn in the Buddhist understanding 

of desire is characteristic of MAHAYANA and is also expressed 

in more radical and paradoxical statements, 

such as the idea that awakening is nothing but the 

kleśas themselves. Such notions may be seen as leading 

naturally into the doctrinal rethinking of the body 

and desire in the tantric tradition, where earlier ascetic 

concerns with the body and the passions are transformed 

into new ways of turning the profane human 

being into the sacred body of a buddha. 

See also: Path; Pratltyasamutpada (Dependent Origination); 

Psychology 

Bibliography 

Olson, Carl. Indian Philosophers and Postmodern Thinkers: Dialogues 

on the Margins of Culture. New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2002. 

DEVADATTA 


Devadatta is the paradigmatically wicked and evil personality 

in Buddhist tradition and literature. One 

scholar, Reginald Ray, calls him a “condemned saint,” 

pointing out the somewhat contradictory description 

of his personality in the canonical literature. There are 

various major and minor legends about Devadatta’s 

actions against the Buddha and the Buddhist community. 

He seems to fill the role of the scapegoat in 

Buddhist literature; all bad action condemned by Buddhist 

moral and monastic rules is heaped upon him. 

The three most serious acts leading to Devadatta’s 

fall into hell, described by the Buddhist commentary 


D GE LUGS (GELUK) 

Mahaprajñaparamita-śastra (Chinese, Dazhidu lun; 

English, The Great Perfection of Wisdom Treatise) attributed 

to NAGARJUNA (ca. second century C.E.), are 

causing the first schism of the Buddhist order, wounding 

the Buddha, and killing a Buddhist nun named 

Utpalavarna. 

Devadatta is the cousin of the Buddha and is said 

to have been his rival before the Buddha’s enlightenment. 

Devadatta kills an elephant presented to the 

buddha-to-be and is beaten by the Buddha in an 

archery contest. Devadatta is also reported to have entered 

the Buddhist order with other members of the 

Śakya clan, where he soon achieved magical power that 

he used to gain the support of Ajataśatru, the crown 

prince of Magadha, who finally, as a parallel crime to 

Devadatta’s attacks on the Buddha, killed his father, 

Bimbisara, and put himself on the throne of Magadha. 

Devadatta tried several times to assassinate the Buddha 

by releasing a drunken elephant to attack him, 

by throwing a rock at him from atop Vultures’ Peak 

(Grdhrakuta), and by trying to scratch him with his 

poisoned fingernails. 

The historical core of the legends surrounding 

Devadatta is his attempt to split the Buddhist order 

(saṅghabheda). He first tried to persuade the Buddha 

to transfer the leadership of the order to him under 

the pretext of introducing five stricter, more ascetic, 

rules for monks (dhu taguna; ASCETIC PRACTICES), but 

the Buddha refused. Devadatta succeeded in attracting 

a group of followers, but they were eventually led back 

to the Buddha’s order by the Buddha’s main disciples, 

MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA and ŚARIPUTRA. 

In Mahayana texts such as the LOTUS SU TRA (SAD- 

DHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), however, Devadatta is rehabilitated 

insofar as the Buddha prophesies that 

Devadatta will become a Buddha in the far future, despite 

his misdeeds, because he has accumulated good 

KARMA (ACTION) in a past existence. In their descriptions 

of Buddhist India, the Chinese pilgrims FAXIAN 

(ca. 337–418), XUANZANG (ca. 600–664), and YIJING 

(635–713) refer to a monastic order of Devadatta’s that 

may have existed from the lifetime of the Buddha to 

the early seventh century. A careful comparison of the 

traditions and their contradictions, however, seems to 

indicate that this saṅgha of Devadatta was a recent religious 

group in India during the first centuries C.E. As 

such it refers to the earlier schismatic order ascribed 

to Devadatta that attempted to gain legitimation as a 

religious group connected to, but still separated from, 

the Buddhist tradition. 


Bibliography 

Deeg, Max. “The Saṅgha of Devadatta: Fiction and History of 

a Heresy in the Buddhist Tradition.” Journal of the International 

College for Advanced Buddhist Studies 2 (1999): 

183–218. 

Mukherjee, Biswadeb. Die Überlieferung von Devadatta, dem 

Widersacher des Buddha, in den kanonischen Schriften. Munich: 

J. Kitzinger, 1966. 



1994. 

DGE LUGS (GELUK) 

MAX DEEG 

Although the place of the scholar TSONG KHA PA 

(1357–1419) in the formulation of the main ideas and 

practices of the Dge lugs (pronounced Geluk) tradition 

is clear, his role in the creation of a separate tradition 

is less obvious. What is clear is that Tsong kha pa, who 

had received his training mostly from SA SKYA (SAKYA) 

scholars, stressed the importance of separate monastic 

institutions. It is also known that he was exceptionally 

charismatic and made an enormous impression on his 

contemporaries in Tibet, where he had a large following 

of powerful families and highly gifted students, including 

Rgyal tshab (1364–1432) and Mkhas grub 

(1385–1438). These institutional facts, along with the 

power of Tsong kha pa’s ideas, explain the development 

of the Dge lugs as a tradition claiming to represent 

the apex of Tibetan Buddhism. This claim is 

reflected in the highly loaded name (Dge lugs pa means 

“the virtuous ones”) that adherents later chose to call 

themselves. 

The beginnings were, however, quite different. During 

the first decades of the fifteenth century, Tsong kha 

pa’s followers were known as Dga’ ldan pa (the ones 

from the monastery of Dga’ ldan) and seem to have 

been just one group within a tradition in which sectarian 

affiliations were fluid. This situation changed 

during the later decades of the fifteenth century. The 

details of this process cannot be described here, but a 

few relevant events must be kept in mind: the rapid increase 

in the size of the three monasteries around 

Lhasa; the creation of other large monasteries, such as 

Bkra shis lhun po, founded in 1445 by Dge ‘dun grub 

(1391–1474); the move to Lhasa by Dge ‘dun grub’s 


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D HAMMAPADA 

reincarnation, Dge ‘dun rgya mtsho (1475–1542), who 

was recognized posthumously as the Second DALAI 

LAMA; and Dge ‘dun rgya mtsho’s construction of a 

large estate at ‘Bras pung, the Dga’ ldan pho brang, 

which became the seat of the Dalai Lamas. Equally relevant 

is the development of sectarian differences, as reflected 

in the acerbic critiques of Tsong kha pa by other 

Sa skya thinkers such as Rong ston (1367–1449) and 

Stag tshang (1405–d.u.). 

This process was further strengthened by the political 

climate of the times, particularly the rise of political 

tensions between the groups vying for power in 

Tibet: the Ring pung family supported by the bka’ 

brgyud and the Sa skya, and forces from Central Tibet 

supported by the Dge lugs. The next century and a half 

saw a veritable civil war between these two groups, 

which ended only in 1642 with the victory of the forces 

of Central Tibet supported by a Mongolian tribe, the 

Gushri Khan’s Qoshot, and the installation of the Fifth 

Dalai Lama (1617–1682) as the ruler of Tibet. 

The rise of the Dalai Lamas as the leaders of the Dge 

lugs school cannot be explored here. It is important, 

however, to note that originally the Dga’ ldan tradition 

was not directed by reincarnated lamas. Its head, 

the Holder of the Throne of Dga’ ldan, was chosen 

from among senior scholars, the first being Rgyal tshab 

and the second Mkhas grub. Gradually, however, the 

power of the head of the tradition was eclipsed by reincarnated 

lamas, who became the de facto leaders of the 

Dge lugs. The victory of the Fifth Dalai Lama also 

seems to have involved a power struggle among reincarnated 

lamas whose dark reflections can be seen in 

the myths surrounding the controversial deity, Rdo rje 

shugs ldan. There, the Fifth Dalai Lama’s government 

is depicted as being responsible for the death of 

Gragspa Rgyal mtsham, one of the main Dge lugs lamas 

of that time. 

The victory of the Dalai Lamas marked a decisive 

turn for the Dge lugs, which henceforth became the 

dominant tradition. Its great monasteries, particularly 

the three monastic seats around Lhasa, became the 

undisputed centers of learning in Tibet, drawing scholars 

from all parts of the Tibetan religious world. Even 

non–Dge lugs scholars would go there to receive training. 

The rule of the Dalai Lamas’ government also ensured 

that the Dge lugs school could avail itself of the 

resources of the state. In this way, it maintained its 

hegemony more or less unchallenged until the invasion 

of Tibet by the People’s Republic of China in 

1950. The consequences of this tragic situation have yet 

to emerge, but it is likely that the Dge lugs tradition will 

not find it easy to maintain its dominant position. 

See also: Panchen Lama; Tibet 

Bibliography 

Cabezón, José Ignacio. “The Regulations of a Monastery.” In 

Religions of Tibet in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton, 


Dreyfus, Georges B. J. “The Shuk-den Affair: The History and 

Nature of a Quarrel.” Journal of the International Association 

of Buddhist Studies 21, no. 2 (1998): 227–270. 

Dreyfus, Georges B. J. The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The 

Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk. Berkeley: University 


Ellingson, T. “Tibetan Monastic Constitutions: The bCa Yig.” 

In Reflections on Tibetan Culture: Essays in Memory of Turrell 

V. Wylie, ed. Lawrence Epstein and Richard F. Sherburne. 

Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990. 

Gyatso, Lobsang. Memoirs of a Tibetan Lama, tr. Gareth 

Sparham. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1998. 

Tarab Tulku. A Brief History of Tibetan Academic Degrees in Buddhist 

Philosophy. Copenhagen, Denmark: Nordic Institute of 

Asian Studies, 2000. 

DHAMMAPADA 

GEORGES B. J. DREYFUS 

The Dhammapada (Words of the Doctrine) is one of 

the most popular texts of the THERAVADA canon. It is 

embedded in the fifth part of the Suttapitaka as the 

second text of the Khuddakanikaya (Group of Small 

Texts). The content of the 423 mostly gnomic verses 

is often only very loosely connected to Buddhism. The 

verses are divided into twenty-six vaggas (sections), 

such as “on the world,” “on the Buddha,” or “on 

thirst.” Consequently, many parallels are also found in 

non-Buddhist texts, such as the Mahabharata. Moreover, 

numerous parallel collections exist in Buddhist 

literature, including the Dharmapada in Gandhar of 

the DHARMAGUPTAKA school from Central Asia, the 

“Patna” Dharmapada of the Sammatya school, and 

the Udanavarga of the (Mula)Sarvastivada school. 

The history of these collections and their interrelation 

is obscured by constant contamination and mutual 

borrowing of verses. The linguistic features of 

some verses indicate that the beginnings might reach 

back to a very early period. Most likely material has 


D HARMA AND D HARMAS 

been added over a long span of time. There is a voluminous 

commentary on the Dhammapada explaining 

the wording of individual verses and adding stories on 

the supposed occasion on which the Buddha is thought 

to have uttered a verse. The Dhammapada was the first 

Pali text ever critically edited in Europe, by the Danish 

scholar Viggo Fausbøll (1821–1908) in 1855. 

See also: Gandharl, Buddhist Literature in; Pali, Buddhist 

Literature in 

Bibliography 

Burlingame, Eugene Watson, trans. Buddhist Legends, 3 vols. 


Carter, John Ross, and Paliwadana, Mahinda, trans. and eds. 

The Dhammapada: A New English Translation. New York: 


Hinüber, Oskar von, and Norman, K. R., eds. Dhammapada. 

Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1994. 

Norman, K. R., trans. The Word of the Doctrine. Oxford: Pali 

Text Society, 2000. 

Osier, Jean-Pierre. Les stances de la loi. Paris: Garnier- 

Flammarion, 1997. 

OSKAR VON HINÜBER 

Strictly speaking, dharan should refer to memory aids 

to hold, support, or protect something in the mind, 

while mantra refer to syllabic formula, spells, and incantations. 

However, in Buddhist hagiography monkthaumaturges 

do not make these distinctions, and in 

Buddhist commentarial literature, monk-scholars classify 

dharan into various types but always make provision 

for spell-type dharan. Also, dharan collections 

contain many spells and procedures for their intended 

use by laypersons. 

The sounds of dharan are powerful of themselves 

and generate merit by merely reciting them. They also 

function by means of the doctrine of the “transference 

of merit.” By chanting dharan one obtains merit for 

oneself by drawing upon the inexhaustible stores of 

merit possessed by buddhas, bodhisattvas, and gods for 

use in this world, usually for protection and to counteract 

problems understood to be the fruits of one’s 

own karma, but this power may also be used to work 

other kinds of miracles. Since dharan were later popular 

among tantric masters, dharan texts are often, 

perhaps misleadingly, classified as proto-tantric. 

See also: Language, Buddhist Philosophy of; Mantra; 


Bibliography 

DHA RAN I 

The term dharanl refers to spells, incantations, or 

mnemonic codes, and literally means “to hold,” “to 

support,” or “to maintain.” Originating in Vedic religion, 

dharan often consist of incomprehensible combinations 

of syllables in Sanskrit. Buddhist dharan 

may be long or short and are usually untranslatable. 

Dharan comprise a large portion of the Buddhist 

CANON of scripture and most of the important Mahayana 

sutras conclude with or include sections on 

dharan, for example the HEART SU TRA and the LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). Various types 

of dharan are mentioned in Buddhist literature, for example, 

mantra-dharan, by which a BODHISATTVA acquires 

charms to allay plagues, and mnemonic dharan, 

by which a bodhisattva’s memory and perception are 

enhanced to remember sutras or salient points of doctrine. 

In some texts the word dharanl also appears in 

compounds with the word mantra. 

During the twentieth century Western scholars tried 

to assert a precise distinction between dharan and 

mantra by following the strict denotations of the terms. 

Chou Yi-liang. “Tantrisim in China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic 

Studies 8 (March 1945): 241–332. 

Lamotte, Étienne. “Obtenir les portes de Souvenance et de 

Concentration.” In Le traité de la grande vertu de sagesse de 

Nagarjuna (Mahaprajñaparamitaśastra), Vol. 4, pp. 1854– 

1869. Louvain, Belgium: Institut orientaliste, Université de 

Louvain, 1966–1976. 

DHARMA AND DHARMAS 

RICHARD D. MCBRIDE II 

Sanskrit uses the term dharma in a variety of contexts 

requiring a variety of translations. Dharma derives 

from the root √dhr˚ (to hold, to maintain) and is related 

to the Latin forma. From its root meaning as “that 

which is established” comes such translations as law, 

duty, justice, religion, nature, and essential quality. Its 

oldest form, dharman, is found in the pre-Buddhist 

Rgveda, which dates to at least three thousand years 

ago. Thus, the Buddha must have known and used the 

term even before his enlightenment. At present, 

dharma is used generically for “religion,” indicating 


217


religious beliefs and practices. THERAVADA Buddhism 

uses the Pali variant dhamma; Gandhar Prakrit, as attested 

in the Dharmapada from Khotan (second century 

C.E., probably of DHARMAGUPTAKA affiliation) 

uses either dhama or dharma. Gandhar, the language(s) 

of the Gandharan cultural area, including 

Gandhara, Bactria, and Khotan, was the language used 

by the Buddhist schools in that area, such as Sarvastivada, 

Mahasam ghika, Dharmaguptaka, and so on. It is 

also the language from which most Chinese translations 

before the time of KUMARAJIVA (350–409/413) 

derive. It is the Buddhist literature of the Gandhara region 

that was introduced to China during the first century 

B.C.E. through at least the fourth century C.E. The 

Chinese phonetic transliteration attests to the word 

dhama, but in canonical literature the term is almost 

always translated as fa (Japanese ho ; Korean pŏp). The 

common Chinese meaning of fa is law, plan, or 

method, but it is now vested with the full range of Buddhist 

meanings as well. 

The Buddhist interpretation of dharma 

The traditional meaning of dharma can be understood 

as uniform norm, universal and moral order, or natural 

law; it also includes one’s social duty and proper 

conduct. The Buddha understood this universal order 

in terms of PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPENDENT ORIGI- 

NATION), an eternal law governing all elements in this 

conditioned world. This dharma, which was rediscovered 

by the Buddha, was the subject matter of his teaching; 

hence, dharma also means teaching or doctrine. 

The twelve links in the chain of dependent origination 

are explained in the sutras of both the Pali 

nikayas (divisions of the scriptural texts) and the Chinese 

agamas (“transmission” of Buddha’s word), as 

well as in many scholastic texts. Two links are said to 

be in the past: ignorance (avidya), which produces formations 

(sam skara). The meaning of formations comes 

close to KARMA (ACTION). Eight links are in the present: 

consciousness (vijñana), producing name-andform 

(namaru pa), a quasi-person, which leads to the 

six sensory faculties (sadayatana), which lead to contact 

(sparśa) between the six sensory faculties, their objects, 

and the resulting six consciousnesses. This leads 

to feeling or experiencing (vedana), which leads to 

craving (trsna), which brings grasping (upadana), 

which leads to becoming or existence (bhava). Two 

links are in the future: birth (jati) and old age and death 

(jaramarana). This process explains the natural law 

that is the dharma. The PATH toward deliverance from 

this process governing birth, death, and rebirth can be 

found in the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. 

The word dharma is also used for the corpus of discourses, 

the scriptural texts, that expound the Buddha’s 

teaching. The practice of dharma is found in the 

VINAYA, the monastic instructions. The practical application 

of dharma, involving the rules and regulations 

and their sanctions, is contained in the PRATIMOKSA. 

Each of these rules is also called dharma. Dharma and 

vinaya together constitute the teachings of the Buddha; 

what in the West is called Buddhism, the Buddhists 

themselves call the Dharmavinaya. 

The Buddha, who had realized enlightenment not 

far from the capital of Magadha, preached his first sermon, 

the Dharmacakrapravartana-su tra (Turning the 

Wheel of Dharma), in Sarnath in the Deer Park, some 

distance from the banks of the Ganges in Varanas or 

Benares. This sermon explains the path to salvation via 

the four noble truths. The Buddha’s diagnosis sees 

everything as DUH KHA (SUFFERING), which has a cause 

(samudaya), namely craving, which can be extinguished 

(nirodha) through the noble eightfold path (marga): 

1. Right view 

2. Right intention 

3. Right speech 

4. Right action 

5. Right livelihood 

6. Right effort 

7. Right mindfulness 

8. Right concentration 

In the sequence of the eightfold path one distinguishes 

the monastic practice of cultivating PRAJN A (WISDOM), 

morality (ślla), and concentration (samadhi). Steps 

one and two of the path correspond to wisdom. Prajña 

is commonly translated as wisdom, even though 

this is the meaning that it received in a Mahasam ghika 

milieu in northwestern India as a reaction against the 

Sarvastivada. The Sarvastivada sees prajña as an analytical 

knowledge of factors, or dharmas. Steps three to 

five of the path correspond to morality, which purifies 

one’s conduct. Concentration corresponds to steps 

seven and eight. All three practices are associated with 

step six. Dharma, the doctrine, may also be understood 

as the truth about the phenomenal world, and how to 



A golden dharma wheel between two deer, representing the Buddha preaching the first sermon at the Deer Park, Sarnath. Sculpture at 

the Jo khang temple, Lhasa, Tibet. © Brian Vikander/CORBIS. Reproduced by permission. 

do away with its defilements. Thus, dharma also means 

knowledge, freeing one from phenomenal existence. 

The whole process of dependent origination begins 

with ignorance or nescience (avidya). Dharma also 

means morality because it contains a code of moral 

conduct, and it means duty because one has a duty to 

comply with it while striving for NIRVAN A. These interpretations 

of dharma join the age-old understanding 

of the term as natural law and social duty, but this 

time given a Buddhist interpretation. 

Dharma is also the second of the three JEWELS or 

REFUGES (triratna)—Buddha, dharma, SAṄGHA. Taking 

this triple refuge is nowadays an essential criterion 

for being considered a Buddhist. The dharma is the 

truth and protector. The Buddha is the teacher of the 

dharma and becomes its personification. The disciples 

were advised to take the dharma as their guide after 

the Buddha’s death. The dharma is the essence of the 

Buddha. Upon discovering the dharma, Śakyamuni attained 

buddhahood. The saṅgha, the monastic order, 

puts dharma into practice in daily life. 

MAHAYANA Buddhism explains buddhahood by distinguishing 

two, three, or four aspects or bodies (kaya). 

The two bodies are the law-body (dharmakaya), which 

is the dharma, the essence of a buddha, and the material 

body (ru pakaya), the physical aspect. The law-body 

is a personification of the truth of the universal law. 

Better known is the three-body breakdown, which includes 

the body of enjoyment (sambhogakaya) or the 

reward-body, the body that enjoys the reward for previous 

meritorious conduct. It is the ideal buddha-body 

in the realm of the real (DHARMADHATU). An example 

would be AMITABHA, who made forty-eight vows while 

he was the bodhisattva Dharmakara, and he gained 

buddhahood in the Western Paradise of Sukhavat after 

a long period of practice. The transformation-body 

(nirmanakaya) appears as a person during his or her 

earthly existence, and belongs to a specific time and 

place; Śakyamuni, the historical Buddha, is an example 

of transformation-body. 

The Tripitaka, the “three baskets” of the canon that 

contain the teaching, are also regarded as the teaching, 

the dharma. The first basket, the sutras, is traditionally 

divided into either nine or twelve parts, based 

on literary form. The Su trapitaka is now divided into 

nikayas or agamas. The second of the three baskets 


219


contains the vinaya. With the phase of scholastic or 

ABHIDHARMA Buddhism during the last centuries B.C.E. 

and the first centuries C.E., abhidharma was added as 

a third basket, but not all schools agreed with this classification. 

Even within the Sarvastivada there was a difference 

of opinion. One branch, the Vaibhasikas, who 

were active in Kashmir from the third till the middle 

of the seventh century C.E. and were long considered 

to be the orthodoxy, said that the Abhidharmapitaka 

was the Buddha’s word. The earlier and very diverse 

western Sarvastivada groups in the Gandhara area did 

not agree and considered only the sutras to be definitive 

truth. These groups were called SAUTRANTIKA, as 

opposed to Vaibhasika, and they did not have an 

Abhidharmapitaka, only abhidharma works. 

Dharmas, or factors 

The factors or constituents of the dharma, the teachings, 

are also called dharma(s). Such dharmas are 

psychophysical factors, which flow according to the 

natural process of dependent origination. Dharma theory 

explains how the human being is a flux or continuum 

(santana), without any permanent factor or soul 

(atman). Existing reality is called the “realm of the real” 

(dharmadhatu). Buddhism concerns itself with the 

phenomenal, by which existence is recognized. This 

phenomenal world is in constant change. Buddhism 

sees all phenomena as formations (sam skara), formative 

forces or volitions that are formed (sam skrta) by 

causes and conditions. Formation has an active and a 

passive meaning. Factors (dharmas) are formed, but 

sometimes at least one unformed or uncompounded 

factor, NIRVAN A, is recognized. The Sarvastivada, 

which had a tremendous influence in northwestern India 

and in East Asia, distinguish three unformed or uncompounded 

(asam skrta) factors. Everything that is an 

obvious object of consciousness is a factor. A person, 

just like the whole of existence, is a flux, a series of impermanent 

factors, but sentient life has a sentient element: 

mind (manas) or consciousness. A human being 

is a flow of material and immaterial factors set in motion 

by karma and controlled by the law of dependent 

origination. Dharma theory explains how existence 

functions in the context of a human continuum. It explains 

its ultimate factors and it contains the possibility 

of stopping this continuum. 

Originally Buddhism used a threefold classification 

of factors: (1) five SKANDHA (AGGREGATE), (2) twelve 

bases or sense fields (ayatana), and (3) eighteen elements 

(dhatu). During the last centuries B.C.E., the 

dharma theory developed considerably in abhidharma 

Buddhism. The most influential dharma theory was 

that of the diverse Sarvastivada schools. Other schools 

either adopted most of the Sarvastivada dharma theory 

(as did the Mahśasaka), introduced minor changes 

(Dharmaguptaka), were influenced by it (Buddhaghosa 

in fifth-century Theravada), reacted to it (Mahasa mghika, 

Madhyamaka), or built on it (Vijñanavada). The 

Vaibhasikas in Kashmir inherited a fivefold classification 

from their Gandharan brethren, who, after about 

200 C.E., came to be called Sautrantikas. Even among 

the western Sarvastivadins there was no general agreement 

about the number of factors. 

Nevertheless, the Sarvastivada branch that was 

most influential in Central and East Asia, in the Gandharan 

part of northwestern India, and in Kashmir after 

the demise of the Vaibhasikas, was the branch that 

ultimately based its classification on such texts as the 

Abhidharmahrdaya (Heart of Scholasticism) and on the 

Astagrantha (Eight Compositions), both probably from 

the first century B.C.E. This branch used a fivefold classification 

as found in the Pañcavastuka (Five Things), 

which was translated in China during the second century 

C.E. and advocated a Buddhist version of the five 

elements or modes that were popular at the time. The 

Astagrantha was revised and renamed Jñanaprasthana 

(Course of Knowledge) at the end of the second century 

C.E. and became the central text or corpus (śarlra) for 

the Vaibhasikas. The Abhidharmahrdaya was commented 

on in the Miśrakabhidharmahrdaya (Sundry 

Heart of Scholasticism), and this text was the basis of 

Vasubandhu’s ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHASYA (Storehouse of 

Abhidharma), which dates to the early fifth century. 

The influence of the Abhidharmakośabhasya, or Kośa, 

was and is considerable. When a Tibetan text was written 

to instruct Khubilai’s Mongol crown prince in Buddhism 

late in the thirteenth century, the manual was 

based on the Kośa. However, the old classification in 

five aggregates was never forgotten. When Skandhila, 

a Gandharan living in “orthodox” Kashmir during the 

fifth century, composed his Abhidharmavatara (Introduction 

to Scholasticism), he classified the factors on the 

basis of the five aggregates or skandhas, but added the 

three unformed factors. 

The original threefold classification of dharmas 

The earliest division of the factors was into five 

skandha, twelve bases or sense fields (ayatana), and 

eighteen elements (dhatu). The five aggregates 

(skandha means literally “bundles”) divide sentient life 

into five psychophysical elements: 



1. Form or matter (ru pa) 

2. Feeling (vedana ) 

3. Notions or perceptions (sam jña) 

4. Formations (sam skara), also called volitions or 

formative forces 

5. Consciousness (vijñana) 

Aggregates two through five may be called name 

(nama). Name-and-form is a synonym for the five aggregates, 

which are fundamentally impermanent. They 

have nothing one might consider to be a “self,” and 

they bring suffering, being inevitably subject to change. 

The first five DISCIPLES OF THE BUDDHA became 

ARHATS (saints) upon understanding the teaching of 

the egolessness of the aggregates. Matter has mass; it 

obstructs. It incorporates the four great elements: earth 

(hardness), water (moisture), fire (heat), air (motion). 

Feelings may be physical or mental, and are classified 

as either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Notions are 

concepts, which are formed; one may have the concepts 

of color and form, for example, when seeing a 

green leaf. Formations are the mind in action, in which 

volition (cetana) is central. Consciousness is the cognitive 

function. 

The twelve bases (ayatana) refer to the process of 

cognition. A yatana means “a place of entry,” namely 

the six sense organs or faculties (indriya), the six internal 

bases. Alternatively, ayatana can refer to that 

which enters, namely the six objects (visaya) of cognition, 

the six external bases. The twelve ayatana are: 

the six bases of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind; 

and the six objects of color or form, sound, smell, 

taste, palpables, and mental or immaterial objects (the 

factors). 

The eighteen elements are distinguished in relation 

to the flow of life in the three realms of existence: the 

realm of sensuality (kamadhatu), the realm of subtle 

matter (ru padhatu), and the immaterial realm 

(aru padhatu). The first twelve constitute the above 

twelve bases (ayatana), to which are added the six corresponding 

consciousnesses: visual consciousness 

through to mental consciousness. 

Sarvastivada dharma theory 

Many Sarvastivada texts elaborate on dharma theory. 

Besides the texts already mentioned, one may add 

the Dharmaskandha (Aggregate of Factors) and the 

Prakarana (Treatise). Existence is described in four 

categories of formed factors, totaling seventy-two factors, 

and one category of three unformed or unconditioned 

factors, thus giving seventy-five dharmas in 

all. The five categories are: 

1. Matter (ru pa) 

2. Thought (citta) 

3. Thought-concomitants or mentals (caitta) associated 

with thought, arising in association with 

pure consciousness or mind 

4. Formations dissociated from thought (cittaviprayukta) 

5. Unformed factors (asam skrta) 

Form or matter contains eleven factors: the first five 

faculties and their objects, plus unmanifested form 

(avijñaptiru pa). When mental action is made manifest 

in physical or vocal action, it is described by the term 

intimation (vijñapti). When it is not externalized or 

made manifest, the material aspect is nonintimated, 

and thus unmanifested. One might understand 

avijñaptiru pa as the moral character of a person or a 

force of habit. It is a potential form, preserved in the 

physical body. Not all branches of the Sarvastivada 

school distinguished this material factor, but it appears 

in the Śariputrabhidharma, which is said to be of Dharmaguptaka 

affiliation. 

The second category—thought—is just the one factor 

of mind, or pure consciousness. In the classification 

of the eighteen elements, it includes the six 

consciousnesses, plus the mind element. It is the 

consciousness aggregate and also the internal mind 

faculty. The third category is the forty-six thoughtconcomitants, 

which are factors associated with 

thought. Not all adherents of the Sarvastivada school 

agreed with the existence of these factors. For example, 

Dharmatrata (second century C.E.), a Darstantika 

(probably a Sautrantika who followed the long vinaya), 

says that these factors are only subdivisions of volition, 

and he denies their separate existence. Buddhadeva 

(first century C.E.) says that they are none other than 

thought itself. But the Kośa enumerates forty-six 

thought-concomitants. 

Ten mental factors accompany every thought; these 

are the factors “of large extent” (mahabhu mika), that 

is, basic or general. They are: 

1. Feeling (vedana) 

2. Notion (sam jña) 


221


3. Volition (cetana) 

4. Contact (sparśa) 

5. Attention (manaskara) 

6. DESIRE (chanda) 

7. Inclination or aspiration (adhimoksa) 

8. MINDFULNESS (smrti) 

9. Concentration (samadhi) 

10. Comprehension (mati, prajña) 

Ten factors accompany every wholesome thought; 

these are the wholesome factors of large extent 

(kuśalamahabhu mika). They are: 

1. FAITH (śraddha) 

2. Diligence (apramada) 

3. Repose (praśrabdhi) 

4. Equanimity (upeksa) 

5. Shame, with reference to oneself (hrl) 

6. Aversion, with reference to other people’s bad 

actions (apatrapya) 

7. Noncovetousness (alobha) 

8. Nonmalevolence (advesa) 

9. Nonviolence (ahim sa) 

10. Strenuousness (vlrya) 

Six factors accompany every defiled thought; these are 

the defiled factors of large extent (kleśamahabhu mika). 

They are: 

1. Confusion (moha) 

2. Negligence (apramada) 

3. Mental dullness (kausldya) 

4. Nonbelief (aśraddhya) 

5. Sloth (styana) 

6. Frivolity (auddhatya) 

Two factors accompany every unwholesome thought; 

these are called unwholesome factors of large extent 

(akuśalamahabhu mika). They are: 

1. Shamelessness (ahrlkya) 

2. Lack of modesty (anapatrapya) 

Ten defiled factors of limited extent (upakleśaparlttabhu 

mika), which may occur at various times, are: 

1. Anger (krodha) 

2. Hypocrisy (mraksa) 

3. Stinginess (matsarya) 

4. Envy (lrsya) 

5. Ill-motivated rivalry (pradasa) 

6. The causing of harm (vihim sa) 

7. Enmity (upanaha) 

8. Deceit (maya) 

9. Trickery (śathya) 

10. Arrogance (mada) 

Eight undetermined (aniyata) factors have variant 

moral implications and may accompany either a 

wholesome, unwholesome, or indeterminate thought. 

They are: 

1. Initial thought (vitarka) 

2. Discursive thought (vicara) 

3. Drowsiness (middha) 

4. Remorse (kaukrtya) 

5. Greed (raga) 

6. Hatred (pratigha) 

7. Pride (mana) 

8. DOUBT (vicikitsa) about the teaching 

Fourteen factors are neither material nor mental and 

are dissociated from thought (cittaviprayukta). They 

are: 

1. Acquisition (prapti), a force that controls the 

collection of elements in an individual lifecontinuum, 

which links an acquired object 

with its owner 

2. Dispossession (aprapti), which separates an acquired 

object from its owner 

3. Homogeneity (sabhagata) 

4. Nonperception (asam jñika), a force that leads 

one to the attainment of nonperception 

5. Attainment of nonperception (asam jñisamapatti), 

which is produced by the effort to enter 

trance after having stopped perceptions 



6. Attainment of cessation (of notions and feeling, 

nirodhasamapatti), the highest state of trance 

7. Life force (jlvitendriya) 

8. Birth or origination (jati) 

9. Duration (sthiti) 

10. Old age or decay (jara) 

11. Impermanence or extinction (anityata) 

The last three factors are the characteristics of a conditioned 

factor: 

12. Force imparting meaning to letters (vyañjanakaya) 

13. Force imparting meaning to words (namakaya) 

14. Force imparting meaning to phrases (padakaya) 

Finally, there are three unformed factors. They are: 

1. Space (akaśa) 

2. Extinction through discernment (pratisam khyanirodha), 

namely through comprehension of the 

truths and separation from impure factors 

3. Extinction not through discernment (apratisam 

khyanirodha), owing to a lack of a productive 

cause 

Some Sautrantikas asserted that these factors are not 

real. They count forty-three factors. All factors exist in 

all three time periods of past, present, future. This belief 

explains the term Sarvastivada, which means “the 

teaching that all exists.” The Mahśasakas, who split 

from the Sarvastivada, supported the Sarvastivada in 

this thesis. 

A general classification of all factors could be: (1) 

impure (sasrava) factors, chiefly influenced by ignorance, 

and (2) pure (anasrava) factors, tending toward 

appeasement under the influence of wisdom. 

Theravada dhamma theory 

The Theravada dhamma theory is outlined in the 

school’s Abhidhammapitaka, primarily in the Dhammasaṅgani 

(Enumeration of Dhammas) and in the 

Dhatukatha (Discussion of Elements). The ethical classification 

of dhammas as wholesome, unwholesome, 

and neutral (avyakata) is central. The last category has 

four divisions: 

1. Resultant consciousness or thinking (vipakacitta) 

2. Functional consciousness (kriyacitta) 

3. Matter 

4. The unconditioned factor nibbana (nirvana) 

Some factors are not found in the traditional threefold 

classification. For example, matter contains the 

faculty “femininity” (itthindriya). The final Theravada 

dhamma theory is found in manuals dating from the 

fifth century on. Knowing that they belong to the 

Sthaviravada group, it is not surprising that there is 

Sarvastivada (Sautrantika) influence. Buddhadatta, a 

fifth-century contemporary of Skandhila, makes a 

fourfold classification in his Abhidhammavatara (Introduction 

to Scholasticism): form, thought, mentals, 

nibbana. BUDDHAGHOSA, in the fifth century, defines 

factors as “those which maintain their own specific 

nature,” while Buddhadatta says factors possess specific 

and general characteristics. Theravada typically 

uses a classification of 170 factors and four categories, 

but there are other classifications, such as eighty-one 

conditioned factors (matter 28, thought 1, mental 52) 

and one unconditioned factor, nibbana. 

Analysis of dharmas in the 

Madhyamaka school 

The MAHASA M GHIKA SCHOOL, rival of the Sarvastivada 

ever since the first schism, multiplied the number of 

unconditioned factors, even adding dependent origination 

itself to the list. One Mahasam ghika subschool, 

the Prajñaptivada, taught that conditioned factors are 

only denominations (prajñapti) and the twelve bases 

are the products of the aggregates, the only real entities. 

Another subschool, the Lokottaravada, held that 

only the unconditioned factors are real. The ideas of 

the Mahayana MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL may have 

started within the Mahasam ghika milieu in northwestern 

India, in opposition to the dominant Sarvastivada 

school. The Madhyamaka school itself was 

organized in southern India (A ndhra) around 200 C.E., 

at the same time that the Vaibhasikas were organizing 

in Kashmir to the north. The Madhyamaka school rejected 

the reality of any factor and claimed that all conceptual 

thinking was empty (śu nya). The real is devoid 

of thought-construction (vikalpa) and can be realized 

only through nondual wisdom (prajña). NAGARJUNA 

(ca. second century C.E.) interpreted the law of dependent 

origination to mean relativity or ŚU NYATA 

(EMPTINESS). According to Nagarjuna, nothing is 

real when taken separately. He was not interested in 


223

D HARMADHA TU 

delineating the number of factors or in constructing 

any classification schemata, but he was interested in 

the inherent nature of factors (dharmata). Existence is 

only valid from a conventional (sam vrti) point of view, 

but it is not valid when viewed from the standpoint of 

absolute (paramartha) truth. 

Vijña nava da dharma theory 

The Vijñanavada or YOGACARA SCHOOL agrees with 

Madhyamaka that all is empty, but posits that consciousness 

is real. Vijñanavada postulates a kind of 

subconscious, called the storehouse consciousness 

(ALAYAVIJN ANA). Phenomenal existence is the illusory 

projection of that storehouse consciousness. Every factor 

stored in the alayavijñana is a seed (blja), a Sautrantika 

term. One should do away with tainted seeds 

and develop untainted seeds. The school also distinguishes 

a consciousness called mind (manas), which 

clings to the idea of self. In East Asia this school is 

called the FAXIANG SCHOOL (Sanskrit, dharmakara) or 

“characteristics of dharmas.” Dharma here refers to the 

hundred factors this school distinguishes, elaborating 

on the Sarvastivada classification. What became the 

East Asian variety of Yogacara was first taught in 

Nalanda by Dharmapala (439–507) and taken to China 

by XUANZANG in 645. It claims that the specific nature 

of a factor is distinct from its specific mode. Their one 

hundred factors are: 

1. Eight thought factors, namely the eight consciousnesses 

2. Fifty-one associated mental factors (5 universal, 

5 limited, 11 wholesome, 6 defiled, 20 secondary 

defilements, and 4 indeterminate) 

3. Eleven matter factors 

4. Twenty-four dissociated factors 

5. Six unconditioned factors 

Most important is the eighth consciousness, the storehouse 

consciousness, which stores the seeds of all potential 

manifestations. 

See also: A gama/Nikaya; Anatman/A tman (No-Self/ 

Self); Buddhahood and Buddha Bodies; Consciousness, 

Theories of; Cosmology; Psychology; Sarvastivada 


Bibliography 

Chatterjee, Ashok Kumar. The Yogacara Idealism, 2nd edition, 

2nd reprint. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999. 


Origins of Buddhist Philosophical Systems, tr. Sophie F. Kidd. 

New York: State University of New York Press, 1995. 

Hirakawa, Akira. “The Meaning of ‘Dharma’ and ‘Abhidharma’.” 

In Indianisme et Bouddhisme: Mélanges offerts a 

Mgr. Étienne Lamotte. Louvain, Belgium: Institut Orientaliste 

de Louvain, Peeters Press, 1980. 


to the Śaka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain, Belgium: 


La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. Abhidharmakośabhasyam, 4 vols., 

tr. Leo M. Pruden. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 

1991. 

Masuda, Jiryo. “Origin and Doctrines of Early Indian Buddhist 

Schools.” Asia Major 2 (1925): 1–78. 

Mizuno, Kogen. Essentials of Buddhism: Basic Terminology and 

Concepts of Buddhist Philosophy and Practice. Tokyo: Kosei, 

1996. 

Ñyanatiloka Mahathera. Guide through the Abhidhamma Pitaka. 

Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1983. 

Potter, Karl H., ed. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Vol. 7: 

Abhidharma Buddhism to 150 A.D. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1998. 


Buddhist Philosophy from 100 to 350 A.D. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1999. 

Rhys Davids, Caroline A. F. A Buddhist Manual of Psychological 

Ethics: Dhammasaṅgani, 3rd edition. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 

1997. 

Skorupski, Tadeusz. “Buddhist Dharma and Dharmas.” In The 

Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: 


Stcherbatsky, Theodore. The Central Conception of Buddhism 

and the Meaning of the Word ‘Dharma,’ 2nd Indian reprint. 


Takakusu Junjiro. The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, 3rd edition, 

3rd reprint. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998. 

DHARMADHA TU 

CHARLES WILLEMEN 

Dharmadhatu, composed of dharma (law, principle, 

or reality) and dhatu (realm or element), is translated 

literally as “realm of reality.” It generally refers to all 

things that can be perceived with the sense faculties. 

It also refers to the physical universe, of which time, 

space, and all living beings are constituent elements. 

In the HUAYAN SCHOOL of Buddhism, dharmadhatu is 

identified with the “Thusness” (reality) of the Bud- 


D HARMARAKS A 

dha. The fourfold dharmadhatu outlined in the 

Huayan school consists of (1) the world of phenomena, 

(2) the world of principle, (3) the world of principle 

and phenomena united in harmony, and (4) the 

world of all phenomena interwoven or identified in 

perfect harmony. 

See also: Huayan Jing 

DHARMAGUPTAKA 

CHI-CHIANG HUANG 

The term Dharmaguptaka means “those affiliated with 

the teacher Dharmagupta.” The Dharmaguptaka 

mainstream Indian Buddhist school, a subschool of the 

Sthavira branch, is attested by inscriptions in the 

northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. The 

Dharmaguptakas possessed their own monastic disciplinary 

code (VINAYA) and shared many doctrinal 

views attributed to the Vibhajyavadins. 


COLLETT COX 

The Pramanavarttika (Commentary on Reliable 

Knowledge), Dharmakrti’s best-known work, ostensibly 

comments on Dignaga’s Pramanasamuccaya (Compendium 

on Reliable Knowledge), but Dharmakrti 

actually revises Dignaga’s theories in order to close 

gaps that prevent certainty. Concerning perception, 

Dignaga appeared to allow that a raw sense-datum— 

the uninterpreted phenomenal content of a 

perception—could never be erroneous, even in the 

case of perceptual illusion. Seeing that this renders all 

perception fallible, Dharmakrti maintains that a reliable 

perception must involve a strict and regular causal 

relation between the perception and its object. This 

emphasis on causality reflects Dharmakrti’s innovative 

application of telic efficacy (arthakriya) as the criterion 

for reality and, by extension, for all reliable 

knowledge. In brief, only causally efficient entities are 

real, and if knowledge is reliable, it must direct one to 

an object that has the causal capacity to accomplish 

one’s goal. An important corollary is the claim that, to 

be causally efficient, a real thing can exist for only an 

instant. 

Another crucial innovation comes in response to 

Dignaga’s theory of inference, according to which the 

inductive process of determining the relation between 

evidence (such as smoke) and what it indicates (such 

as fire) is apparently fallible. Seeking certainty, Dharmakrti 

argues for a “relation in essence” between evidence 

and what it proves. Inference thereby becomes 

immune to doubt, but at the cost of an inflexible appeal 

to definitions (smoke, for example, is by definition 

that which comes from fire). 

Dharmakrti’s epistemic and logical theories were 

eventually adopted by most Indian Buddhist thinkers, 

and among Tibetan Buddhists, the Pramanavarttika is 

still the subject of extensive study and debate. In particular, 

the monastic curriculum of the DGE LUGS 

(GELUK) school places considerable emphasis on Dharmakrti’s 

Buddhist logic. 

See also: Yogacara School 

DHARMAKIRTI 

The Indian thinker Dharmakrti (ca. 600–670 C.E.), 

whose biographical details remain obscure, responded 

to the works of his predecessor DIGNAGA (ca. 480–540 

C.E.) to establish the basic theories of Buddhist LOGIC. 

In doing so, Dharmakrti sought to explain how we 

can obtain completely certain, indubitable knowledge. 

Bibliography 

Dreyfus, Georges B. Recognizing Reality: Dharmaklrti’s Philosophy 

and Its Tibetan Interpretations. Albany: State University 


Tillemans, Tom J. F. Scripture, Logic, Language: Essays on Dharmaklrti 

and His Tibetan Successors. Boston: Wisdom, 1999. 

DHARMARAKSA 

JOHN DUNNE 

Dharmaraksa (Chinese, Zhu Fahu; ca. 233–310 C.E.) 

was one of the most prolific translators of Indian Buddhist 

texts into Chinese. According to traditional biographies, 

Dharmaraksa was a descendant of the 

Yuezhi, a Central Asian people whose precise ethnicity 

and native language are still debated. He was born 

at DUNHUANG, a military colony and mercantile hub 

in the westernmost reach of the Chinese empire. 

Although his family is said to have lived at Dunhuang 

for generations, Dharmaraksa is the first mention of 


225

D HYA NA ( TRANCE STATE) 

Buddhism in this region. He became a novice monk at 

an early age, studying with an Indian teacher while developing 

his skills in Chinese. His translation career 

began in 266 and continued for more than forty years, 

resulting in the translation of over 150 Buddhist texts 

into Chinese. He was assisted in his endeavors by a 

considerable number of Indian, Central Asian, and 

Chinese collaborators—some monks, some laymen— 

the most prominent of whom was Nie Chengyuan, a 

Chinese upasaka with whom Dharmaraksa worked in 

the northern Chinese city of Chang’an. 

Dharmaraksa translated a number of mainstream 

Buddhist works, but his most notable contributions are 

his translations of Mahayana texts, including such 

large and well-known sutras as the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), the Guangzan jing 

(Pañcavim śatisahasrikaprajñaparamita-su tra; Perfection 

of Wisdom in 25,000 Lines), and the Xianjie jing 

(Bhadrakalpika-su tra; Scripture on the Fortunate Aeon). 

Dharmaraksa died at the age of seventy-eight amidst 

the social and political chaos that marked northern 

China at the beginning of the fourth century. His translations 

laid the foundation for the textual exegesis and 

doctrinal developments of the fourth century, epitomized 

in the work of the monk DAO’AN (312–385). In 

the early fifth century, many of Dharmaraksa’s translations 

were superseded by the retranslations of the 

Kuchean monk KUMARAJIVA (350–409/413). 

See also: China; Mahayana; Prajñaparamita Literature 

Bibliography 

Boucher, Daniel. “Gandhar and the Early Chinese Buddhist 

Translations Reconsidered: The Case of the Saddharmapundarkasutra.” 

Journal of the American Oriental Society 

118.4 (1998): 471–506. 

Tsukamoto Zenryu. A History of Early Chinese Buddhism. From 

Its Introduction to the Death of Hui-yüan, Vol. 1, tr. Leon 

Hurvitz. Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd., 1985. 

DHYA NA (TRANCE STATE) 

DANIEL BOUCHER 

Dhyana (Pali, jhana) is a trance state experienced 

through particular meditative practices. According to 

traditional Buddhist thought, there are eight trance 

states. These are divided into two categories: The first 

four dhyanas are part of the realm of form, and the final 

four are part of the formless realm. The division 

between the form and formless dhyanas is not absolute; 

the higher formless dhyanas (trance states five through 

eight) are themselves considered a division of the 

fourth dhyana belonging to the realm of form. Thus, 

the eight dhyanas form a continuous hierarchical 

structure. 

The practice of mental concentration (śamatha; Pali, 

samatha) is the condition for the meditative experience 

of these trance states. As mental concentration increases, 

the practitioner gains entry to increasingly 

higher levels of absorption. This progression is a process 

of stilling or calming mental states and achieving the 

joy of tranquility and peace. In the fourth dhyana all 

sensations are extinguished, resulting in a state of equanimity. 

The attainment of the fourth dhyana gives access 

to the four formless dhyanas, the states of infinite 

space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and neitherperception-nor-nonperception. 

The fourth dhyana, 

characterized by equanimity and one-pointedness, also 

gives rise to a set of supernatural powers, including the 

power to know one’s former lifetimes. 

The experience of trance states is not viewed as an 

end in itself, but rather a means to the final goal of 

NIRVAN A. The levels of dhyana are categorized as conditioned 

and impermanent and thus ultimately unsatisfactory. 

The experience of absorptions are temporary; 

they last only for as long as the mind remains concentrated. 

When concentration ends, the unwholesome 

qualities of the mind return and the blissful 

feelings experienced in the first four dhyanas cease. For 

these reasons, the experience of trance states is to be 

joined to the cultivation of PRAJN A (WISDOM; Pali, 

pañña). The mental transformation accomplished 

through the experience of the dhyanas prepares the 

mind for training in wisdom and the specific practices 

of the cultivation of insight, vipaśyana (Pali, vipassana). 

Concentration can also be pursued together 

with insight as each absorption is experienced and then 

transcended when it is analyzed as impermanent. 

There is a parallel between dhyana as interiorized 

meditative states and as cosmological heavenly 

realms. The first four dhyanas correspond to the seventeen 

HEAVENS of the realm of form, resting above 

the lower heavens of the realms of desire. The four 

higher dhyanas correspond to the four levels of the 

formless heavens, the uppermost realm of the cosmos. 

Dhyanas can therefore be experienced for temporary 

periods through meditative concentration or for 

longer durations through REBIRTH into one of the 

form or formless heavenly realms. 


D IAMOND 

S U TRA 

Dhyana is also defined in relation to a ninth realm 

higher than either the meditative or cosmological levels 

of absorptions. This state of the cessation of perception 

and sensation is attained by those who join 

perfected concentration and insight. 

See also: Cosmology; Meditation; Psychology; Vipassana 

(Sanskrit, Vipaśyana) 

Bibliography 

Buddhaghosa, Bhadantacariya. The Path of Purification, tr. 

Bhikkhu Nanamoli. Berkeley, CA: Shambhala, 1976. 

Nyanaponika, Thera. The Heart of Buddhist Meditation. New 

York: Samuel Weiser, 1975. 

Payutto, Phra Prayudh. Buddhadhamma: Natural Laws and Values 

for Life, tr. Grant A. Olson. Albany: State University of 

New York Press, 1995. 

DIAMOND SU TRA 

KAREN DERRIS 

Judged by almost any conventional standard the text 

known as the Diamond Su tra (Sanskrit, Vajracchedikaprajñaparamita-su 

tra) was, and remained, an important 

MAHAYANA sutra across wide geographic 

boundaries and over a very long time. The date of its 

composition in Sanskrit is uncertain. Arguments have 

been made for the second and fourth centuries of the 

common era. It was first translated into Chinese at the 

very beginning of the fifth century, but both 

VASUBANDHU and ASAṄGA, two learned Indian monks 

who probably lived in the fourth or fifth centuries, had 

already written authoritative commentaries on it, and 

this would seem to require that it was already an important 

text in their day, and had therefore been in circulation 

for some time. Whereas for many Mahayana 

sutras only very recent eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury 

Sanskrit manuscripts survive, for the Diamond 

Su tra we have at least three much earlier 

manuscripts that date from the fifth to the seventh 

centuries and come from widely separated places. The 

existence of such early manuscript remains may also 

testify to the text’s importance, and certainly reveals, 

when compared with later versions and translations, 

how the text developed and changed its shape over 

time. 

Once translated into Chinese in the fifth century, 

the Diamond Su tra was then translated again at least 

five more times by some of the brightest luminaries of 

Chinese Buddhist scholasticism, and perhaps eighty or 

more commentaries were written on it in Chinese. The 

Diamond Su tra, and several Indian commentaries on 

it, were also translated into Tibetan, and further translations, 

paraphrases, and developments of it survive, 

in whole or in part, in a wide range of Central Asian 

languages—Khotanese, Sogdian, Uigur, and so on. The 

Diamond Su tra was, obviously, the focus everywhere 

of an enormous amount of attention in learned Buddhist 

circles. 

The Diamond Su tra, however, was not of interest 

only to the learned. In the practice oriented and at least 

rhetorically anti-intellectual schools of Chinese Chan, 

for example, it was also assigned an important place. 

In the carefully constructed religious biography of the 

famous, if largely legendary, sixth patriarch HUINENG, 

the Diamond Su tra appears as the pivot of his religious 

life: Huineng was supposed to have been an illiterate 

woodcutter when he heard it being recited and it transformed 

his life. In fact, the recitation and copying of 

the Diamond Su tra was in itself in many places, and at 

many times, a widespread religious practice undertaken 

for a variety of less elevated, but no less crucial 

purposes. Tales of the “miraculous” power of the 

recitation and copying of the Diamond Su tra are preserved 

not just in Chinese and Japanese collections of 

“miracle tales,” but also in Tibetan and Mongolian. 

This clearly was a text that worked on many levels, and 

for a variety of different kinds of Buddhists. 

The Diamond Su tra is, of course, not its real name, 

but an abbreviation based largely on early attempts to 

translate its title into English. In Sanskrit it is called 

the Vajracchedika-prajñaparamita. Bearing in mind 

that vajra is an almost untranslatable Sanskrit term 

referring to a kind of divine and dreadful weapon, like 

a discus or thunderbolt, and only by secondary association 

applied to the hard, cutting properties of a 

diamond, the title might be translated as “The Perfection 

of Wisdom [text] that Cuts like a Thunderbolt.” 

This title would seem to suggest several things. 

First the Vajracchedika is classified by its title as a perfection 

of wisdom text, and this claim has, by and 

large, been accepted by modern scholarship, even 

though its relationship to this larger group of texts 

remains problematic. Almost from the beginnings of 

modern BUDDHIST STUDIES it was described as a 

succinct summary of the perfection of wisdom, but 

the Vajracchedika makes no mention of several seemingly 

definitional perfection of wisdom ideas like 

ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) and UPAYA (skill in means). 


227

D IET 

A scroll printed in 868 C.E., found at Dunhuang, containing the Chinese text of the Diamond Su tra. The Granger Collection, New York. 


This is puzzling. Equally puzzling, and hence the 

enormous number of commentaries written on it, is 

what the text means. But the second thing the original 

title might suggest is that any search for meaning 

in this text may be fundamentally misdirected. According 

to its original title, the “wisdom” it refers to 

does not explain or describe. It cuts or shatters. This 

in turn might suggest that a religious text of this sort 

was not meant to convey ideas or doctrine, but was 

rather designed to affect, rearrange, or shatter established 

ways of seeing oneself, the world, and conventional 

religious practices. At one point in the text the 

monk Subhuti is described as bursting into tears of 

amazement and wonder at what the Buddha was reported 

to have said. This response, a rather unmonkish 

reaction, is apparently the anticipated response to 

the “message” of the text, and it is virtually certain that 

large numbers of those who have tried to more systematically 

analyze it have also been reduced to tears. 

See also: Chan School; Prajñaparamita Literature 

Bibliography 

Conze, Edward, trans. Buddhist Wisdom Books. London: Allen 


Müller, F. Max, ed. The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 49: Buddhist 

Mahayana Texts, Part 2: xii–xix; 110–144. London: Oxford 


Schopen, Gregory. “The Manuscript of the Vajracchedika 

Found at Gilgit: An Annotated Transcription and Translation.” 

In Studies in the Literature of the Great Vehicle, ed. Luis 

O. Gómez and Jonathan A. Silk. Ann Arbor: University of 

Michigan Press, 1989. 

DIET 

GREGORY SCHOPEN 

The correct obtaining, preparation, and consumption 

of food have been always been important to the 

SAṄGHA. The Buddha’s own religious career prior to 

his enlightenment, when at one point he subsisted on 

a single grain of rice per day, showed that liberation is 

not possible through extreme fasting. But equally to be 

avoided is attachment to the sensual pleasure of eating. 

Thus, food should be seen as necessary to sustain 

the body but as fundamentally repulsive, somewhat 

like unpleasant-tasting medicine. There are meditations 

that focus on the repulsiveness of food, and food 


D IET 

obtained on the begging round is often deliberately 

mixed together to form an unappetizing paste. 

The saṅgha was intended to be dependent on the 

LAITY for its food, and the VINAYA stresses that monks 

and nuns were to eat only what was given. They were 

not to produce their own food, nor even to consume 

food that they found. The daily begging round ensured 

that the saṅgha was always made aware of its responsibilities 

to lay donors, as well as offering ample opportunities 

for laypeople to make merit from DANA 

(GIVING). 

The vinaya and later East Asian monastic regulations 

also have numerous rules about how food is to 

be consumed in the monastery. According to the 

vinaya, monks and nuns should not eat solid food after 

noon, although in East Asia monks do take supplementary 

meals. 

Despite the first precept against killing, a keen 

awareness of compassion toward animals and insects, 

and the consistent denigration of occupations such as 

butcher, hunter, or fisherman, a vegetarian diet was 

not required of the early saṅgha in India. In southern 

Asia and Tibet, meat given to monks is permitted, unless 

the animal was killed specifically for them. Mahayana 

sutras such as the NIRVAN A SU TRA and the 

LAṄKAVATARA-SU TRA spoke out strongly against meat 

eating. These texts, in combination with the precepts 

of the apocryphal FANWANG JING (BRAHMA’S NET 

SU TRA), decisively affected the monastic diet in China 

and Korea. Monks and nuns in those countries are 

strictly vegetarian. In Japan monks are extremely unlikely 

to be vegetarian, although there is still a tradition 

of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine based on Chinese 

recipes. In addition to meat, Chinese and Korean Buddhists 

also avoid the “five pungent herbs” (garlic, 

onions, ginger, Chinese chives, and leeks), which are 

thought to overstimulate the emotions and interfere 

with meditation. 

In Chinese and Korean monasteries, everyday meals 

consist mostly of rice and vegetables. On festive days 

glutinous rice or noodles may be served in place of 

white rice, and the monks may receive other treats of 

cakes or candies. Vegetarian feasts sponsored by lay 

donors also feature more variety of dishes. In Japan 

certain temples have become associated with special 

types of food served on festive days. At Sanpoji in 

Kyoto, for example, once a year daikon (white 

radishes) are boiled in large vats and given to parishioners. 

It is said that they prevent paralysis. Steamed 

A young monk prays before his meal in Mandalay, Myanmar 

(Burma). © Owen Franken/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

rice with citrus peel, a favorite dish of NICHIREN 

(1222–1282), is also served. 

See also: Ascetic Practices; Merit and Merit-Making 

Bibliography 

Buswell, Robert E. The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist Practice 

in Contemporary Korea. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1992. 

Chapple, Christopher Key. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and 

Self in Asian Traditions. Albany: State University of New 


Mather, Richard. “The Bonze’s Begging Bowl: Eating Practices 

in Buddhist Monasteries in Medieval India and China.” 

Journal of the American Oriental Society 101, no. 4 (1981): 

417–424. 

Ruegg, David Seyfort. “Ahim sa and Vegetarianism in the History 

of Buddhism.” In Buddhist Studies in Honour of Walpola 

Rahula. London: Gordon Fraser, 1980. 



JAMES A. BENN 


229

D IGNA GA 

DIGNA GA 

An Indian proponent of the YOGACARA SCHOOL about 

whose life little is known, Dignaga (ca. 480–540 C.E.) 

is renowned as the initial formulator of Buddhist 

LOGIC. In his most important work, Pramanasamuccaya 

(Compendium on Reliable Knowledge), Dignaga 

examines perception, language, and inferential reasoning. 

Dignaga maintains that perception is a preconceptual 

bare apprehension of real things, and that 

perception is therefore devoid of all conceptual activity. 

Language, in contrast, involves concepts, but concepts 

are actually fictions created through a process of 

“exclusion” or apoha. In other words, the concept blue 

appears to correspond to some real sameness that all 

blue things share (their blueness), but in fact, that 

sameness is a fiction constructed through excluding 

everything that is irrelevant. This position allows Dignaga 

to deny that concepts (such as self) correspond 

directly to real things in the world. 

Dignaga’s views on perception and language were 

highly influential for subsequent Buddhists, but his 

greatest influence lay in his analysis of inferential reasoning. 

Unlike previous Indian thinkers, Dignaga 

keenly distinguished between the reasoning used in debate 

and the underlying rational structure of all inferences. 

Focusing on the relation between inferential 

evidence (such as smoke) and that which it is meant 

to prove (such as fire), he presented a systematic taxonomy 

of the cases where that relation holds or fails. 

This analysis supports his famed formulation of the 

three aspects of all valid evidence. 

Although an important innovator in the history of 

Buddhist philosophy, Dignaga was soon superseded by 

DHARMAKIRTI (ca. 600–670 C.E.), whose presentation 

of Buddhist logic was adopted by subsequent Buddhist 

thinkers in India and Tibet. 

Bibliography 

Hattori, Masaaki. Dignaga, On Perception. Cambridge, MA: 


Hayes, Richard P. Dignaga on the Interpretation of Signs. Dordrecht, 

Netherlands: Kluwer, 1988. 

JOHN DUNNE 

centuries the list was expanded to twenty-five, beginning 

with a buddha known as Dpam kara (Lightmaker). 

According to relatively late Pali works, such as 

the Buddhavam sa and the Nidanakatha, it was in the 

presence of Dpam kara that the future Śakyamuni first 

made his vow to become a buddha. 

Dpam kara’s complete absence from the Pali sutta 

literature makes it virtually certain that traditions concerning 

this buddha did not gain general currency until 

several centuries after Śakyamuni Buddha’s death. 

The distribution of artistic images of Dpam kara— 

which abound in Gandhara, but are virtually absent 

from other sites—points to the likelihood that the 

story of Dpam kara was first formulated on the far 

fringes of northwest India. It may also be significant 

that the story of Dpam kara related in the MAHAVASTU 

(i.193ff)—a work ascribed to the Lokottaravada 

branch of the MAHASAM GHIKA SCHOOL, known to have 

flourished in what is today Afghanistan—is rich in narrative 

detail, while the account found in such THER- 

AVADA sources as the Buddhavam sa (and based on it, 

the Nidanakatha) is more formulaic. Dpam kara himself 

eventually became the subject of JATAKA tales relating 

his previous lives, preserved in medieval 

Theravada texts (Derris) and in early Chinese translations 

(Chavannes, story no. 73). 

The story of Dpam kara’s prediction of the future 

Śakyamuni’s eventual attainment of buddhahood 

came to play an especially important role in MA- 

HAYANA circles, where aspiring BODHISATTVAS interpreted 

the story as an indication that they too must be 

reborn during the time of a living buddha and receive 

a prediction (vyakarana) in his presence. 

See also: Buddha(s); Buddha Images; India, Northwest 

Bibliography 

Chavannes, Edouard, trans. Cinq cents contes et apologues extraits 

du tripitaka chinois, 4 vols. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1910. 

Derris, Karen. “Virtue and Relationship in the Theravadin Biographies.” 

Ph.D. diss. Harvard University, 2000. 

Soper, Alexander. “Dpam kara.” In Literary Evidence for Early 

Buddhist Art in China. Ascona, Switzerland: Artibus Asiae, 

1959. 

JAN NATTIER 

DIPAM KARA 

The earliest lists of past buddhas consist only of six 

previous buddhas plus Śakyamuni, but in subsequent 

DISCIPLES OF THE BUDDHA 

The disciples of the Buddha form a diverse category of 

human, nonhuman, and divine figures. This entry will 


D ISCIPLES OF THE B UDDHA 

restrict its discussion to those presented by the Indian 

Buddhist tradition as personal disciples of the historical 

Buddha. Even so, the discussion will be selective. 

Traditionally, discipleship is classified in two categories: 

(1) specialists, who relinquish most of their social 

privileges and duties and become full-time 

practitioners of the Buddha’s teachings, who observe 

a number of regulatory rules (VINAYA), and who are 

usually described as MONKS and NUNS (bhiksu and 

bhiksunl); and (2) people who express faith in the Buddha, 

offer material support, and receive simplified 

teachings that emphasize generosity, and who are described 

as laymen and laywomen (upasaka and upasika). 

These two categories of discipleship were open 

only to human beings (there is a special question in 

the monastic ordination intended to exclude disguised 

serpent deities). Nevertheless, the interaction of the 

Buddha with DIVINITIES is a prominent feature of his 

biography and an important factor in the development 

of the community of disciples. Key disciples of all kinds 

also appear as coprotagonists in stories of former lives 

of the Buddha (JATAKA), thus extending their relationship 

into previous lives and the distant past. 

The Buddha is depicted recruiting followers from 

all classes of society: brahmins, ksatriyas (warrior 

class), and members of the lower classes, including untouchables. 

He eventually admitted women as personal 

disciples, and he freely interacted with and 

taught divine beings, including Śakra (see “The Questions 

of Sakka” in Davids and Davids, pp. 299–321). 

The Buddha also interacted with practitioners of other 

religious traditions, in some cases acquiring them as 

disciples, in others failing to convert them to his following. 

The Buddha is also depicted in some accounts 

of the period after his enlightenment as visiting the 

heavens of Buddhist COSMOLOGY and teaching there, 

most famously to his mother (indicating the significance 

of the child–mother relationship in Buddhist 

culture). In most of the countries of South and Southeast 

Asia there are also local traditions that the Buddha 

magically visited, often leaving an indelible 

footprint as evidence of his presence, and thus initiating 

the transmission of Buddhism in each region 

through a tradition beginning with personal discipleship. 

Throughout history and into the modern period, 

many monastic traditions regard themselves as the 

continuing manifestation of a lineage that springs 

from one of the personal disciples of the Buddha. 

Our knowledge of the Buddha’s disciples is primarily 

derived from scriptural sources, and the 

growth of the initial body of disciples is documented 

in the first part of an important VINAYA text of the 

THERAVADA tradition called the Mahavagga. This text 

includes a fascinating account of the first of the Buddha’s 

personal disciples. In the early weeks of his postenlightened 

life, the Buddha is portrayed passing the 

time seated beneath various trees in the vicinity of 

BODH GAYA and gradually interacting with other beings, 

interactions through which his following is initiated 

and grows. Curiously, these interactions are not 

always positive or fruitful, and the text indicates that 

the creation of a community of disciples was not a 

foregone conclusion. 

Significantly, the Buddha is first approached by 

what is described as an arrogant brahmin. They exchange 

greetings and in response to a question the 

Buddha explains the nature of true spiritual excellence. 

No outcome to the encounter is recorded, perhaps 

reflecting the ambiguous relationship that 

existed between the Buddhist community and the 

highest-ranking class in brahmanical society. The second 

encounter occurs during a great storm, when the 

king of the serpent deities, Mucalinda, reverentially 

winds his body around the Buddha to protect him. 

When the storm is over the serpent takes the form of 

a young man and worships the Buddha, but the Buddha 

does not teach him. The third encounter involves 

two passing merchants, Tapussa and Bhallika, who offer 

the Buddha food. The Buddha accepts this offering, 

and the merchants take refuge in him and are thus 

recognized as his first disciples. Significantly, they receive 

no teaching from him and continue with their 

trade. It is clear from both textual and archaeological 

sources that the early Buddhist community benefited 

enormously from recruitment among the merchant 

class and was spread geographically along the major 

trade routes of ancient India and beyond. 

At this point in the account the Buddha undergoes 

a crisis of indecision. Reflecting on the difficulty with 

which he himself had achieved BODHI (AWAKENING), 

he thinks that it would be impossible to teach other 

people to do the same. He is, however, importuned 

by a deity called Sahampati, who convinces him 

through argument that some people “with little dust 

in their eyes” would be capable of responding to the 

advice the Buddha could offer, and thus the Buddha 

decides to teach. He begins a process of reflection on 

who might be suited to become a disciple. He considers 

previous teachers, who turn out to be dead, and 

finally fixes on his fellow ascetics with whom he had 

lived immediately before his enlightenment. He sets 


231

D ISCIPLES OF THE B UDDHA 

out for Benares, where they still reside, and en route 

meets with an A jvaka practitioner called Upaka, who 

recognizes a spiritual quality in the Buddha, but given 

the opportunity to follow him merely says “Maybe!” 

and walks on. The Buddha acquires full-time disciples 

only after residing for some time with his five 

former fellow ascetics. A jñatakaundinya (Pali, Aññatakondañña), 

Vaspa (Vappa), Bhadrika (Bhaddiya), 

Mahanaman (Mahanama), and Aśvajit (Assaji) are 

eventually won over by the Buddha’s presence and by 

his verbal teachings and, in the order just given, become 

his first five ordained disciples. 

This development is followed by a quick expansion 

that begins with the conversion of a local playboy 

called Yaśa (Yasa), who becomes a monk. Soon Yaśa’s 

parents become lay followers, suggesting a pattern of 

family discipleship that was doubtless followed in other 

families where a child entered the order. Subsequently, 

fifty-four friends and associates of Yaśa became 

bhiksus. 

At this point the Buddha requires that his full-time 

disciples, now numbered at sixty, wander at will 

around the region and share his teachings. The result 

of this is an expansion of the monastic community 

that stretches the Buddha’s capacity to function as 

personal teacher for every recruit. Soon the Buddha 

allows existing disciples to ordain new recruits, and 

thus the circle of personal discipleship of the Buddha 

was understood to have been limited by geographical 

distance. There is no indication of how long it took 

to go from zero disciples to the formation of a selfsustaining 

community, though it must have taken 

many months or even years. 

Although the community expanded outside the immediate 

control of the Buddha, he nevertheless continued 

to acquire personal disciples throughout his 

life, and the records describe the Buddha’s personal 

interactions with numerous individuals. Foremost 

among these are A NANDA, ŚARIPUTRA (Sariputta), and 

MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA (Moggallana). A nanda was a 

cousin of the Buddha and became his close companion 

or attendant for around thirty years. A nanda’s familiarity 

with the Buddha’s life meant that at the first 

Buddhist council after the Buddha’s death, A nanda 

was asked to recite all the discourses that he had ever 

heard the Buddha give. Thus, most sutras, or discourses, 

begin with the phrase “evam maya śrutam ” 

(Thus have I heard). The monk UPALI, a former barber 

who shaved all the ordinands’ heads, performed a 

similar role for the vinaya. A nanda did not become an 

ARHAT during the Buddha’s life and is therefore occasionally 

portrayed as having behaved less than perfectly. 

He is also depicted as the advocate of female 

ordination into the monastic order, a development 

that the Buddha apparently says will reduce the community’s 

duration, and it is through A nanda’s encouragement 

that the Buddha finally ordains his aunt 

and foster mother MAHAPRAJAPATI GAUTAMI (Mahappajapat). 

It was Mahaprajapat who raised Siddhartha, 

the Buddha-to-be, after the early death of his mother, 

but she was not content with the role of lay disciple. 

She therefore became the first bhiksunl, and was recognized 

by the Buddha as the female disciple of longest 

standing. Other female disciples also achieved personal 

renown, including Dhammadinna, whom the Buddha 

described as foremost in preaching. 

The Buddha’s most eminent disciples, however, 

were Śariputra and Mahamaudgalyayana. These two 

were childhood friends who left home to pursue the 

religious life, at first together, but eventually separating 

on the agreement that the first to find the true way 

would seek out the other. After meeting Assaji and being 

converted by him, Śariputra found Mahamaudgalyayana 

and together they were ordained by the 

Buddha, who appointed them his chief disciples. Mahamaudgalyayana 

was renowned for his meditative attainments, 

Śariputra for his wisdom and analytical 

abilities. 

The Buddha also identified those possessed of greatest 

meditative attainments and wisdom among his 

nuns, Ksema (Khema) and Utpalavarna (Uppalavanna), 

and his laywomen, Kubjottara (Khujjuttara) 

and Uttara (Uttara). Among his male lay followers he 

identified the foremost in generosity as ANATHA- 

PIN D ADA (Anathapindika) and the chief of dharma 

teachers as Citra (Citta) (Woodward, pp. 79–80). 

Many other disciples are singled out by the Buddha 

for other forms of personal excellence (Woodward, 

pp. 16–25), and moving samples of poetry composed 

by these and other of his disciples, both male and 

female, are recorded in two Pali texts called the Theragatha 

and Therlgatha (Norman). The monk MAHAK- 

AŚYAPA (Mahakassapa) was recognized as the foremost 

practitioner of asceticism; he later took control of funeral 

arrangements immediately after the Buddha’s 

death. Other important disciples include UPAGUPTA, 

who was especially revered among the Buddhists of 

Southeast Asia and became the focus of cult and ritual 

there, and Anathapindada (Anathapindika), whose 

name means “feeder of the destitute.” Anathapindada, 

a banker and perhaps the most famous lay disciple, 


D IVINITIES 

bought for the Buddha at fabulous expense the famous 

Jetavana (Jeta’s Grove) at Śravast, where he had a 

monastery built. Texts tell of Anathapindada’s deathbed 

grief when he realized that the Buddha had reserved 

his higher teaching exclusively for his monastic 

followers (Horner, pp. 309ff.). 

Also important was the turncoat monk and disciple, 

DEVADATTA, first cousin of the Buddha, who is remembered 

for his conspiracies to murder the Buddha 

and split the SAṄGHA. These are regarded as the most 

heinous crimes a monk can commit in relation to the 

saṅgha. Devadatta also attempted unsuccessfully to introduce 

extra requirements into the vinaya, including 

vegetarianism and four of the permitted asceticisms, 

which included wearing only rag robes and eating only 

begged food. Bizarrely, the Chinese pilgrim FAXIAN reported 

in the early fifth century C.E. that in the Buddhist 

homeland Devadatta still had a significant 

following who worshiped not Śakyamuni but the three 

buddhas previous to him. 

Also important were the Buddha’s royal disciples: 

Prasenajit (Pasenadi), king of Kośala, who is credited 

with commissioning the first Buddha image; Bimbisara, 

king of Magadha; and Bimbisara’s son Ajataśatru 

(Ajatasattu), who after initially conspiring with Devadatta, 

became a devout disciple of the Buddha (see 

Samaññaphala-sutta in Davids, 1899, pp. 65ff.). 

In later layers of Buddhist canonical literature a 

number of these disciples continue to appear as protagonists. 

Of particular importance is the promotion 

to chief interlocutor in the PRAJNAPARAMITA LITERA- 

TURE of Subhuti, a monk and disciple noted in the agamas 

and nikayas as chief of those who dwell in the 

forest and, presumably thereby, also the one most 

worthy of offerings. Other MAHAYANA sutras and 

VAJRAYANA tantras present a host of new and presumably 

fictive disciples. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the; Councils, Buddhist 

Bibliography 

Davids, Thomas W. Rhys, trans. Dialogues of the Buddha, Part 

1. London: Luzac, 1899. 

Davids, Thomas W. Rhys, and Davids, Caroline A. F. Rhys, 

trans. Dialogues of the Buddha, Part 2. London: Luzac, 1910. 

Davids, Thomas W. Rhys, and Oldenberg, Hermann. Vinaya 

Texts, Part 1. Oxford: Sacred Books of the East, 1885. 

Horner, Isaline B., trans. The Middle Length Sayings III. London: 


Norman, Kenneth R., trans. The Elders’ Verses I and II. London: 

Pali Text Society, 1969 and 1971. 

Nyanaponika Thera, and Hecker, Hellmuth. Great Disciples of 

the Buddha: Their Lives, Their Works, Their Legacy. Boston: 

Wisdom, 1997. 

Ray, Reginald. Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values 

and Orientations. New York: Oxford University Press, 

1994. 

Woodward, F. L., trans. Gradual Sayings. London: Pali Text Society, 

1932. 

DIVINITIES 

ANDREW SKILTON 

From its very origins, Buddhism has recognized a wide 

range of divinities (devas, a term frequently translated 

as “gods”), while taking pains to emphasize that the 

Buddha himself is not divine, but human (Aṅguttaranikaya, 

2.37–9). The various divinities are powerful 

superhuman beings who influence the world in 

manifold ways. Although many of these divinities have 

Vedic (Hindu) origins, in the early Buddhist tradition 

they are not considered immortal, but rather are 

trapped in SAM SARA and thus, like all SENTIENT BEINGS, 

are subject to the law of KARMA (ACTION) and therefore 

DEATH and REBIRTH. 

In the early texts of the Pali canon, divinities inhabit 

several different realms. In the lower realm of desire 

(kamadhatu), above the human realm, live the various 

deities and spirits, who frequently do battle with a 

group of jealous and mischievous deities, the asuras 

(similar to the Greek Titans). The various divinities 

include the four divine kings; the thirty-three gods residing 

in the trayastrim śa heaven, divinities incorporated 

from the Vedas and presided over by Śakra 

(INDRA); MARA and Yama, the gods of illusion and 

death; and BODHISATTVAS in their penultimate lives, 

including, currently, MAITREYA (Pali, Metteya). Above 

the sense realm, in the realm of pure form (ru padhatu), 

abide the pure divinities, most significantly the Great 

Brahma and his ministers, and, at the very top, the 

anagamins (nonreturners), who live out their penultimate 

existence before enlightenment in this realm. 

One of the most important divinities is Mara, the 

god of death, lust, greed, false views, delusion, and illusion. 

Mara is a common presence in early Buddhist 

texts, distracting the Buddha and, after his enlightenment, 

questioning his very status as an enlightened being. 

Although Mara is “defeated” by the Buddha, he 


233

D IVINITIES 

continues to cause trouble, and he figures prominently 

in later texts, iconography, and local traditions 

throughout the Buddhist world. 

Especially active in the world are the nagas, yaksas, 

piśacas, and gandharvas, divinities generally thought to 

have been incorporated into Buddhism from non- 

Vedic, indigenous traditions. Nagas (female, naginl) 

are snakelike beings who in early texts typically live at 

the base of trees and are associated with both chaos 

and fertility. Likewise, YAKSAs (Pali, yakkha) are indigenous 

Indian tree spirits, wild, demonic, and sexually 

prolific beings who live in solitary places and are 

hostile toward people, particularly monks and nuns, 

whose meditation they disturb by making loud noises. 

Frequently, both nagas and yaksas are converted to 

Buddhism and “tamed,” becoming active, positive 

forces in the world and protectors of Buddhism; for 

instance, when the Buddha-to-be was meditating just 

prior to his enlightenment, it was a naga who sheltered 

him from the elements. 

The range of divinities in the Buddhist world is staggering 

when local traditions are taken into account. In 

Burma (Myanmar), such divinities are known collectively 

as nats, in Thailand as phi, in Sri Lanka as yakas; 

they are extremely important in popular Buddhist 

practice and frequently associated with kingship, since 

all serve as guardians of Buddhism. In Burma, for instance, 

there are thirty-seven official nats (although in 

practice there are many more), regarded as invisible, 

magical personal forces who inhabit trees, and in most 

villages there are small shrines in trees thought to be 

inhabited. These shrines, brightly decorated with colored 

cloth and tinsel, are tended and worshiped to ensure 

that the nats protect the village and provide 

prosperity, fertility, and other benefits. In Thailand, 

the various forms of phi include phi dong, which are 

the guardian spirits of the forest, the phi puya tayai 

(ancestral spirits), and the truly horrific phi mae mai 

(widow ghosts), who kill human men in their search 

for husbands. 

In Sri Lanka, Hindu gods are frequently worshiped 

by Buddhists. Thus the god Kataragama, a local variant 

of the god Skanda, is typically regarded as a bodhisattva. 

Kataragama is extremely popular, to the point 

that the divinity’s main shrine, in the southeastern corner 

of the island, is probably the most popular religious 

site in the entire country. Buddhists (as well as 

Hindus, Muslims, and Christians) go to Kataragama 

for special requests—protection, fertility, financial 

success, even vengeance—and repay his favors by performing 

a variety of penances, including body piercing, 

walking on hot coals, and hanging from hooks. 

As the MAHAYANA schools developed in both India 

and in East Asia, so did the pantheon of divine figures, 

and with this expansion the very conception of divinity 

also expanded. Bodhisattvas such as Mañjuśr, 

Avalokiteśvara, and Maitreya become extremely important, 

using their skillful means actively to spread 

wisdom and to save beings in peril. Likewise, as the 

conception of the Buddha and buddhahood became 

more complex, the so-called celestial Buddhas (pañcatathagatas) 

emerge, a group of five manifestations of 

the Buddha’s divine qualities. In the PURE LAND 

SCHOOLS, the cosmos is imagined as an infinite collection 

of world systems, each of which is a Buddha field 

where a fully enlightened being resides; these become 

divinities, with whom especially accomplished devotees 

can continuously interact. 

Avalokiteśvara in particular becomes extremely 

popular in East Asia, where he is known as Guanyin 

in China, Kannon in Japan, and Kwanŭm in Korea; in 

the case of Guanyin, the divinity is manifested as a female 

figure. The female divinity Tara—perhaps originally 

a local divinity herself—also emerges as a divine 

savior who protects and nurtures her devotees; she is 

popular throughout the Mahayana and VAJRAYANA 

world, particularly in Nepal and Tibet. The perfection 

of wisdom texts (prajñaparamita sutras) become personified 

in the figure of Prajñaparamita, wisdom incarnate, 

the divine “mother” of all enlightened beings. 

With the rise of the Vajrayana, the divine pantheon 

expands to a seemingly limitless degree, with a vast 

range of buddha families, bodhisattvas, goddesses, yogins, 

and all manner of fierce divinities. MAN D ALAS frequently 

depict these buddha families and their 

associated divinities. Meditations and rituals focused 

on such divinities are too numerous to mention and 

are frequently intended to bring the divinity to life. In 

the practice of deity yoga, for instance, the meditator 

can bring the divinity to life in him or herself by realizing 

the inseparability of the self and the divinity. 

In sum, the Buddhist understanding of divinities 

must be seen as fluid and expansive. Divine beings 

multiply markedly as the tradition develops. New 

divinities are introduced at both the local and pan- 

Buddhist level, and the characteristics of the various 

divinities also shift, with new qualities—both abstract 

(passive) and concrete (active)—constantly being introduced. 

The Buddha himself took on increasingly 

complex divine characteristics as the tradition devel- 


D O GEN 

oped in India and beyond, which, in turn, frequently 

became manifest as individual divinities, a process 

that continues into the present day. Consistent with 

the early literature that lays out Buddhism’s basic cosmological 

view, though, in a relative sense, such beings 

are very real and very active in the world; in an 

absolute sense, however, they are ultimately only creations 

of our minds, useful as symbols and metaphors 

for the enlightenment process, but, like everything 

else, empty. 

See also: Cosmology; Folk Religion: An Overview; 

Ghosts and Spirits; Ku kai; Local Divinities and Buddhism; 

Visnu 

Bibliography 

Asher, Frederick M. The Art of Eastern India, 300–800 A.D. Minneapolis: 

University of Minnesota Press, 1980. 

Bhattacharyya, Benoytosh. The Indian Buddhist Iconography. 

Calcutta: Firm K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1959. 

Getty, Alice. The Gods of Northern Buddhism: Their History and 

Iconography. New York: Dover, 1988. 

Kinnard, Jacob N. Imaging Wisdom: Seeing and Knowing in the 

Art of Indian Buddhism. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 1999. 

DIVYA VADA NA 

JACOB N. KINNARD 

The fourth-century C.E. Sanskrit Divyavadana (Heavenly 

Exploits) contains thirty-eight biographical narratives 

that celebrate the lives of paradigmatic figures in 

Buddhist history, authenticate local dharma traditions, 

and dramatize the importance of moral discipline, 

KARMA (ACTION), DANA (GIVING), and the power of 

faith and devotion. Many of the narratives also demonstrate 

the central role of storytelling, a dimension of 

Buddhist tradition that has only recently attracted the 

careful scholarly attention long accorded doctrine, history, 

and philosophy. 

These narratives derive largely from the MU LASAR- 

VASTIVADA VINAYA (twenty-one stories) and the 

vinayas of other Buddhist monastic schools (nine stories), 

but also adapt canonical sutras (chapters 3, 17, 

34). Two chapters (36, 38) reproduce the work of classical 

Sanskrit poets. 

Among other subjects, the Divyavadana portrays 

the adventures of wealthy merchants who become 

Buddhist monks (chapters 1, 2, 8, 35), recounts the 

family and religious lives of Indian kings (chapters 3, 

26–29, 37), and describes the origins of the “Wheel of 

Life,” well known in the West from Tibetan paintings 

(chapter 21). Readers also find the conversion of 

MARA, the Buddhist “Satan” (chapter 26), and the love 

story of Sudhana and Manohara (chapters 30, 31), and 

learn both what happens when a man offers his daughter 

to the Buddha (chapter 36) and when an outcaste 

woman falls in love with an eminent monk (chapter 33). 

The Divyavadana also includes stories about women 

who studied Buddhist scripture in their own homes and 

others who, out of love or jealousy, cast spells, blinded 

their own sons, or committed mass murder. 

In the Divyavadana, as in other avadanas, scholars 

find a meeting of scriptural, literary, doctrinal, and social 

themes that informed Indian Buddhism—in short, 

an indispensable window on the ancient tradition. 

See also: Avadana; Avadanaśataka 

Bibliography 

Strong, John S., trans. The Legend of King Aśoka. Princeton, NJ: 


Tatelman, Joel, trans. The Glorious Deeds of Pu rna. Richmond, 

UK: Curzon, 2000. 

Winternitz, Maurice. A History of Indian Literature, 2 vols., tr. 

S. Ketkar and H. Kohn. Calcutta: University of Calcutta 

Press, 1927; New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 

1977. 

JOEL TATELMAN 

DOCTRINE. See Abhidharma; Dharma and 

Dharmas 

DO GEN 

Dogen (1200–1253), an early Japanese Zen figure, is 

regarded as the founder of the Japanese Soto school of 

Chan Buddhism (Japanese, Zen). Born to an aristocratic 

family, Dogen entered the Buddhist order as a 

child. After studying Tiantai Buddhism (Japanese, 

Tendai), he became a follower of Myozen (1184–1225), 

who was a disciple of Eisai (1141–1215), a prominent 

Japanese exponent of Zen. In 1223 Dogen accompanied 

Myozen to China, where he stayed at the Jingde 


235

D O KYO 

Monastery on Mount Tiantong. There, he received 

dharma transmission from the abbot, Tiandong Rujing 

(1163–1228), in the Caodong (Japanese, Soto) 

LINEAGE. Returning to Japan in 1227, Dogen established 

Koshoji, a monastery near the capital of Heiankyo 

(modern Kyoto), making it one of the first 

Japanese institutions to introduce the Song-dynasty 

style of Chan monastic practice. Dogen soon attracted 

a following, including monks of the so-called Daruma 

school, who would become the leaders of the early 

Soto community. In 1242 Dogen left the capital area 

for Echizen (modern Fukui prefecture), where he 

founded Eiheiji (originally named Daibutsuji), the 

monastery that subsequently became the headquarters 

of one faction of the Soto school. Except for a brief trip 

to the new military capital at Kamakura in 1247, he 

spent his remaining years at Eiheiji, returning to 

Heian-kyo only in the last days of his final illness. 

Dogen was a prolific author who composed essays 

on Zen practice such as the Fukan zazengi (Universal 

Promotion of the Principles of Seated Meditation) and 

Gakudo yo jinshu (Admonitions on the Study of the 

Way); treatises on Zen monastic rules, later collected 

under the title Eihei shingi (Eihei Rules of Purity); a 

record of his study with Rujing entitled Ho kyo ki 

(Record of the Ho kyo Era); and Japanese verse collected 

as Sansho do ei (Songs of the Way from Mount Sansho ). 

Dogen’s teachings were collected in a ten-volume work 

entitled Eihei ko roku (The Extended Record of Eihei). 

Among his writings, Dogen is best known for 

SHO BO GENZO (Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma), 

a collection of vernacular essays composed over many 

years. Modern editions contain approximately ninetyfive 

texts, but the work has come down in several 

redactions, and the original form of the collection remains 

uncertain. Though there is some variation in 

genre, the majority of the essays develop their themes 

through comments on passages from the literature 

recording the teachings of the Chinese Chan masters, 

from which the collection takes its name. Though 

seemingly little studied for several centuries after their 

composition, the texts of the Sho bo genzo became a primary 

source for the development of Soto Zen doctrine 

during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and 

the Sho bo genzo has been the object of many commentaries 

from that time up to the present. In the 

twentieth century, the work became highly regarded 

as a classic of Japanese Buddhist thought and was 

much studied by scholars of philosophy, religion, intellectual 

history, language, and literature. The texts 

of the Sho bo genzo have been translated several times 

into modern Japanese, as well as into English and 

other Western languages. 

See also: Chan School; Japan; Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Bielefeldt, Carl. Do gen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation. Berkeley: 


Bodiford, William. So to Zen in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University 


DO KYO 

CARL BIELEFELDT 

Dokyo (Yuge zenji, d. 772) was a powerful monk of 

the Hosso (Yogacara) school who attempted to establish 

a Buddhist theocracy in Japan. Dokyo is said to 

have spent several years performing austerities on the 

Katsuragi mountain range, an early seat of what would 

later be known as mountain religion (SHUGENDO ). The 

earliest record of his presence in Buddhist circles of the 

Nara capital is dated 749, when he participated in a 

sutra copying ceremony. 

Royal instability led to a growth in the power of 

Buddhist institutions and monks through the mideighth 

century. Emperor Shomu (r. 724–749) and his 

consort Komyo established Todaiji, which still stands 

today as a massive symbol of court patronage of Buddhism. 

When her father retired, Empress Koken (Ae 

no Himemiko, 719–770) ascended the throne in 749 

and attended the massive inauguration of Todaiji. 

Buddhist cultural and political power seemed to rule, 

and it is almost a foregone conclusion that Dokyo witnessed 

these events. 

Empress Koken, however, was not married, and the 

absence of a male heir is probably what caused her to 

abdicate in 758 in favor of the imperial prince O i, who 

ascended the throne under the name Junnin. Three 

years later, the retired empress fell ill and Dokyo performed 

rites for her recovery, marking the second time 

Dokyo’s name appears in historical records. He would 

have engaged in “secret rites of heavenly constellations” 

(sukuyo hiho ), about which there are no details, 

although it is clear that the aristocracy’s interest in this 

aspect of esoteric Buddhism began to rise around that 

time. His ministrations were deemed successful, and 

the retired empress came to regard Dokyo as her personal 

healer (zenji), as well as her spiritual adviser, and 


D OUBT 

she increasingly relied on him for political direction. 

Rumors began to spread, however, that her relationship 

with Dokyo was inappropriate. When Emperor 

Junnin remonstrated her, it is said that the retired empress 

took umbrage and granted ever more support to 

Dokyo. At the same time she began to plot to remove 

Junnin from the throne. In 763 she appointed Dokyo 

to the position of monarchal vice-rector (sho so zu), a 

decision that caused deep resentment on the part of 

the chancellor at the time, Fujiwara no Nakamaro 

(706–764). Nakamaro attempted to place a favorite as 

the next in line to the throne, but he was thwarted by 

Dokyo, who had him exiled. Nakamaro was assassinated 

in 764. Empress Koken immediately appointed 

Dokyo to the new position of Buddhist minister of 

state (daijin zenji), and she deposed Junnin, who was 

exiled to Awaji Island and assassinated the following 

year. In late 763 the empress reascended the throne, 

this time under the name Shotoku, and she gave Dokyo 

ever more power. 

In 765 she appointed Dokyo to the highest office, 

naming him Buddhist chancellor of state (dajo daijin 

zenji), and in 766 she appointed him to a new position 

that must have ruffled many a feather: Buddhist hegemon 

(ho -o ) or dharma king. The following year, offices 

for this new position were created, and Dokyo was 

granted military powers. Soon court members were required 

to pay respects to him on the first day of the 

year, when—for the first time in history—the government 

performed Buddhist rites of penance within the 

compounds of the imperial palace. In 768 it was revealed 

that the main deity of the Usa shrine in Kyushu 

(Yahata, also known as HACHIMAN) had uttered an oracle 

saying that Dokyo should be the next emperor. 

Shocked by this claim, courtiers who were faithful to 

the imperial lineage sent a trusted member, Wake no 

Kiyomaro (733–799), to Usa to confirm the oracle. 

Even though Kiyomaro would have been promised 

riches by Dokyo if the outcome was in his favor, Kiyomaro 

is said to have received there an oracle to the 

effect that Dokyo was an impostor. 

A few months after the “revelation,” Empress 

Shotoku passed away, and, in a series of political 

moves that are not altogether clear, the Fujiwara 

house reasserted its dominance in the political world 

and over the Hosso monks. Dokyo was exiled to 

northeastern Japan, where he died in 772 in what 

some say must have been an ignominious fashion. He 

was stripped of all titles that had been granted by his 

paramour, the only woman to have served twice as 

empress. The Hachiman deity was then given the title 

of Great Bodhisattva, and became the object of a 

long-lasting cult. 

See also: Horyuji and Todaiji; Yogacara School 

Bibliography 

Bender, Ross. “The Hachiman Cult and the Dokyo Incident.” 

Monumenta Nipponica (Tokyo) 34, no. 2 (1979): 125–153. 

Weinstein, Stanley. “Aristocratic Buddhism.” In The Cambridge 

History of Japan, Vol. 2: Heian Japan, ed. Donald H. Shively 

and William H. McCullough. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


DOUBT 

ALLAN G. GRAPARD 

Doubt (Sanskrit, vicikitsa; Chinese, yi) serves in different 

Buddhist traditions as either a hindrance to spiritual 

development or a catalyst for contemplative 

insight. In the MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS of 

South Asia, doubt refers to skepticism about claims 

made within the tradition regarding such cardinal 

teachings as conditionality, the constituents of spiritual 

cultivation, or the Buddha, dharma, and saṅgha. 

Thus, doubt obstructs confidence in and tacit acceptance 

of the religion’s teachings, and it hinders the development 

of PRAJN A (WISDOM). 

Doubt was the fifth of the five hindrances (nivarana) 

to DHYANA (TRANCE STATE)—along with sensual 

desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, and restlessness 

and worry—and it had no constructive role to play in 

Indian Buddhist meditation. Doubt was rather an obstacle 

to overcome through prajn a, sustained thought 

(vicara), and the investigation of dharmas (dharmapravicaya). 

Doubt could be temporarily allayed on the 

second stage of dhyana and overcome permanently at 

the first stage of sanctity (i.e., stream-entry). 

By the time East Asian Buddhists fully appraised 

doubt, this debilitating skepticism had been transformed 

into a principal force driving the meditator toward 

enlightenment. In the KO AN meditation of the 

CHAN SCHOOL, for example, the “sensation of doubt” 

(Chinese, yiqing) became the principal catalyst to contemplation 

by provoking a profound existential 

quandary. Doubt generated through inquiry into the 

keyword or critical phrase (Chinese, huatou) of the 

koan grows to take in all perplexities and uncertainties 

that one confronts in everyday life. Doubt eventually 


237

D REAMS 

creates such tremendous pressure in the mind of the 

meditator that it “explodes” (Chinese, po), destroying 

in the process the conventional point of view that constitutes 

the ego, and freeing the mind to experience the 

multivalent levels of selfless interrelationships that 

characterize enlightenment in the Chan school. 

See also: Meditation; Path; Psychology 

Bibliography 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. “The Short-Cut Approach of K’an-hua 

Meditation: The Evolution of a Practical Subitism in Chinese 

Ch’an Buddhism.” In Sudden and Gradual: Approaches 

to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, ed. Peter N. Gregory. 


Buswell, Robert E., Jr. “The Transformation of Doubt (Yiqing) 

in Chinese Buddhist Meditation.” In Love and Emotions in 

Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. Halvor Eifring. Leiden, 


Jayatilleke, Kulatissa Nanda. Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge. 

London: Allen and Unwin, 1963. 

Nyanaponika Thera, trans. and comp. “The Five Mental Hindrances 

and Their Conquest: Selected Texts from the Pali 

Canon and the Commentaries.” Wheel Series 26 (1947). 

Reprint, Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 

1961. 

DREAMS 


In Buddhism, as in most ancient cultures, it was widely 

assumed that the images seen in dreams conveyed important 

knowledge. Thus, dreams not only play a major 

role in descriptions of the life of Buddha and in 

the biographies of eminent representatives of the Buddhist 

traditions, but dreams became the basis of cults, 

of the construction of monasteries, and of the diagnosis 

of disease. 

Dreams in Śa kyamuni’s biography 

Within the Buddhist tradition, records about Śakyamuni 

abound with accounts of dreams, and it is also 

reported that the Buddha was familiar with the interpretation 

of dreams. The Buddha’s birth is marked by 

a dream: It is reported that he descended from Tusita 

heaven in the form of a white elephant and entered the 

womb of his sleeping mother, Mahamaya, who saw the 

event in a dream. When Gautama’s wife Yaśodhara became 

aware that she was pregnant, Gautama’s foster 

mother Mahaprajapat and his father Śuddhodana experienced 

dreams. After Gautama had been instructed 

by the celestial ones to pursue a life of homelessness, 

he appeared to his father in a dream in which he departed 

from the palace with his hair shorn. Then, when 

Gautama’s father tried to bind him to the world, the 

celestial ones caused Śuddhodana to experience seven 

dreams about his son’s departure. At the same time, 

Yaśodhara had twenty dreams concerning the departure 

of her husband. That same night, Gautama himself 

dreamed a five-part dream that confirmed his 

decision to leave. While the prince was readying himself 

to escape, Yaśodhara dreamed a three-part dream 

in which the moon fell to the earth, her teeth fell out, 

and she lost her right arm. 

The Buddha’s death is also marked by a series of 

dreams. Tradition relates that the Buddha’s disciple 

Subhadra dreamed of the Buddha’s NIRVAN A a short 

time before the event. Both A NANDA and the king 

Ajataśatru also had important dreams on the night of 

the Buddha’s nirvana. 

The dogmatic classification of dreams 

Given the Buddhist concern with questions about the 

nature of existence and the traditional belief that 

dreams reveal the nature of the mind, and given the 

Buddhist proclivity for analysis and classification, it is 

not surprising that Buddhist literature includes attempts 

to classify dreams. One such classification can 

be found in the Vibhasa (second century C.E.; T1545: 

27.193c), where it is said that dreams are: (1) guided 

from outside and induced by higher beings such as 

gods, seers, sages, or by spells or drugs; (2) based on 

past events, so that one sees in a dream what one previously 

perceived or thought about, or what one did 

as a habitual action; (3) based on events that will come 

to pass, so that if something favorable or unfavorable 

is going to occur, one will see signs of it beforehand in 

a dream; (4) based on discrimination, so that if one is 

longing for, striving after, or sorrowing about something, 

one will see this in a dream; and (5) based on 

illness, so that if the elements are out of balance, one 

may see in one’s dream the nature of a certain element 

that is present in excess. 

Although this classification attempts to account for 

both ordinary and extraordinary dreams, it is the prognostic 

dream that played the greatest role in narratives 

like biography and pseudo-biography. But it was in 

scholastic contexts that the dogmatic implications of 

the dream state found the most attention. What is it 

that makes dreams dreams? The Vibhasa (T1545:27. 


D UH KHA 

( SUFFERING) 

193b) asserts that it is the mind and its concomitant 

dharmas, which during sleep take on the shape of the 

mind’s respective objects, and which, on the basis of remembrance, 

can be related to others after waking. It is 

clear that this definition of dreams can easily be extended 

to nondream states of mind. Accordingly, the 

Vibhasa points to the role of volitional activity, and emphasizes 

that its range of influence is restricted to this 

realm of desire (kamadhatu). 

Dreams as images of the mind 

All beings dream except for the Buddha, the awakened 

one, who clearly must be liberated from both the seductive 

and the haunting images of dreaming. This 

point serves as the focus of the use of the dream image 

in the MAHAYANA tradition, where dreams are no more 

than phantasmagorical visions, visitations within the 

confused karmic consciousness. While dreaming, one 

sees that which does not actually exist, or at least is other 

than perceived by the dreamer. Accordingly, the Yogacara 

treatise Cheng weishi lun (Vijñaptimatratasiddhiśastra 

[Establishing the Exclusivity of Vijñana]; T1585: 

31.46b) states that “all dharmas arise within the mind 

as if deceptive images, a flurry of sparks, a dream image, 

a reflection in a mirror, shadows, an echo, the 

moon in water, magical beings generated through 

transformation. Though they seem to, they do not actually 

possess [substantial] existence.” Similar formulations 

are found in many scriptures, emphasizing that 

the relationship of the dream to the waking state is like 

that of the waking state to an awakened state. But it is 

important to understand, as VASUBANDHU argued in 

the fourth century C.E., that the thing glimpsed in a 

dream, while it does not in fact fulfill the function it 

appears to fulfill in the dream, is nevertheless definite 

in respect to space and time. The dream thus serves as 

an emblem of the ordinary waking state of mind. 

Dreams as paths to liberation 

But “if it is so that on awaking from a dream one recognizes 

everything purely as projection, why does one 

then not also recognize on awaking that the actual material 

realm is nothing more than cognition?” In answering 

this question, Vasubandhu emphasizes that 

only after awaking can one recall the dream as a dream. 

In analogy, only when one has truly awakened can one 

recognize, or recall, that whatever one perceived previously 

as the waking state had been more like a dream 

than a true state of wakefulness. Although dreams usually 

represent an obstacle to liberation, dreaming itself 

can become the site of liberation. Since the dream is 

considered to be of the same nature as the waking 

state’s projection of the world, the wakeful dreamer 

can dream himself or herself into the border between 

phenomena and emptiness. Thus, the difference between 

the dream and the waking state is actively erased, 

and the dream is assigned a privileged status. 

See also: Bodhi (Awakening); Koben; Meditation 

Bibliography 

Bodiford, William M. “Chido’s Dreams of Buddhism.” In Religions 

of Japan in Practice, ed. George J. Tanabe, Jr. Princeton, 


Brown, Carolyn T., ed. Psycho-Sinology: The Universe of Dreams 

in Chinese Culture. Washington, DC: Asia Program, Woodrow 

Wilson International Center for Scholars; Lanham, MD: 

Distrib. University Press of America, 1988. 

Eggert, Marion. Rede vom Traum. Traumauffassungen der Literatenschicht 

im späten kaiserlichen China. Stuttgart: Franz 

Steiner Verlag, 1993. 

Tanabe, George J., Jr. Myo e the Dreamkeeper: Fantasy and 

Knowledge in Early Kamakura Buddhism. Cambridge, MA: 


DUH KHA (SUFFERING) 


Suffering is a basic characteristic of all life in this world, 

and is the first of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS taught by 

the Buddha and recorded in the various Buddhist 

canons. Along with ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE) and 

anatman (no-self), suffering is one of three fundamental 

characteristics of life in this world. 

Duhkha (Pali: dukkha) is most often translated as 

“suffering,” although the word encompasses a wide 

range of things that cause pain. It is commonly defined 

in Buddhist texts as birth, old age, disease, and death; 

as sorrow and grief, mental and physical distress, and 

unrest; as association with things not liked and separation 

from desired things; and as not getting what one 

wants (as in, for example, the Sam yutta-nikaya [Book 

of Kindred Sayings], volume 5, verse 410 ff.). Buddhist 

texts summarize what suffering is by referring to a 

group called the “five aggregates of grasping.” The five 

aggregates of grasping refer to the five things that people 

cling to in order to think of themselves as independent 

and enduring beings: the physical body, 

feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. 


239

D UNHUANG 

Holding on to each of these five things produces suffering 

because there is no permanent existence in the 

world. If a person clings to things whose nature is impermanence, 

with the hope that those things will remain 

stable and unchanging, then that person will 

continually suffer when faced with the inevitability of 

change. According to Buddhist teachings, suffering is 

an inescapable characteristic of all life and cannot be 

alleviated except through enlightenment. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Path; Pratltyasamutpada 

(Dependent Origination); Psychology; 


Bibliography 

Anderson, Carol S. Pain and Its Ending: The Four Noble Truths 

in the Theravada Buddhist Canon. Richmond, UK: Curzon, 

1999. 

Strong, John. The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and Interpretations, 

2nd edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Press, 

2002. 

DUNHUANG 


Dunhuang, on the far western border of the Han empire, 

was founded as a garrison commandery in 111 

B.C.E. Some twenty-five kilometers southeast of the 

town, a long range of barren rocky hills meets a group 

of high sand dunes. A small stream, running from 

south to north, has cut the gravel conglomerate to form 

a cliff one and a half kilometers long, and irrigates a 

grove of trees and a few fields. Here, from the fourth 

to the fourteenth centuries, there was almost continuous 

cutting and decoration of CAVE SANCTUARIES, most 

of which have survived intact. Now a World Heritage 

site, Dunhuang was thrust into international prominence 

at the beginning of the twentieth century with 

the discovery of a sealed library and the removal to several 

institutions worldwide (British Museum in London, 

Musée Guimet in Paris, National Museum in New 

Delhi, State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, 

etc.) of thousands of Buddhist manuscripts and hundreds 

of paintings on silk and hemp cloth. 

During the millennium of activity at the site, however, 

it would seem that the caves at Dunhuang served 

a number of very different purposes, whether Buddhist 

or secular, official or private, and that they represent 

the hopes and fears of many individuals, be they rich 

or poor, local residents or passing travelers. Traditionally, 

the first caves were opened in 366 by the Buddhist 

monks Yuezun and Faliang for the purpose of 

meditation. The lonely situation of the site, then 

known as Miaoyan or the Wonderful Cliff, perhaps implying 

that it possessed a reputation as a sacred site 

even in its pre-Buddhist phase, was admirably suited 

to the scriptural requirement that places of meditation 

be located well away from centers of population. 

The earliest caves extant today, near the middle of 

the cliff and high above ground level, date from the 

fifth century. Elements of style and iconography originating 

somewhat earlier in Kizil, on the northern edge 

of the Taklamakan desert, blend with typically Chinese 

architectural features in these early caves. In most there 

is a square central pillar, with the main image facing 

the entrance. The walls and ceilings were coated with 

clay plaster on which were depicted both narrative 

scenes from the previous lives of Śakyamuni and the 

legends of his historical life, and the three thousand 

buddhas of the Bhadrakalpa in serried rows of seated 

figures. 

Dunhuang was not only the gateway to the Western 

Regions beyond Chinese territory, but it was a site 

of such magnificence that its fame spread rapidly 

throughout the region and the Chinese empire, especially 

after the unification under the Sui dynasty 

(589–618). 

See also: Bianwen; Bianxiang (Transformation Tableaux); 

China, Buddhist Art in; Silk Road 

Bibliography 

Dunhuang Research Academy, ed. Chu goku Sekkutsu: Tonko 

Bakko kutsu (Chinese Cave Temples: The Mogao Caves at Dunhuang), 

5 vols. Tokyo and Beijing: Heibonsha and Wenwu 

Press, 1982. 

Dunhuang Research Academy, ed. Dunhuang shiku yishu (The 

Art of the Dunhuang Caves), 20 vols. Nanjing, China: Jiangsu 

Fine Arts Press, 1994. 

Dunhuang Research Academy, ed. Dunhuang shiku quanji 

(Complete Collection of the Dunhuang Caves), 28 vols. Hong 

Kong: Commercial Press, 1999. 

Giès, Jacques, ed. The Arts of Central Asia: The Pelliot Collection 

in the Musée Guimet, tr. Hero Friesen. London: Serindia, 

1996. 

Wang, Eugene Y. Shape of the Visual: Imagining Topography in 

Medieval Chinese Buddhist Art. Seattle: University of Washington 

Press, 2004. 


D UNHUANG 

Whitfield, Roderick. The Art of Central Asia: The Stein Collection 

at the British Museum, 3 vols. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 

1982–1985. 

Whitfield, Roderick. Dunhuang: Caves of the Singing Sands. London: 

Textile and Art Publications, 1996. 

Whitfield, Roderick; Whitfield, Susan; and Agnew, Neville. Cave 

Temples of Mogao: Art and History on the Silk Road. Los Angeles: 

Getty Publications, 2000. 



241


E 

ECONOMICS 

Before trying to determine whether it is possible to 

identify a specifically Buddhist approach to the economic 

realm, one must keep in mind that religions and 

the economic sphere interact at various levels. At the 

most elementary level, religions open up a space, both 

symbolic and physical, within which economic activities 

can take place. In the Buddhist world this has involved 

establishing through RITUAL means a space 

protected by Buddhist DIVINITIES or by the supernatural 

beings with whom these divinities coexist. Besides 

creating a space for agriculture, these ritual resources, 

generally labeled as “magic,” have to be mobilized in 

order to ensure the fertility of the land. Practices that 

mobilize the ritual or magical component of religion 

can be found not just in agricultural societies, but also 

in industrial societies, such as that of Japan, the “common 

religion” of Japan being concerned above all with 

worldly benefits (genze riyaku), whose pursuit involves 

the mobilization of Buddhist doctrines, images, rituals, 

and sacred scriptures, such as the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). 

Need, work, and religion 

From the time of the nikayas to the present, Buddhists 

have been concerned with the reality of the economic 

sphere, especially with the reality of work. This concern 

can already be seen in the Agañña-sutta of the 

Dlghanikaya, in which the Buddha tells a story about 

the emergence of social order, political authority, and 

kingship. According to the Agañña-sutta, the greed of 

the primordial beings causes a process of coarsening 

and differentiation to take place, a process that results 

in the appearance of matter, food, unequally endowed 

bodies, stratification, sex, work, authority, and priests. 

As the story unfolds, a peculiar interaction between labor 

and the avoidance of labor develops. Gathering the 

primordial rice twice a day constitutes work of sorts, 

so much so that in order to avoid this labor, a being 

that is given to laziness engages in the work of storing 

foodstuffs. However, once rice for two meals is gathered 

there is no way to stop the process, and so the 

work of gathering increases. Laziness leads to work, 

work causes the scarcity of rice, laziness and work beget 

private property, theft, authority, and religion. We find 

moreover the recognition that in order to avoid chaos 

it is necessary to have kings, and in order to have kings 

and people who, by meditating, “put aside evil and unwholesome 

things,” it is necessary to produce the surplus 

that will feed them. Work is therefore both curse 

and blessing, for without the disturbance brought 

about by work, it would not have been necessary to 

have kings and priests; whereas in order to support 

them, it is necessary to work even more. 

Although in the Agañña-sutta we encounter a story 

of greed that causes an increase in materiality, sex, and 

rice, in stories collected in Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia 

we find that rice appears as the result of meritorious 

acts, then grows as long as Buddhism spreads. 

Despite the differences, the two myths involve a process 

of degeneration, both in terms of the length of the lives 

of the buddhas and the size of the grains of rice. In general, 

the two myths betray unease toward economic 

transactions; in fact, according to the Southeast Asian 

myth, storage and above all exchange—in other words, 

economic activities—lead to the disappearance of the 

personified rice. Eventually, the rice returns, only this 

time, instead of one variety of rice, there are many varieties. 

Desirable as the varieties of rice are, however, 

243

E CONOMICS 

variety is difference, a loss of primordial unity, a unity 

that will be restored only when MAITREYA, the future 

buddha, appears. When Maitreya returns, economic 

transactions will disappear, being replaced by abundance 

and leisure. Oneness will return as well: The body 

from which the rice emerged will recover its original 

form and the varieties of rice will be reunited. 

It would be worthwhile to investigate the reasons 

for the Buddhist concern with explaining the mechanisms 

that give rise to the economic sphere. The causes 

may be found in the social changes that took place 

around the middle of the first millennium B.C.E. These 

involved the disappearance of the old tribal order, 

within which the Buddha himself was born, and its replacement 

by political centralization, taxation, professional 

armies, and urbanization. The economic and 

technological counterpart of these developments involved, 

between 600 and 500 B.C.E., the use of plow 

agriculture, the widespread cultivation of rice, and the 

introduction of coins. Cities were important in the 

spread of Buddhism as well. This is significant for two 

reasons. First, cities follow the abstract logic of commercial 

exchange and labor specialization, unlike the 

countryside, which is regulated by the rhythms of agriculture 

and thus by the seasons. On the other hand, 

given the morbidity that accompanies urbanization, a 

morbidity that would have been exacerbated by the 

conditions of the eastern Gangetic plain, the urban 

concentration of wealth and people must have led also 

to the sense of malaise articulated in the first two of 

the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (suffering and its origin). 

Money and abstraction 

The widespread use of money in north India since 

around 500 B.C.E. is also significant because of the 

connections between money and abstraction, as well 

as the affinities between money and asceticism. Because 

money dissolves qualitative differences into 

quantitative differences, it contributes to the flattening 

of reality, even while opening it up to analysis. 

Inasmuch as it serves as the common denominator of 

aspects of reality that otherwise would be seen as having 

nothing in common with one another, money 

contributes to a process of abstraction. It is through 

money that the qualitative differences among tasks 

and skills can be dissolved into quantity and can be 

bought and sold as commodities. Therefore, in a society 

in which certain forms of labor that are considered 

degrading are assigned to degraded people, this 

process of commodification can be considered liberating. 

In this respect, the economy of salvation underlying 

a community of religious virtuosi that is open 

in principle to everybody, as the Buddhist SAṄGHA 

claimed to be, can be regarded as the counterpart of 

the economy of more tangible goods. 

Money, which is normally understood as that which 

makes possible the satisfaction of desire, is the condensation 

of deferred satisfaction if the money is not 

spent. But, generally, satisfaction is deferred for the 

sake of a greater satisfaction, and this fact makes it possible 

to understand the connection between money 

and sacrifice, on the one hand, and among ASCETIC 

PRACTICES, money, and capital accumulation, on the 

other. Early Buddhism can be understood, therefore, 

both as a commentary and critique on the process of 

deferral and on the new approach to labor. In this context, 

the behavior of the followers of the Buddha can 

be seen as the distillation of the new way of life. It is 

true that monks and nuns explicitly distanced themselves 

from the economy, but this happened only to a 

certain extent, and they engaged in elaborate ruses in 

order to participate in the economy without having to 

handle coins. In any case, the very existence of the 

community of mendicants allowed the new economy 

to show its strength, for it must be remembered that a 

degree of abundance is a prerequisite for asceticism. 

Indeed, increased production was required in order to 

support not just isolated renouncers, but groups that 

were sedentary for part of the year. 

Money, asceticism, and accumulation 

How can one understand, from an economic point of 

view, the coexistence of this economic growth, however 

unequal, and the most important prohibitions to 

which monks were subject, namely the ones against 

handling money and working? We can assume that 

these prohibitions rendered visible the autonomy of 

the economic realm, as well as the relatively new reality 

of money as the embodiment of labor. Indeed, while 

isolating the monks from the money economy, the Pali 

canon shows a high regard for merchants. It is significant 

that the first to offer food to the Buddha after the 

enlightenment were two merchants, both of whom are 

said to have attained enlightenment without having become 

monks. The Buddha reciprocated by mentioning 

a list of constellations and divinities that would 

protect merchants who undertook long journeys. This 

exchange seems to suggest the exchanges that were established 

between monks and their wealthy supporters: 

While the latter provided the monks the material 


E CONOMICS 

goods without which they could not survive, the former 

reciprocated through their command of supernatural 

means. Among the early supporters of the 

saṅgha were the gahapati, land-based controllers of 

property, who straddled the divide between the rural 

and the urban, and also between the castes. Networks 

were, in fact, crucial in the spread of Buddhism, and 

merchant groups can be seen as constituting networks 

that compensated for the disappearance of the democratic 

tribal political structures, which were being absorbed 

by the large political entities then emerging in 

northeastern India. 

In terms of the affinity between asceticism and accumulation 

mentioned earlier one can say that the 

Buddha’s misgivings about ritual, magical practices, 

and materiality in general led necessarily to the rejection 

of the expenditures associated with ritual activities, 

a rejection that freed capital for investment. An 

example of this rejection of ritual and its replacement 

by an internalized religion can be found in the 

Sigalaka-sutta of the Dlghanikaya. When the Buddha 

sees Sigalaka engaging in ritual behavior, he tells him 

that instead of doing that he should abandon the four 

defilements, avoid doing evil from the four causes, and 

avoid following the six ways of wasting one’s substance. 

Avoiding these fourteen evil ways involves essentially 

having an internalized approach to religion, as well 

as living a disciplined life, away from material and 

moral dissipation. We see this approach to religion in 

nineteenth-century Thailand, where King Mongkut 

sought to reform the saṅgha by purifying it from superstitious 

practices and promoting scriptural learning, 

thus becoming a proponent of a “protestant” 

approach to Buddhism. We find the same protestant 

ethos in the Vietnamese Hoa Hao movement’s rejection 

of wasteful ritual and concomitant internalization 

of religion, as well as in the contemporary Thammakai 

movement, a Buddhist sect popular among the Thai 

middle class. 

Entrepreneurship, worldly and otherworldly 

Both as centers of entrepreneurship and innovation as 

well as of ritual expenditure Buddhist monasteries have 

functioned as loci of economic activity. In Tibet and 

in China, pawnshops, mutual financing associations, 

auctions, and the sale of lottery tickets originated or 

had close connections with monasteries. In addition, 

during the Tang dynasty (618–907) Buddhist monasteries 

engaged in oil production for cooking and for 

votive lamps, and in running water-powered stone 

rolling-mills. More directly related to economic expansion 

was the role of monasteries in bringing new 

land into cultivation, as well as in causing deforestation. 

Equally significant has been the role of Buddhist 

monasteries in the emergence of an autonomous economic 

domain, as well as the domain of the corporation, 

which were caused by the separation between the 

wealth of the institution and that of the individual. 

What the monasteries have had in common is their 

function as spaces for giving and receiving, DANA (GIV- 

ING), a function that has been held in high regard 

throughout the history of Buddhism. Ultimately, dana 

consists in giving oneself, as AŚOKA did during the great 

quinquennial festival, and as Emperor Wu of the Liang 

dynasty (502–557) in China did on more than one occasion, 

having to be rescued at great expense to the imperial 

treasury. In many cases, however, instead of 

functioning as the vehicle for the surrender of oneself, 

dana served as conspicuous waste, a process whereby 

wealth and position could be both demonstrated and 

solidified. The consequences of this giving were most 

damaging in China, as the use of corvée labor to build 

extravagant monasteries inflicted misery on peasants. 

Analogous developments took place in Southeast Asia. 

In Cambodia, beginning around 800 C.E., rulers ordered 

the building of increasingly larger ceremonial 

complexes in Angkor; these originally served as centers 

for the management of irrigation until they 

reached its saturation point in the thirteenth century. 

In Myanmar (Burma) the construction of temples was 

initiated by both rulers and ordinary people, but the 

effects were similar: Vast amounts of wealth were diverted 

from productive to sumptuary uses, and the taxexempt 

status of ever increasing religious property had 

negative economic consequences, as ritual expenditures 

inhibited the accumulation of capital necessary 

for development. 

Even when it did not reach the excesses of medieval 

China, Cambodia, or Myanmar, the ideology of dana 

has generally had important economic consequences, 

as consumption by monks has hampered the process 

of internal differentiation and of capital accumulation. 

On the other hand, because of the fact that in a collective 

celebration merit is shared but prestige is not, 

the richest families, being able to contribute the most, 

accumulate the most prestige. This means that even 

though, from the point of view of MERIT AND MERIT- 

MAKING, we encounter a nonzero-sum game situation, 

in the context of prestige the monastery as recipient 

of dana legitimizes social differences, and renders 


245

E CONOMICS 

them more visible. This can be seen among Thai peasants, 

among whom the two highest forms of meritmaking—financing 

the construction of a monastery or 

becoming a monk—are open only to the rich. In fact, 

among Thai peasants, it was believed that the dana of 

a rich person generated greater merit. Likewise, we find 

in Thai-Lao villages the belief that with good acts one 

moves up in the social hierarchy, either in a future life 

or in this one. The economic consequences of this belief 

is that poor Thai peasants spend a relatively larger 

portion of their income on merit-making. 

The main consequence of dana has been the accumulation 

of monastic wealth, a fact that has led to attempts 

at purifying the saṅgha. This can be seen in 

Myanmar, where since the eleventh century donations 

to the saṅgha have led to periods of monastic wealth 

and laxity, which have led eventually to reform of the 

order; the resulting community was deemed worthy of 

donations, until the wealth and laxness of the monks 

brought about a new reform. In any case, monks have 

sought to keep monastic wealth within their families, 

passing it mainly from uncle to nephew, in some cases 

through the manipulation of the rule of pupillary succession. 

Giving and freedom from the degradation 

of need 

In the context of giving and receiving it has been 

pointed out that living according to the PRECEPTS is 

not a possibility open to laypeople. In fact, in order 

for monks to live in the proper manner, laypeople 

have to break the precepts—for example, they must 

kill in order to feed the monks meat, and they must 

work, an activity forbidden to the monks. Does this 

mean, as S. J. Tambiah maintains, that the work of 

laypeople, insofar as it frees the monks for higher pursuits, 

is virtuous and deserving of merit, even though 

in principle it is polluting? Or is it rather that by 

accepting that which they, in theory, have not demanded, 

the monks allow the donors to live vicariously 

a life beyond necessity, while at the same time 

consuming and thus neutralizing the pollution inherent 

in all work? Going back to what was said about 

early Buddhism being a meditation on the process of 

deferral and on the new approach to labor, we can say 

that it is also in relation to labor that Buddhism seems 

to function as the means of transcending the degradation 

of being subject to need. 

Another way of transcending that degradation requires 

functioning in the world in a manner that avoids 

engaging in a zero-sum game. This is achieved through 

the practice of merit transfer, that is, the practice of 

generating merit for the sake of somebody else. Rather 

than diminishing the merit, transfer multiplies it; in 

fact, anyone can partake of this merit without diminishing 

it in any way; instead, one’s desire to partake of 

the merit generated by somebody else functions as a 

multiplier. 

Having examined a range of Buddhist attitudes toward 

the economic realm, what seems to be specific to 

Buddhism in this regard is the extent to which it is concerned 

with the processes that underlie need and desire, 

production and work, giving and taking, hierarchy 

and equality, and coming into being and dissolution. 

See also: Usury 

Bibliography 

Chakravarti, Uma. The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism. 

Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 


from the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries (1956). New York: 

Columbia University Press, 1995. 

Gunawardana, R. A. L. H. Robe and Plough: Monasticism and 

Economic Interest in Early Medieval Sri Lanka. Tucson: University 

of Arizona Press, 1978. 

Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, 

Values, and Issues. New York and Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


Reader, Ian, and Tanabe, George J., Jr. Practically Religious: 

Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan. Honolulu: 





1997. 

Sizemore, Russell F., and Swearer, Donald K., eds. Ethics, 



Spiro, Melford E. Buddhism and Society. A Great Tradition and 

Its Burmese Vicissitudes. New York: Harper, 1970. 

Tambiah, S. J. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in Northeast Thailand. 

New York and Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1970. 

Tambiah, S. J. World Conqueror and World Renouncer. A Study 

of Buddhism in Thailand against a Historical Background. 

New York and Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1976. 

GUSTAVO BENAVIDES 


E DUCATION 

EDUCATION 

For centuries, Buddhist monasteries throughout Asia 

played a prominent role in disseminating both religious 

and secular education. In fact, two of the most 

important contributions Buddhism made to premodern 

society was the establishment of educational facilities 

and the improvement of literacy. The high literacy 

rates of two modern THERAVADA Buddhist states—Sri 

Lanka and Thailand—suggest the efficiency of these 

nations’ traditional educational infrastructures and the 

positive attitudes of their societies toward learning, 

writing, memorizing, and preserving traditional 

sources of knowledge. 

In all the traditions of Buddhism in Asia, Buddhist 

monasteries have served as educational institutions, 

disseminating both religious and secular education. 

This entry, however, examines the educational practices 

of only one of those traditions—the Theravada 

tradition of South and Southeast Asia. 

In all Theravada countries, Buddhist preaching halls 

have historically functioned as sites for disseminating 

education related to religious matters, morality, good 

conduct, and healthy habits. Within traditional Buddhist 

education, “preaching the doctrine” (dhammadesana) 

developed the act of teaching, while 

“listening to the doctrine” (dhammasavana) functioned 

as a form of learning. In this context, “doctrinal 

discussion” (dhammasakaccha) paved the way for 

those seeking clarification on what they heard in the 

sermons. Dhammasakaccha led to evaluation and 

analysis of the Buddha’s teachings in a more intellectual 

fashion that included monastic debates, scholastic 

disputes, and exegetical treatises. These Buddhist 

learning strategies strengthened critical awareness 

within Buddhist learners. 

Monastic education was largely restricted to the 

male population, and women had limited access. In 

addition, traditional Buddhist schools were not operated 

on a regular basis, and until modern times it was 

rare for a large class to be taught by a single teacher. 

Traditionally, teachers met with students individually, 

and helped them complete set tasks. Lecturing was 

rare; rather, teachers focused on what students had 

A Tibetan monk studying at Rnam gyal (Namgyal) Monastery, in Dharamsala, India, 1997. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. 



247

E IGHTFOLD 

P ATH 

misunderstood or what they had failed to comprehend 

on their own. In this traditional Buddhist education 

system, students had ample opportunity for 

self-learning through the use of COMMENTARIAL LIT- 

ERATURE, glossaries, and other learning resources. 

Not surprisingly, the traditional monastic curriculum 

focused on Buddhist themes and was heavily religious 

in nature, but it covered other subjects as well. 

In Sri Lanka, a twelfth-century royal decree banned the 

study of “poetry, drama, and such other base subjects.” 

However, monastic educational institutions—the 

Pirivenas—continued to provide a well-rounded education. 

The curriculum of the fifteenth-century 

Pirivena included a mastery of several languages (Sinhala, 

Pali, Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Tamil), plus the study 

of the Pali canon, MAHAYANA philosophical texts, Indian 

philosophy, mathematics, architecture, astronomy, 

medicine, and astrology. Language learning was 

always a significant component of Buddhist education 

for two reasons: Any South and Southeast Asian Buddhist 

community needed knowledge of Pali in order 

to acquire knowledge of Buddhist scriptures, and for 

the Buddhist missionary, learning languages other than 

one’s own was useful in disseminating Buddhism in 

various countries. 

Although the traditional Buddhist curriculum included 

training on morals and etiquette, it did not provide 

the knowledge and skills necessary for the more 

complex lifestyle of modern times. Though certain 

subjects, such as medicine and astrology, were covered, 

monastic education ultimately failed to provide students 

with a broader education in science and technology, 

which became a requirement of modern 

secular society. 

See also: Monasticism 

Bibliography 

Education in Ceylon: A Centenary Volume, 3 vols. Colombo, Sri 

Lanka: Ministry of Education, 1969. 

Guruge, Ananda W. P. “Education.” In Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, 

vol. 5, ed. W. G. Weeraratne. Colombo, Sri Lanka: 

Department of Buddhist Affairs, 1991. 

Guruge, Ananda W. P. The Miracle of Instruction: Further Facets 

of Buddhism. Singapore: Samadhi Buddhist Society, 1992. 

Jayasekera, U. D. Early History of Education in Ceylon: From Earliest 

Times up to Mahasena. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Department 

of Cultural Affairs, 1969. 

MAHINDA DEEGALLE 

EIGHTFOLD PATH. See Path 

EMPTINESS. See Śunyata (Emptiness) 

ENGAGED BUDDHISM 

Engaged Buddhism or socially engaged Buddhism is a 

relatively new Buddhist movement that emphasizes social 

service and nonviolent activism. Since the midtwentieth 

century Buddhist organizations in Asia and 

the West have drawn upon traditional teachings and 

practices—such as the PRECEPTS against harming, 

stealing, and lying; the virtues of kindness and compassion; 

the principles of selflessness and interdependence; 

the vow to save all beings; and practices of 

MEDITATION and skillful means—to protect humans 

and other beings from injury and suffering. Their concerns 

include stopping war, promoting human rights, 

ministering to the victims of disease and disaster, and 

safeguarding the natural environment. 

Two engaged Buddhists have won the Nobel Prize 

for peace: Bstan ‘dzin rgya mtsho (pronounced Tenzin 

Gyatso), the fourteenth DALAI LAMA of Tibet, was 

awarded the prize in 1989, and Aung San Suu Kyi, the 

opposition leader in Burma (Myanmar), won it in 

1991. Other leaders of the movement are the Vietnamese 

monk and poet, THICH NHAT HANH, who 

coined the term engaged Buddhism in the 1960s; the 

late Indian untouchable activist and statesman, B. R. 

AMBEDKAR; the Thai activist and writer, Sulak 

Sivaraksa; the Taiwanese nun who founded hospitals 

and international relief missions, Ven. Shih Chengyen; 

and American teachers Robert Aitken, Joanna 

Macy, Bernard Glassman, John Daido Loori, Joan Halifax, 

and Paula Green. 

Engaged Buddhist organizations have appeared 

throughout the world. South and Southeast Asia are 

home to the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 

based in Thailand; the Trilokya Bauddha Mahasaṅgha 

Sahayaka Gana, which serves Dalit (low-caste) 

communities in India; the Dhammayietra peace walk 

movement in Cambodia, founded by Ven. Maha 

Ghosananda; and the Sarvodaya Shramadana rural development 

movement, which serves more than eleven 

thousand villages in Sri Lanka. 

East Asia hosts a number of local organizations, 

such as the Buddhist Coalition for Economic Justice 


E NNIN 

and the environmentalist Chŏngt’o Society in South 

Korea; international peace organizations, such as the 

Japan-based, Nichiren-inspired Rissho Kosekai, Soka 

Gakkai International (SGI), and Nipponzan Myohoji, 

known for peace walks and “peace pagodas”; and the 

Buddhist Compassionate Relief Tz’u-chi Association 

of Taiwan, with its hospitals, rescue teams, and bonemarrow 

donation program. The West also has its share 

of engaged Buddhists organizations, including the 

Buddhist Peace Fellowship and the Zen Peacemaker 

Community, based in the United States; the Aṅgulimala 

Prison Ministry in Britain; the Free Tibet movement, 

based in New York and Washington, D.C.; and 

numerous other peace, justice, and service groups in 

North America, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. 

Practitioners and scholars of engaged Buddhism do 

not agree on its origins. Some argue that social service 

has appeared in the Buddhist record since the time of 

the Buddha and King AŚOKA, before the common era, 

and increasingly since the rise of the BODHISATTVA 

ethic of MAHAYANA Buddhism in the centuries that 

followed. Scattered examples of SAṄGHA-based public 

service and of tension between saṅgha and state have 

been attested by historians of Asian Buddhism. Others 

hold that Buddhist activism—particularly collective 

protest of state corruption, economic injustice, 

and human rights violations—is unprecedented in 

Buddhism prior to the twentieth century, and reflects 

the globalization and hybridization of Asian, European, 

and American values. 

Engaged Buddhism offers new perspectives on traditional 

teachings. Among these is the belief that human 

beings can overcome DUH KHA (SUFFERING). The 

FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, an ancient formulation, defines 

suffering as the psychological discomfort associated 

with craving for objects or experiences that are impermanent 

and insubstantial. The cessation of personal 

suffering is sought by adopting prescribed views, 

aspirations, actions, speech, vocations, effort, mindfulness, 

and concentration. The tradition also attributes 

a person’s life circumstances to patterns of 

motivation and behavior in previous lives, through the 

universal laws of KARMA (ACTION) and REBIRTH. 

Most engaged Buddhists accept these ideas, but 

stress causes of suffering they believe to be external to 

the sufferer and collective in nature. The Dalit Buddhists 

of India believe that caste-group suffering is 

caused by entrenched social interests that restrict their 

social mobility, economic opportunity, and political 

influence. The Buddhists of Southeast Asia, Tibet, and 

Sri Lanka know that invading armies and local insurgents 

cause collective suffering—loss of life, livelihood, 

and homeland. Those afflicted by epidemics and natural 

disasters recognize the social and natural conditions 

that cause their sufferings. Thus, for engaged 

Buddhism, there are true victims who suffer the effects 

of others’ hatred, greed, and delusion, and of impersonal 

forces beyond their control. 

In response to such external causes of suffering, engaged 

Buddhists typically adopt practices of social service 

and nonviolent struggle as “skillful means” on the 

path to liberation. Ambedkar called this Navayana 

(New Vehicle) Buddhism, alluding to the traditional 

yanas (vehicles) of Buddhist historiography. 

See also: Ethics; Karuna (Compassion); Modernity and 


Bibliography 

Chappell, David W., ed. Buddhist Peacework: Creating Cultures 

of Peace. Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 1999. 

Kraft, Kenneth, ed. Inner Peace, World Peace: Essays on Buddhism 

and Nonviolence. Albany: State University of New 


Queen, Christopher S., ed. Engaged Buddhism in the West. 

Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 2000. 




Queen, Christopher; Prebish, Charles; and Keown, Damien; eds. 

Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism. London: 

RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. 

Tucker, Mary Evelyn, and Williams, Duncan Ryuken, eds. Buddhism 

and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. 



ENLIGHTENMENT. See Bodhi (Awakening); Original 

Enlightenment (Hongaku) 

ENNIN 

Ennin (794–864), posthumously known as Jikaku 

Daishi, was a leading monk and abbot in the early years 

of the Tendai (Chinese, Tiantai) school, who, as a favorite 

disciple of the founder SAICHO (767–822), led 


249

E NTERTAINMENT AND P ERFORMANCE 

the Tendai monastic establishment at Mount Hiei near 

Kyoto to become a flourishing center for Buddhist 

study and practice. 

Like Saicho, Ennin traveled to Tang dynasty China 

to study the dharma and returned with knowledge and 

texts from various traditions. Unlike Saicho, who 

stayed only a year, Ennin’s journey lasted nine years 

(838–847), and his travel diary records detailed information 

about China at the time. Unable to get permission 

to visit the center of Tiantai studies at Mount 

Tiantai, Ennin instead devoted himself to learning new 

forms of tantric and Pure Land Buddhist practice, in 

addition to Tiantai studies, at Mount Wutai and in the 

capital of Chang’an. His initiation in the susiddhi 

tantric doctrine stimulated the development of a rich 

new form of practice that consolidated the Tendai 

mikkyo curriculum (Taimitsu) on a par with that of the 

Shingon school’s (To mitsu). 

Ennin became the third abbot of Enryakuji on 

Mount Hiei. His dedication to expanding the monastic 

complex and its courses of study assured the Tendai 

school a unique prominence in Japan. While his chief 

contribution was to strengthen the Tendai tantric Buddhist 

tradition, the Pure Land recitation practices (nenbutsu) 

that he introduced also helped to lay a foundation 

for the independent Pure Land movements of the subsequent 

Kamakura period (1185–1333). 

to convince them of whatever principle or precept 

might be conveyed through a given tale. Such an approach 

would certainly be sanctioned by the central 

Buddhist tenet of UPAYA (skill-in-means or skillful 

means), whereby a teacher is expected to present his 

message in a manner that is readily accessible to his 

auditors, whatever their capacity. Furthermore, the 

Buddha’s own sutras (ostensibly, as invariably declared 

in their beginning phrases, all spoken by him) are full 

of interesting parables and legends. The Buddha also 

sanctioned the use of the local vernaculars so that the 

people of various countries and regions would be able 

to hear his message in their own language. It is clear 

that the Buddha is represented by the tradition as being 

intensely concerned about the mode of delivery 

employed by those who preached his doctrines. 

A goodly part of the Buddhist penchant for storytelling 

and drama may be attributed to the general Indian 

love of fables and apologues. It is well known that 

many of the world’s best-known tales—including a 

considerable number of those found in the collections 

of Aesop and the Grimm brothers—can be traced to 

Indian sources, such as the Pañcatantra (Five Frameworks) 

and the Kathasaritsagara (The Ocean of Streams 

See also: Original Enlightenment (Hongaku); Tantra; 


Bibliography 

Reischauer, Edwin O. Ennin’s Travels in T’ang China. New York: 

Ronald Press, 1955. 

Reischauer, Edwin O., trans. Ennin’s Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage 

to China in Search of the Law. New York: Ronald 

Press, 1955. 

Saito, Enshi, trans. Jikaku Daishi Den: The Biography of Jikaku 

Daishi Ennin. Tokyo: Sankibo Busshorin, 1992. 

DAVID L. GARDINER 

ENTERTAINMENT AND PERFORMANCE 

As an active missionary religion, Buddhism naturally 

fostered the attractive presentation of its tenets in the 

form of tales and dramas. It may well be argued that 

the Buddha himself encouraged the use of storytelling 

as a way to capture the attention of an audience and 

Dge lugs monks dance and play special drums during a celebration 

of Padmasambhava’s birthday in Hemis, Ladakh, India, 

2001. © Paula Bronstein/Getty Images. Reproduced by permission. 


E NTERTAINMENT AND P ERFORMANCE 

of Stories). The early Buddhists, however, were probably 

even more partial to memorable narratives than 

adherents of other Indian religious traditions; witness 

the mammoth assemblage of JATAKAs (birth-stories) 

and the skillfully elaborated tales of causation in the 

DIVYAVADANA. Through the very telling of such 

AVADANA and nidana (stories about causation), sophisticated 

Buddhist concepts are not only made apprehensible 

and palatable, they become enjoyable and 

memorable. 

The exuberant Indian affection for unforgettable 

tales also traveled with Buddhism to Central Asia and 

Southeast Asia. A splendid example of Buddhist tales 

may be found in Xianyu jing (The Su tra of the Wise and 

Foolish), which consists of hundreds of long and short 

stories recorded by Buddhist monks from China, who 

heard them in 445 C.E. in the oasis city of Khotan in 

eastern Central Asia (Xinjiang). While The Su tra of the 

Wise and Foolish has not been successfully traced to a 

single Sanskrit source, it is full of delightfully edifying 

stories and also exists in a Tibetan recension. 

Another noteworthy medieval Buddhist text from 

Central Asia, but of a quite different nature than The 

Su tra of the Wise and Foolish, is Maitreyasamitinataka 

(Dance-Drama of the Encounter with MAITREYA [the 

Buddha of the Future]). It is one of the few manuscripts 

written in the extinct language known as 

Tocharian. Among all the extant fragments, the 

Maitreyasamitinataka is by far the longest. Linguistically, 

Tocharian, which was rediscovered only in the 

early part of the twentieth century, is extremely important 

because it is the easternmost representative of 

the Indo-European family. Also discovered in the 

early years of the twentieth century was a translation 

of the Maitreyasamitinataka written in Old Uyghur, 

an extinct Turkic language. Thus, there is good primary 

evidence for a once flourishing tradition of Buddhist 

dance-drama in Central Asia. Judging from the 

stage directions in the extant texts, it must have been 

quite a spectacle. 

A masked Dge lugs monk dances during the Hemis Festival in 

Hemis, Ladakh, India, 2001. © Paula Bronstein/Getty Images. 


The tradition of Buddhist drama goes back even earlier 

than the Maitreyasamitinataka, which dates to 

around the eighth century. Indeed, the earliest authenticated 

Sanskrit dramas are three plays written by 

Buddhists. Fragmentary manuscripts of these plays 

have been recovered from the sands of the Turfan basin 

in Eastern Central Asia. Among these plays is the nineact 

Śariputraprakarana (The Matter of Śariputra) by the 

renowned Mahayana scholar and poet AŚVAGHOSA (ca. 

100 C.E.). A full exposition of the elaborate dramaturgical 

theory embodied in these plays may be found in 

the Natyaśastra of Bharatamuni, which dates to around 

the beginning of the common era. 

So proficient in thaumaturgy were many Indian and 

Central Asian Buddhist monks who came to China that 

some of them relied on their wonder-working skills 

not only to attract enormous groups of disciples but 

even to gain favor with the ruler. Perhaps the most famous 

of these was Fotudeng (d. 349), but many others 

were noted in historical and anecdotal literature. 

Buddhist monks were so renowned for their spellbinding 

powers of narration and prestidigitation that, 

by the Song dynasty (960–1279), there were various 

categories of professional storytellers and entertainers 

who masqueraded as monks. Already in the preceding 

centuries, the power of Buddhist narrators (of both lay 

and monastic status) to gather crowds was so great that 

government recruiters who wished to conscript hundreds 

of new soldiers would intentionally seek out a 


251

E SOTERIC A RT, EAST A SIA 

storytelling session, rope together those in attendance, 

and march them off to the front. 

The affinity between Buddhism and storytelling also 

obtained in Japan, where many of the greatest collections 

of tales (the so-called setsuwa bungaku or tale 

literature), such as Sangoku denki (Stories of Three 

Kingdoms; i.e., India, China, and Japan) and Konjaku 

monogatari (Stories of Yesterday and Today) were permeated 

with Buddhist themes and concepts. In certain 

temples, there were monks (ho shi) who specialized in 

narrating legends with the aid of picture scrolls, and 

along the roads nuns (bikuni), some of whom were 

nuns in name only, engaged in similar activities. In Tibet, 

the itinerant manipa performer, with her thang ka 

(thanka) hanging on a wall beside her, likewise used to 

be a common sight. 

Some of the grandest representations of Buddhist 

performance are to be found in the paradise scenes on 

the wall-paintings at DUNHUANG in northwestern 

China. There one can see full orchestras depicted, often 

with a virtuoso lute player whirling on a small circular 

rug in the center. It would seem that to the 

Buddhist, pageantry and performance were as much a 

part of the celestial realm as they were of the sublunary 

world. 

See also: Festivals and Calendrical Rituals; Folk Religion: 

An Overview; Languages 

Bibliography 

Idema, Wilt I. “Traditional Dramatic Literature.” In The Columbia 

History of Chinese Literature, ed. Victor H. Mair. New 


Mair, Victor H. “The Buddhist Tradition of Prosimetric Oral 

Narrative in Chinese Literature.” Oral Tradition 3, nos. 1–2 

(1988): 106–121. 

Mair, Victor H. Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture 

Recitation and Its Indian Genesis. Honolulu: University of 


Mair, Victor H. “The Contributions of T’ang and Five Dynasties 

Transformation Texts (pien-wen) to Later Chinese Popular 

Literature.” Sino-Platonic Papers 12 (August 1989): 

1–71. 

Mair, Victor H. “The Prosimetric Form in the Chinese Literary 

Tradition.” In Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on 

Narrative in Prose and Verse, ed. Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl. 

Cambridge, UK: Brewer, 1997. 

McLaren, Anne E. Chinese Popular Culture and Ming Chantefables. 


McLaren, Anne E. “The Oral-Formulaic Tradition.” In The Columbia 

History of Chinese Literature, ed. Victor H. Mair. New 


Pellowski, Anne. The World of Storytelling (1977). Revised edition, 

New York: Wilson, 1990. 

ESOTERIC ART, EAST ASIA 


This entry considers the esoteric art forms of China, 

Korea, and Japan. The terms esoteric art and esoteric 

material culture are modern designations, whereas 

terms such as icon, image, MAN D ALA, ritual implement, 

painting, symbol, and initiation hall—used in association 

with esoteric practices—have a long history within 

the tradition. Esoteric and Tantric Buddhist traditions 

alike deploy images and objects for efficacious, decorative, 

and ritual purposes. Esoteric art may refer to 

painted, sculpted, printed, or textile media representations 

of esoteric divinities or esoteric symbols, ritual 

implements and furnishings, and halls or pagodas used 

for esoteric rites. 

The definition of esoteric art, like that of esoteric 

Buddhism, may be broad or narrow. Art forms considered 

here include not only those associated with the 

systematized Esoteric school of Japanese Shingon and 

its Chinese inspiration, Zhenyan, but also imagery 

used in syncretic religious rituals that incorporate esoteric 

elements. Imagery may be the primary indication 

of the esoteric content of a rite. Esoteric icons and 

other types of visual and material representation are 

recognized as necessary to spiritual and worldly goals, 

which are understood as interconnected. Esoteric art 

objects are often crafted of valuable materials and envisaged 

according to iconographic specifications and 

stylistic or artistic norms that help render them sacred. 

In this way, ornamentation, icons, and all types of visual 

and material goods lend authority and meaning 

to an esoteric rite. Conversely, esoteric ritual is essential 

to the perceived efficacy of the image. Esoteric art 

and ritual are mutually constituting. 

Overview of studies and regional histories 

There is scant literature on East Asian esoteric art in 

English, and most of it concerns Japanese Shingon 

objects. Copious scholarship exists in Japanese on 

mandala paintings, statues and paintings of Mahavairocana 

(Dainichi Nyorai) and the Radiant Kings 



(Vidyaraja, Myoo), and esoteric ritual implements. 

Such scholarship examines artistic and stylistic attributes, 

iconographic symbolism, textual sources, and 

the recorded ritual use of the works. Unfortunate consequences 

of Japanese scholarship include concentrating 

interest on the Shingon system and its arts at the 

expense of Japanese Tendai (TIANTAI SCHOOL) or 

nonesoteric traditions that incorporate esoteric images 

and doctrine. Seeking cultural parallels, Shingon-based 

studies tend to focus on Tang Zhenyan examples. Recent 

exhibitions and studies of later Chinese Buddhist 

or Daoist art have enriched our view of esoteric art history 

as they trace the complex history of esoteric Buddhist 

assimilation in China, and include Chinese 

esoteric art in the Indo-Tibetan VAJRAYANA tradition 

made during the Yuan (1279–1368) through Qing 

(1644–1911) dynasties. 

The popularity of ferocious manifestations of 

Avalokiteśvara found in abundance in the Esoteric tradition 

is evident in artistic remains throughout East 

Asia. Ten marble statues excavated at the Tang monastery 

of Anguosi, ancient Chang’an (modern Xi’an), 

founded in 701, include the Five (alternative opinions 

give eight) Vidyaraja kings. The latter were introduced 

to Japan by KU KAI (774–835) but soon cults devoted 

to only the central king, Fudo Myoo, prevailed. The 

canonical set of eight Brilliant Kings, popular from the 

late Tang in the modern-day provinces of Yunnan (at 

Jianchuan under the Nanzhao monarchy) and in 

Sichuan (at Baodingshan), are virtually unknown in 

Japan and elsewhere in China, indicating significant 

regional differences in esoteric imagery. The crypt 

finds at FAMENSI Monastery provide new insights into 

the contextual history of esoteric material culture. 

Used in relic processions to the imperial palace, the 

finely crafted ritual and devotional objects were 

adorned with esoteric iconography; moreover, they 

were arranged in patterns or nested sequences intended 

as mandala. 

Esoteric thought had an impact on early Korean 

Buddhism and its arts but it is difficult to discern in 

the model generated by sectarian studies. Dharan 

sutras were widely circulated during the Three Kingdoms 

and sheets printed with esoteric DHARAN I may 

be classified as esoteric material culture. The earliest 

printed sutra in the world is a dharan text dating to 

751 found in the Śakyamuni STU PA at Pulguksa in 1966. 

Reliefs on seventh- and eighth-century stone stupas or 

on gold and gilt-bronze reliquaries found within them 

provide evidence of cults dedicated to esoteric forms 

A vajra bell in gilt bronze. (Japanese, Kamakura period, 

1185–1333.) © The Seattle Art Museum, Eugene Fuller Memorial 

Collection. Reproduced by permission. 

of the Healing Buddha (Bhaisajyaguru) and the zodiac, 

and Ursa Major. 

Although Tang Esoteric practices were known in 

Korea, to date neither Mahavairocana imagery nor 

mandala examples have been found. Vairocana 

(Piroch’ana-pul) imagery abounds but it derives from 

the HUAYAN JING (Avatam saka-su tra) and Sŏn (CHAN 

SCHOOL) texts and is not esoteric. Guardian figures and 

deities relating to rites for national protection, among 

them Marci, Vidyaraja, and Mahamayur Vidyaraja, 

were common during the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392), 

as were esoteric Avalokiteśvara emanations. The modest 

Esoteric tradition that had taken root was assimilated, 

and new Mongolian and Tibetan forms of 

esotericism replaced them. Huge banner paintings 

(kwaebul t’aenghwa) were made for outdoor rites during 

the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910); these probably 

derive from Tibetan thang kas. The worship halls at 

Chosŏn monasteries featured paintings and statues of 


253


esoteric divinities used in Water and Land or Ten 

Kings of Hell rites, among others. In China, Water 

Land rituals (shuilu dahui), plenary masses performed 

with paintings and ritual altar goods, appear to have 

developed after the Tang dynasty as substitutes for esoteric 

food distribution rites (shishi). 

Tantric forms of Tibetan Buddhism flourished in the 

kingdoms west of China, along the SILK ROAD. Evidence 

of Vajrayana or Tantric belief is evident at DUNHUANG 

as early as the ninth century. Although relatively few 

caves are Tantric in the strictest sense, six of them were 

created under the Mongols. The Central Asian Tangut 

empire of Xixia (1032–1227), positioned at the narrow 

Gansu passage where the Chinese Silk Road flows westward, 

worshiped esoteric forms of the Tantric goddess 

Tara. Although it was likely made after the Mongol conquest 

of Xixia in 1227, the style of a Green Tara on an 

early thirteenth-century kesi tapestry in the Asian Art 

Museum of San Francisco that was probably hung in a 

monastery is strongly Tibetan in style. 

In the Mongol Yuan dynasty, the mchod yon 

(choyon) relationship of lama and patron developed at 

the Chinese court. The dynasty fell in 1368 but later 

dynasties maintained the system. During the Ming dynasty 

(1368–1644) relations with Tibet were revived, 

especially under the Yongle emperor Zhu Di (1403– 

1424). During his reign many painted and tapestry 

thangkas, robes, and gilt-bronze images made in the 

Ming imperial casting and weaving studios were commissioned 

by the Yongle emperor as gifts to Tibetan 

and Mongolian monks. Their Tibetan stylistic traits 

and symbolism were more than an anticipation of the 

recipients’ tastes: The imperial commissions were 

modeled after earlier gifts made to the Chinese court 

by Tibetan lamas, and the Ming artists may have been 

Nepalese or Tibetan as well as Chinese. 

The murals created for the Main Hall of Famensi 

Monastery, west of Beijing (ca. 1439–1444), show imperial 

taste and Tibetan influence, with esoteric and 

nonesoteric Buddhist deities in courtly processions in 

a variety of syncretic figural styles with diverse attributes, 

such as an elegant eight-armed Sarasvat (Chinese, 

Bicai tian) with esoteric implements on the north 

wall. Representations of the magical northern sevenstar 

dipper (Ursa Major), stars, planets, or the sun and 

moon often symbolize esoteric concepts in Buddhist 

and Daoist imagery alike; the origins, however, lie in 

Chinese cosmological beliefs. 

During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Tibetan and 

especially Mongolian lamas were influential at court 

and were involved in the production of many esoteric 

works of art. The Qianlong emperor (1736–1795), 

schooled in Tibetan Buddhism by his parents, had 

himself depicted as a transformation of various esoteric 

divinities, such as Mañjuśr, in paintings that survive 

today. The State Hermitage Museum in Saint 

Petersburg, Russia, has many fine Ming and Qing brass 

statues of esoteric divinities in the Sino-Tibetan style. 

From around the ninth century, representations of 

esoteric divinities are used in a greater range of (non- 

Esoteric) religious contexts across East Asia. Such syncretism 

reflects the true nature of Buddhism in 

practice, where sects or schools are less monolithic 

than many discussions allow. This admixture is notable 

in cults that developed around esoteric manifestations 

of Avalokiteśvara, such as the thousand-armed 

thousand-eyed Guanyin. At Dunhuang alone there are 

nearly forty depictions of this deity painted on cave 

walls and banners, most of which were made during a 

period of Tibetan occupation beginning around 778 

and ending in 848. Many Avalokiteśvara representations 

are based on the Nllakantha-su tra (T. 1060, an 

unattested Sanskrit text) and its variants, which stress 

the power of the Great Compassion Dharanl and generated 

numerous commentaries and texts on dharan 

recitation as an act of repentance. Repentance rites 

were performed before paintings and statues of the 

thousand-armed and thousand-eyed Avalokiteśvara. 

A late fourteenth-century example is a twenty-sevenfoot-tall 

gilded work, the central of three colossal clay 

statues in the Great Compassion Hall of the vast Ming 

monastery of Chongshan, Taiyuan, Shanxi. The repentance 

ritual became part of Chan praxis in China 

and Korea and to modern times continues to incorporate 

esoteric imagery. 

Imagery in the Esoteric tradition: Doctrine 

and practice 

The Chinese referred to Buddhism as the “religion of 

images” (xiangjiao). In the Esoteric tradition, the main 

divinity is understood as both the material form of the 

divinity (an icon) and as the pure formless divinity (the 

divinity worshiped). The Mahavairocana-su tra names 

three forms by which the main divinity (Japanese, honzon; 

Chinese, bencun; Sanskrit, svayadhidevata) is 

made manifest: a verbal “seed syllable”; a symbol (mudra, 

referring not to the hand gesture but to what is 

usually called the symbol form or samaya); or a pictorial 

representation. Each type is divided into two categories, 

those with formal qualities and formless main 

divinity, which are a higher class. These six cross- 



divide into two groups: characteristic-possessing and 

characterless honzon. 

The Japanese Esoteric master Kukai wrote: 

The dharma is fundamentally unable to be conveyed in 

words, yet without words it cannot be manifested. The 

tathata is beyond form but in taking form it is comprehended. 

. . . Because the Esoteric storehouse is so profound 

and mysterious it is difficult to manifest with brush 

and ink. Thus it is revealed to the unenlightened by 

adopting the form of diagrams and pictures. (Sho rai 

mokuroku, Inventory of Imported Items, 806) 

Japanese Esoteric commentaries describe painted and 

sculpted main icons as formal appearances manifested 

according to the rules of causation, but without 

a real body. They are understood as depicting the 

real buddhas perceived during visualization. In esoteric 

practice, visuality becomes a definitive feature 

of the deity. Kukai’s Hizo ki (Notes on the Secret Treasury) 

discusses the term honzon (KZ: 2:30) as transmitted 

to him by his Chinese teacher. It stresses the 

relationship between the absolute nature of the practitioner’s 

body and that of the main icon. Both the 

halls for rites and the representational structure of eidetic 

meditation participate in visual codes and 

norms. A practitioner will encounter the divinities 

throughout a highly ordered structure of practices 

that require him or her to invoke, entertain, and visualize 

the deity or deity symbols associated with the 

rite. Non-Esoteric monastery halls are understood as 

dwelling places of the gods, but Esoteric halls are said 

to be symbolic embodiments of self-realization: Statues 

and paintings transform the structure into a 

localized manifestation of perfection. Yixing’s commentary 

to the Mahavairocana-su tra explains that a 

painted or sculpted representation of the main icon 

is used by novices, and as practice is refined the honzon 

will arise itself entirely from the mind, without 

“possessing characteristics” (of a form). 

Esoteric art forms and types 

Thus, the “main icon” in its characteristic-possessing 

or material form may be understood as one category 

of esoteric icon, wherein it is the primary image of a 

hall or the focus of a ritual, but it is also equivalent to 

the formless and characterless divinity. A main icon 

may be a sculpted, cloth, or painted representation of 

a deity. Even if a hall functions in multiple rites and 

has many icons, there is often a designated main icon. 

Most Buddhist traditions feature a single buddha, but 

the esoteric tradition designates main icons from all 

classes of Buddhist DIVINITIES. 

A second possible categorization of esoteric images 

includes representations of the divinities that are not 

the primary icon of a hall. “Secret icons” hidden behind 

closed doors and revealed infrequently are 

strongly associated with the esoteric tradition and may 

be a main icon or secondary icon. 

The concept of a generative system of bodies, 

deities, and energies—at once represented and embodied 

by a mandala—is central to esoteric praxis. 

Mandalas are a distinct category of representation that, 

although at the ritual and philosophical center of Esoteric 

ordination practices, are not understood as a 

main icon in the manner discussed above. A mandala 

may be created in two or three dimensions: polychrome 

paintings or solid-color ground (usually blue 

or purple) with gold and silver line-paintings are orthodox, 

but hundreds of individual-deity mandalas 

and symbol mandalas are known. In China, sculptural 

and other three-dimensional mandalas form the 

largest group of extant remains. 

Dharan mandalas and printed or brushed 

mandalas used as talismans constitute a distinct category, 

along with other symbolic or representational 

charms. Many talismanic printed papers were found 

at the cave complex of Dunhuang, where travelers 

paused to invoke protection along their journey. Talismanic 

seals (Chinese, fuyin) protect against calamities 

and grant wishes; texts on the popular esoteric 

bodhisattva Cintamanicakra found at Dunhuang are 

impressed with fuyin. 

A fifth category of esoteric material culture includes 

RITUAL OBJECTS and goods, such as bells, wands, vases, 

and vestments. Among all the implements the vajra is 

of the greatest significance. Translated as either “diamond” 

or “thunderbolt,” the vajra is forceful and cuts, 

but cannot be cut itself. A metaphor for wisdom and 

the dynamic quality of truth, it is juxtaposed with the 

matrix or womb world (representing compassion) in 

the Esoteric dual-mandala system. As an implement it 

is a one-, three-, or five-pronged metal rod similar to 

the ancient weapon. 

Iconographic drawings, depictions of divinities, 

mudra, symbols, or other esoteric components form 

another category and typically function as ritual supports. 

Drawings are used as the basis for creating 

paintings or statues, to record complex mandala components, 

or as study manuals. 

Symbolic representations (samaya) are, strictly 

speaking, a type of main divinity, but as icons they 

may be considered a distinct category. In East Asian 


255


found a place in Pure Land and other schools’ monastic 

plans. 

Another category pertains to Esoteric sectarian history, 

lineage, and transmission. Included here are 

keepsakes of the esoteric masters and patriarch images. 

The Japanese Esoteric master Kukai was given 

thirteen items by his Chinese teacher Huiguo during 

his study in Tang Chang’an, of which eight originally 

belonged to the great Esoteric masters Vajrabodhi 

and Amoghavajra. Among them is a twenty-fourcentimeter-tall 

sandalwood portable shrine carved in 

relief with divinities in the collection of Kongobuji, 

Mount Koya, Japan. Its iconography is not esoteric, 

nor does it figure in esoteric ceremonies. Nonetheless, 

the shrine is a significant example of esoteric material 

culture because it constitutes a form of sectarian 

patriarchal history. 

A small crystal reliquary. (Japanese, Kamakura period, 

1185–1333.) © The Seattle Art Museum. Reproduced by permission. 

esotericism, sexualized bodies or scatological references 

are the exception and metaphor the norm. Symbols 

may take the form of a divinity’s attribute (e.g., 

Acala’s sword). Stone memorials, reliquaries, and 

other objects may symbolically represent the five material 

elements. Seed syllables are invariably comprised 

of Siddham letters. Iconography (mudra, posture, 

color, attributes) might be included here, for such prescriptions 

constitute a particular kind of symbolic embellishment 

and art. 

Architecture constitutes another distinct category. 

Halls or structures have specific ritual functions inherent 

to their layout and decoration. Esoteric pagodas in 

Japan developed several characteristic shapes, notably 

the Tahoto form. An abhiseka hall was essential to esoteric 

practice. The earliest known example in East Asia 

is the excavated hall of Qinglongsi in modern-day 

Xi’an. New types of halls with esoteric functions developed 

at Japanese esoteric monasteries (e.g., the Five 

Vidyaraja hall, the Five Wisdom Buddha hall) then 

A tenth and final category is both large and amorphous. 

It includes paintings, statues, or ritual implements 

that derive from systematized esoteric traditions 

found in a Buddhist or other religious context that assimilated 

esoteric practices and imagery but is not of 

completely esoteric origin. Examples might include the 

vajra or representations of esoteric emanations of 

Avalokiteśvara. Found only in Japan are shrine mandara 

paintings, topographies of indigenous kami 

(Shinto) sites and associated gods that typically include 

one or more esoteric Buddhist deities as avatars of the 

indigenous gods. In China such assimilated imagery 

would include, among hundreds of possible examples, 

images of the Dipper (Ursa Major) Mother. 

The categories noted above are not absolute but 

heuristic. In some cases they differ from modern scholarly 

views. Modern art-history studies favor works 

deemed aesthetically superior, regardless of function. 

For example, an icon with great reputed efficacy but 

seen as aesthetically inferior may be of lesser interest. 

Iconographic drawings may be lauded for their drafting 

and artistic expression, but do not occupy the same 

status in the esoteric tradition because they are not 

icons but ritual supports. This is not to imply that visual 

impact and materials were insignificant. To the 

contrary, artistic styles associated with a workshop or 

individual Buddhist craftsman; sumptuous materials 

such as gems, gold, pigments, or jade; superb construction; 

and embellishment of objects or sacred 

spaces were understood as means of devotion. At Famensi 

the priest who made the silver outer relic container 

in 871 dedicated it as “a precious box for 

Śakyamuni Buddha’s true body.” The innermost con- 


E SOTERIC A RT, SOUTH AND S OUTHEAST A SIA 

tainer was made of jade, the material treasured above 

all others in Tang China. 

See also: China, Buddhist Art in; Japan, Buddhist Art 

in; Korea, Buddhist Art in; Mijiao (Esoteric) School; 

Shingon Buddhism, Japan; Tantra 

Bibliography 

Bogel, Cynthea J. “Canonizing Kannon: The Ninth-Century Esoteric 

Buddhist Altar at Kanshinji.” Art Bulletin (March 

2002): 30–64. 

Daigoji ten (exhibition catalogue). Tokyo: Daigoji Monastery 

and Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2001. 

Fahai si bihua. Zhongguo luyou chuban she (Fahai monastery 

wall paintings). Beijing: China Travel and Tourism Press, 

1993. 

Fomen mibao da Tang yizhen: Shanxi fufeng Famen si digong 

(Buddhist secret treasures . . . from the Famensi pagoda 

excavation), Vol. 10. Taipei: Guangfu shuju giye gufen 

youxi’an gongsi, 1994. 

Goepper, Roger. “Some Thoughts on the Icon in Esoteric Buddhism 

of East Asia.” Studia Sino-Mongolica (Festchrift H. 

Frankel), Münchener Ostasiatiche Studien 25 (1982): 

245–254. 

Goepper, Roger. Aizen-myo o , the Esoteric King of Lust: An Iconological 

Study. Zurich: Artibus Asiae and Museum Rietberg, 

1993. 

Honolulu Academy of the Arts. Sacred Treasures of Mount Ko ya: 

The Art of Japanese Shingon Buddhism. Honolulu: Honolulu 

Academy of the Arts, 2002. 

Howard, Angela F. “The Eight Brilliant Kings of Wisdom of 

Southwest China.” RES 35, Anthropology and Aesthetics 

(Spring 1999): 93–106. 

Ishida Hisatoyo. Esoteric Buddhist Painting, tr. E. Dale Saunders. 

Tokyo, New York, and San Francisco: Kodansha, 1987. 

Karetzky, Patricia. “New Archaeological Evidence of Tang Esoteric 

Art.” T’ang Studies 12 (1994): 11–37. 

Karmay, Heather Stoddard. Early Sino-Tibetan Art. Warminster, 

UK: Aris and Philips, 1975. 

Lee Junghee. “A Dated Avatam saka-su tra Scroll and the Korean 

Origin of the Vairocana Buddha Image in the Wisdom-Fist 

Mudra.” Oriental Art 45, no. 2 (1999): 15–25. 

Linrothe, Robert N. “Peripheral Visions: On Recent Finds of 

Tangut Buddhist Art.” Monumenta Serica 43 (1995): 

235–262. 

Mizuno Keizaburo; Konno Toshifumi; and Suzuki Kakichi, eds. 

Mikkyo jiin to butsuzo (Esoteric Monasteries and Statues). 

Tokyo: Kodansha, 1993. 

Morse, Anne Nishimura, and Morse, Samuel Crowell (curators). 

Object as Insight: Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual. Katonah, 

NY: Katonah Museum of Art, 1995. 

Nara National Museum. Mikkyo kogei (Applied Art of Japanese 

Esoteric Buddhism, exhibition catalogue). Nara, Japan: Nara 

National Museum, 1992. 

Orzech, Charles Daniel. “Mandalas on the Move: Reflections 

from Chinese Esoteric Buddhism, ca. 800 C.E.” Journal of the 

International Association of Buddhist Studies 19, no. 2 (1996): 

209–243. 

Saso, Michael. Tantric Art and Meditation: The Tendai Tradition. 

Honolulu: Tendai Educational Foundation and University 


Sekiguchi Masayuki, ed. Mikkyo , Vol. 2: Zusetsu, Nihon no 

bukkyo . Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1988. 

Sørensen, Henrik H. “Typology and Iconography in the Esoteric 

Buddhist Art of Dunhuang.” Silk Road Art and Archaeology 

(Journal of the Institute of Silk Road Studies, 

Kamakura) 2 (1991–1992): 285–349. 

Sperling, Elliot. “The 5th Karma-pa and Some Aspects of the 

Relationship between Tibet and the Early Ming.” In Tibetan 

Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson, ed. Michael Aris and 

Aung San Suu Kyi. Warminster, UK: Aris and Philips, 1979. 

ten Grotenhuis, Elizabeth. Japanese Mandalas: Representations 

of Sacred Geography. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1999. 

Tokyo National Museum and other National Museums. Ko bo 

daishi to Mikkyo bijutsu (Kobo Daishi and the Art of Esoteric 

Buddhism, exhibition catalogue). Tokyo: 1983–1984. 


Buddhism 850–1850. Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, 

University of Kansas; Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1994. 

ESOTERIC ART, SOUTH AND 

SOUTHEAST ASIA 

CYNTHEA J. BOGEL 

The Buddhist esoteric arts of India, the Himalayan 

regions, and Southeast Asia are inspired by the 

VAJRAYANA sect that is sometimes called TANTRA, referring 

to the texts, called tantras (literally, “woven 

threads”), that the sect uses. These arts are an integral 

part of the visualized meditation rituals (sadhana) that 

Vajrayana developed to harness the powers needed to 

achieve enlightenment in a single lifetime. Vajrayana 

arts are called esoteric because the intensely complex 

and mystical quality of the visualized meditations 

make them mysterious and “secret” to all but the initiated. 

To fully utilize esoteric art the practitioner must 

be guided at every step by a qualified teacher; merely 

following a text will not suffice. 


257


Cakrasam vara and Vajravarahl in Union, Nepal, about 1450, opaque watercolor on cotton hanging scroll (thang ka). Los Angeles 

County Museum of Art, from the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase. Reproduced by permission. 

This hanging scroll is a visual support for ritual meditation. The practitioner visualizes the two deities in the yab-yum posture that signifies 

the absolute union of compassion and wisdom, “father and mother.” 



Aesthetically, a few generalizations can be offered 

about esoteric painting. Because the human form is the 

yogic “vessel” for following the path, the figure is 

paramount. Images of symbols are also important as 

the focus for specific meditations. A MAN D ALA often 

combines the use of figures and symbols to striking effect. 

Composition, depth, and volume are only defined 

through the juxtaposition of pure contrasting colors 

and solid defining lines; realistic depictions are not valued. 

Most of the background and details are idealized 

and stylized into fluid symmetrical patterns. 

Visual supports for ritual meditation 

Esoteric Buddhism makes more extensive use of visual 

imagery and symbols to impart its teachings than any 

other school of Buddhism. This is because Vajrayana 

uses texts so abstruse that their meanings can seemingly 

be conveyed only through art. Even the name of 

this path, vajra, which literally means “thunderbolt” or 

“diamond,” is expressed in art by a ritual implement 

that reveals the esoteric truth of the name. The vajra 

is a scepter with, usually, five prongs joined together 

at the end; the prongs symbolize the powerful and 

quick method of practice focused on the five transcendent 

buddha families, ultimately joined together 

in the enlightened state. Sometimes a vajra may be attached 

to a bell, which symbolizes PRAJN A (WISDOM). 

A bell with a vajra handle thus represents the perfect 

balance and necessity of combining method with wisdom 

to achieve enlightenment. 

A wide range of media are used for esoteric arts. 

Paintings mounted as hanging scrolls (Tibetan, thang 

ka; literally, “something rolled up”), murals on monastery 

or temple walls, and manuscript illustrations are 

the most common art forms used as aids for meditation. 

They are often commissioned as offerings or to 

commemorate a special event or festival. Sculptures for 

either altars or niches are cast in metal, carved of wood, 

or sculpted in clay, usually painted and gilded. Ritual 

objects and instruments manipulated in meditation 

rituals or dances (Tibetan, cham) are usually cast in 

metal, but gems and semiprecious stones are also used, 

along with bones, shells, and rock crystals. More temporary 

media include woodblock prints, prayer flags, 

and votive clay images. Offerings, especially initiation 

mandalas, can be made of almost any material, such 

as chalk, butter, grains, or sand. The two main forms 

of sacred architecture in esoteric Buddhism are the 

STU PA, called a mchod rten (chorten) in the Himalayas, 

and the monastery complex, which includes shrines, 

dance courtyards, and residences for monks or nuns. 

The Buddhist Goddess Vajravarahl, Central Tibet, fourteenth century, 

gilded bronze with inlaid gems. Los Angeles County Museum 

of Art, purchased by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Board 

of Trustees in honor of Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, Senior Curator of 

Indian and Southeast Asian Art, 1970–1995. Reproduced by permission. 

This yi dam or personal deity in a whirling dance posture 

symbolizes the transcendent wisdom needed to become 

enlightened. 

Transcendent pantheon in esoteric art 

The Buddha Śakyamuni is deified, or rather multiplied, 

as two groups of beings in the esoteric pantheon. His 

teachings thereby become elaborated in visually concrete 

systems that are organized by mandalas, mystical 

diagrams that map out the process of visualized meditations. 

The first group is comprised of the five transcendent 

buddhas who parent the five buddha families 

of deities. The second group encompasses an array of 

beings, mostly adopted from local traditions, who 

sponsor specific practices; these are guardians or personal 

deities called yi dams in Tibetan (Sanskrit, istadevata). 

Within each sect of Vajrayana Buddhism, the 

second group is incorporated into the first group in a 

way that emphasizes their particular doctrines. 

The iconography of this esoteric pantheon is precise. 

The five transcendent buddhas are identified by 

color, gesture, and direction in the mandala (east is at 

the bottom), and each one characterizes a particular 

aspect of the Buddha Śakyamuni’s life: 


259


1. Aksobhya: “Imperturbable” (vajra family), sapphire 

blue, earth-touching gesture (bhu misparśamudra), 

east (some sects place Aksobhya in the 

center); the Buddha’s enlightenment. 

2. Ratnasambhava: “Jewel-Born” (jewel family), 

golden yellow, giving gesture (varada-mudra), 

south; the Buddha’s generosity as shown in his 

choice to teach and as demonstrated in his previous 

lives. 

3. Amitabha: “Infinite Light” (lotus family), ruby 

red, meditation gesture (dhyana-mudra), west; 

the Buddha’s path of meditation. 

4. Amoghasiddhi: “Infallible Success” (karma family), 

emerald green, protection gesture (abhayamudra), 

north; the Buddha’s miraculous powers 

to protect and save. 

5. Vairocana: “Illuminator” (buddha family), diamond 

white, turning the wheel of the dharma 

gesture (dharmacakra-mudra), center (some 

sects place Vairocana in the east); the Buddha’s 

first sermon and all of his teachings. 

The colors of yi dams are determined by their place 

within the five families. The talents and weapons they 

bring to the particular meditation ritual they guide are 

shown by other attributes. For example, the yi dam 

Vajravarah is red because she is related to AMITABHA. 

She carries a ritual chopper with which she cuts through 

ignorance, because her function is to confer transcendent 

wisdom. Her consort Cakrasam vara is blue because 

he is related to AKSOBHYA, and he carries many 

weapons because he is charged with providing whatever 

skillful means, all rooted in compassion, are needed to 

enable the practitioner to become enlightened. 

Regional variations 

Indian practitioners and artists of esoteric Buddhism 

came to the fore after about 500 C.E. They began to 

make images of many new deities, often displaying ritualized 

sexual postures (Sanskrit, yuganaddha or mahamudra). 

They also increased the depiction and 

variety of ritual gestures and devices, extended the use 

of mandalas, and recognized that artistic activity itself 

could be a form of spiritual practice. The earliest image 

of a deity holding a vajra occurs in the northwestern 

region of ancient Gandhara. 

The advent of Buddhism in Tibet occurred in the 

seventh century C.E. Tibetan esoteric arts grew around 

a seeding of Indian tantric forms among the indigenous 

shamanic religion called BON. Particular to Tibet 

and later Nepal is the extensive use of the posture called 

yab-yum, literally “father-mother” in Tibetan, as a potent 

visual metaphor for the absolute necessity of joining 

the goddess’s transcendent wisdom with the god’s 

skillful means: They are physically joined in a sexual 

embrace. The whirling dance posture of mostly nude 

figures is also characteristic of the Himalayas. 

Another Tibetan iconographic form is the lineage 

painting used to legitimize sects, tulkus (sprul sku; living 

incarnations of particular bodhisattvas, such as the 

DALAI LAMA as an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara), and 

teachers within a genealogy of previous teachers and 

the transcendent buddha families. Parallel to this development 

is the wide proliferation of small mchod 

rtens (elongated stupas) to commemorate, as well as 

to invoke, the protective powers of teachers, saints, 

tulkus, and sacred scriptures. Huge three-dimensional 

mandalas, some with interior shrines, are also thought 

of as mchod rtens. Unique to Nepal are the eye-mchod 

rtens, which have an enormous pair of eyes painted 

on each side of the square base beneath the top spire; 

these eyes belong either to Vairocana, the Illuminator, 

or to the primordial buddha principle named 

Adibuddha. 

RITUAL OBJECTS such as the prayer wheel, the vajra 

(Tibetan, rdo rje), the bell, and the phur pa (Tibetan, 

used to “nail” down demons) were extensively developed 

in the Himalayan regions. The highly sophisticated 

techniques of making and consecrating these necessary 

implements spread to Southeast and East Asia. 

Esoteric Buddhism in Southeast Asia thrived mainly 

in Bhutan, Myanmar (Burma), Kampuchea (Cambodia), 

Malaya, and Indonesian Java. The most important 

esoteric art forms that remain are the complexes 

of Angkor Thom in Cambodia and BOROBUDUR in 

Java, as well as many fine examples of ritual implements 

and sculptures. Borobudur (about 850 C.E.) 

elaborates the life of the Buddha Śakyamuni as the ideal 

path to enlightenment. Each stage is represented on a 

different level of this enormous three-dimensional 

mandala, with seventy-two pierced stupas on the top 

level, each housing Vairocana as he illuminates the 

world. This site is both a straightforward and an esoteric 

commemoration of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, 

and death. 

See also: Buddha(s); Esoteric Art, East Asia; Himalayas, 

Buddhist Art in; Huayan Art; Southeast Asia, 

Buddhist Art in; Tibet 


E THICS 

Bibliography 

Fisher, Robert E. Art of Tibet. New York: Thames and Hudson, 

1997. 

Maxwell, Thomas S. “The Advanced Forms of Buddhism.” In 

The Gods of Asia: Image, Text, and Meaning. Delhi: Oxford 


Mullin, Glenn H., and Weber, Andy. The Mystical Arts of Tibet. 

Atlanta, GA: Longstreet Press, 1996. 

Pal, Pratapaditya. Art of Tibet: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles 

County Museum of Art Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles 

County Museum of Art, 1983. 

Pal, Pratapaditya. Art of Nepal: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles 

County Museum of Art Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles 

County Museum of Art, 1985. 

Pal, Pratapaditya, ed. On the Path to the Void: Buddhist Art of 

the Tibetan Realm. Bombay: Marg, 1996. 

Rhie, Marylin M., and Thurman, Robert A. F. Wisdom and Compassion: 

The Sacred Art of Tibet, expanded edition. New York: 

Abrams, 1996. 

Trungpa, Chögyam. Visual Dharma: The Buddhist Art of Tibet. 

Berkeley, CA, and London: Shambhala, 1975. 

GAIL MAXWELL 

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. See Mijiao (Esoteric) 

School; Tantra; Vajrayana 

ETHICS 

Buddhist canonical texts have no term that directly 

translates into the English word ethics; the closest term 

is ślla (moral discipline). Ślla is one of the threefold 

disciplines, along with PRAJN A (WISDOM) and mental 

cultivation (samadhi), which constitute the path leading 

to the end of suffering. Ślla is most closely identified 

with the widely known five moral PRECEPTS 

(pañcaślla) of lay Buddhists: not to kill, not to steal, 

not to lie, not to have inappropriate sex, and not to 

use intoxicants. The Buddhist tradition has a notion 

of voluntary and gradualist moral expectations: Lay 

Buddhists may choose to take the five (in some Buddhist 

areas fewer) precepts or to take temporarily eight 

or ten precepts; novices take ten precepts and ordained 

monks and nuns take over two hundred precepts. 

Sources of ethical thinking 

In all areas of Buddhism, followers look to the “three 

treasures” for guidance: the Buddha as teacher, the 

dharma as the teaching, and the SAṄGHA as the community 

that transmits the dharma. With these three 

treasures, Buddhists have rich resources on ethical 

thinking, especially in the written materials communicating 

the dharma. The three major divisions of the 

Buddhist scriptural CANON all contain ethical materials. 

The sutras contain moral teachings and ethical reflection; 

the VINAYA gives moral and behavioral rules 

for ordained Buddhists, and the ABHIDHARMA literature 

explores the psychology of morality. In addition 

to canonical literature, numerous commentaries and 

treatises of Buddhist schools contain ethical reflections. 

The ethical teachings of scripture can be confirmed 

by one’s own reflection. The sutra’s story of the 

Kalamas is often cited to show the Buddha’s emphasis 

on personal reflection. In this tale the Buddha tells the 

Kalamas that they should not blindly accept teachings 

based on tradition, instruction from a respected 

teacher, or from any other sources without confirming 

these teachings through their own experience. He 

helps them see for themselves that actions motivated 

by greed, hatred, or delusion are unethical, and those 

motivated by the opposite of greed, hatred, or delusion 

are ethical. 

Ethics as part of the path, and the relationship 

of ethics to suffering, emptiness, karma, 

and rebirth 

Ethics is a major part of the Buddhist PATH that leads 

to the end of suffering. The path is sometimes conceived 

of as a threefold training in which ślla provides 

the foundation for samadhi and prajña. In the noble 

eightfold path, ślla includes the practices of right action, 

right speech, and right livelihood. The practice of 

moral discipline is supportive of the other practices in 

the path. 

THERAVADA texts make a distinction between the 

ordinary path that leads to better REBIRTH and the noble 

path that leads to NIRVAN A. On the ordinary path 

a person is partly motivated by what is gained through 

ethical action. On the noble path a person is gradually 

freed from the false idea of the self and from selfish 

motivations. An ARHAT who has completed the 

ordinary path is on the noble path; he or she is beyond 

ethics and KARMA (ACTION) in the sense that the 

arhat spontaneously acts morally, and his or her actions 

no longer have good or bad karmic fruits. The 

arhat always acts morally without being attached to 

morality. Many Buddhist scholars (Harvey, Keown, 

and others) reject the conclusion of anthropological 

studies in Myanmar (Burma) that there were two 


261

E THICS 

separate distinct paths—an ordinary path leading to 

better rebirths for laypeople and a noble path leading 

to nirvana for monks (Spiro, King). Instead, they argue 

that both lay and ordained Buddhists practice the 

ordinary path with the understanding that the noble 

path is the eventual long-term goal. 

The Buddhist understanding of the nature of reality 

underscores the importance of ethics. The view that 

suffering is the nature of lives lived in ignorance emphasizes 

the need to alleviate suffering in others, as well 

as in oneself. The view of no-self (anatman) undercuts 

any clinging to individualistic gain: Since the idea of a 

separately existing self is false, then one must give up 

selfishly motivated actions. In MAHAYANA Buddhism 

the understanding of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) reinforces 

the idea that there are no independent, separately existing 

factors of existence. The realization of no-self, 

emptiness, and interdependence leads to an ethics of 

consideration for all beings and all things. 

According to the Buddhist understanding of the 

natural law of karma, wholesome actions result in 

pleasant karmic results and unwholesome actions lead 

to unpleasant karmic results. But it is not true that an 

action is good simply because it has pleasant results. 

Instead, it has pleasant results because the action itself 

is good. The degree of goodness of an action is dependent 

on the motive for the action. There is a hierarchy 

of motives for good actions. As the Chinese 

monk-scholar YINSHUN (b. 1906) explains it, “Lower 

people give for the sake of themselves. / Middle people 

give for their own liberation. / Those who give all 

for the benefit of others / Are called great people” (p. 

228). The karmic result of an action depends not just 

on the action, but especially on the motive behind the 

action and on the manner in which it is performed. 

The belief in karma and rebirth is important in initially 

motivating good behavior, in emphasizing its importance, 

in giving people more empathy for others to 

whom they were related in previous lives, and in supplying 

a longer-term perspective for seeing one’s ethical 

development over lifetimes. The rarity of human 

rebirth makes each human life especially precious as 

an opportunity for moral and spiritual development. 

Ordained and lay Buddhist ethics 

For ordained monks and nuns, behavior is guided by 

the canonical texts in the vinaya. The vinaya contains 

rules, consequences for violating the rules, and explanations 

of the origin and interpretation of the rules. 

Some of the rules are what we would consider ethical 

guidelines; others are aimed at the smooth operation 

of the saṅgha and at maintaining the saṅgha’s good 

reputation with lay Buddhists. 

For lay Buddhists the foundation for leading a 

moral life is twofold: the restraints on behavior called 

for in the five permanent (or eight or ten temporary) 

precepts, and the encouragement to selfless giving 

called for in the primary moral virtue of DANA (GIV- 

ING). Giving is the first Buddhist PARAMITA (PERFEC- 

TION) and by far the most emphasized for lay 

Buddhists. Other perfections are ślla (moral virtue), 

ksanti (patience), vlrya (vigor), DHYANA (TRANCE 

STATE), and prajña (wisdom). These perfections are 

discussed in philosophical texts and are embodied by 

the Bodhisattva in JATAKA tales, such as the one about 

VIŚVANTARA (Pali, Vessantara), the prince who perfects 

dana to the point of giving away even his wife 

and children. Buddhists understand that the precepts 

and the perfections can be followed at different spiritual 

levels: Giving done with thought for karmic results 

is not as good as giving that is performed because 

it is valued in itself. Giving done selflessly further 

lessens the false concept of self and thus moves the 

giver closer to wisdom. 

Buddhist texts devote more attention to behavioral 

norms for ordained members of the saṅgha, but social 

and political ethics for the rest of society are not ignored. 

One of the best visions for social relationships 

is found in the Sigalovada-sutta (Advice to Sigala), in 

which the Buddha explains the value of mutually supportive 

and respectful relationships between parents 

and children, students and teachers, husbands and 

wives, friends and associates, employers and employees, 

and householders and renunciants. This particular 

text lays out the foundations for a harmonious lay 

community just as the vinaya texts do for a harmonious 

monastic community. 

Buddhist texts that depict conversations between 

the Buddha and kings often impart political values, 

such as the Ten Duties of a King, in which the Buddha 

describes a benevolent monarch whose power is 

limited by the higher power of the dharma. In South 

and Southeast Asia, Buddhist ideas of benevolent 

KINGSHIP had great influence, especially as King AŚOKA 

became the legendary ideal of Buddhist rulers. In East 

Asia, Buddhist ideas were usually superseded by Confucian 

political and social ideals. 

Maha ya na emphases 

Mahayana Buddhism adds to Buddhist ethics a greater 

emphasis on the BODHISATTVA as the model for ethical 

behavior. Bodhisattvas embody the virtues, espe- 


E THICS 

cially compassion and wisdom, to which all Buddhists 

should eventually aspire. The bodhisattva masters the 

perfections through a process of ten stages with the 

goal of gaining enlightenment for the benefit of all living 

beings. Bodhisattva vows take several forms, including 

the vow made by the eighth-century Buddhist 

saint ŚANTIDEVA: “For as long as space endures / And 

for as long as living beings remain, / Until then may I 

too abide / To dispel the misery of the world.” In East 

Asian Mahayana, an ideal lay Buddhist is the bodhisattva 

VIMALAKIRTI, whose wisdom and compassion 

is shown to outshine even that of monks. 

In Theravada Buddhism there is a strong emphasis 

on the vinaya, which governs the behavior of the ordained 

community. In Mahayana Buddhism outside 

India the unifying power of the vinaya has been less 

significant. East Asians often collapsed vinaya and ślla 

into a single concept (Chinese, jielü), thus diluting the 

distinctiveness of vinaya. In addition, many of the rules 

seemed irrelevant to a non-Indian cultural environment. 

In East Asia, the vinaya had to accommodate a 

very different culture and the already dominant social 

ethics of Confucianism. 

In East Asia some Buddhist schools accepted the 

teachings of Buddhist morality but believed that it was 

impossible to follow the precepts correctly in the present 

age of the DECLINE OF THE DHARMA. The Nichiren 

and PURE LAND SCHOOLS of Japan have developed this 

idea most clearly. In these schools the means to enlightenment 

comes from outside the unenlightened individual. 

NICHIREN identified the source of that power 

as the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), 

which encapsulated the powers of all buddhas and bodhisattvas; 

the Pure Land leader SHINRAN (1173–1263) 

identified the source as the compassionate power of 

AMITABHA (Japanese, Amida) Buddha. In these schools, 

morality has never been seen as a means to an end, but 

rather as an expression of gratitude, and as empowered 

by something beyond the individual. 

The Chinese CHAN SCHOOL of Buddhism and Tibetan 

TANTRA sometimes seem to use language that 

borders on antinomianism. By transcending the dualities 

of all things, including right and wrong and good 

and evil, there is the possibility of enlightenment. In 

fact, the problem is not with the duality of moral precepts, 

but with the self-centered clinging to moral precepts 

and the tendency toward self-righteousness. 

Comparisons with Western ethics 

Western anthropologists studying Theravada Buddhism 

in Burma have argued for differing views of 

morality in monks and laypeople. Melford Spiro identified 

two forms of Buddhism: kammatic Buddhism of 

laypeople who followed morality in order to gain a better 

rebirth, and nibbanic Buddhism of the monks who 

followed the path to gain nibbana (Sanskrit, nirvana). 

In both cases, the moral precepts are viewed as means 

to a goal, but to different goals. This understanding of 

Buddhist ethics places it closest to a Western utilitarian 

ethics where the goal is the reduction of suffering, 

and ethics is the means to that goal. In the decades after 

this anthropological work, other Buddhist scholars 

have argued from the anthropological data and from 

textual sources that a utilitarian view of ethics is not 

appropriate to Buddhism. Damien Keown and others 

have argued that the best way to understand Buddhist 

ethics is in terms of Aristotelian virtue ethics. The 

moral precepts are not to be followed just because they 

reduce suffering (although they do), but because they 

are good in themselves. That is, ślla is not just a means 

for gaining wisdom and concentration; ślla and wisdom 

are both part of the final goal of enlightenment 

and are interdependent. In The Nature of Buddhist 

Ethics (1992) Keown argued that Buddhist ethics are 

teleological ethics similar to Aristotelian ethics because 

“the virtues are the means to the gradual realization of 

the end through the incarnation of the end in the present” 

(p. 194). In Buddhism, of course, this gradual realization 

takes place over many lifetimes. 

Peter Harvey summed up the field of Buddhist 

ethics in comparison to Western ethics by acknowledging 

that “the rich field of Buddhist ethics would be 

narrowed by wholly collapsing it into any single one 

of the Kantian, Aristotelian or Utilitarian models, 

though Buddhism agrees with each in respectively acknowledging 

the importance of (1) a good motivating 

will, (2) cultivation of character, and (3) the reduction 

of suffering in others and oneself” (p. 51). 

Contemporary ethical issues 

In the contemporary world, Buddhist scholars and 

leaders have sought to apply Buddhist ethics to moral 

questions of this age. This is most clearly evident in the 

ENGAGED BUDDHISM and humanistic Buddhism movements. 

Engaged Buddhism is THICH NHAT HANH’s 

term for bringing Buddhism out of the monastery to 

deal with pressing social issues. The ideals of engaged 

Buddhism have been embraced by a wide range of 

Asian and Western Buddhist leaders and movements. 

In Chinese Buddhism, humanistic Buddhism (rensheng 

fojiao) was developed by the reformer TAIXU 

(1890–1947), the scholar Yinshun, the Chan master 


263

E THICS 

Shengyan, and the Taiwanese nun Zhengyan (Cheng 

Yen) to refer to a form of modern Buddhism involved 

with current social issues such as education, poverty, 

pollution, and sickness. 

Many current ethical issues are related to the first 

Buddhist precept: not to harm other beings. The first 

precept is central to Buddhist discussions of ABORTION, 

WAR, euthanasia, animal rights, environmentalism, 

and economic justice. Buddhist writings against war 

and military violence are some of the best known. Nhat 

Hanh, the fourteenth DALAI LAMA, Aung San Suu Kyi, 

and Mahaghosananda are some of the Buddhist leaders 

who have argued against violence as a means to resist 

the oppression in their countries. The Buddhist 

tradition has nothing quite like a “just war” tradition, 

only isolated instances where Buddhists have tried to 

justify violence by claiming their enemies were not 

truly human. The dominant tradition is pacifist. 

Whether violence to one’s own body is an acceptable 

means of protest is disputed. Nhat Hanh 

considered Vietnamese monks who performed SELF- 

IMMOLATION during the 1960s and 1970s to be bodhisattvas 

burning brightly for truth. Others, like 

the Dalai Lama and Shengyan, have rejected selfimmolation, 

fasting, or other suicidal actions as political 

means. Early Buddhist scriptures specifically 

forbid suicide, but this question gets to the heart of 

the issue of whether bodhisattvas can violate the precepts 

in order to reduce the suffering of others. In 

this scenario a bodhisattva violates normative Buddhist 

ethics with the willingness to take on negative 

karmic effects in order to benefit other living beings. 

In one jataka tale the bodhisattva offers his body as 

a meal to a hungry tigress to prevent her from eating 

her cubs. There is also a more controversial jataka 

tale where the Buddha in a previous lifetime (as a 

bodhisattva) kills a bandit in order to save the lives 

of five hundred merchants that the bandit is about to 

kill. The understanding is that the action was motivated 

by compassion for both the merchants and the 

bandit, who would suffer terribly from the karmic 

fruits of these murders. The Dalai Lama, among others, 

has rejected such violations of Buddhist ethics on 

the basis that only a fully enlightened being could 

make such judgments. 

See also: Nichiren School 

Bibliography 

Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho (Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama XIV). Ethics 

for a New Millennium. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999. 


Oxford and New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1996. 

Dharmasiri, Gunapala. Fundamentals of Buddhist Ethics. Antioch, 

CA: Golden Leaves, 1989. 

Fu, Charles Wei-hsun, and Wawrytko, Sandra A., eds. Buddhist 

Ethics and Modern Society: An International Symposium. New 

York: Greenwood Press, 1991. 


Values, and Issues. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 2000. 

Journal of Buddhist Ethics. Internet journal available from: 

jbe.gold.ac.uk/ or jbe.la.psu.edu/. 

Katz, Nathan. Buddhist Images of Human Perfection: The Arahant 

of the Sutta Pitaka Compared with the Bodhisattva and 

Mahasiddha. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1982. 

Keown, Damien. The Nature of Buddhist Ethics. London: 


Keown, Damien. Buddhism and Bioethics. London: Macmillan; 

New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. 

Keown, Damien, ed. Contemporary Buddhist Ethics. London: 

Curzon, 2000. 

Keown, Damien; Prebish, Charles S.; and Husted, W. R.; eds. 

Buddhism and Human Rights. London: Curzon, 1998. 

King, Winston L. In the Hope of Nibbana: An Essay on Theravada 

Buddhist Ethics. LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1964. 

Kraft, Kenneth, ed. Inner Peace, World Peace: Essays on Buddhism 

and Nonviolence. Albany: State University of New 


Little, David, and Twiss, Sumner B. Comparative Religious 

Ethics: A New Method. New York: Harper, 1978. 

Nakasone, Ronald Y. Ethics of Enlightenment: Essays and Sermons 

in Search of a Buddhist Ethic. Fremont, CA: Dharma 

Cloud, 1990. 

Nhat Hanh, Thich, et al. For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries 

on the Five Wonderful Precepts. Berkeley, CA: Parallax 

Press, 1993. Revised edition, 1998. 

Prebish, Charles S., ed. Buddhist Ethics: A Cross-Cultural Approach. 

Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1992. 




Saddhatissa, Hammalawa. Buddhist Ethics: Essence of Buddhism. 






Its Burmese Vicissitudes. London: Allen and Unwin, 1971. 


E TIQUETTE 

Wayman, Alex. Ethics of Tibet: Bodhisattva Section of Tsong-Kha- 

Pa’s Lam Rim Chen Mo. Albany: State University of New 


Yin-shun. The Way to Buddhahood: Instructions from a Modern 

Chinese Master, tr. Wing Yeung. Boston: Wisdom, 1998. 

ETIQUETTE 

BARBARA E. REED 

Models of polite behavior appear throughout Buddhist 

literature, as when disciples of the Buddha bow and 

circumambulate the Buddha, or when preachers of the 

dharma are treated with respect. While the Vinaya 

Pitaka is the scriptural source of guidance on monastic 

discipline, there is also a much larger written and 

oral VINAYA tradition, consisting of commentaries, digests, 

and ad hoc instructions. Whereas Vinaya texts 

define the fundamental nature of the SAṄGHA, the term 

etiquette tends to apply to less crucial, and yet more 

pervasive, rule-governed behavior: posture when 

standing, the direction of the gaze, sequences of seniority 

in the dining hall, how to hold chopsticks, 

terms of polite address, how to bow. In daily life, this 

attention to detail does not always have a scriptural basis, 

and etiquette varies widely by region, time period, 

sect, and even from monastery to monastery. 

Etiquette is not only a matter of interpersonal relations, 

but also governs maintenance of the material objects 

of Buddhism, such as robes, bowls, icons, and 

monastery boundaries. Changes in behavior serve to 

demarcate sacred space, for example, when MONKS in 

Southeast Asia roll down their robes to cover both 

arms when they exit the monastery, and roll them up 

to expose one arm when they return. Walking through 

doors is also an occasion for RITUAL. In China, the act 

of entering is governed by a ritual code, and behavior 

is modified according to one’s location inside or outside. 

One is careful to step over the “bridge” or “saddle” 

of the doorway, which in some cases can be quite 

a high step. If the front façade has three large doors, 

one enters through those on the sides, not by the central 

door. When entering by the left of the three gates, 

one should put the left foot in first; if through the right 

gate, the right foot is first. In some cases, shoes are removed 

or changed. Stepping into the temple space, the 

first act should be a bow. The Jiaojie xinxue biqiu 

xinghu lüyi (Admonitions for Novice Monks on the Behavioral 

Norms of the Vinaya), a guide to monastic etiquette 

by the Tang dynasty monk DAOXUAN (596–667), 

instructs: “When entering the monastery gate, bow, and 

then kneel, and recite the customary praises to the 

Buddha. . . . Gather up your sitting-cloth, join palms 

and bend the body. Then, with a serious expression, 

walk slowly on one side of the walkway, looking ahead.” 

When leaving, “perform obeisance according to the 

correct method: three bows before the Buddha, one 

bow as you reach the gate, one more bow outside the 

gate. When there are a few monks, bow once to each 

in order. When there are many monks, bow to the 

group three times.” When circumambulating an image 

or sacred site, one should move clockwise with palms 

together, and with one’s right shoulder to the object of 

reverence, possibly with the right shoulder bared. 

The most common Buddhist polite gesture is the 

añjali, also known as the namaskara or namas te, 

(Japanese, Gassho ; Thai, wai). The palms of the hands 

are pressed together in front of the body and the head 

or torso leans forward to a greater or lesser degree. In 

many cases, the height of the hands indicates the actor’s 

perceived or intended social position vis-à-vis the 

other person: The hands are held higher when gesturing 

toward people “higher-up” than oneself. In an añjali 

to a fully ordained monk the hands are usually held 

at the forehead, compared to in front of the chin when 

offered to most laity. When an adult offers an añjali to 

return the greeting of a child, the hands are held at 

heart level. 

In some parts of Asia, particular devotion may be 

shown by placing one’s hands on the feet of a monk. 

As with the spatial distinction of height, the timing of 

this gesture also matters: The subordinate initiates the 

gesture. 

Conversely, the fact that monks do not bow to laity 

(not even to the king) is a means of asserting monkhood 

as an ideal social order outside of the world. Conflicts 

of etiquette have occurred, such as the persistent 

debates over monks not bowing to their own parents 

or to the Chinese emperor. These debates brought 

Buddhist and Confucian models of etiquette into direct 

conflict. The virulence of these debates indicates 

the importance of etiquette, as arguments for and 

against drew upon fundamental pillars of Buddhist or 

Confucian doctrine. 

Members of the ordained community continue to 

perform obeisance to each other, however, and Buddhist 

scriptures encode the orthodox hierarchy: All 

nuns, no matter how senior, bow to all monks, no matter 

how junior. Novices bow to the fully ordained, and 

juniors bow to seniors. Seniority is measured in 


265

E UROPE 

“dharma years,” that is, the number of Lenten seasons 

since full ordination. 

When the many particular rules have been internalized, 

the intended result is a dignified demeanor 

(lryapatha; Chinese, weiyi), a kind of self-possession of 

the body and its robes. Buddhist monastic guides reveal 

an elaborate regime of bodily control, especially a mindful 

control of the hands; there are rules against flapping 

the arms around, standing with arms akimbo, carelessly 

scratching or blowing one’s nose when in the presence 

of superiors, tickling people, and so on. Etiquette should 

also be controlled at meal times; the PRATIMOKSA (the 

list of monastic precepts, a set of vows assumed as part 

of the ordination process) includes rules against, for example, 

licking the fingers, scraping the bowl with fingers, 

or sticking the tongue out. The activities of seeing, 

pointing, and touching are also strongly rule-governed. 

The mastery of etiquette is part of a more encompassing 

effort to mindfully discipline the entire body, as well 

as speech and mind. 

In some of its modern American versions, Buddhism 

seems opposed to any emphasis on etiquette, standing 

instead for spontaneity and an egalitarian rejection of 

all distinctions. Indeed, CHAN SCHOOL discourse has 

played with violations of etiquette. However, the nondualist 

rejection of distinctions and the suspension of 

the assumed norms are only meaningful in terms of 

shared social norms. Buddhist monasteries are the sites 

of intensified rather than inverted etiquette, and some 

highly refined forms of social behavior, such as the 

tea ceremony, have often spread through the medium 


See also: Precepts; Robes and Clothing 

Bibliography 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. The Zen Monastic Experience. Princeton, 


Dogen. Do gen’s Pure Standards for the Zen Community: A Translation 

of the Eihei Shingi, tr. Taigen Daniel Leighton and 

Shohaku Okumura. Albany: State University of New York, 

1996. 

Hurvitz, Leon. “ ‘Render Unto Caesar’ in Early Chinese Buddhism.” 

Sino-Indian Studies (Liebenthal Festschrift) 5, no. 3–4 

(1957): 81–114. 


and Its Function as a Setting for Buddhist Monastic Life. London: 


ERIC REINDERS 

EUROPE 

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the presence 

of Buddhism in Europe is characterized by a diversity 

of traditions, schools, orders, and lineages. 

Since the 1970s interest in Buddhism among Europeans 

has grown steadily, accompanied by the arrival 

of Buddhist refugees and immigrants from Asian 

countries. Of Europe’s estimated one million Buddhists, 

about two-thirds are of Asian ancestry. Nevertheless, 

Buddhism’s public face in Europe and its 

representation in the media are dominated by convert 

Buddhists, leaving migrant Buddhists for the most part 

unseen and unrecognized. 

The beginning of Buddhism in Europe can be dated 

to the mid-nineteenth century, though fragmentary information 

about Buddhist customs and concepts had 

trickled into Europe since the seventeenth century. 

From the 1850s onward, Europe witnessed a boom of 

translations of Buddhist works, as well as studies and 

portraits of Buddhism. European philosophers and 

scholars such as Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), 

Thomas W. Rhys Davids (1843–1922), and Hermann 

Oldenberg (1854–1920) helped spread Buddhist concepts 

through their treatises and translations. These 

scholars clearly favored the teachings of the Pali 

CANON, which they assumed to be pure and original. 

The first converted European Buddhists appeared during 

the 1880s in response to these studies; most converts 

were educated middle-class men. In accordance 

with the dominance of Pali Buddhist ideas, a few young 

men from England and Germany became THERAVADA 

monks in Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). 

Most prominent among these were Bennett McGregor 

(1872–1923), who was ordained as Ananda Metteyya 

in 1902, and Anton W. F. Gueth (1878–1957), who was 

ordained as Nyanatiloka in 1904. 

Ethical and intellectual interest in the teachings of 

Theravada Buddhism gained organizational momentum 

in Europe with the founding of new Buddhist societies. 

The first of these was the Society for the 

Buddhist Mission in Germany, formed by the Indologist 

Karl Seidenstücker (1876–1936) in Leipzig in 1903. 

Through lectures, pamphlets, and books, the first professed 

Buddhists tried to win members from the educated 

middle and upper strata of society. During the 

1920s further Buddhist societies and parishes evolved, 

many with the support of the Ceylonese reformer ANA- 

GARIKA DHARMAPALA (1864–1933). Leading Buddhists 

included Georg Grimm (1868–1945) and Paul Dahlke 


E UROPE 

The Dharmapala Center, Kandersteg, Switzerland. Courtesy of Dr. Martin Baumann, University of Lucerne. Reproduced by permission. 

(1865–1928) in Germany, and Christmas Humphreys 

(1901–1983) in England. The schools of Grimm and 

Dahlke continued their work within small private circles 

during the Nazi period, when Buddhists were regarded 

with suspicion as pacifists and eccentrics. With 

the exception of those who had abandoned Judaism 

and become Buddhists, however, no official or open 

persecution of Buddhism took place. 

After World War II, small numbers of Buddhists reconstructed 

former THERAVADA-oriented groups or 

founded new ones. Beginning in the 1950s, Japanese 

Buddhist traditions, such as Zen, Jodo Shinshu, and 

SO KA GAKKAI, were brought to Europe. Zen became 

especially popular during the 1960s and 1970s; many 

local groups were established and Zen teachers began 

touring Europe. The Zen boom was followed by a 

sharp rise of interest in Tibetan Buddhism. Beginning 

in the mid-1970s, high ranking Tibetan teachers conducted 

preaching tours in Europe. Within two decades, 

converts to Tibetan Buddhism outnumbered converts 

to all other Buddhist traditions in many countries. 

This rapid increase in the numbers of European 

Buddhists, accompanied by an expansion of already existing 

institutions, led to a considerable rise in the number 

of Buddhist groups and centers. In Britain, for example, 

the number of Buddhist organizations increased 

from seventy-four to some four hundred between 1979 

and 2000. In Germany, interest in Buddhism resulted 

in an increase in the number of Buddhist institutions 

from around forty in 1975 to more than five hundred 

meditation circles, groups, centers, and societies by 

1999. Comparable growth rates occurred in other European 

countries, such as Italy, Austria, Switzerland, 

France, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Eastern European 

countries also witnessed a growing interest in 

Buddhism following the political changes of 1989. Numerous 

Buddhist groups, Tibetan and Zen in particular, 

were founded in Poland, the Czech Republic, 

Hungary, and western Russia. Visits by European and 

North American Buddhist teachers, as well as a longing 

for spiritual alternatives to the established Roman 

Catholic and Orthodox churches, brought about a 

steady growth of Buddhism in Eastern Europe. 

In addition to Western convert Buddhists, considerable 

numbers of Asian Buddhists have immigrated 

to Europe since the 1960s (see Table 1). In France, especially 

in Paris, large communities of refugees from 

Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia have emerged. In Great 


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E UROPE 

TABLE 1 

Estimated Buddhists in selected European countries in 

the late 1990s 

Country 

Buddhists 

total 

SOURCE: Baumann (2002). 

Buddhists 

from Asia 

Percentage of 

population 

France 350,000 300,000 0.6% 

Britain 180,000 130,000 0.3% 

Germany 170,000 120,000 0.2% 

Italy 75,000 25,000 0.1% 

Netherlands 33,000 20,000 0.2% 

Switzerland 25,000 20,000 0.3% 

Austria 17,000 5,000 0.2% 

Denmark 10,000 7,000 0.1% 

Hungary 7,000 1,000 0.1% 

Poland 5,000 500 0.02% 

Russia 1,000,000 vast majority 0.7% 

Britain, the Netherlands, and other Western European 

nations, refugees, immigrants, and businesspeople 

from Asian countries have found work or 

asylum. In the process of settling down, religious and 

cultural institutions were established to help immigrants 

preserve their ethnic identity and build a home 

away from home. 

Still, relative to their absolute numbers, Asian Buddhists 

in Europe have established few Buddhist institutions. 

The rapid rise in the number of Buddhist 

centers and societies is largely due to the work of convert 

Buddhists, who, in addition to following established 

forms of Theravada, MAHAYANA, and Tibetan 

Buddhism, also founded new Buddhist orders. These 

include the Arya Maitreya Mandala order, founded by 

the German lama Govinda (1898–1985) in 1933, and 

the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, established 

by the British Sangharakshita in 1967. In many 

countries, however, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism remain 

foremost, superseding the early dominance of 

Theravada. 

During the 1980s and 1990s, Buddhism in Europe 

became firmly established in organizational form. In 

addition to the numerous local Buddhist groups and 

centers, in many countries national umbrella societies 

were created to enhance intra-Buddhist dialogue and 

activity. In Austria, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, 

and Italy, such national societies have become 

well respected representatives of Buddhism. The European 

Buddhist Union was founded in 1975, but this 

organization has had little impact. Austria officially 

recognized Buddhism as a religion entitled to special 

rights, such as school teaching and broadcast time, in 

1983. Representatives of the various Buddhist traditions 

in Germany adopted what they called a “Buddhist 

Confession” in 1985, although they failed to win 

state recognition. 

The dynamic growth during the 1970s and 1980s included 

a professionalization of European Buddhism in 

terms of leadership, book and journal marketing, and 

the staging of public conventions. In addition, an increasing 

number of female and male convert Buddhists 

took on professional roles by becoming priests, nuns, 

monks, or full-time lay teachers. A second generation 

of European Buddhist teachers is maturing, an important 

development that has not yet caught on among 

immigrant Buddhist communities. Though Buddhism 

is likely to remain a minority tradition in Europe during 

the twenty-first century, secure foundations have 

been laid, ensuring that Buddhism will become an accepted 

part of Europe’s landscape of religions. 

See also: Buddhist Studies; United States; Zen, Popular 

Conceptions of 

Bibliography 

Almond, Philip C. The British Discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge, 

UK: University Press, 1988. 

Batchelor, Stephen. The Awakening of the West: The Encounter 

of Buddhism and Western Culture. Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 

1994. 

Baumann, Martin. “Global Buddhism. Developmental Periods, 

Regional Histories, and a New Analytical Perspective.” Journal 

of Global Buddhism 2 (2001): 1–43. 

Baumann, Martin. Buddhism in Europe: An Annotated Bibliography, 

3rd revision, March 2001. Available from 

www.globalbuddhism.org/bib-bud.html. 

Baumann, Martin. “Buddhism in Europe: Past, Present, 

Prospects.” In Westward Dharma: Buddhism beyond Asia, ed. 

Charles S. Prebish and Martin Baumann. Berkeley: University 


Hecker, Hellmuth. Lebensbilder deutscher Buddhisten. Ein biobibliographisches 

Handbuch, 2nd edition, 2 vols. Konstanz, 

Germany: University of Konstanz, 1996, 1997. 

Obadia, Lionel. Bouddhisme et Occident: La diffusion du bouddhisme 

tibétain en France. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999. 

Rawlinson, Andrew. The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western 

Teachers in Eastern Traditions. Chicago and La Salle, IL: 

Open Court, 1997. 

Waterhouse, Helen. Buddhism in Bath: Adaptation and Authority. 

Leeds, UK: Community Religions Project, Leeds University, 

1997. 

MARTIN BAUMANN 


E VIL 

EVIL 

A word that closely approximates the English word evil 

is the Sanskrit and Pali term papa, which can be used 

to describe anything bad, wicked, troublesome, harmful, 

inauspicious, vile, or wretched. Although Buddhists 

have formulated various interpretations of the 

evils and misfortunes that befall human beings, from 

an ethical perspective they regard evil as the consequence 

of previous harmful actions that, by the causeand-effect 

laws of KARMA (ACTION), return to beleaguer 

the perpetrator. In its chapter on papa, the DHAMMA- 

PADA (Words of the Doctrine) articulates the moral dimensions 

of the notion of evil as wrongdoing that 

brings about further harm and unfortunate consequences 

in this life and the next: Evil conduct should 

be avoided just as poison is avoided, for it results only 

in sorrow. 

The MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS do not face 

the problem of theodicy in its classic form, which arises 

in monotheistic traditions that accept an all powerful, 

all knowing, and fully benevolent creator deity who 

still apparently allows suffering and misfortune to 

strike the innocent. For one thing, Buddhists do not 

accept the notion of a creator god who could be held 

accountable for evil. Instead, evil is simply an inevitable 

feature of SAM SARA, or the cycle of REBIRTH; 

those who acknowledge the first noble truth recognize 

that life in sam sara entails DUH KHA (SUFFERING). That 

which humans may be inclined to call evil (i.e., suffering) 

has been from eternity a necessary condition of 

life in impermanence, which ceases completely only 

upon the attainment of NIRVAN A. 

Buddhism also offers a thorough explanatory account 

for what prompts immoral deeds: The condition 

of SENTIENT BEINGS in sam sara is to be beset by ignorance 

and craving. Sentient beings are deeply mired in 

greed, hatred, and delusion, which are the roots of 

harmful acts. Harmful acts bear consequences for oneself 

and others, implicating the wicked further into a 

cycle of evil and suffering. 

Yet as Buddhist doctrine developed philosophically, 

a distinctive form of theodicy emerged in some traditions 

within the MAHAYANA. As Peter Gregory argues, 

the Chinese AWAKENING OF FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN 

LUN) poses questions about the presence of ignorance 

in light of the TATHAGATAGARBHA doctrine, which 

holds that all beings contain the germ of enlightenment 

and are, in their true nature, intrinsically enlightened. 

If the mind is by nature enlightened, how 

did it come to be defiled by ignorance and suffering? 

For Gregory this philosophical problem exposes a fundamental 

issue that Buddhist karma theory does not 

satisfactorily resolve. Although karma theory accounts 

for the apparent injustices in the world, it does not ultimately 

explain the metaphysical fact of why human 

beings find themselves in such a world to begin with. 

Although early Buddhists chose to avoid metaphysical 

vexations of this sort, later Buddhist philosophers did 

attempt to tackle such questions. 

Moreover, from the soteriological point of view, 

there is a long tradition in Buddhism of identifying the 

religious life as poised beyond the dualism of good and 

evil. The Dhammapada asserts: “But one who is above 

good and evil and follows the religious life, who moves 

in the world with deliberation, that one is called a mendicant” 

(267). Indeed the quest for nirvana is the aspiration 

to transcend the world of karma and morality, 

and thus good and evil, altogether. 

Karma theory notwithstanding, Buddhists have 

throughout their long history accommodated theistic 

and animistic accounts of evil in more pedestrian ways, 

and they have developed technologies (e.g., spells, deity 

propitiation, astrological advice) to ward off evil. 

Some scholars, such as Gananath Obeyeskere and 

Melford Spiro, have suggested that karma theory provides 

little sense of comfort or control over the dayto-day 

depredations that are regarded as evil. In this 

view, while the notion of karma provides an exhaustive 

and failsafe account of the causes of evil, it is not 

always psychologically or experientially satisfying. Past 

immoral deeds that result in present suffering are both 

remote and unknown since few have memory of previous 

lives. Moreover, it is the nature of evil to victimize 

those upon whom it falls, and to exert itself in 

an immediate way as an imposition from the outside. 

Such cruelties as accidents, sudden illnesses, and premature 

death arrive unannounced and unforeseen, 

often visiting the apparently innocent and striking 

with powerful and unyielding vengeance. Viewing evil 

as the result of malevolent influences from meddlesome 

deities or inauspicious arrangements of celestial 

bodies, while not entirely consistent with karma theory, 

provides an immediate recourse for warding off, 

or at least containing, misfortune by ritual and apotropaic 

means. 

Finally, Buddhists have also found meaning in evil 

through mythology. The cosmogonic myth recounted 

in the Aggañña-sutta (Knowing the Beginning) provides 

an account of the origins of evil in the gradual descent 


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Mara, the Evil One, attacks the Buddha. (Tibet, eighteenth century.) The Art Archive/Dagli Orti. Reproduced by permission. 


E XOTERIC-ESOTERIC (KENMITSU) BUDDHISM IN J APAN 

of originally divine beings. These beings are at first celestial, 

incorporeal, and entirely happy, but they devolve 

into earth-dwelling, corporeal, and ultimately 

thieving, deceitful, and violent creatures. As the celestial 

beings come to crave food and begin to taste the 

savory crust of the earth, they introduce scarcity to the 

world, followed by competition, thieving, and the taking 

up of sticks against one another. In this myth, a 

world without evil can be imagined, and the “fall” of 

the world into evil is attributed ultimately to sensual 

desire. The chain of events that leads to the presence 

of evil in the world is driven by DESIRE and greed. 

Another mythic complex, widely depicted in Buddhist 

art and legend, centers on MARA, a Satan-like deity 

of lust and death. Mara, accompanied by his legions 

of demonic forces and his temptress daughters, arrives 

to menace Gautama as he sits under a pipal tree on the 

night of his enlightenment. Mara is able to assume 

shapes and disguises and to harness all manner of demonic 

forces to oppose the Buddha’s enlightenment. 

Once recognized, however, Mara is powerless, suggesting 

perhaps that evils are illusory and defeated 

when exposed. Mara symbolizes all that the Buddha 

conquers: ignorance, darkness, craving, lust, and destruction. 

With the conquest of Mara, the round of rebirth 

ceases, and death is vanquished. 

See also: Death 

Bibliography 

Gregory, Peter. “The Problem of Theodicy in the Awakening of 

Faith.” Religious Studies 22, no. 1 (1986): 63–78. 


Values, and Issues. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 2000. 

Ling, Trevor Oswald. Buddhism and the Mythology of Evil: A 

Study in Theravada Buddhism. London: Allen and Unwin, 

1962. 

Norman, K. R., trans. The Word of the Doctrine (Dhammapada). 

Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1997. 

Obeyesekere, Gananath. “Theodicy, Sin, and Salvation in a Sociology 

of Buddhism.” In Dialectic in Practical Religion, ed. 

E. R. Leach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1968. 


Its Burmese Vicissitudes, 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of 

California Press, 1982. 

MARIA HEIM 

EXISTENCE. See Cosmology 

EXOTERIC-ESOTERIC (KENMITSU) 

BUDDHISM IN JAPAN 

Kenmitsu, or exoteric-esoteric, Buddhism is a scholarly 

term for the dominant system of Buddhist thought 

and practice in medieval Japan. It encompasses a wide 

variety of beliefs, doctrines, rituals, deities, traditions, 

and ecclesiastical structures that were characteristic of 

the mainstream religious institutions of the period. At 

their core were esoteric (mitsu) teachings and practices 

that gave cohesion to the entire system. In addition, 

there were exoteric (ken) doctrines, which differed 

from one institution to another, though each considered 

its own doctrines to be a rational explanation of 

the hidden truths found in esoteric practices. This system 

emerged in Japan around the tenth century, and 

it functioned as Buddhism’s medieval orthodoxy. Subsumed 

under it were many beliefs, practices, and sites 

that are now identified as Shinto. As the dominant religious 

worldview, Kenmitsu Buddhism gave structure 

to medieval society and provided legitimacy to the ruling 

authorities. Over time, it became diversified and 

elaborated in a variety of ways. During the twelfth and 

thirteenth centuries a number of reformers and dissenting 

figures began to appear and challenge its 

claims. But these were inconsequential at the time, and 

the Kenmitsu system endured for the most part until 

the fifteenth or sixteenth century. 

The Kenmitsu theory 

Kenmitsu Buddhism as a scholarly designation was 

proposed by the Japanese historian Kuroda Toshio 

(1926–1993). In doing so Kuroda sought to dislodge 

the prevailing view of Buddhism’s development that 

dominated scholarship in the late nineteenth and 

twentieth centuries. This view was built around a 

threefold historical classification: (1) Buddhism of the 

Nara period (710–784), comprising six schools based 

at the major temples of Nara—Kusha, Hosso, Jojitsu, 

Sanron, Kegon, and Ritsu; (2) Buddhism of the Heian 

period (794–1185), consisting of the Tendai school 

centered on Mount Hiei near Kyoto and the Shingon 

school at Toji in Kyoto and on Mount Koya near Osaka; 

and (3) Buddhism of the Kamakura period 

(1185–1333), encompassing three schools of PURE 

LAND BUDDHISM (Jodoshu, Jodo Shinshu, and Jishu), 


271


two schools of Zen (Rinzai and Soto), and the 

NICHIREN SCHOOL. Each new phase of Buddhism’s development 

was portrayed as a reaction to the previous 

stage and an improvement on it, and the Kamakura 

schools were perceived as the apex of Japanese Buddhism. 

Since the Kamakura period was considered the 

beginning of the medieval era, the Kamakura schools 

were treated as the prevailing form of Buddhism then, 

and the Nara and Heian schools as precursors to it. 

Hence, the primary focus was on Kamakura Buddhism, 

which indeed evolved into the largest and most 

pervasive schools of Buddhism at the close of the medieval 

period. 

The Kenmitsu theory offered by Kuroda critiqued 

this model in several ways. First, it questioned the historical 

periodization on which it was based. Kuroda 

claimed that the medieval era began not in the twelfth 

century with the Kamakura period, but in the tenth 

century with the emergence of an estate-based economy 

that supported elite society and religious institutions 

alike. This social, economic, and political 

structure persisted until the fifteenth or sixteenth century, 

and was controlled conjointly by three ruling 

elites: the imperial court and aristocracy, the warrior 

government and its functionaries, and the leading religious 

institutions. In this medieval context the religion 

that dominated Japan was Kenmitsu Buddhism. 

The second critique was that the dominant forms 

of medieval religion were not the new Pure Land, Zen, 

and Nichiren movements, but rather Tendai, Shingon, 

and NARA BUDDHISM. These possessed the largest 

number of clerics, temples, and resources in medieval 

times, and were the ones most frequently mentioned 

in medieval documents and texts. With a few exceptions, 

the new movements developed into influential 

religious organizations only in the late 1400s or early 

1500s. Hence, Nara and Heian Buddhism should be 

considered the norm for medieval Japan instead of Kamakura 

Buddhism. And the new Kamakura movements 

should be regarded as fringe groups rather than 

as mainstream religion. 

The third critique found in the Kenmitsu theory was 

of the concept of sects or discrete schools of Buddhism. 

Beginning in the Tokugawa period (1603–1868) Buddhism 

was structured into individual sectarian organizations, 

each with an orthodox body of teachings, a 

centralized religious authority, a defined set of rituals, 

a liturgical calendar, an apologetic history, and a hierarchy 

of member temples. Buddhist schools such as 

Tendai, Soto Zen, or Pure Land’s Jodoshu thus became 

distinct, independent entities. This sectarian structure, 

according to Kuroda, has been mistakenly projected 

onto the medieval setting, thereby producing a distorted 

view of religion. The Kenmitsu theory presented 

medieval Buddhism as less rigidly segmented and the 

boundaries between groups as more permeable. Religious 

institutions such as monasteries, temples, 

chapels, wayside shrines, and private meetinghouses all 

existed, but people could easily cross lines to participate 

in multiple settings. Priests of the Nara monasteries, 

for instance, studied the teachings across the 

various Nara schools as correlative philosophies rather 

than as rival sectarian dogma. Likewise, Tendai and 

Shingon clerics frequently looked beyond their own 

doctrinal circles and sought instruction in other settings 

or guidance from other masters. The fluidity of 

religious activity across putative schools contributed to 

the creation of a systemwide medieval orthodoxy in 

the form of Kenmitsu Buddhism. 

The actual content of Kenmitsu Buddhism varied 

from one institution to another, but it was predicated 

on the assumption that esoteric practices (rituals, 

chants, meditations, prayers, invocations, use of sacred 

texts, physical austerities, etc.) had the capacity to actualize 

Buddhahood in this world and to engage the 

vast and complex spirit world of MAHAYANA Buddhism. 

Such practices were the stock and trade of most religious 

institutions and were passed down in master– 

disciple lineages through secret transmissions and 

initiation ceremonies. Attached to these practices were 

a variety of ideas explaining and legitimizing them. 

This secret lore constituted the esoteric teachings 

(mikkyo ) of Kenmitsu Buddhism. Beyond them were 

the exoteric teachings (kengyo ), the systems of thought 

and doctrine, which were likewise a major enterprise 

of medieval institutions. Those doctrines and philosophies 

operated alongside esoteric teachings and were 

considered supportive of them. But exoteric teachings 

usually differed across institutions, thus distinguishing 

them from each other. What drew them together, however, 

was their common recognition of the efficacy of 

esoteric practices and their perpetuation of them as the 

core of Buddhism. In every major tradition, esoteric 

practices were considered primary and exoteric teachings 

secondary. This shared recognition gave cohesion 

to Kenmitsu Buddhism as Japan’s medieval orthodoxy. 

Japan’s medieval Buddhist establishment 

One major center of Kenmitsu Buddhism was Enryakuji, 

the Tendai monastic complex on Mount Hiei, founded 

by SAICHO (767–822). Tendai doctrine revolved around 



the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) and 

the teachings of ZHIYI (538–597), founder of the parent 

Tiantai tradition in China. But Saicho also adopted 

esoteric teachings, which were introduced into Japan 

by his contemporary KU KAI (774–835). Later generations 

of Tendai leaders such as ENNIN (794–864) and 

Enchin (814–891) traveled to China, trained extensively 

in esoteric Buddhism, and brought back what 

they learned to Mount Hiei. The ideas and doctrines 

proposed by them, and also by Annen (841–889?), a 

major systematizer of Tendai thought, yoked esoteric 

teachings inextricably to Tendai doctrine. With these 

teachings the conceptual framework of Kenmitsu Buddhism 

was firmly established on Mount Hiei. In the 

tenth century, as members of Kyoto’s aristocracy entered 

the Tendai clergy in increasing numbers and occupied 

positions of ecclesiastical authority, Mount Hiei 

inculcated its Kenmitsu understanding of Buddhism 

in them. Under their leadership Mount Hiei rose to 

eminence and began to exercise considerable social, 

political, and economic influence in Japan. Throughout 

the medieval period Mount Hiei remained a force 

to be reckoned with and, wherever it asserted its influence, 

it extended its Kenmitsu construction of Buddhism. 

Kuroda claimed that the crowning formulation 

of Kenmitsu Buddhism on Mount Hiei was ORIGINAL 

ENLIGHTENMENT (HONGAKU) thought, which became 

prominent around the twelfth century. This strand of 

teaching was built on the idea of the inherent and immediate 

enlightenment of all things, and it was preserved 

through master–disciple lineages and secret 

transmissions. But other scholars have questioned 

Kuroda’s claim, pointing out that these teachings were 

not considered esoteric Buddhism proper, but rather 

a tradition of exoteric doctrine on Mount Hiei. 

The Shingon and Nara temples were also included 

in the framework of Kenmitsu Buddhism. Kukai, the 

founder of Shingon in Japan, was largely responsible 

for introducing the vocabulary of esoteric and exoteric 

Buddhism and developing the discourse around which 

the Kenmitsu order could coalesce. In his hierarchy of 

teachings he placed esoteric Buddhism at the top, 

above the exoteric teachings of Tendai and various 

Nara schools of thought—Hosso, Sanron, and Kegon. 

These views and this vocabulary became the default religious 

premises of the institutions that Kukai organized, 

Toji and the Shingon monastery on Mount 

Koya. The temples of Nara also opened their doors to 

the wealth of rituals, initiations, and esoteric practices 

that Kukai commanded. His establishment in 822 of 

the Kanjodo hall at the powerful Todaiji temple, where 

esoteric initiations were to be performed, marked the 

beginning of Nara’s full-scale appropriation of esoteric 

Buddhism. Hence, throughout the medieval period the 

Shingon and Nara institutions constructed their systems 

of doctrine and exoteric thought on a foundation 

of esoteric ritual and practice, just as Mount Hiei did. 

Though Kuroda tended to highlight the role of Mount 

Hiei more, it is clear that the Nara temples also flourished 

in this Kenmitsu culture, and built up not only 

religious authority but also social, political, and economic 

influence. 

Kenmitsu Buddhism, as it pervaded the major religious 

institutions, emerged as the orthodox worldview 

of medieval Japan. It also functioned as a legitimizing 

ideology for the social and political order. The interaction 

between religious and nonreligious authorities 

occurred at several levels and in various modes. Society 

at large recognized Buddhism’s capacity to engage 

the spirit world and to deliver humans from illusion 

and misfortune. The rituals and practices of esoteric 

Buddhism were largely aimed at these goals—from 

actualizing buddhahood in the body itself (sokushin 

jobutsu) to securing good fortune and averting 

calamity. Hence, the imperial court, aristocracy, warrior 

government, and other agents of power relied on 

the Buddhist clergy to perform these functions in their 

behalf. They in turn became major adherents, supporters, 

and patrons of Buddhism—sponsoring rituals, 

building temples, and sending offspring into the 

ranks of clergy. But medieval Buddhism did not 

merely provide religious support to the privileged and 

powerful; it also served as one of the governing agents 

of Japan. That is why Kuroda included the large religious 

institutions among the medieval ruling elites 

(kenmon), alongside the imperial court and the warrior 

government. Each had its own sphere of influence, 

claim to authority, network of functionaries, economic 

base in the estate system, and means of enforcement. 

The religious sector, unlike the others, also 

used RITUAL and thaumaturgic powers to assert its influence. 

But none of the three could gain ascendancy 

over the other two, and thus had to work in collaboration 

with them, even while maneuvering for advantage 

whenever possible. Kenmitsu Buddhism articulated 

the nature of this relationship as the interdependence 

and mutual support of Buddhist teachings (Buppo ) 

and royal law (o bo ). Each flourished only when they 

worked together, likened by medieval apologists to the 

two wheels of a cart or the two wings of a bird. This 

ideology of mutual dependence and benefit was articulated 

by the Buddhist establishment, but also em- 


273


braced by the other ruling elites, for it confirmed and 

bolstered their authority too. 

The dominance of Kenmitsu Buddhism 

Kenmitsu Buddhism’s ritual power was considered efficacious 

in engaging a vast range of spirits and sacred 

beings including buddhas, bodhisattvas, deities of 

heaven and earth, spirits of the dead, demons, ominous 

spirits, and also local gods (kami), the class of 

deities associated with Shinto. One of the contributions 

of Kuroda’s theory was to refute the idea that 

Buddhism and Shinto have been separate and distinct 

religions. This, he argued, is largely a modern conceptualization 

arising from the forced separation of buddhas 

and gods and their religious institutions by the 

government during the Meiji period (1868–1912). This 

successful partition consolidated the idea of Buddhism 

and Shinto as independent religions, which was then 

superimposed on earlier periods of Japanese history. 

What is now known as Shinto, Kuroda claimed, was 

actually submerged in Kenmitsu Buddhism during 

medieval times. Rituals to gods were performed alongside 

rituals to Buddhist deities, and shrines to gods 

were integrated with Buddhist temples, as exemplified 

by the Kasuga Shrine and Kofukuji temple complex 

in Nara. Moreover, a variety of explanations and rationalizations 

of the gods emerged in Kenmitsu doctrine. 

They ranged from the idea that the gods are 

protectors of the buddhas and Buddhism to the belief 

that the gods themselves seek Buddhist liberation and 

enlightenment, just as humans do. The most important 

and pervasive interpretation, though, was the 

honji suijaku principle: that the gods are none other 

than worldly manifestations of the buddhas and bodhisattvas 

in Japan, and that the buddhas and bodhisattvas 

are the true essence of gods. Hence, they 

cannot be separated, and certainly should not be seen 

as rivals. This view provoked widespread pairings of 

specific gods with particular buddhas or bodhisattvas 

in medieval religious institutions, so that the sun goddess 

Amaterasu was frequently identified with 

Dainichi (Mahavairocana) Buddha. Such perceptions 

held sway as part of Kenmitsu Buddhism throughout 

the medieval period, and persisted widely until the 

nineteenth century when Shinto was forcibly extracted 

from Buddhism. 

The dominance of Kenmitsu Buddhism in medieval 

Japan—in the major religious institutions, in 

its partnership with other ruling elites, and in the very 

fabric of popular belief and practice—casts the socalled 

new schools of Kamakura Buddhism in a very 

different light. Previously they were seen as the culmination 

and highest expression of Buddhism in the 

medieval period. But the degree to which they diverged 

from the Kenmitsu standard suggests that they 

were more an anomaly of the period. Mount Hiei was 

where most of the founding figures of the new Pure 

Land, Zen, and Nichiren movements received their 

first inspirations. But in each case they left Mount Hiei 

because of disenchantment with one aspect or another 

of the Buddhism there. They criticized the ambitions 

and self-indulgences of priests in the religious hierarchy, 

and they championed streamlined religious 

alternatives—chanting Amida (AMITABHA) Buddha’s 

name, practicing Zen meditation, or chanting the title 

of the Lotus Su tra—which challenged the authority 

and relevance of esoteric practices and exoteric 

doctrines. The reaction of Mount Hiei and the Nara 

centers of Kenmitsu Buddhism was twofold: to suppress 

these dissenting groups and to initiate reforms of 

their own. Some mainstream priests actually embraced 

these alternative practices, but sought to integrate 

them into the Kenmitsu framework. The dissenting 

movements in many cases survived suppression, but 

tended to hover at the margins of medieval Japan’s religious 

world, attracting only meager followings. Those 

that gained institutional stability and strength in the 

1300s and 1400s usually did so by building ties with 

Kenmitsu institutions or by developing similar religious 

functions. Zen’s Rinzai monasteries, for instance, 

performed rituals for the benefit of their imperial, aristocratic, 

and warrior patrons. But the new Buddhist 

movements were largely peripheral and were frequently 

regarded as aberrant or even heretical. 

Kenmitsu Buddhism finally lost its hold on Japan 

during the so-called Warring States period (1467–1568). 

Its decline coincided with the disintegration of medieval 

Japan’s political and economic order. Though Kenmitsu 

Buddhism dominated religious affairs throughout medieval 

times, it never completely functioned as a seamless, 

monolithic system, especially as internal tensions 

and contradictions arose from it. The dissenting Kamakura 

movements were one product of these tensions, 

and they eventually became the successors of Kenmitsu 

Buddhism itself. With the emergence in the fifteenth and 

sixteen centuries of powerful new religious organizations 

such as Pure Land’s Jodo Shinshu, Nichiren’s congregational 

alliances of Kyoto, and Zen’s Soto school, 

the ascendancy of Kamakura Buddhism over Kenmitsu 

was finally realized. 



See also: Huayan School; Japan; Japanese Royal Family 

and Buddhism; Kamakura Buddhism, Japan; Meiji 

Buddhist Reform; Shingon Buddhism, Japan; Shinto 

(Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism; Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Abé, Ryuichi. The Weaving of Mantra: Ku kai and the Construction 

of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse. New York: Columbia University 

Press, 1999. 

Adolphson, Mikael S. The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and 

Warriors in Premodern Japan. Honolulu: University of 


Dobbins, James C., ed. The Legacy of Kuroda Toshio. Special issue. 

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, nos. 3–4 (Fall 

1996). 

Dobbins, James C. “Envisioning Kamakura Buddhism.” In Re- 



Grapard, Allan G. The Protocol of the Gods: A Study of the Kasuga 

Cult in Japanese History. Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1992. 

Kuroda Toshio. Nihon chu sei no kokka to shu kyo (State and Religion 

in Medieval Japan). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1975. 

Kuroda Toshio. Jisha seiryoku—Mo hitotsu no chu sei shakai (The 

Power of Temple-Shrine Complexes—Another Medieval 

Society). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1980. 

Kuroda Toshio. Nihon chu sei no shakai to shu kyo (Society and 

Religion in Medieval Japan). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990. 

Kuroda Toshio. “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion.” 

In Religions of Japan in Practice, ed. George J. Tanabe, Jr. 


Sato Hiro. Nihon chu sei no kokka to Bukkyo (State and Buddhism 

in Medieval Japan). Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 

1987. 




Taira Masayuki. Nihon chu sei no shakai to Bukkyo (Society and 

Buddhism in Medieval Japan). Tokyo: Hanawa Shobo, 1992. 

JAMES C. DOBBINS 


275


F 

FAITH 

Few notions elicit more debate and vague associations 

than the family of concepts associated with the word 

faith and its various approximate synonyms (e.g., belief). 

Needless to say, the English faith has no exact 

equivalent in the languages of Asia. The word means 

many things in English and in other Western languages 

as well, and the proximate Asian equivalents also have 

many meanings in their Asian contexts. This is not to 

say that faith cannot be used as a descriptive or analytical 

tool to understand Buddhist ideas and practices, 

yet one must be aware of the cultural and polemic environments 

that shaped Buddhist notions of faith. 

Semantic range 

The most common English theological meanings are 

the ones that have the most questionable similarity to 

historical Buddhist belief and practice: acceptance of 

and secure belief in the existence of a personal creator 

deity (“belief in”), acceptance of such deity as a unique 

person with a distinctive name, the unquestioned acceptance 

of this deity’s will, and the adoption of the 

articles of dogma believed to express the deity’s will. 

Buddhist notions tend to occupy a different center in 

the semantic field: serene trust, confident belief that 

the practice of the dharma will bear the promised fruit, 

and joyful surrender to the presence or vision of one 

or many “ideal beings” (BUDDHAS, BODHISATTVAS, 

etc.). The articles of belief and systems of practice that 

constitute the Buddhist PATH are seldom set up explicitly 

as direct objects of faith, but confessions of trust 

and declarations of commitment to various aspects of 

the path are common ritual practices (taking the 

REFUGES, taking vows, etc.). 

The objects of faith can be all, any, or only one 

among the multiple buddhas, bodhisattvas, and deities 

of Buddhism. Nevertheless, Buddhists often confess 

their total trust in a particular deity or buddha or bodhisattva 

identified by a unique name and by personal 

attributes that are considered distinctive and superior 

to those of any other deity (e.g., the cult of AMITABHA 

or the cult of Shugs ldan). 

A sense of the range of Buddhist conceptions of 

“faith” can be derived from a glance at some of the 

classical Asian terms that are rendered into English as 

faith. The term śraddha (Pali, saddha), for instance, 

may signify belief, but generally refers more to trust 

and commitment. It is sometimes glossed as “trust or 

reliance on someone else” (parapratyaya, Abhidharmakośa 

VI. 29), but, etymologically, it derives from an old 

Indo-European verb meaning “to place one’s heart on 

(a desire, goal, object, or person),” which appears in 

Latin in the verb credo , and subsequently in English as 

creed, credence, and so on. 

A connection between this mental state and other 

positive states is suggested in a variety of ways. For instance, 

in the abhidharma literature the word śraddha 

refers to one of the mental factors that are always present 

in good thoughts (kuśalamahabhu mika, Abhidharmakośa 

II. 23–25). Already in the su tra/sutta 

literature, śraddha is one of the five mental faculties 

necessary for a good practice (the five indriyas or five 

balas), which include MINDFULNESS and persevering 

courage. 

These meanings are associated also with the idea of 

conviction, committed and steadfast practice, or commitment 

as active engagement, a range of concepts expressed 

with the term adhimukti or adhimoksa (Pali, 

277

F AITH 

adhimutti or adhimokkha). The attitude or cognitiveaffective 

state expressed by this word is characteristic 

of the preliminary stage in a bodhisattva’s career: the 

stage of acting (carya) on one’s commitment (adhimukti), 

or adhimukticaryabhu mi. 

Examined from the perspective suggested by the 

above range of usages, faith would be a sui generis psychological 

state, an extension of the ability to trust or 

rely on someone or something. In this aspect of the 

denotation of śraddha, and adhimoksa, faith is also a 

virtue necessary for concentrated MEDITATION, and is 

closely related to, if not synonymous with, the disciple’s 

ardent desire for self-cultivation or the zeal required 

for such cultivation. In this context, faith is also 

the opposite of, or an antidote against, the sluggishness, 

dejection, and discouragement that can arise during 

long hours of meditation practice. 

However, such monastic or contemplative definitions 

of faith do not exhaust the Buddhist repertoire. 

As noted previously, Buddhist concepts of faith include 

as well affective states associated with the attachment 

and trust of devotion. Such states are sometimes subsumed 

under the category of prasada (the action noun 

corresponding to prasannacitta). This term has a long 

history in the religious traditions of India; it means etymologically 

“settling down,” and evokes meanings of 

“serenity, calm, aplomb,” as well as conviction and 

trust. Furthermore, among its many usages, it expresses 

both the “favor” of the powerful (their serene 

largess, their grace) and the acceptance or recognition 

of this favorable disposition on the part of the weaker 

participant in the relationship (serene trust, confident 

acceptance). The latter feeling is not only serene trust 

in the wisdom of a teacher or in the truth of the teachings, 

but the joyful acceptance of the benevolent power 

and benediction of sacred objects and holy persons. 

Thus the proper state of mind when performing a ritual 

of devotion is a prasannacitta: a mind in the state 

of prasada, that is, calmly secure, trusting, devoted, 

content, and loyal. 

East Asian usages 

These Indian concepts were usually rendered in Chinese 

with a term denoting trust, xin, where the accent 

is on confidence, rather than on a surrender of one’s 

discursive judgment. Nonetheless, xin also could denote 

surrender and unquestioned acceptance, absolute 

trust, and a believing mind and will. The later meanings 

played a major role in both nonliterate practice 

and the theologies of faith of some of the literate 

schools. 

The first element in this polarity (faith that does not 

exclude knowledge or direct apprehension of religious 

truths) is seen, for instance, in the classical CHAN 

SCHOOL notion of xinxin: “trusting the mind.” This 

refers to the conviction that the searching mind is the 

object of its own search—that is, buddha-nature. Such 

conviction is understood as a nonmediated, nonreasoned 

confidence born of the immediate apprehension 

of a presence. Expressed in terms of a process or 

a practice, this faith is the experience of the mind when 

one is not manipulating or organizing its contents with 

discursive thoughts. The trusting mind itself becomes 

the object of trust. 

This is the theme of the Xinxinming (Stanzas on 

Trusting the Mind), a poem attributed to the “Third 

Patriarch” of Chan Buddhism, Sengcan (d. ca. 606 

C.E.), in which “mind” or “thought” is the perfect goal 

of the religious aspiration that is the act of faith. It is 

“perfect like vast empty space, lacking nothing, having 

nothing in excess.” What keeps us from experiencing 

the mind in this way is our penchant for “selecting and 

rejecting.” By contrast, “the trusting mind does not 

split things into twos”; not splitting things into twos is 

the meaning of “trusting the mind” (or “the trusting 

mind” xinxin). 

The idea of faith (xin) also appears in a formulation 

attributed to Gaofeng Yuanmiao (1238–1295), who 

describes three essential aspects of meditation practice 

(chan yao). These are: the faculty of faith, persevering 

commitment, and DOUBT. Faith is “the great faculty of 

trusting” (daxingen), which links the idea to the earlier 

abhidharmic notions of trust and faith as a natural 

faculty. It is clear that this trust precedes full knowledge 

or understanding because the other two aspects 

of practice are great tenacity of purpose or persevering 

commitment (dafenzhi) and a great feeling of 

doubt or intensely felt doubt (dayiqing). 

This use of the term xin is ostensibly different from 

the meanings accepted by other important strands of 

the East Asian tradition in which we find an opposition 

between examined trust and the surrender of selfknowledge. 

The PURE LAND SCHOOLS (Chinese, jingtu; 

Japanese, jo do) in particular understood that the 

prasannacitta of the Indian tradition implied a surrender 

of the will to pursue a life of holiness or the desire 

to attain awakening by one’s own efforts. However, 

even among the most radical formulations of the Pure 

Land traditions, where the trusting practitioners are 

clearly separated from the object of their faith and are 

incapable of achieving holiness on their own, the de- 


F AMENSI 

sired state of mind has the distinct marks of Buddhist 

notions of mind and faith. Thus, in some of the more 

radical Jodo shinshu formulations the devotee’s surrender 

is not so much an act of belief as an acceptance 

of grace: One surrenders one’s own capacity to discriminate 

and believe, and one accepts the Buddha’s 

own believing mind (shinjin), so that one’s faith is in 

fact adopting, as it were, the Buddha’s own trustworthy 

mind (shinjin)—sharing the merits, wisdom, and 

compassion of the very object of faith. Affectively, this 

theological view is linked with the ideal of joyful trust 

(shingyo ), the joy and bliss of trusting, which ultimately, 

or eschatologically, may be said to be synonymous 

with the joy of seeing the Buddha Amitabha face 

to face (at the time of death or in the pure land). 

Summary Interpretation 

Ideals of nondiscursive apprehension straddle the dividing 

line between faith and knowledge, humble surrender 

and recognition of a state of liberation that 

cannot be acquired by the individual’s will. In some 

ways the tradition seems to assume that one has faith 

in that which one respects and trusts, but also in that 

which one wishes to attain, and that which one imagines 

oneself to be or able to become. 

See also: Pure Land Buddhism; Pure Lands 

Bibliography 

de Certeau, Michel. “What We Do When We Believe.” In On 

Signs, ed. Marshall Blonsky. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins 




of the Sukhavatlvyu Su tras (1996), 3rd printing, corrected 


Gómez, Luis O. “Prayer: Buddhist Perspectives.” In Encyclopedia 

of Monasticism, Vol. 2, ed. William M. Johnston. 

Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000. 

Gómez, Luis O. “Spirituality: Buddhist Perspectives.” In Encyclopedia 

of Monasticism, Vol. 2, ed. William M. Johnston. 

Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000. 

Hara, Minoru. “Śraddha in the Sense of Desire.” In Études bouddhiques 

offertes a Jacques May, ed. J. Bronkhorst, K. Mimaki, 

and T. Tillemans. Special issue. Asiatische Studien/Études 

Asiatiques 161, no. 1 (1992): 180–193. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. “Belief.” In Critical Terms for Religious 

Studies, ed. Mark C. Taylor. Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1998. 

Park, Sung-bae. Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment. Albany: 


Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Faith and Belief. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


FAMENSI 


Famensi, or Monastery of the Gate of the Dharma, was 

founded in the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534) at 

Fufeng in Shaanxi province, about 110 kilometers west 

of modern Xi’an. One of only four Chinese monasteries 

believed to possess a true body relic of the Buddha, 

it was closely associated with no fewer than seven emperors 

of the Tang dynasty (618–907). Originally called 

Chongzhensi, it was renamed Famensi in 1003. 

In 1981 after heavy rainfall, the thirteen-story octagonal 

brick pagoda of the Famensi, built in 1609, finally 

collapsed. Excavations in April 1987 revealed not 

only the circular foundations of the brick pagoda, but 

also the square foundations of a Tang dynasty wooden 

pagoda, with steps, a corridor, and three stone chambers, 

unusually constructed to allow access from the 

outside. History records that in 631, 660, 704, 760, 790, 

819, and 873, the relics were recovered and conveyed 

to the capital. 

Most of the objects found in the excavation date 

from 874, after which the entire deposit remained untouched. 

A pair of large stone tablets, engraved with a 

text written in 874 by monk Juezhi of the Xingshan 

Monastery and placed at the inner end of the corridor, 

give precise details of the 122 gold and silver objects 

presented in 874 by emperors Yizong and Xizong. 

The first chamber of the crypt contained a stone 

STU PA, painted both outside and inside, enshrining an 

elaborate model gilt-bronze stupa, itself containing a 

tiny silver-gilt RELIQUARY holding one of the four 

“finger-bone” relics. In the second chamber, a larger 

shrine, dedicated in 708, contained a second relic. Beyond 

it, and close to the doors leading to the innermost 

chamber of the crypt, was a large cylindrical box 

containing a number of celadon bowls and dishes, the 

so-called mi se or secret color ware, sent as tribute to 

the court from the Yue kilns in Zhejiang province. A 

third relic was found in a tiny solid gold stupa, the 

innermost of a series of eight nesting caskets, in the 

third and innermost chamber, which was filled with 

the majority of the accompanying gold, silver-gilt, 

glass, and sandalwood offerings. Finally, sealed in a 

cavity beneath the rear wall of the innermost chamber, 

a fourth relic was enshrined in a tiny jade coffin, 


279

F AMILY, BUDDHISM AND THE 

inside a very small crystal sarcophagus, within a silvergilt 

casket bearing forty-five esoteric Buddhist images, 

protected by a larger iron casket. The other three relics, 

carved from jade, were all close copies of this fourth 

relic. About two inches long, it is made of a softer substance 

resembling bone, hollow and engraved on the 

inside with the seven stars of the Northern Dipper. 

According to the inventory tablet, the iron casket 

and crystal sarcophagus (with its enclosed jade coffin), 

were brought from the monastery to the capital in 873. 

Along with the painted stone stupa and the gilt-bronze 

pagoda from the first chamber, they may well be the 

earliest items in the entire deposit, followed by the 

larger stone stupa in the second chamber, and a set of 

miniature embroidered garments, including a skirt 

presented by Empress Wu (r. 684–705), which is also 

mentioned in the inventory tablet. 

While a full report of the excavation has yet to be 

published, this incredible array of sumptuous objects 

has already provided invaluable evidence for metalworking 

and textile techniques of the late Tang period, 

the tributary system, ritual implements (water vessels, 

staffs, incense burners and stands, containers for incense) 

and evidence of the practice of esoteric Buddhism 

at the Tang court. 

See also: Mandala; Relics and Relics Cults; Ritual 

Objects 

Bibliography 

Wang, Eugene Y. “Of the True Body: The Famensi Relics and 

Corporeal Transformation in Tang Imperial China.” In Body 

and Face in Chinese Visual Culture, ed. Wu Hung et al. Cambridge, 

MA: Harvard Asia Center and Harvard University 

Press, 2003. 

Whitfield, Roderick. “Discoveries from the Famen Monastery 

at Fufeng and the Qingshan Monastery at Lintong, Shaanxi 

Province.” In The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated 

Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China, ed. 

Yang Xiaoneng. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University 

Press, 1999. 

FAMILY, BUDDHISM AND THE 


Given that Buddhism is regularly understood as a 

monastic movement dedicated to “leaving the family” 

(pravrajya), the technical term for becoming a monk 

or nun, it might seem odd to ask about Buddhism’s relationship 

to the family. Why, after all, would Buddhism 

as a religion of renunciation have anything to do 

with family life? However, a closer look at the structure 

of Buddhist rhetoric, as well as Buddhism’s various societal 

roles, reveals that Buddhism’s relationship to the 

family and family values has several unexpected layers. 

Arguably there are at least four basic categories of 

Buddhist discourse that focus on familial issues: (1) a 

discourse on the negative aspects of family life, the language 

of renunciation; (2) a symbolic language in 

which identity within the monastic setting is understood 

as a kind of replication of the patriarchal family, 

a kind of corporate familialism; (3) guidelines for 

correct conduct at home, pastoral advice from the 

Buddhist establishment; and (4) specific lineage claims 

that sought to establish an elite family within the 

monastic family, a more specialized form of corporate 

familialism. 

As for the first, the language of renunciation, statements 

regarding the unsatisfactory and even dangerous 

aspects of family life are typical throughout the 

Buddhist world. According to this logic, life in the 

family is fraught with burning desires and gnawing 

concerns. Consequently, life at home is essentially the 

environment in which patterns of conduct and thinking 

develop that will continue to bind one in the cycle 

of birth and death (SAM SARA), and keep one from 

making progress toward NIRVAN A. Among these statements 

about the generic risks of family life, one can 

also find more specific statements about the physical 

dangers that women court as they follow the prescribed 

life cycle within the family, the risks of childbirth 

being paramount. In sum, in this sphere of 

discourse Buddhist authorities encourage reflection 

on the benefits of leaving the encumbering and dangerous 

domain of family life in order to pursue higher 

spiritual goals. 

The second sphere of family rhetoric appears when 

Buddhist renunciants began to settle down into landowning 

religious groups, roughly two centuries before 

the beginning of the common era. At this point, even 

as the evils of family life were still espoused, monastic 

relations were explained via a kind of corporate familialism. 

Apparently, the Buddhists began to construct an 

ulterior family, actually a purer form of patriarchy, that 

was to solidify and legitimize Buddhist identity within 

the perimeter of the monastic walls. Thus, in formally 

gaining the identity of a monk or nun, one joined the 

Buddha in a kind of fictive kinship that sealed one’s 

Buddhist identity with a kind of “naturalness” and fa- 


F ANWANG JING (BRAHMA ’ S N ET S U TRA) 

cilitated harmony within the monasteries. In fact, the 

ritual for becoming a monk or nun seems to have been 

conceived as a kind of rebirth back into one’s “original” 

family, and one was thereafter called “a son of the 

Buddha.” This motif of rebirth is clear, too, in the way 

that one’s “age” and seniority within the monastery is 

determined not by real age, but by the number of years 

that have passed since one’s ORDINATION. 

The third sphere of family discourse in Buddhism 

appears in the way that Buddhist authorities, likely 

from the earliest phases of the religion, prescribed 

proper conduct for those who remained in the family. 

These moral guidelines define the life to be maintained 

at home: One is to be obedient to seniors and considerate 

of others’ needs, while also adhering to the 

generic set of Buddhist precepts—not killing, stealing, 

lying, and so on. Given these statements, and particularly 

those that urge filial submission to one’s parents 

and seniors, one can see that Buddhist discourse was, 

and still is, intent on stabilizing and even bolstering 

the family. The reasons for Buddhism’s advocacy of 

traditional family practice are complex, but one important 

reason is that Buddhist monasteries relied on 

families to support them financially. In fact, to facilitate 

exchanges between the family and the monastery, 

Buddhist discourse often emphasized that one is only 

a good, filial son at home if one patronizes the Buddhist 

monasteries. These injunctions could also be focused 

on ancestor care, where it was argued that living 

descendents ought to patronize Buddhist monastics in 

order to enlist their spiritual power, which could be 

directed toward caring for the deceased family members 

in the afterworld. In short, Buddhist monastics inserted 

themselves within the sphere of at-home family 

values by arguing that the family’s life cycle needed to 

involve patronage of Buddhist monasteries. 

As for the last category of familial rhetoric, at different 

times in Buddhist history there appeared mystical 

genealogies in which a higher Buddhist family was 

established within the already domestic space of the 

Buddhist establishment. Thus, in tantric Buddhism in 

India and Tibet, as well as in the CHAN SCHOOL of Buddhism 

in East Asia, it was claimed that certain monks 

were more directly related to the Buddha than other 

Buddhist monks or nuns. In both cases, the language 

of fathers and sons was relied upon to explain why certain 

monks should be taken to be living representatives 

of the tradition, with truth, authority, and legitimacy 

flowing directly down the lineage from the Buddha to 

the present master. In fact, intricate logics emerged 

wherein these elite “sons of the Buddha” were put in 

charge of guiding other less connected Buddhists back 

to their true familial relationship to the Buddha. 

In sum, though Buddhism sought to escape the 

family, this very effort to leave domesticity was itself 

domesticized and remade into a Buddhist family. 

Moreover, this new Buddhist family established a 

symbiotic relationship with the lay family, encouraging 

its stability and productivity, along with a pro- 

Buddhist orientation. Finally, even within the familial 

space of the monasteries, other hyper-families appeared, 

suggesting an ongoing need to re-create identity 

and authority according to patriarchal logics, along 

with the sense that sameness and difference in social 

space are best handled via familial rhetorics that are 

both inclusive and hierarchizing. 

See also: Laity; Monasticism; Monks; Nuns; Women 

Bibliography 

Cabezón, José Ignacio, ed. Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender. Albany: 


Cole, Alan. “Upside Down/Right Side Up: A Revisionist History 

of Buddhist Funerals in China.” History of Religions 35, 

no. 4 (1996): 307–338. 

Cole, Alan. Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism. Stanford, 


Cole, Alan. “Homestyle Vinaya and Docile Boys in Chinese 

Buddhism.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 7, no. 1 

(1999): 5–50. 






1997. 

FANWANG JING 

(BRAHMA ’S NET SU TRA) 

ALAN COLE 

The Fanwang jing (Brahma’s Net Su tra) is a highly regarded 

apocryphal text in East Asian Buddhism that 

provided a set of uniquely MAHAYANA precepts. According 

to tradition, the sutra was spoken by the Buddha, 

recorded in Sanskrit in India, and then translated 

by KUMARAJIVA (350–409/413) into Chinese in 406. 

In fact, however, it is now known that the Fanwang 

jing was composed in China by unknown author(s), 


281

F ASTING 

sometime during the middle of the fifth century C.E. 

The su tra purports to be the last chapter of a longer 

Sanskrit text, and its full title is Chapter on the Mind 

Ground of the Bodhisattvas of the Fanwang jing. However, 

there is no conclusive evidence that this framing 

text ever existed. 

The Fanwang jing consists of two fascicles: The first 

enumerates the stages of practice of the bodhisattva 

PATH, and the second, which had been circulating as 

an independent text, contains a list of the ten major 

and forty-eight minor PRECEPTS. The set of precepts illustrated 

in the Fanwang jing is popularly called the 

“bodhisattva precepts” or the “Fanwang precepts”; 

thus the second fascicle on its own is often called the 

Su tra of Bodhisattva Precepts and is used in East Asian 

countries as a bodhisattva PRATIMOKSA (collection of 

rules). Traditionally, East Asian Buddhist monks and 

nuns are ordained using a set of rules drawn from the 

Sifen lu (Four-Part Vinaya) of the Indian DHARMA- 

GUPTAKA school. The Fanwang precepts were rarely 

used by themselves for ordination in China and Korea 

but instead were treated as a supplementary set of Mahayana 

precepts. 

Composed at a time when mainstream Buddhist 

and Mahayana texts on monastic discipline had just 

been transmitted into China, the contents of the Fanwang 

jing reflect Chinese Buddhist concerns about the 

impact a foreign morality would have on the indigenous 

culture. These concerns are reflected in the emphasis 

placed in the sutra on filial piety and obedience, 

two subjects of vital concern to Confucians. In addition, 

several minor precepts concern the relationship 

between the Buddhist order and the state, which claim 

Buddhism’s autonomy from secular power. Also of 

particular interest is that whereas VINAYA rules are intended 

only for monks and nuns, the Fanwang precepts 

are said to apply universally to both the LAITY 

and monastics, as illustrated by the sutra’s stated audience 

of monks, nuns, laypeople, and bodhisattvas. 

In some instances, the sutra notes that certain precepts 

are intended either for laypeople or for members 

of the Buddhist order. For example, the major 

precepts against killing, stealing, and illicit sexual activity 

apply both to members of religious orders and 

to lay believers, whereas the fifth major precept, a prohibition 

against selling liquor, was principally directed 

at the laity. 

Numerous commentaries were written on the Fanwang 

jing, representing the significant role its Mahayana 

bodhisattva precepts played in East Asian 

Buddhism. Many leading scholars in China, including 

ZHIYI (538–597) and FAZANG (643–712), wrote commentaries 

on the text, most focusing on the second fascicle. 

In Korea, more than fifteen commentaries are 

known to have been written on the sutra, including 

works by the eminent monks WŎNHYO (617–686), 

Sŭngjang (d.u.), Ŭijŏk (d.u.), and Taehyŏn (fl. 753). 

Six of these commentaries are extant, coming primarily 

from the Silla period. In Japan, SAICHO (767–822) 

made the Fanwang jing one of the most influential texts 

in Japanese Buddhism by arguing that its set of precepts 

should serve as the sole basis for ORDINATION in 

the Tendai school, the Japanese branch of the TIANTAI 

SCHOOL. 

See also: Apocrypha; Mahayana Precepts in Japan 

Bibliography 

Groner, Paul. “The Fan-wang ching and Monastic Discipline in 

Japanese Tendai: A Study of Annen’s Futsu jubosatsukai 

ko shaku.” In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, ed. Robert E. 

Buswell, Jr. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990. 

FASTING. See Ascetic Practices 

FAXIAN 

EUNSU CHO 

Faxian (ca. 337–ca. 418) is the first Chinese monk 

whose travel to India is documented. Not only did Faxian 

bring firsthand knowledge of India to China, he 

also brought back a series of scriptures. 

After being ordained at the age of twenty, Faxian recognized 

that the VINAYA (canon of monastic rules) available 

in China was incomplete. He therefore vowed to 

travel to India to search for Vinaya texts. He left 

Chang’an in 399 and proceeded via DUNHUANG and 

across the Pamir mountains into Uddiyana in northwestern 

India. Between 405 and 407, Faxian studied in 

Patalputra, then in Tamralipti in eastern India, and 

later in Sri Lanka. He set sail for home in 411, and after 

an odyssey that lasted until 413 he landed at the 

Shandong Peninsula. During his fifteen-year pilgrimage, 

Faxian had traveled to approximately thirty kingdoms. 

Faxian went to Jiankang (Nanking) and began translating 

the texts he had collected in India and Sri Lanka. 

Two of these were of the Vinaya of the MAHASAM GHIKA 

SCHOOL (T1425, T1427), two were MAHAYANA scrip- 


F AXIANG 

S CHOOL 

tures (T376, T745), and one was a HINAYANA scripture 

(T7). Faxian continued to work on translations until 

his death between 418 and 423. 

Faxian, like later Chinese monks, conceived of his 

travel to India as a “search for the dharma,” which 

involved venerating holy sites, studying with Indian 

masters, and collecting texts. His trip inspired later 

generations of pilgrims, including XUANZANG (ca. 

600–664) and YIJING (635–713). The major source of 

information about Faxian’s travels is his Faxian 

zhuan (Record of Faxian, T2085), written in 416, 

which is an important document for South Asian and 

Buddhist history. 


Bibliography 

Giles, Herbert A., trans. The Travels of Fa-hsien (399–414 A.D.), 

or, Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms (1923). London: Routledge 

and Kegan Paul, 1956. 

Shih, Robert, trans. and ed. Biographies des moines éminents 

(Kao seng tchouan) de Houei-kiao. Louvain, Belgium: Institut 

Orientaliste, 1968. 

FAXIANG SCHOOL 


Called theWeishi (Sanskrit,Vijñaptimatra; Consciousnessonly) 

school by its proponents, and the Faxiang 

(dharma characteristics) school by its opponents, this 

was the third major introduction of the YOGACARA 

SCHOOL of Buddhism into China. Competing versions 

of Yogacara had dominated Chinese Buddhism since 

the beginning of the sixth century, first with the Northern 

and Southern Dilun schools, which followed, respectively, 

the opposing interpretations by Bodhiruci 

and Ratnamati of the Dilun (Vasubandhu’s commentary 

on the Shidi jing; Sanskrit, Daśabhu mika-su tra). 

Thereafter, a different brand of Yogacara was introduced 

by the translator PARAMARTHA (499–569) in the 

mid-sixth century. Disputes between these three 

schools, as well as various hybrids of Yogacara and 

TATHAGATAGARBHA, had become so pervasive by the 

time of XUANZANG (ca. 600–664) that he traveled to 

India in 629 believing that texts as yet unavailable in 

China would settle the discrepancies. Instead he found 

that the Indian understanding of Yogacara differed in 

many fundamentals—doctrinally and methodologically—from 

what had developed in China, and on his 

return to China in 645 he attempted to narrow the differences 

by translating over seventy texts and introducing 

Buddhist LOGIC. 

Because the novel teachings Xuanzang conveyed 

represented Indian Buddhist orthodoxy and because 

the Chinese emperor lavished extravagant patronage 

on him, Xuanzang quickly became the preeminent East 

Asian Buddhist of his generation, attracting students 

from Korea and Japan, as well as China. Two of his 

disciples, the Korean monk WŎNCH’ŬK (613–696) and 

the Chinese monk KUIJI (632–682) bitterly competed 

to succeed Xuanzang upon his death, their rivalry 

largely centering on divergent interpretations of the 

Cheng weishi lun (Treatise on Establishing Consciousness-Only), 

a commentary on Vasubandhu’s Trim śika 

(Thirty Verses) that, according to tradition, Kuiji 

helped Xuanzang compile from ten Sanskrit commentaries. 

Kuiji is considered by tradition to be the 

first patriarch of the Weishi (or Faxiang) school. 

Kuiji wrote many commentaries on such works as 

the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa-su tra, the HEART SU TRA, the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), the 

Madhyantavibhaga, and Buddhist logic texts, but his 

commentaries on the Cheng weishi lun and an original 

treatise on Yogacara, Fayuan yilin zhang (Essays on the 

Forest of Meanings in the Mahayana Dharma Garden), 

became the cornerstones of the Weishi school. Hui 

Zhao (650–714), the second patriarch, and Zhi Zhou 

(668–723), the third patriarch, wrote commentaries on 

the Fayuan yulin chang, the Lotus Su tra, and the Madhyantavibhaga; 

they also wrote treatises on Buddhist 

logic and commentaries on the Cheng weishi lun. After 

Zhi Zhou, Faxiang’s influence declined in China, 

though its texts continued to be studied by other 

schools. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth 

centuries Faxiang enjoyed a revival among Chinese 

philosophers such as Yang Wenhui (1837–1911), 

Ouyang Jingwu (1871–1943), TAIXU (1890–1947), and 

Xiong Shili (1883–1968), who sought a bridge between 

native philosophy and Western philosophy, especially 

in the field of epistemology. 

Faxiang (Korean, Pŏpsang; Japanese, Hosso) was 

influential in Korea during the unified Silla (668–935) 

and Koryŏ dynasties (918–1392), but faded with the 

decline of Buddhism in the Chosŏn dynasty (1392– 

1910). Similarly, Hosso, initially transmitted to Japan 

from China and Korea, was prominent during the Nara 

period (710–784), but withered under attack in the 

Heian period (794–1185) from rival Tendai and Shingon 

schools. The Hosso monk Ryohen (1194–1252) 


283

F AZANG 

rebutted those attacks in his Kanjin Kakumusho (Précis 

on Contemplating the Mind and Awakening from the 

Dream), but Hosso, though surviving, declined 

nonetheless. 

Most East Asian Buddhist schools, along with 

Faxiang, accepted many standard Yogacara doctrines, 

such as the eight consciousnesses, three natures, and 

mind-only, though each school quibbled about 

specifics. The two doctrines that drew the most attacks 

were the Faxiang rejection of tathagatagarbha ideology 

for being too metaphysically substantialistic and the 

Faxiang doctrine of five seed-families (Sanskrit, 

pañcagotras; Chinese, wu xing), which held that one’s 

potential for awakening was determined by the good 

seeds already in one’s consciousness stream. Practitioners 

of the HINAYANA, PRATYEKABUDDHA, and MA- 

HAYANA paths, as well as those who were undecided 

about practice, could fulfill these paths only by bringing 

the respective seeds of whichever path they contained 

to fruition. A fifth seed-family, ICCHANTIKA, 

being devoid of the requisite seeds, can never and 

would never desire to achieve awakening. Since the 

other East Asian Buddhist schools held that all beings 

possess buddha-nature incipiently as tathagatagarbha, 

and thus all have the potential for awakening, they 

found the icchantika doctrine unacceptable. However, 

Faxiang did not treat the icchantika as an ontological 

category or predestination theory; it referred only to 

someone incorrigible, someone who, in recent lives, 

remains impervious to the teachings of Buddhism. 

Anyone desiring enlightenment, by definition, cannot 

be an icchantika. 

Bibliography 

Lusthaus, Dan. Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation 

of Yogacara Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih lun. 

London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. 

Sponberg, Alan. “The Vijñaptimatrata Buddhism of the Chinese 

Monk K’uei-chi (A.D. 632–682).” Ph.D. diss. University 

of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1979. 

Weinstein, Stanley. “The Kanjin Kakumusho.” Ph.D. diss. Harvard 

University, 1965. 

DAN LUSTHAUS 

in the Indian mold and at one point worked with the 

Khotanese translator ŚIKSANANDA (652–710) on a 

translation of the HUAYAN JING (Avatam saka-su tra, 

Flower Garland Su tra). Fazang’s works in the standard 

edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon are: five commentaries 

on MAHAYANA sutras, including two on the 

Huayan jing; two commentaries on treatises of NAGAR- 

JUNA and Saramati; two commentaries on the Chinese 

apocryphon AWAKENING OF FAITH (DASHENG 

QIXIN LUN); and thirteen treatises on the Huayan jing 

and related matters. Fazang was a disciple of Zhiyan 

(602–668), and eventually these two were enshrined 

as the second and third patriarchs of the HUAYAN 

SCHOOL. 

Fazang’s Huayen wujiao zhang (Treatise on the Five 

Teachings of Huayan) presents a very technical Huayan 

system, which he refers to as the “perfect teaching of 

the one vehicle” (yicheng yuanjiao) or “dharmadhatu 

dependent origination” (fajie yuanqi). The system is 

based on the six characteristics: the universal, the separate, 

the same, the different, the coming-into-being, 

and the disintegrating. These six reveal an inexhaustible 

and perfect fusion, a fusion without obstruction. 

By means of this teaching, when one 

defilement, say greed, is cut off, all are cut off, and 

when one merit is perfected, all are perfected. When 

the practitioner first produces the thought of awakening 

(bodhicitta), he has simultaneously completed 

perfect awakening (samyaksam bodhi). Cause (practice) 

and effect (awakening) are at the same time. If, 

as some have suggested, the Huayan jing is associated 

with the Central Asian Buddhist center of Khotan, 

then this Huayan system is truly a Central Asian/ 

Chinese development. Later, ZONGMI (780–841) declared 

Huayan identical to the highest of the three theses 

(zong) of Chan. 

Bibliography 

Cook, Francis H. Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra. 


Fontain, Jan. The Pilgrimage of Sudhana: A Study of Gandavyu ha 

Illustrations in China, Japan, and Java. The Hague, Netherlands: 

Mouton, 1967. 


FAZANG 

Fazang (also known as Xianshou, 643–712) was born 

into a family of Sogdian origin in the Chinese capital 

of Chang’an. He was a consummate Buddhist exegete 

FESTIVALS AND CALENDRICAL RITUALS 

Buddhists have divided up time according to various 

calendrical systems. In Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, 


F ESTIVALS AND C ALENDRICAL R ITUALS 

for example, the most lasting and fundamental system 

has been the ancient Indian lunar calendar, whose 

twelve months and forty-eight six- to nine-day weeks 

commence with sabbaths determined by the four 

phases of the lunar cycle: new moon, waxing moon, 

waning moon, and, most importantly, the full-moon 

day (Pali, uposatha; Sanskrit, uposadha or posadha). 

Larger expanses of time have been calculated as numbers 

of years since the final passing away (Pali, parinibbana; 

Sanskrit, parnirvana) of the Buddha (Buddha 

Varsa, abbreviated B.E. or B.V. and commencing in 543 

B.C.E.); since the dawn of the imperial Śaka Era (Śakasam 

vat, abbreviated S.S. and commencing in 78 C.E.); 

and since the emergence of various dynasties in different 

regions. More recently, as a result of colonialism 

and international practice, time has been calculated as 

the number of years before and since the start of the 

common era. These various eras in turn are but fleeting 

moments in sam sara’s vast expanse of ages (yuga) 

and eons (kappa; kalpa). 

Within that expanse, it is considered a rare achievement 

to be reborn during a Buddha Varsa: a time when 

a Buddha, his teachings, his corporeal relics, and his 

community of monks and nuns still exist. According 

to the late canonical Pali text the Buddhavam sa 

(Chronicle of Buddhas, ca. second century B.C.E.), there 

have been only twenty-four such Buddha eras in “one 

hundred thousand plus four incalculable numbers of 

eons.” During such rare periods, including the present 

one, it is possible to advance along the PATH to NIR- 

VAN A by learning and practicing the Buddha’s teachings. 

Because such directed progress on the path is not 

possible in the hiatuses between Buddha eras, every 

moment in this or any other Buddha era is soteriologically 

charged. While the ideal is certainly to cultivate 

Buddhist virtues constantly, from an early date 

Buddhists throughout the region have considered it especially 

efficacious to perform such activities on the 

above-mentioned lunar sabbaths. 

Long before the time of the Buddha, South Asians 

already were focusing their religious activities (such as 

performing sacrifices and other rituals, and preaching 

their different messages) on these lunar sabbaths. According 

to the second book of the Mahavagga (Great 

Section) of the Pali VINAYA (monastic code), early in 

his career the Buddha was approached by King Seniya 

Bimbisara of Magadha, who requested that the Buddha 

allow his monks to assemble on these days because 

non-Buddhists used them for public preaching and 

thereby gained the hearts and adherence of listeners. 

The Buddha permitted this, and after people complained 

that the assembled monks just sat in silence, 

he further permitted them to preach the dharma to 

laypeople on lunar sabbaths. Moreover, he established 

for them the ritual of recitation of the Buddhist monastic 

disciplinary rules embodied in the Patimokkha 

(Sanskrit, PRATIMOKSA). Down to the present day, this 

recitation of the Patimokkha on each full-moon day 

by all ordained (upasampada) Buddhist clergy residing 

inside a particular monastic boundary (slma), complete 

with ceremonies and judicial practices and penalties, 

has constituted the primary monastic ritual by 

which Buddhist monks and nuns have maintained 

their collective purity and sense of communitas. Even 

today it proceeds very much as outlined in the ancient 

vinaya texts, with a leading monk or nun thrice professing 

his or her purity as regards each of the major 

categories of the Patimokkha rules. Those assembled 

either profess, through silence, their own purity regarding 

the rules, or they confess transgressions that 

have occurred, for which punishments and restorative 

acts are prescribed in the vinaya texts. 

The yearly cycle constituted by these monthly 

monastic rituals is punctuated by the three-month 

“rains-retreat” (Pali, vassa; Sanskrit, varśa). The retreat 

is said in the Mahavagga to have been established by 

the Buddha in response to criticisms that his monks 

and nuns harmed microscopic creatures by traveling 

during the rainy season. This period of heightened 

practice and restrictions on travel away from the 

monastery begins on the full-moon day that corresponds 

to July/August (or, in the case of “late vassa,” 

August/September) and ends on the full-moon day 

that corresponds to October/November (or November/December). 

Though this period does not exactly 

correspond with the actual monsoons in Sri Lanka and 

Southeast Asia, the retreat continues to be observed according 

to the ancient reckoning. Special ceremonies 

attend the full-moon days that mark the beginning and 

end of the vassa season, whether according to the 

“early” or the “late” calculation. Gathering for vassa, 

the monks or nuns in a particular monastic boundary 

recite the Patimokkha with special intention and additional 

vows appropriate to the occasion. The fullmoon 

day that marks the end of vassa is singled out as 

especially significant, for here the usual Patimokkha 

recitation is replaced with Pavarana (Invitation), in 

which the assembled monks and nuns are invited to 

point out the transgressions of others observed during 

the vassa coresidence. 

While regular Patimokkha recitations and the 

special rituals associated with the rains-retreat are 


285


A woman participating in traditional Cambodian New Year celebrations 

pours water over a statue of the Buddha at a temple in 

Phnom Penh, 2001. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. 

intended primarily to assist monks and nuns in their 

discipline, they have important implications for the 

LAITY as well. In a general sense, these rituals produce 

certainty about the purity of the monks and nuns to 

whom one offers alms (dana) and from whom one 

hears sermons or receives PRECEPTS, thereby guaranteeing 

the efficacy of such activities in a layperson’s 

presumably longer march toward nirvana. More 

specifically, over time lay calendrical rituals and festivals 

have emerged to correspond with the rituals in the 

monastery. 

Thus, from a very early date, it has been considered 

appropriate for all Buddhists to make the lunar sabbaths, 

and especially the full-moon days, occasions for 

enhanced religious activity. At the very least, ordinary 

lay Buddhists will try to visit the local temple on such 

days in order to make offerings (pu ja) to a buddha image, 

bodhi tree, or STU PA after reciting praises of the 

Buddha (namaskara), the three REFUGES (tisarana), 

and the five precepts (pañcaslla). The more pious 

members of a given lay community adopt an especially 

rigorous disciplinary regimen for the day, taking on 

three extra precepts (not to sit on elevated or comfortable 

seats, not to eat after 12:00 noon, and not to 

adorn the body with perfumes and jewelry), in addition 

to the ordinary five; the third precept, chastity 

(kamesu micchacara), is replaced with celibacy (brahmacariya). 

These “Eight Precept holders” wear special 

clothes (a white version of the traditional monastic 

robes) and are honored with special forms of address 

and provision usually reserved for monks and nuns. 

They spend the day in the temple listening to sermons, 

studying and reciting the dharma, performing pu ja, 

and meditating, returning to their homes only in the 

night or the following morning. 

Corresponding to the centrality accorded the vassa 

season in the yearly monastic ritual calendar, lay Buddhists 

also perform special rites on full-moon days, 

which mark the beginning and end of the retreat. Employing 

an ancient Pali formula, temple patrons inaugurate 

vassa by ceremonially inviting monks within a 

particular monastic boundary to come to their temple 

for the retreat, and they mark the end of the season 

with elaborate festivities, such as processions and almsgivings, 

that culminate in the presentation of monastic 

robes (kathina puññakamma), either to the monks 

themselves or to an image of the Buddha or a stupa. 

Certain other full-moon days are also singled out 

for special festivals. Most important among them is the 

full-moon day corresponding to April/May (Vesakha), 

on which day the Buddha is believed to have been born, 

to have achieved enlightenment, and to have reached 

parinirvana. On this day Buddhists throughout the region 

erect colorful billboard-like displays containing 

pictures of the life of the Buddha, of JATAKA or historical 

stories, and of scenes in various HEAVENS and 

HELLS, in addition to decorating their homes with banners, 

flags, and lanterns. Festive foods are eaten, and 

in more recent times Buddhists have begun to send 

cards and sing carols paralleling the Christian celebration 

of Christmas and Easter. Vesakha is also a 

popular occasion for PILGRIMAGE to sites of religious 

significance. Similarly, though on a smaller scale, various 

events in the life of the Buddha and in Buddhist 

history that are believed to have occurred on particular 

full-moon days are remembered and celebrated on 

those days across the Buddhist world. In some countries 

certain of these days are considered especially 

significant. Thus, for example, modern Sri Lankan 

Buddhists place special emphasis on the full-moon 

day corresponding to June/July (Sinhala, Poson), 

when Mahinda is believed to have brought Buddhism 



to Sri Lanka for the first time; this season is marked 

by pilgrimages and processions to the mountain 

where he first encountered the Sri Lankan king, by 

the offering of food and drink to pilgrims, and by 

such modern entertainments as television dramas, 

concerts of devotional music, and “haunted houses.” 

Quite apart from these pan-Buddhist and largescale 

rituals and festivals, individual Buddhist families 

often observe rites on a calendrical cycle, punctuated 

by the day each month or each year when they take 

alms (dana) to the monks at a chosen temple, or yearly 

death anniversaries when they make special offerings 

of food, robes, and other requisites. Individual temples 

may also sponsor calendrical rites and festivals to celebrate 

their founding or the birthday or death anniversary 

of an incumbent monk, or to raise funds for 

temple improvement projects. 

Throughout the region there are also calendrical 

rites and festivals associated with indigenous as well as 

originally Hindu deities, which, though only quasi 

Buddhist, have been absorbed into the Buddhist milieu. 

In Sri Lanka, the month that culminates in the 

full-moon day corresponding to July/August (Sinhala, 

Äśala) is the primary period for annual festivals and 

processions honoring various such deities. The most 

famous of these is the Kandy Perahera, in which the 

guardian deities of the island, together with the tooth 

relic of the Buddha, are paraded through the streets of 

the last Sri Lankan Buddhist royal capital amidst rites 

that derive from both Buddhism (e.g., paritta-chanting, 

sermons, almsgiving) and Hinduism (e.g., pu ja to 

images of the deities, mantra-chanting). The celebration 

of the Lunar New Year, in mid-April, is another 

example of a calendrical festival that, though not 

specifically Buddhist, nevertheless entails various Buddhist 

rituals, such as the presentation of the first rice 

of the year to a temple and vows to Buddhist deities. 

In modern times, Buddhist countries also use the 

Roman calendar, within which secularized calendrical 

festivals are observed. Thus, the Western New Year 

might be celebrated on the night of December 31, even 

by those who will celebrate the traditional New Year 

in April; though full-moon days are holidays, with attendant 

laws (such as prohibitions on the sale of alcohol) 

to keep them sacred, Saturdays and Sundays enjoy 

the same status. National festivals tend to be calculated 

according to the Roman calendar, such as Sri Lanka’s 

National Day on February 4, the Thai King’s Birthday 

on December 5, or May Day, which is celebrated by 

workers all over the region. These national festivals are 

often attended by colorful street displays that parallel 

the strictly Buddhist festivals described above, Buddhist 

rites such as almsgivings and processions, and the 

active participation of Buddhist clergy. 

East Asian festivals 

In East Asia, Buddhist celebrations have been incorporated 

into a greater festival year that includes observances 

that might be defined as primarily Confucian, 

Daoist, “folk,” or Shinto, depending on the country. 

Of particular note are the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, 

and parinirvana, which are commemorated on 

separate days (unlike the situation in Theravada countries, 

where they are all celebrated on the full-moon 

day of Vesakha, or April/May). The festival of the Buddha’s 

birthday, in modern times, falls on April 8, and 

features the bathing of images of the infant Gautama, 

who is represented at the moment of his birth, standing 

with one hand pointed to the sky declaring his supremacy 

in the world. The rite has been traced back as 

early as the fourth century in China, and may have its 

roots in India. In Japan this event overlaps with the festival 

of flowers known as Hana matsuri. The Buddha’s 

enlightenment day (Japanese, jo do -e) is celebrated on 

December 8, and marks not only his attainment of 

BODHI (AWAKENING), but the end of his period of severe 

austerities. In the CHAN SCHOOL, this day is sometimes 

preceded by a one-week period of intensive 

meditation, often involving never lying down to sleep. 

The commemoration of the Buddha’s death and 

parinirvana (Japanese, nehan-e) falls on February (or 

March) 15. This celebration has been traced as far back 

as the sixth century in China, and may also have its 

origins in India. In Japan, the celebration held in Buddhist 

temples involves exhibitions of large paintings of 

the Buddha reclining on his deathbed. 

Of greater importance and more generally popular 

is the celebration of the GHOST FESTIVAL (Japanese, 

Obon), which falls on July (or August) 15. This is a 

time when family graves are cleaned and when the spirits 

of departed ancestors are received on household altars. 

Its Buddhist roots are found in the story of the 

Buddha’s disciple MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, who, at the 

Buddha’s recommendation, gave offerings to the 

monks in order to allay the sufferings of his mother 

who had been reborn in hell, an act that emphasized 

the ethic of filial piety. 

Perhaps of lesser connection to Buddhism in East 

Asia is the celebration of the New Year, which is also 

understood to be a time for welcoming the dead, as 

well as an occasion for renewal and the reassertion of 


287

F ILIALITY 

relationships. In Japan, it is especially a time to visit 

Shinto shrines, although on New Year’s Eve people 

may go to temples to help ring the temple bell 108 

times, signifying the elimination of the 108 defilements 

(Sanskrit, kleśa). In Tibet, on the other hand, the celebration 

of the New Year (Lo gsar) serves to reaffirm 

Buddhist supremacy over indigenous forces, and, since 

the time of TSONG KHA PA (1357–1419), it has segued 

into the celebration of the Great Prayer Festival (Smon 

lam chen mo). 

Bibliography 

Ch’en, Kenneth K. S. Buddhism in China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


DeVisser, Marinus Willem. Ancient Buddhism in Japan: Su tras 

and Ceremonies in Use in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries 

A.D. and Their History in Later Times. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 

1928. 

Holt, John C. Discipline: The Canonical Buddhism of the 

Vinayapitaka. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981. 

Horner, I. B., trans. The Book of the Discipline (Vinayapitaka), 

Vol. 4: Mahavagga. London: Luzac, 1971. 

Horner, I. B., trans. The Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, 

Part 3: Chronicle of Buddhas (Buddhavam sa) and Basket of 

Conduct (Cariyapitaka). London: Pali Text Society, 1975. 

Robertson, Alec. The Triple Gem and the Uposatha: Buddhist 

Ethics and Culture. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Colombo Apothecaries’ 

Company, 1971. 

Seneviratne, H. L. Rituals of the Kandyan State. Cambridge, UK: 


Wijayaratna, Mohan. Buddhist Monastic Life: According to the 


Steven Collins. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1990. 

JONATHAN S. WALTERS 

FILIALITY. See Family, Buddhism and the 

FOLK RELIGION: AN OVERVIEW 

Folk religion refers to beliefs and practices that are not 

specifically marked as Buddhist. The term covers a 

broad range of phenomena, including worship of local 

deities, healing practices, the banishment of 

demons by priests (exorcism), providing offerings to 

the ANCESTORS to bring them comfort in the afterlife, 

divination, and other ritual activities seeking good fortune, 

health, or salvation. 

Separating Buddhism from its background (folk religion) 

is neither easy nor objective. Folk religion is usually 

a second-order description, an attempt by debating 

parties to insulate an imaginary form of pure Buddhism 

from less desirable activities occurring in the 

background. The reality, however, is always more complicated: 

Elements subsumed under the label of folk 

religion are mixed together, coherently, with what unreflective 

authors want to isolate as true, authentic 

Buddhism. Early biographies of the historical Buddha, 

for instance, describe how before the Buddha was born 

his father consulted the state oracle, who prophesied 

that his son was destined for greatness. The soothsayer, 

Atiśa, stated that the young prince would become either 

a great ruler or a majestic world-renouncer. Similarly, 

most accounts of the Buddha’s enlightenment 

note that after six futile years of practicing austerities, 

the Buddha-to-be accepted a bowlful of rice and milk 

from a laywoman named Sujata. Sujata presented the 

gift to the buddha because she mistook him for a tree 

spirit whose succor she had sought in conceiving a son. 

Although one might be tempted to discriminate between 

the folk elements and the more orthodox components 

in these two episodes, the early texts portray 

all the elements as integral parts within a healthy, sensible, 

unitary worldview. In the case of Atiśa, divining 

the future, especially when it involves the well-being 

of the state, is deemed perfectly consistent with Śakyamuni’s 

path to buddhahood. Religious awakening, 

politics, and predicting the future (the latter two often 

considered to be folk corruptions) are not considered 

separate realms. Similarly, rather than distinguishing 

between a pure Buddhist intent and a debased folk 

practice, the early accounts of Sujata’s offering make 

no negative judgment about her devotions. Offerings 

to wandering holy men are believed to bring good fortune, 

to fulfill a laywoman’s ethical obligations, and to 

further the cause of spiritual progress. 

The category of folk religion is also murky because, 

especially in the premodern period, most Buddhists 

have not attempted to enforce clear distinctions between 

what is Buddhist and what is not. Definitions of 

what counts as Buddhist tend to be inclusive rather 

than exclusive. The earliest Buddhist communities absorbed 

much from their background, including belief 

in the power of holy men; a REBIRTH cosmology that 

placed human beings on a vertical continuum with 

gods, demigods (asura), animals, hungry ghosts 

(preta), and beings in HELLS; a universe animated by 


F OLK R ELIGION: AN O VERVIEW 

spirits of trees, rivers, and mountains; and the ability 

of talented individuals to perform miracles and see 

other realms. Even in the Indian context, then, Buddhism 

possessed what may be considered fuzzy margins. 

As Buddhism moved out of the Indian sphere and 

came into contact with other cultures, not only did 

these original background elements travel as part of 

Buddhism, but Buddhism also melded easily with the 

established beliefs and practices in new settings. Ancient 

deities, famous holy places, and long-standing 

ritual practices could all be included within the Buddhist 

sphere. 

Modern scholarship focuses on three forms of folk 

religion: local gods, spirit-mediums, and family religion. 

Many deities deriving from Brahmanical religion 

were assimilated into the emerging Buddhist worldview. 

MARA, who appears in the Vedas, came to represent 

death and evil; he tried to prevent the Buddha 

from achieving enlightenment and carrying on his 

ministry. Brahma and INDRA (Śakra Devanam Indra) 

were also accepted into the Buddhist pantheon and assigned 

specific planes in the Buddhist heavens. Other 

powerful figures in the pre-Buddhist underworld were 

given roles in later Buddhist mythology, including 

King Yama (Yama raja), lord of the underworld, and 

Harit, mother of demons. Native gods in various cultures 

outside of India were also positioned in relation 

to Buddhism. As modern ethnographies have shown, 

monks and laypeople draw on the gods of the region 

in which they live to achieve a wide range of purposes, 

ranging from this-worldly to transcendent, all included 

within Buddhism. Another way to localize Buddhist 

deities was to place them in recognizable contexts. 

Thus, Mount Wutai in China was the site where 

Mañjuśr Bodhisattva manifested himself as early as 

the beginning of the Tang dynasty (618–907); in Japan, 

Buddhist deities in the Kofuku Temple were correlated 

with their indigenous counterparts in the Kasuga 

Shrine in Nara starting in the eighth century; and in 

Tibet the DALAI LAMA was considered a reincarnation 

of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva beginning in the seventeenth 

century. 

Spirit-mediums (sometimes called shamans) are 

people who perform various religious rituals (exorcisms, 

séances, healing rites, divinations) while temporarily 

incarnating deities. Sometimes the deities are 

recognizably Buddhist; other times they are considered 

local ghosts or spirits. Spirit-mediums are drawn from 

the ranks of the local Buddhist institution, or Buddhist 

priests attempt to assert their dominance over a class 

of local spirit-mediums. Some of the best studies of the 

problem of folk religion deal with spirit-mediums in 

Thailand (Tambiah), Burma (Spiro), Tibet and the Himalayas 

(Mumford), China (Strickmann), and Japan 

(Blacker). 

Most traditional Asian cultures treat the ancestors 

with veneration and emphasize the importance of providing 

for their salvation. Hence Buddhist rites are often 

performed in order to bring relief to the ancestors 

in the afterlife. Providing offerings to monks, patronizing 

temples, commissioning statues, making prayers 

at home—almost any Buddhist ritual action has been 

harnessed to the interests of the ancestral cult. Using 

early Indian stone inscriptions, Gregory Schopen has 

recently shown that the concern with filial piety was 

not unique to Chinese Buddhism, but had developed 

in India earlier as well. 

Folk religion is a contested term. It is sometimes 

still deployed in an unreflective manner, set up in 

contrast to a presumably pure or more orthodox form 

of Buddhism. One should also beware of unacknowledged 

bias in the use of terms like popular religion 

(rather than monastic doctrine), little tradition 

(as opposed to an intellectual great tradition), or benighted 

practice (versus enlightened beliefs). Folk religion 

in the derogatory sense has been used by both 

Buddhists and opponents of Buddhism. Yet responsible 

studies continue to use the term in new ways. 

Recognizing that it artificially separates Buddhist 

phenomena from non-Buddhist phenomena, scholars 

are taking folk religion more seriously and searching 

for the interrelations between Buddhist and 

non-Buddhist forms of religion. 

See also: Confucianism and Buddhism; Cosmology; 

Daoism and Buddhism; Entertainment and Performance; 

Ghosts and Spirits; Hinduism and Buddhism; 

Local Divinities and Buddhism; Merit and Merit- 

Making; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Blacker, Carmen. The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices 

in Japan. London: Allen and Unwin, 1975. Revised edition, 

1986. 



Press, 1992. 



Mumford, Stan Royal. Himalayan Dialogue: Tibetan Lamas and 

Gurnung Shamans in Nepal. Madison: University of Wisconsin 

Press, 1989. 


289

F OLK 

R ELIGION, CHINA 

Schopen, Gregory. “Filial Piety and the Monk in the Practice of 

Indian Buddhism: A Question of ‘Sinicization’ Viewed from 

the Other Side” (1984). Reprinted in Bones, Stones, and Buddhist 

Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, 

and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India, by Gregory 

Schopen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997. 




Strickmann, Michel. Chinese Magical Medicine. Stanford, CA: 




1970. 

Teiser, Stephen F. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton, 




FOLK RELIGION, CHINA 

STEPHEN F. TEISER 

Much has been written about Buddhism’s conversation 

with Confucianism and Daoism since its arrival 

in China by the first century C.E. While the role of these 

two systems of ideas and values in Chinese culture cannot 

be denied, it must be kept in mind that the religious 

attitudes of the vast majority of the Chinese 

people never were directly derived from Confucianism 

or Daoism, but rather from folk religion. Folk (or popular) 

religion negotiates the relationship of the individual, 

the family, and the local community with the 

spirit world by means of beliefs and practices that are 

transmitted outside the canonical scriptural traditions 

of China. Often this transmission is oral, but there also 

exists a long tradition of popular written texts recording 

myths, rituals, and scriptures. Buddhism’s success 

in China can be measured directly by its impact on this 

religion of the people. 

One major area of Buddhist influence on Chinese 

folk religion concerns conceptions of the afterlife. Pre- 

Buddhist ideas distinguished between various paradisiacal 

realms and a vaguely defined underworld 

called the Yellow Springs, but there seems to have been 

no clear link between one’s posthumous fate and one’s 

conduct while living. The introduction of such a link 

by means of the concepts of KARMA (ACTION), REBIRTH, 

and hell (or purgatory) led to a fundamental restructuring 

of Chinese conceptions of the afterlife, furnishing 

it with a complete set of HELLS, reigned over by ten 

kings, in which the soul of the deceased undergoes a 

series of punishments in accord with its karmic burden 

before eventually being reborn. By the seventh 

century, this new view of the afterlife had already 

gained some acceptance, and in the following centuries 

new texts and liturgies for its propagation and ritual 

negotiation emerged. 

Karma linked the afterlife with individual effort, 

which created the terrifying realm of hell, but also 

opened up new possibilities for salvation. Here, too, 

Buddhism made a major contribution by offering the 

saving compassion of its buddhas and bodhisattvas. 

From the third century onward, PURE LAND BUDDHISM 

became the most popular school in China, holding out 

as it did the hope of rebirth into AMITABHA Buddha’s 

Western Paradise. The Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, who 

until the tenth century was mostly portrayed as male, 

gradually came to be visualized as female. Eventually he 

became the goddess Guanyin, the quintessential personification 

of compassion and one of the most widespread 

deities of folk religion. Other Buddhist figures 

that played an important role in folk religion include 

Ksitigarbha (Dizang Wang Pusa), MAITREYA (Mile Fo), 

Yama (Yanluo Wang), the Eighteen ARHATs (Lohan), 

and MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA (Mulian). 

Buddhist saints—revered masters or miracle 

workers—sometimes became objects of worship, their 

mortuary STU PAs or mummified bodies attracting large 

numbers of pilgrims praying for blessings and protection. 

A very popular deity in modern Chinese folk religion, 

the Living Buddha Jigong (Jigong Huofo), 

originated in stories surrounding an unconventional 

Buddhist monk who lived in Hangzhou, Zhejiang 

province, around the turn of the thirteenth century. 

While the cult of Jigong spread far beyond its Hangzhou 

home base, the Patriarch of the Clear Stream 

(Qingshui Zushi) is an example of a regional deity that 

developed from the cult of an eleventh-century 

miracle-working Buddhist monk in Fujian province 

and remains largely confined to the Anxi area of Fujian 

and areas settled by Anxi emigrants in Taiwan and 

Southeast Asia. As bodhisattvas, buddhas, and eminent 

monks became deities within Chinese folk religion, 

they were also removed from the doctrinal control of 

the SAṄGHA and often took on novel features. The cult 

of Qingshui Zushi, for example, adopted more and 

more Daoist elements, so that today its Buddhist origins 

are barely recognizable. The Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, 

in the guise of the female Guanyin, became 

a multifunctional deity who, among many other con- 


F OLK 

R ELIGION, JAPAN 

cerns, is believed to grant children to her faithful, thus 

earning her the name Songzi Guanyin (Child-Giving 

Guanyin). 

While Buddhism contributed new deities to folk religion, 

it in turn adopted popular deities into its own 

pantheon, albeit usually only in a subservient position. 

There exist many stories of Buddhist pioneers converting 

local deities or demons to Buddhism and making 

them guardian spirits of their newly founded 

monasteries, thus symbolically subordinating local religion 

to Buddhism. The most famous case of such subordination 

is the adoption of the powerful folk deity 

Guan Gong as a tutelary spirit of Buddhist shrines. 

In spite of such attempts at symbolic hegemony, 

Buddhism never came to dominate Chinese folk 

religion, either symbolically or institutionally. The 

saṅgha’s deliberate separation from local communities 

limited its influence on their religious life, but 

gave it at the same time opportunities for ritual interaction. 

The strong association of Chinese Buddhism 

with concepts of the afterlife combined with 

the saṅgha’s separateness to provide Buddhist monks 

and nuns with unique qualifications as providers of 

ritual services for the dead. In many areas of China, 

mortuary rites and rituals performed for the benefit 

of ghosts are predominantly supplied by Buddhist 

practitioners. Such practitioners include not only formally 

ordained monks and nuns, but also the followers 

of Buddhist-inclined lay sects, which in some 

areas had a more immediate impact as carriers of 

Buddhist ideas than the mainstream saṅgha. An example 

is the role of the Dragon Flower Sect (Longhua 

Pai) in nineteenth-century Taiwan, where, in the absence 

of a well-established monastic community, sectarians 

fulfilled many of the ritual functions that 

elsewhere were the domain of the ordained Buddhist 

clergy. Such sects arose in large numbers from the 

fourteenth century onward. They drew their inspiration 

ecumenically from all religious traditions of 

China, but in many of them the soteriological 

promise of the Pure Land combined with the eschatological 

expectation of the buddha Maitreya to infuse 

them with a distinctly Buddhist flavor. For this 

reason they have at times been characterized as “folk 

Buddhist.” 

In these ways Buddhism helped to shape Chinese 

folk religion and was in turn shaped by it. In the 

process, it contributed a significant number of the 

pieces that make up the rich mosaic of religious life in 

Chinese communities. 

See also: Apocrypha; Confucianism and Buddhism; 

Daoism and Buddhism; Entertainment and Performance; 

Ghosts and Spirits; Local Divinities and Buddhism; 

Merit and Merit-Making; Syncretic Sects: 

Three Teachings 

Bibliography 

Dean, Kenneth. Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast 

China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 

Overmyer, Daniel L. Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in 

Late Traditional China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 1976. 








FOLK RELIGION, JAPAN 

PHILIP CLART 

Folk religion (minkan shinko or minzoku shu kyo ) is the 

unifying element underlying Japanese religious structure, 

the “frame of reference,” as Miyake Hitoshi has 

termed it (“Folk Religion,” p. 122), through which the 

religious traditions of Shinto and Buddhism have become 

rooted in Japan. Folk religion is generally considered 

to encompass a variety of customs, practices 

and ideas, including rituals, festivals and events linked 

to the calendrical cycle and to individual and social life 

cycles; concepts relating to the spirits of the dead and 

to other worlds; the use of AMULETS AND TALISMANS 

and divination; belief in the capacity of various figures 

of worship to bestow worldly benefits on petitioners; 

and concepts of spirit possession and shamanism. 

The relationship between Buddhism and folk religion 

in Japan has been, and remains, one of interaction 

and mutual reinforcement. From its initial entry 

onward Buddhism has assimilated and adapted to existing 

folk ideas and practices, simultaneously shaping 

and influencing their development, while Buddhist 

ideas and practices have often taken hold through integrating 

with folk ideas and practices. 

This process of mutual influence can be seen from 

the time Buddhism first entered Japan, bringing with 

it with Daoist concepts and practices relating to 


291

F OLK 

R ELIGION, JAPAN 

divination, oracles, and the calendar. These became 

embedded in Japanese folk religious structure: Cycles 

of lucky and unlucky days and years became part of 

folk religious consciousness, commemorated through 

rituals and practices, including the drawing of oracle 

lots and rituals for preventing misfortunes, that were 

carried out at Buddhist temples. Buddhist festivals— 

such as the summer Obon or Festival for the Sprits of 

the Dead—also became part of the annual round of 

observances followed by the Japanese. 

Buddhism, folk religion, and the dead 

Perhaps the main area of interaction between Japanese 

folk religion and Buddhism has been in relation to 

the spirits of the dead, ANCESTORS and concepts of 

other worlds. Before the advent of Buddhism, folk traditions 

envisaged the spirit as departing from the body 

at DEATH but remaining essentially tied to this world 

and reluctant to depart from its kin. Although the spirits 

of the dead could become benevolent protective 

deities, they were also inherently dangerous and fearsome, 

capable of possessing the living or afflicting them 

in various ways; the realms of death were dark and perilous. 

Buddhism offered more sophisticated and ultimately 

more positive visions of what lay beyond death, 

and offered means of subduing possessing spirits and 

pacifying the dead through rituals conducted by priests 

and, especially in earlier times, by ascetics who claimed 

exorcistic powers. Such notions and practices were 

readily assimilated into a folk tradition in which 

shamanic practitioners (including members of mountain 

cults who were deeply influenced by Buddhism) 

played a vital role in the religious life of ordinary people. 

Such practitioners continue to exist, and the new 

religions that have emerged in more recent times have 

drawn extensively from this folk/Buddhist shamanic 

tradition. 

Buddhist funerary rituals offered a means of averting 

the dangers of pollution by purifying the dead of 

their sins and leading them safely from this realm to 

the next, thus transforming their spirits into benevolent 

ancestors existing in a mutually beneficial relationship 

with their living kin. Buddhism’s concepts of 

other realms, of HELLS for the wicked and REBIRTH in 

the Pure Land for the virtuous, offered a moral vision 

of death and the beyond, while its rituals offering merit 

transference from the living to the dead enabled the 

living to aid their departed kin in the afterlife. 

While these Japanese concepts of death and the ancestors 

show an obvious Buddhist influence, it is also 

clear that folk concepts have had an impact on Buddhism 

in Japan. The notion of the spirit of an ancestor 

being led elsewhere yet remaining in close contact 

with the living depends upon an implicit belief in an 

after-death existence that appears to conflict with standard 

Buddhist notions of transmigration—a dilemma 

never resolved in Japan, where Buddhist sects may articulate 

both concepts simultaneously—and represents 

a folk transformation of Buddhism. The relationship 

between the living and the dead remains central to 

Japanese Buddhism, which since early medieval times 

has been the primary medium through which death 

rituals and ancestor veneration have been carried out. 

Most Japanese households continue to use family 

Buddhist altars to memorialize their ancestors and 

most Japanese continue to envisage the dead through 

ideas framed by Buddhist rites and deeply influenced 

by folk beliefs. 

Folk religion, Buddhism, and worldly benefits 

Another major area of folk-Buddhist interaction concerns 

Buddhism’s reinforcement and expansion of existing 

folk beliefs about the role of figures of worship 

in providing worldly benefits (genze riyaku). In pre- 

Buddhist Japan spiritual entities such as clan tutelary 

deities were petitioned for protection and aid; adapting 

to this tradition, Japanese Buddhism portrayed its 

figures of worship—BUDDHAS and BODHISATTVAS 

such as Bhaisajyaguru (Japanese, Yakushi; the buddha 

of healing) and Avalokiteśvara (Kannon; the bodhisattva 

of compassion)—as powerful agents capable 

of granting benefits and interceding to heal illness 

and provide happiness and good fortune to those who 

worshiped them. Buddhist sutras, notably the LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) provided accounts 

of miraculous happenings and promises of 

worldly benefits for those who follow the Buddhist 

way. Such notions have consistently been emphasized 

by proselytizing Buddhist itinerants and priests who 

have composed numerous stories and miracle tales relating 

to Buddhist figures of worship. Icons and statues 

of popular figures such as Avalokiteśvara and 

sacred places such as temples have been portrayed in 

such stories as sources of spiritual power and benefits 

that can be accrued by all. Buddhist temples have become 

primary sites for making petitions for worldly 

benefits, and primary sources of protective devices 

such as talismans and amulets, which are widely used 

in Japan. In the provision of worldly benefits there are 

few if any distinctions between “elite” monastic centers 

and “popular” temples; often the two are synony- 


F OLK R ELIGION, SOUTHEAST A SIA 

mous, with the monastic practitioners of purportedly 

elite institutions actively promoting the miraculous 

powers of the statues, icons, and relics at their institutions. 

Some scholars argue that there exists a “common 

religion” (Reader and Tanabe) centered on 

worldly benefits, in which elite and popular, institutional 

(Buddhist) and folk religion are effectively parts 

of one dynamic. 

Folk heroes and pilgrimage customs 

One of the most striking popular figures of worship 

who grants worldly benefits is Kobo Daishi, who can 

be seen as an exemplar both of the folk transformations 

of Buddhism and of Buddhist influence on folk 

religion. Kobo Daishi is the posthumous name of 

KU KAI (774–835), founder of the Shingon Buddhist 

tradition and of numerous temples in Japan. Shingon 

Buddhist sources suggest that Kukai entered into eternal 

meditation at death, and the sect promoted him, 

in his posthumous guise as Kobo Daishi, as a transcendent 

miracle worker who could bring benefits to 

the faithful. Cults of worship developed around him, 

portraying him as an itinerant who dispenses rewards 

to the worthy and retribution to the venal. PILGRIM- 

AGE routes—most notably an eighty-eight-temple circuit 

around Shikoku, the island of Kukai’s birth—also 

developed around this cultic figure; he has transcended 

sectarian boundaries and become the focus of an extensive 

folk faith, still vibrant in modern Japan. A study 

by Kaneko Satoru (Shinshu shinko to minzoku shinko , 

1991) shows that the pilgrimage and veneration of 

Kobo Daishi are deeply embedded in the folk customs 

of Shikoku, and that such folk practices and attitudes 

permeate the lives of people who officially belong to 

orthodox sectarian Buddhism but whose daily lives 

and localized faith are rooted in Kobo Daishi and 

pilgrimage-centered folk religion. 

The interactions between Buddhism and folk religion 

in Japan have been extensive. Folk religion is the 

underlying stratum upon which Buddhism and other 

traditions have built their foundations and through 

which they have responded to the needs and views of 

Japanese people. 

See also: Divinities; Festivals and Calendrical Rituals; 

Ghost Festival; Ghosts and Spirits; Japan; Local Divinities 

and Buddhism; Merit and Merit-Making; 

Shingon Buddhism, Japan; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) 


Bibliography 

Blacker, Carmen. The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices 

in Japan (1975). Richmond, UK: Curzon, 1999. 

Hori, Ichiro. Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change. 

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. 

Kaneko Satoru. Shinshu shinko to minzoku shinko . Kyoto: Nagata 

Bunshodo, 1991. 

Miyake Hitoshi. “Folk Religion.” In Japanese Religion, ed. Hori 

Ichiro et al. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1981. 

Miyake Hitoshi. Shugendo : Essays on the Structure of Japanese 

Folk Religion. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University 

of Michigan, 2001. 

Reader, Ian. Religion in Contemporary Japan. Basingstoke, UK: 

Macmillan; Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991. 




FOLK RELIGION, SOUTHEAST ASIA 

IAN READER 

The folk religions of THERAVADA Southeast Asia combine 

elements of local spirit religions, local versions of 

Brahmanism, and Buddhism. The combination of 

Buddhism, Brahmanism, and spirits is a total ritual 

system with as much internal tension as consistency. 

This is because, while Buddhism is doctrinally opposed 

to spirit religions, it recognizes and respects Brahmanism. 

Buddhism’s opposition to spirits is not based 

on the grounds that these religions are false; the problem 

is that spirits are worldly powers, and people bent 

on salvation should not concern themselves with them. 

The Brahmanical DIVINITIES (devata), on the other 

hand, are seen as supernatural protectors of Buddhism, 

so interaction with them is considered wholesome. In 

practice, however, laypersons consider interaction with 

the spirits to be a practical necessity, and even monks 

must deal with them on occasion. 

Spirit religion 

The spirit religions have their roots in the pre-Buddhist 

past. There is remarkable consistency among the various 

versions of these religions across Southeast Asia, 

among both Buddhist and non-Buddhist groups. Spirits 

are invisible beings with humanlike wills and emotions 

that are associated with specific places and objects. 

The spirits have the power to harm humans, and they 

will do so if they feel that humans have trespassed on 


293

F OLK R ELIGION, SOUTHEAST A SIA 

their territory, or if they have not been properly propitiated. 

In Burma, spirits are called nat. In Thailand 

and Laos they are know as phi, and in Cambodia as 

neak taa or kmauit. 

Spirits are seen as, among other things, guardians 

of morality, particularly as regards proper community, 

family, and sexual relationships. This is illustrated by 

the Northern Thai tale of a prince who was visiting a 

friend, the ruler of a neighboring principality. While 

there he had an adulterous liaison with his friend’s 

chief wife, the reigning princess. On his return home, 

he had to ride across the mountains through the forest, 

where a powerful spirit caused him to drown in a 

stream as punishment for his wrongdoing. 

As guardians of proper human relations, spirits provide 

benefits to communities more than to individuals. 

Spirit rites are important markers and maintainers 

of social solidarity in villages, families, and lineages. 

Benefits are believed to come to individuals when they 

turn to individual spirits for help with personal problems. 

Spirits can heal and find lost objects, among 

other things. People first seek the help of local spirits. 

If that fails they turn to professional spirit mediums 

who are said to serve particularly effective spirits. 

Spirits that have been domesticated—that is, turned 

from things of the wild into elements of the human 

community—are powerful sources of protection for 

the people who honor them. The places they protect 

range in scale from whole kingdoms to individual 

rooms of the home. Generally speaking, the larger the 

place a spirit protects, the more powerful the spirit. On 

the other side of the coin, the smaller the spirit, the 

more likely it is to be offended by the wrongdoings of 

particular individuals. The bedroom spirit is the most 

dangerous of all if one offends it by committing an improper 

sexual act in its presence. Great spirits will 

afflict whole communities that offend them (for instance, 

by withholding rain), but will only punish individuals 

of equivalent rank. The tutelary spirit of a 

kingdom may harm a king, but is unlikely to concern 

itself with the misdeeds of a peasant. 

The Buddhist cultures of Southeast Asia make a 

strong distinction between wild and civilized spaces, 

that is, between nature and culture. Wild spaces, such 

as the forests and mountains, are regarded as dangerous 

and said to be filled with potentially harmful 

spirits. Humans encroaching on these spaces—for instance, 

to clear woodlands for agricultural fields— 

must take care to address the leading spirit of that 

place and ask permission to undertake human activities. 

The spirit, and its attendant lesser spirits, are then 

invited to protect that place on behalf of humans. For 

their part, humans must make regular offerings to the 

spirits. These offerings can be as simple as small portions 

of food, often accompanied by tobacco and 

liquor, which are offered with humble words by the 

local farmer or householder, or the offerings may be 

as elaborate as large-scale animal sacrifices lasting one 

or two days and requiring the participation of specialized 

priests. 

In addition to the spirits of wild places, spirits of the 

dead are also important. Like the spirits of the wild, 

they are bound to and protect designated spaces. One 

dramatic example is the ancient use of ritual homicide 

(human sacrifice) to create powerful tutelary spirits. It 

was sometimes the practice when building entrance 

gates to walled cities to seize an unsuspecting passerby, 

kill him or her, and bury the body beneath the foundations 

of the gate. The resulting spirit was considered 

to be particularly ferocious, having been ripped so 

wantonly from this life. The spirit was given offerings 

and beseeched to turn its rage against strangers seeking 

to enter the city for wrongful purposes. This spirit 

would receive generous offerings each year as part of 

the city’s elaborate set of sacrifices to its guardian spirits. 

On a less gruesome note, the spirits of powerful 

and revered leaders are often enshrined as the protective 

divinities of the people and places they once ruled. 

Since these rulers were Buddhists in their own lives, 

unlike their wild counterparts, they are likely to be 

moral beings and inherently benign. They, like some 

converted spirits of the wild, serve as protectors of the 

faith as well as protectors of the land and people. 

Burma (Myanmar), in particular, constructed a highly 

elaborate state cult of tutelary divinities drawn from 

the spirits of deceased rulers. 

Brahmanism 

Brahmanism (in its Southeast Asian form) tends to be 

directly concerned with male spiritual potency. This 

potency is applied for the benefit of all people, male or 

female, but the source of the power is closely connected 

with maleness. This operates at the individual level. 

Every man has a certain level of spiritual power or effectiveness 

that derives from a combination of good 

KARMA (ACTION) and textual knowledge. This spiritual 

potency can be built and displayed through conspicuous 

acts of Buddhist piety—especially temporary ordination 

as a novice or monk—and knowledge of certain 

ritual texts. Particularly pious and powerful men may 

come to be known as learned masters (acariyas) or 


F OUR N OBLE T RUTHS 

Brahmanas. In their capacity as acariyas they are considered 

to be half layman and half monk, and they serve 

as congregation leaders of Buddhist temples (viharas 

or avasas), where they mediate between the world of 

the LAITY (gharavasa) and the sacred world of the 

monkhood (SAṄGHA). Although this office is not specified 

in the Buddhist CANON, it is extremely important 

to the everyday practice of Buddhism in Southeast 

Asia. In their capacity as Brahmanas, spiritually powerful 

men can also serve as healers and as priests to the 

Vedic gods, particularly INDRA, Brahma, and the Lords 

of the Four Quarters. In urban areas this service can 

be a profession. 

Even men who do not take this profession or wear 

such exalted titles seek to acquire some degree of personal 

spiritual potency. The male literacy rate was traditionally 

quite high in Southeast Asia, in part because 

a knowledge of the Brahmanical religious texts was the 

best means to such potency. Even illiterate men are 

likely to have some practical ritual or magical knowledge, 

for such things are a necessity in daily life. The 

Brahmanical texts contain varieties of ritual knowledge. 

They include, for example, knowledge of the direction 

in which the earth-dragon lies in each season, 

which is important to consider when building a house 

or plowing a field. Various kinds of numerical magic 

squares figure as means of calculating auspicious days 

and directions for undertaking certain activities, such 

as setting out on a journey. There are also texts to be 

recited as spells for healing, love, and protection. In 

addition, certain texts contain the words required for 

sacrifices to the Vedic gods. In each case, however, the 

texts contain only the words for the rite. Knowledge of 

the proper materials to use and the proper performance 

of the rites must be learned from a teacher. 

See also: Ancestors; Death; Festivals and Calendrical 

Rituals; Ghosts and Spirits; Hinduism and Buddhism; 

Local Divinities and Buddhism; Merit and Merit- 

Making 

Bibliography 

Archaimbault, Charles. “Religious Structures in Laos.” Journal 

of the Siam Society 52 (1964): 57–74. 

Chouléan, Ang. Les êtres surnaturels dans la religion populaire 

Khmère. Paris: Cedorek, 1986. 

Lemoine, Jacques, and Eisenbruch, M. “The Practice and the 

Power of Healing by the Hmong Shamans and the Cambodian 

Traditional Healers of Indochina.” Homme 37, no. 144 

(1997): 69–103. 






1970. 

MICHAEL R. RHUM 

FOREST MONKS. See Wilderness Monks 

FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS 

The four noble truths are known best for their appearance 

in the classic Turning of the Wheel of Dharma 

(Dharmacakrapravartana-su tra). This address appears 

in the Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese canons of 

various Buddhist schools, with relatively little variation 

in the actual content and terminology of the speech itself. 

The larger setting for this speech begins with the 

enlightenment of Gautama Buddha (566–486 B.C.E. or 

470–350 B.C.E.). In the Basket of Discipline (Vinayapitaka), 

a lengthy sequence describes how the Buddha 

left his five companions to pursue his own path toward 

enlightenment. He ate a bowl of rice porridge, and sat 

down under a pipal tree, vowing not to move until he 

was enlightened. Successively, during that night, in a 

series of three watches (each watch was about three 

hours long), the Buddha realized the four noble truths. 

During the first watch, he became aware of each of the 

four truths; during the second watch, he realized that 

he had to fully know the truth of each of the four truths; 

and during the third watch, he knew that he had, in 

fact, realized just how each truth was true. With that, 

he knew that he had reached BODHI (AWAKENING), that 

he had escaped the endless cycle of birth and death and 

had experienced NIRVAN A. 

The Buddha spent the next seven weeks in a state 

of bliss, enjoying his newfound experience of enlightenment. 

A divinity from the heavens came down and 

asked the Buddha when he would begin to teach what 

he had just realized. The Buddha refused to teach, saying 

that what he had realized was far too difficult for 

other beings to know for themselves. After the divinity 

convinced him that there were others who could 

learn what he had to teach, the Buddha agreed to teach. 

He took time deciding to whom his first teaching 

should be delivered, and settled on his five companions 

from whose company he had parted in order to 


295


seek his own enlightenment. After he approached them 

and convinced them that he had attained the state in 

which there is no death or suffering (that is, the state 

of nirvana), they settled down to listen to this first talk. 

The Buddha’s first talk on dharma is titled “Turning 

of the Wheel of the Law” because after he spoke to his 

five former companions, explaining the four noble 

truths and the middle way of the eightfold PATH, one 

of them, Kaundinya, cultivated the eye of dharma— 

that is, he became fully enlightened. When he was enlightened, 

Gautama Buddha had turned the wheel of 

dharma in this world for the first time, and nothing 

could stop the teaching of dharma and the enlightenment 

of other beings. 

The four noble truths 

The story of the Buddha’s enlightenment and the turning 

of the wheel of dharma is the setting for the Buddha’s 

first talk on dharma to an audience. He explains 

that his companions should pursue the middle way, 

avoiding the extremes of self-indulgence and selfmortification, 

and then lays out the four noble truths 

and the eightfold path. The four noble truths present 

the fact of suffering in this world and the means to end 

suffering in the following verses: 

This, bhikkhus, is the noble truth that is suffering. Birth 

is suffering; old age is suffering; illness is suffering; death 

is suffering; sorrow and grief, physical and mental suffering, 

and disturbance are suffering. Association with 

things not liked is suffering, separation from desired 

things is suffering; not getting what one wants is suffering; 

in short, the five aggregates of grasping are suffering. 

This, bhikkhus, is the noble truth that is the arising of 

suffering. This is craving that leads to rebirth, is connected 

with pleasure and passion and finds pleasure in 

this or that; that is, craving for desire, existence, and the 

fading away of existence. 

This, bhikkhus, is the noble truth that is the ending of 

suffering. This is the complete fading away and ending 

of that very craving, giving it up, renouncing it, releasing 

it, and letting go. 

This, bhikkhus, is the noble truth that is the way leading 

to the ending of suffering. This is the eightfold path of 

the noble ones: right view, right intention, right speech, 

right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, 

and right concentration. (Book of Kindred Sayings 

[Sam yutta-nikaya], vol. 5, line 410ff) 

DUH KHA (SUFFERING; Pali, dukkha), the first of the 

four noble truths, is defined in the first verse above. 

Suffering in the Buddhist sense means far more than 

suffering is usually understood in a Judeo-Christian 

context. For Buddhists, anything that one wants and 

does not have is suffering. Having something that one 

does not want is also suffering. Clinging to the five 

SKANDHA (AGGREGATE) that make up a person is suffering. 

In other words, if a person holds onto any aspect 

of his or her being, whether the physical body, 

feelings, perceptions, formations, or consciousness, in 

the hope that any of those things exists permanently, 

that person will experience suffering. BUDDHAGHOSA, 

a Buddhist commentator who lived during the late 

fourth and early fifth centuries C.E. in what is now Sri 

Lanka, explained that there were three kinds of suffering: 

suffering that is inherent in a thing, suffering that 

emerges because things change, and suffering that develops 

because something else influences an experience. 

An example of the last type of suffering would 

be the pain from an earache or a toothache that arises 

because of an infection. In short, all life is suffering, 

according to the Buddha’s first sermon. 

The second truth is samudaya (arising or origin). 

To end suffering, the four noble truths tell us, one 

needs to know how and why suffering arises. The second 

noble truth explains that suffering arises because 

of craving, desire, and attachment. Because one wants 

to avoid things that cause discomfort, and because 

one wants to have things that bring pleasure, these 

“desires” are the origin of suffering. If one does not 

desire things, then one will not experience suffering. 

If one wants to avoid the suffering that comes from 

thinking that the self (who “I” am) is permanent and 

unchanging, then one should not be attached to the 

idea of a self. 

The third truth follows from the second: If the cause 

of suffering is desire and attachment to various things, 

then the way to end suffering is to eliminate craving, 

desire, and attachment. The third truth is called 

nirodha, which means “ending” or “cessation.” To stop 

suffering, one must stop desiring. 

The Buddha taught the fourth truth, marga (Pali, 

magga), the path that has eight parts, as the means to 

end suffering. Taken together, the four truths present 

a concise and logical analysis of the cause of human 

suffering and an equally straightforward solution to the 

problem of human suffering: the eightfold path. 

The eightfold path 

The eightfold path is the middle way that the Buddha 

described during his first sermon, the way between the 

two extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. 

The eight limbs of the path consist of: right view, right 

intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, 



TABLE 1 

Buddhaghosa's three stages of the eightfold path 

Right wisdom 

Right ethical conduct 

Right concentration 

right view 

right intention 

right speech 

right action 

right livelihood 

right effort 

right mindfulness 

right concentration 

right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. 

These are not sequential, because each one depends 

upon the other: They are meant to be followed 

and practiced in cooperation with one another. One 

cannot fully perfect the first step (for example, right 

view) until the last one, right concentration, is perfected. 

When all are practiced and perfected, then one 

attains enlightenment. Each of these components of 

the path is “right” in the sense that it is an ideal that 

should be undertaken and practiced seriously. One 

should follow the path not just because the Buddha 

taught it but because this is the way to attain the same 

perfection and enlightenment that Gautama Buddha 

reached while sitting under the bodhi tree. The word 

for right (Pali, samma; Sanskrit, samyañc) in each of 

the compounds that are found in the fourth truth can 

be translated as right, proper, or good; the meaning 

becomes clearer when contrasted with its opposite 

(Pali and Sanskrit, papa), which means wrong, bad, or 

even EVIL. 

Buddhaghosa grouped the eightfold path into three 

different stages, as shown in Table 1. According to 

Buddhaghosa, right view means having nirvana as one’s 

goal through eliminating ignorance. One should strive 

to see clearly, always envisioning reaching nirvana in 

one’s mind. Other commentaries have explained that 

right view means understanding the four noble truths. 

Right intention (sometimes translated as right thought) 

involves thinking according to the Buddha’s teachings, 

and always directing one’s intentions and thoughts toward 

nirvana, with keen attention to the proper ways 

of understanding the world. If one has abandoned 

wrong intentions or thoughts, then one knows that one 

is on the way to developing right intention. Some 

commentaries also explain that right intention involves 

the cultivation of maitrl (loving-kindness; Pali, 

metta) toward all other beings. Taken together, Buddhaghosa 

wrote that both right view and right intention 

make up right wisdom, for one is then focused on 

the ultimate goal of the Buddha’s teachings, which is 

nirvana. 

The second group, right ethical conduct (sometimes 

translated as right morality), is more readily understood 

than the first. Right speech means not lying, not 

engaging in gossip, not slandering others, and not 

speaking harshly. Right action involves not killing living 

things, not stealing, and not engaging in sexual 

misconduct. When one practices right livelihood, one 

avoids careers or jobs that harm others. Specifically, 

one should not earn a living by engaging in trading 

weapons, slaughtering animals, dealing in slavery, selling 

alcohol or other intoxicants, or selling poisons. 

When one practices right speech, right action, and 

right livelihood, one lays the proper ethical foundation 

for the other remaining stages of the path. 

The third and last group of the eightfold path, right 

concentration, includes right effort, right MINDFULNESS, 

and right concentration. Each of these limbs of the 

path requires focus and deliberate cultivation of certain 

meditative practices. Right effort means deliberately 

preventing undesirable mental attitudes, such as 

sensual desire, hatred, sluggishness, worry and anxiety, 

and doubt, as well as deliberately letting go of such attitudes 

if they have already arisen. Right effort means 

bringing about and maintaining positive mental attitudes, 

such as the seven factors of enlightenment: 

mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, energy, rapture, 

tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. Right 

mindfulness means cultivating an awareness of one’s 

body, one’s feelings, one’s mind, and of mental objects. 

The development of mindfulness is explained in detail 

in The Foundations of Mindfulness (Pali, Satipatthanasutta); 

it involves simply watching and observing, for 

example, one’s body or mind. Right mindfulness is 

then accompanied by meditative practices of right concentration, 

which enable one to develop “one pointedness 

of mind.” By closing the doors of the senses to the 

outside world, one focuses on one of a variety of objects 

that are designed to enable the practitioner to attain 

specific mental states that lie beyond one’s usual 

daily consciousness. 

Taken as a whole, the four noble truths and the 

eightfold path are emblematic of all of the Buddha’s 

teachings. Because the Buddha is said to have taught 

these in his first sermon, they represent the most fundamental 

teachings of Buddhism. The four noble 

truths are woven throughout all of the Buddhist 

worlds; they appear in countless texts, and the story of 

the Buddha’s enlightenment has been told even in 


297


fourteenth-century Japanese No plays. The eightfold 

path, too, is representative of the path to enlightenment. 

The eight stages of the path are broadly designed 

to take a practitioner from the initial steps of right intention 

and right view—being properly focused on the 

attainment of nirvana—to the more strenuous meditation 

practices that enable one to cultivate awareness 

and insight and one pointedness of mind. 

However, because the four noble truths and the 

eightfold path are construed so broadly, it is difficult 

to talk about them as specific and explicit guides to the 

practices that lead to nirvana. While there are certain 

practices enumerated in the commentaries on the four 

noble truths and the eightfold path, the first talk on 

dharma in which the Buddha lays out the teachings 

contains no specific instructions on how one should 

recognize the truth of the four noble truths and the 

eightfold path. The Buddha himself simply states that 

he knew that he had to know the truth of the four noble 

truths for himself, and that he came to realize the 

truth of the four noble truths. The Buddha then instructs 

his audience to do the same. In short, the four 

noble truths and the eightfold path are illustrative of 

the progressive path toward enlightenment, rather 

than being specific teachings on how one should meditate 

in order to reach enlightenment. 

There are other meditation practices that employ 

the four noble truths and the eightfold path, such as 

the practice of the foundations of mindfulness. In that 

practice, one meditates upon the ways in which mental 

objects such as the four noble truths or the eightfold 

path are constructed in the world, how they come 

to be, and how they pass away. Buddhist texts also offer 

an extensive set of teachings on how to meditate in 

order to reach enlightenment that incorporate the four 

noble truths and the eightfold path as objects of contemplation. 

At the same time, however, there are 

countless references to the significance of the four noble 

truths as a means to fully understand the dharma 

and to fully comprehend the right view that will lead 

one to nirvana. 

The four noble truths are often employed as an organizing 

principle to describe the more detailed and 

complex set of teachings that are the framework for 

more specific meditation practices. As a representation 

of the enlightenment that the Buddha reached, and as 

an illustration of the path that others might follow to 

gain enlightenment, the four noble truths are the most 

significant teaching in all of Buddhism’s varied schools 

and traditions. 

See also: Meditation; Prajña (Wisdom); Pratltyasamutpada 

(Dependent Origination) 

Bibliography 

Anderson, Carol S. Pain and Its Ending: The Four Noble Truths 

in the Theravada Buddhist Canon. Richmond, UK: Curzon, 

1999. 

Bodhi, Bhikkhu. The Noble Eightfold Path: The Way to the End 

of Suffering, 2nd edition. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication 


Bond, George D. The Word of the Buddha: The Tipitaka and Its 

Interpretation in Theravada Buddhism. Colombo, Sri Lanka: 

M. D. Gunasena, 1982. 

Dalai Lama XIV. The Four Noble Truths: Fundamentals of the 

Buddhist Teachings, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, tr. 

Thupten Jinpa, ed. Dominique Side. London: Thoresons, 

1998. 

Griffith, Paul. “Concentration or Insight: The Problematic of 

Thervada Buddhist Meditation-Theory.” Journal of the 

American Academy of Religion 44 (1981): 605–624. 

Matthews, Bruce. Craving and Salvation: A Study in Buddhist 

Soteriology. Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 

1983. 

Norman, K. R. “The Four Noble Truths.” In Collected Papers, 

Vol. 2. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1990–2001. 

Norman, K. R. “Why Are the Four Noble Truths Called Noble?” 

In Collected Papers, Vol. 4. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 

1990–2001. 

Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught, 2nd edition. New 

York: Grove Press, 1974. 

Sumedho, Bhikkhu. The Four Noble Truths. Hertfordshire, UK: 

Amaravati, 1992. 



G 

GANDHA RA. See India; India, Northwest 

GA NDHA RI, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN 

Gandhar, formerly known as Northwestern Prakrit, is 

a Middle Indo-Aryan vernacular of the ancient region 

of Gandhara in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent 

around modern Peshawar in northern Pakistan. 

Gandhar is closely related to its parent language, Sanskrit, 

and to its sister language, Pali. Gandhar was 

written in the Kharosth script, running from right to 

left, unlike all other Indo-Aryan languages that were 

written in Brahm script and its derivatives, which ran 

from left to right. In the early centuries of the common 

era, Gandhar was used as a religious and administrative 

language over a wide area of South and 

Central Asia. 

For many years, Gandhar was attested primarily in 

Buddhist inscriptions, coin legends, and secular documents. 

Only one manuscript of a Buddhist text, the 

Gandharl Dharmapada, discovered near Khotan in 

Chinese Central Asia in 1892, was known. But in the 

1990s, many fragmentary Gandhar manuscripts on 

birch bark and palm leaf came to light. Most of these 

now belong to three major collections: the British 

Library scrolls, the Senior scrolls, and the Schøyen 

fragments. These texts are still being studied and published, 

so that knowledge of Buddhist literature in 

Gandhar is at a preliminary stage. But the texts clearly 

show that, as previously suspected, Gandhar was one 

of the major Buddhist languages, with an extensive literature 

that probably constituted one or more independent 

canons or proto-canons. 

The Gandhar manuscripts date from about the first 

to third centuries C.E. They include the oldest surviving 

manuscript remains of any Buddhist tradition and 

present a unique source for the study of the formation 

of Buddhist literature. Although the circumstances of 

their discoveries are not well documented, most of the 

manuscripts apparently came from Buddhist monastic 

sites in eastern Afghanistan, such as Hadda and 

BAMIYAN, where they were buried in clay pots or other 

containers. 

The twenty-nine British Library scrolls constitute a 

diverse collection of texts and genres written in various 

hands and formats. The most prominent genres 

are legends (AVADANA or pu rvayoga), sutras, scholastic 

and ABHIDHARMA texts, and commentaries on groups 

of verses. The Senior collection, consisting of twentyfour 

scrolls, is more unitary in that all of the manuscripts 

were written by the same scribe and most of 

them are sutras. The Schøyen fragments comprise over 

one hundred small remnants from miscellaneous texts, 

very few of which had been identified as of 2002. 

Gandhar sutras include versions of well-known 

texts such as the Rhinoceros Su tra (Pali, Khaggavisanasutta) 

and the Saṅglti-su tra, both in the British Library 

collection. The same collection also includes a fragment 

of a group of short sutras arranged on a numerical 

basis, like the Aṅguttaranikaya of the Pali canon 

and Ekottarikagama of the Sanskrit canon. Among the 

many sutras in the Senior collection are Gandhar versions 

of the Samaññaphala-sutta, which is part of the 

Dlghanikaya in the Pali canon, and of the Cu lagosiṅgasutta 

of the Pali Majjhimanikaya, as well as several others 

that correspond to Sam yuttanikaya suttas, such as 

the Veludvareyya-sutta and Parilaha-sutta. The Schøyen 

299

G A NDHA RI , BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

collection includes fragments of a Gandhar version of 

the MAHAPARINIRVAN A-SU TRA. 

The Gandhar sutras are broadly similar to the parallel 

texts in Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan, but 

they differ significantly in structure, contents, and 

wording. The same is true of Gandhar versions of 

other canonical or paracanonical texts, such as the 

Dharmapada (Pali, DHAMMAPADA), which is attested 

both in the Khotan Dharmapada scroll and in a small 

fragment in the British Library collection. The paracanonical 

Songs of Lake Anavatapta (Anavataptagatha) 

is similarly preserved in two fragmentary scrolls 

in the British Library and Senior collections. 

But the majority of the Gandhar texts have no 

known parallels in other Buddhist traditions, and 

many of them are evidently peculiar to the Gandharan 

regional tradition. For example, several of the British 

Library avadanas are marked as local literature by references 

to historical figures of Gandhara, such as the 

Great Satrap Jihonika. Such references provide important 

clues for the dating of these texts in or around the 

first century C.E. In general, the Gandhar avadanas 

and pu rvayogas are characterized by an extremely terse 

style, indicating that they are summaries of longer stories, 

designed to serve as mnemonic aids for expanded 

oral presentations. This makes them difficult to interpret 

when no parallels are available. 

The abhidharma and other scholastic texts in the 

British Library and Schøyen collections also have few, 

if any, direct parallels, and thus appear to be products 

of local monastic scholarship that were not preserved 

in the Buddhist literatures of other regions. Prominent 

in the British Library collection are commentaries on 

series of verses of the type that in other Buddhist literatures 

are found in texts such as the Sutta-nipata, 

Dhammapada, and Theragatha. But the selection and 

ordering of these verses is peculiar to these texts, and 

as yet is not clearly understood. 

The doctrinal content of the Gandhar Buddhist literature 

is consistently representative of mainstream or 

HINAYANA Buddhism. With a few possible exceptions 

among the Schøyen fragments, which represent a 

slightly later phase of Gandhar literature, they contain 

no reference to MAHAYANA texts or ideas. Although 

it is difficult to identify specific sectarian 

affiliations for many of the Gandhar texts, at least 

some of the British Library scrolls probably represent 

the literature of the DHARMAGUPTAKA school, since 

they were found inside a pot that bore a dedicatory 

inscription to that school. A Dharmaguptaka affiliation 

is also supported by the British Library Saṅgltisu 

tra, which is similar to the version of the same sutra 

preserved in the Chinese Dlrghagama (Chang ahan 

jing), which is probably a Dharmaguptaka collection. 

The discovery of extensive remains of a Buddhist literature 

in Gandhar, hitherto almost entirely unknown, 

provides support for the long-standing “Gandhar 

hypothesis,” according to which many of the earliest 

Chinese Buddhist translations were derived from 

Gandharan archetypes. This confirms that Gandhara 

was the principal jumping-off point for the spread of 

Buddhism from its Indian homeland into Central Asia 

and China. 

See also: India, Northwest; Mainstream Buddhist 

Schools; Pali, Buddhist Literature in; Sanskrit, Buddhist 

Literature in 

Bibliography 

Allon, Mark. Three Gandharl Ekottarikagama-Type Su tras: 

British Library Fragments 12 and 14. Seattle: University of 


Allon, Mark, and Salomon, Richard. “Kharosth Fragments of 

a Gandhar Version of the Mahaparinirvanasutra.” In Buddhist 

Manuscripts, vol. 1, ed. Jens Braarvig. Oslo, Norway: 

Hermes, 2000. 

Boucher, Daniel. “Gandhar and the Early Chinese Buddhist 

Translations Reconsidered: The Case of the Saddharmapundarlkasu 

tra.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 

118, no. 4 (1998): 471–506. 

Brough, John, ed. The Gandharl Dharmapada. London: Oxford 


Fussman, Gérard. “Gandhar écrite, Gandhar parlée.” In Dialectes 

dans les littératures indo-aryennes, ed. Colette Caillat. 

Paris: Collège de France, l’Institut de Civilisation Indienne, 

1989. 

Konow, Sten, ed. Kharoshthl Inscriptions, with the Exception of 

Those of Aśoka, Vol. 2, part 1: Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. 

Calcutta: Government of India, 1929. 

Lenz, Timothy. A New Version of the Gandharl Dharmapada and 

a Collection of Previous-Birth Stories: British Library 

Kharosthl Fragments 16 and 25. Seattle: University of Washington 

Press, 2002. 

Salomon, Richard. “Kharosth Manuscript Fragments in the 

Pelliot Collection, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.” Bulletin 

d’Études Indiennes 16 (1998): 123–160. 


British Library Kharosthl Fragments. London: British Library; 

Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999. 


G AVA M PATI 

Salomon, Richard. A Gandharl Version of the Rhinoceros Su tra: 

British Library Kharosthl Fragment 5B. Seattle: University of 


GANJIN 

RICHARD SALOMON 

Ganjin (Chinese, Jianzhen; 688–763) was a Chinese 

monk who played a major role in the establishment of 

Buddhism in Japan. In 742 Ganjin accepted an invitation 

from two Japanese emissaries to introduce orthodox 

ORDINATION rituals to Japan. At that time a 

legitimate order of monks (SAṄGHA) did not yet exist 

in Japan and proper ceremonies to establish an order 

could not be conducted since Japan lacked the quorum 

of ten senior bhiksu (fully ordained monks) to 

preside over the ordination ceremony as required by 

VINAYA regulations. 

During a twelve-year ordeal, Ganjin and his followers 

endured five shipwrecks, which cost Ganjin his 

eyesight and took the lives of thirty-six of his disciples, 

before they finally arrived in Japan in 754 on their sixth 

attempt to cross the sea. Once in Japan, Ganjin constructed 

an ordination platform at Todaiji temple in 

the capital city of Nara and founded a new monastery, 

the Toshodaiji, to serve as a center for the study of 

VINAYA doctrines. In 754 alone Ganjin and his Chinese 

compatriots ordained more than four hundred new 

Japanese bhiksu. Today, Ganjin is still revered as the 

founding patriarch of Japan’s Vinaya school (Risshu), 

which adheres to the commentaries on vinaya by 

DAOXUAN (596–667). In addition to establishing 

Japan’s first properly constituted saṅgha, Ganjin also 

introduced Chinese medical knowledge, Chinese calligraphy, 

and the texts and doctrines of the TIANTAI 

SCHOOL (Japanese, Tendai) of Buddhism. His biography, 

the To daiwajo to sei den (Biography of the Great 

Master of Tang China Who Journeyed to the East; 779) 

by Genkai (O mi no Mifune, 722–785), is one of the 

early classics of Japanese Buddhist literature. 

Bibliography 

Tamura, Kwansei. “Ganjin (Chien-Chen): Transmitter of Buddhist 

Precepts to Japan.” Young East (Tokyo) 6, no. 4 (1980): 

4–6. 


GAVA M PATI 

Gavam pati (Pali, Gavampati) is a disciple of the Buddha, 

one of the first ten to be ordained and to have 

known the state of ARHAT. His name means “guardian 

of the cows” or “bull.” Gavam pati is mentioned first 

of all in the VINAYA or monastic codes of the various 

schools. These sources report on Gavam pati’s appearance 

after the ordination of Yaśa, an early convert, 

whose example Gavam pati seeks to emulate. Gavam 

pati is introduced as a friend of Yaśa’s; like Yaśa, 

Gavam pati comes from a rich Varanas family. The 

episode, described precisely in the Pali Vinaya, is also 

evoked, with few differences, in Sanskrit texts 

(Saṅghabhedavastu [Section on the Schism in the Community], 

Catusparisat-su tra [Su tra on the (Establishment 

of the) Fourfold Assembly]) and in their Chinese 

translations. 

The Theragatha (v. 38) mentions Gavam pati’s 

supranormal powers and calls him a man of great wisdom 

“who has surpassed all attachments and reached 

the far shore of existence” (Norman, p. 5). His mythical 

nature is explained in the text’s commentary 

(Theragatha-atthakatha): During three prior lives, 

Gavam pati accumulated merits that allowed him, in a 

fourth life, to live in a heavenly realm, where he resides 

in a sumptuous house, the Serssakavimana 

(Palace of Acacias). In his fifth life, in Gautama’s time, 

Gavam pati saved a group of monks by stopping a 

river’s flood waters so that the waters remained standing 

in the air, like a mountain. Echoing this theme, the 

Vinaya of both the Mahśasakas and the Dharmaguptakas 

shows how Gavam pati helped the Buddha and 

his retinue cross the Ganges on their way to Kuśinagara. 

Finally, both the Payasi-su tra and the Dhammapada-atthakatha 

(Commentary on the Word of the 

Doctrine) emphasize that Gavampati resides, in a timeless 

fashion, in the Palace of Acacias. 

Gavam pati’s unusual personality is even more obvious 

in the texts of north Asian schools. Jean Przyluski 

showed how Tibetan and Chinese texts glorify 

Gavam pati at the moment of his parinirvana. 

Gavam pati was summoned to the Rajagrha Council after 

the Buddha’s death. A young monk came to his celestial 

palace to invite him, but Gavam pati immediately 

understood that the Buddha had passed away, and decided 

that he, too, would accomplish his parinirvana. 

Then, he performed a series of wonders: He sprang 

into space; his body started to radiate water and fire; 


301

G ELUK 

his hands touched the sun and the moon; and, finally, 

his body wasted away while the river of his waters 

reached the land of men, and Rajagrha, putting an end 

to the dry season. 

Przyluski considered this story to be the expression 

of a pre-Buddhist myth that belongs more to the Asia 

of monsoons than to Indo-European stock. He proposed 

the hypothesis that Gavam pati was the incarnation 

of dry winds chasing the waters away, and that his 

parinirvana could be interpreted as a bull-sacrifice that 

brought the drought to an end. Some scholars have 

criticized this thesis. Nevertheless, there remain textual 

facts that are disconnected from any known cult in Indian 

Buddhism or in the MAHAYANA tradition and that 

feature Gavam pati’s strange powers over water. 

Within the context of Southeastern Asian Buddhism, 

Gavam pati has become a preeminent character 

because his textual dimension is enhanced by his 

ritual dimension. The Sanskrit text of the Mahakarmavibhaṅga 

states that “The saint, Gavam pati, converted 

people in . . . the Golden Land [Suvarnabhumi],” a region 

identified with Lower Burma (Myanmar) or with 

the central plain of Thailand. The Sasanavam sa, a 

late historical chronicle, tells more specifically that 

Gavam pati was the first to preach the Buddha’s doctrine 

in the Mon kingdom of Thaton. Ancient Mon inscriptions 

confirm this legend, and one of them points 

out that Gavam pati founded Śr Ksetra, the ancient 

capital city of the Pyus. Some Pagan inscriptions add 

that a cult, which probably disappeared around the 

fourteenth century, developed around his images. According 

to Gordon H. Luce, the limited number of 

statuettes of the “Fat Monk” found at Pagan are indeed 

those of Gavam pati. Such images are today innumerable 

in Thailand, where they are called Kachai, 

Mahakachai, or Sangkachai when they represent the fat 

monk seated in meditative fashion, and Phagawam 

when they show him covering his eyes or other bodily 

orifices. These images are venerated for their protective 

virtues and for the symbol of renunciation of the 

senses they express. 

Therefore, it is mostly in Thailand, but also in Laos, 

Cambodia, and in the Shan states, that the Mon cult 

of Gavam pati has survived. Several local texts in Pali, 

Thai, and Lao (such as Gavampati-sutta, Gavampatinibbana, 

or Kaccayananibbana) tell the story of a 

monk who resembled too closely the Buddha and so 

was often confused with him. He therefore decided to 

transform himself into a shapeless being and to take 

on another name, Gavam pati. This tradition was then 

extended to another disciple, Mahakaccayana. 

See also: Disciples of the Buddha; Folk Religion, 


Bibliography 

Lagirarde, François. “Gavampati et la tradition des quatrevingts 

disciples du Bouddha: textes et iconographie du Laos 

et de Thaïlande.” Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême- 

Orient 87, no. 1 (2000): 57–78. 

Luce, Gordon H. Old Burma-Early Pagan. Locust Valley, NY: J. 

J. Augustin, 1969. 

Norman, K. R., ed. and trans. The Elders’ Verses, Vol. 1. London: 


Przyluski, Jean. Le concile de Rajagrha: Introduction à l’histoire 

des canons et des sectes bouddhiques. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 

1928. 

Shorto, H. L. “The Gavampati Tradition in Burma.” In R.C. 

Majumdar Felicitation Volume, ed. Himansu Bhusan Sarkar. 

Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1970. 

GELUK. See Dge lugs (Geluk) 

GENDER 

FRANÇOIS LAGIRARDE 

Buddhist perspectives on gender are multiple, diverse, 

and often contradictory, varying widely over time and 

space. This entry will first focus on early or mainstream 

Buddhism in India (especially as represented by the 

Pali canon), and then discuss views of gender particular 

to MAHAYANA and TANTRA. Emphasis throughout 

will be on the ideology of gender expressed through 

Buddhist textual discourse rather than the actual status 

of Buddhist men and women historically. 

Gender in early Buddhism 

According to an important Buddhist cosmogonical 

myth found in the Pali Agañña-sutta (Knowing the Beginning), 

the ideal “Golden Age” that initiates each cycle 

of world creation is characterized by ethereal 

human beings who are identical, sexless, and androgynous. 

It is only when they become greedy for food 

that sexual differentiation into male and female genders 

occurs, quickly leading to further moral decline 

in the form of passion, lust, and jealousy. Gender dis- 


G ENDER 

tinctions thus constitute a fallen and imperfect condition 

and are a sign of humanity’s moral decline. A necessary 

corollary of this is that as individual beings 

perfect themselves by following the Buddhist PATH, 

they return, to some extent, to this genderless ideal. 

Since sexual differentiation brought about passion and 

lust, it follows that those who eradicate passion and 

lust would reverse the process of differentiation. Symbolically, 

this is suggested by the androgynous behavior 

and appearance of Buddhist MONKS and NUNS, with 

their shaved heads, baggy robes, and identical forms of 

practice. Doctrinally, it is reinforced by early Buddhism’s 

frequent insistence on the irrelevance of gender 

in spiritual matters and the equal ability of men 

and women to attain liberation. Women are repeatedly 

described as being fully capable of attaining NIR- 

VAN A (as well as other spiritual goals), and there are 

many examples of highly accomplished women 

throughout the early literature. The Buddha’s direct 

disciples included many arhatls (female ARHATs) who 

were highly esteemed for their moral discipline, meditation, 

and learning. The liberation of a woman is 

identical to the liberation of a man, as are the qualities 

that lead to it. 

This tendency toward androgyny and gender equality 

in matters of the dharma must be balanced, however, 

against a range of conflicting views equally well 

represented in early Buddhist literature. Despite the 

idealization and symbolic appropriation of the androgyny 

of the Golden Age, for example, it appears 

that once gender distinctions have developed, they 

must be observed and maintained. This is apparent in 

the way early Buddhist texts describe the Buddhist 

community as a “fourfold community” consisting of 

“monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen,” with the distinction 

by gender being considered just as fundamental 

as the distinction between monastics and LAITY. 

This sense of the separation and complementarity of 

the two genders is pervasive throughout early Buddhist 

literature: There is an order of monks and an order of 

nuns, the Buddha has two chief male disciples and two 

chief female disciples, and the lives of men and women 

are treated separately in complementary texts such 

as the Theragatha (Verses of the Elder Monks) and 

Therlgatha (Verses of the Elder Nuns). Real, rather than 

symbolic, gender ambiguity is problematic and cannot 

be tolerated. In fact, proper male or female gender 

had to be officially confirmed at the time of 

ORDINATION, and people of ambiguous gender of various 

types were barred from entering the SAṄGHA. 

Distinction between the genders is further reinforced 

by a consistent hierarchy in which male gender 

is made superior to female gender. The higher status 

of men over women is again pervasive throughout 

early Buddhist literature. Thus, the order of nuns is 

subordinate to the order of monks, seniority for nuns 

is calculated separately from and is lower than seniority 

for monks, and giving alms to a nun results in less 

merit for the donor than giving alms to a monk (a belief 

that has adversely affected the order of nuns 

throughout history). Moreover, this inferiority of 

women is not merely a matter of social convention, 

but is, in fact, karmically significant. Male or female 

gender is determined at the time of conception by one’s 

KARMA (ACTION), with male gender being an indication 

of better karma than female gender. In cases of 

spontaneous sex change (several of which are attested 

in the Pali Vinaya), the change from male into female 

is the result of a powerful evil deed, while the change 

from female into male is the result of a powerful good 

deed. The same is true of sexual transformations that 

occur through REBIRTH: In Buddhist stories, women 

sometimes aspire to be reborn as men (and succeed in 

doing so by performing good deeds), whereas men 

never aspire to be reborn as women (but occasionally 

are as a result of bad deeds). 

Early Buddhist views of female gender are further 

affected by the demands of male celibacy. Because of 

the threat women pose to this celibacy, there is often 

a tendency in these male-authored texts to associate female 

gender with sexuality and lust, and to demonize 

women as immoral and dangerous temptresses out to 

divert male renunciants from the path. Women are described 

as being “wholly the snares of MARA,” and are 

said to be driven by uncontrollable lust and “never 

sated with sexual intercourse and childbirth.” The impurity 

of the female body is also emphasized, and female 

biological processes such as menstruation are 

depicted as being filthy and polluting. Alternatively, 

women (especially virtuous Buddhist laywomen) are 

sometimes highly idealized as nurturing wives and 

mothers or celebrated for their feminine beauty and 

fertility. But whether idealized as madonnas or demonized 

as whores, such persistent gender stereotypes 

tend to weaken the tradition’s clear statements of gender 

equality in matters of the dharma. 

It is also true that beyond the status of arhatship, 

early Buddhist texts are more ambivalent about 

women’s spiritual capabilities. In many texts, we find 

a list of the woman’s “five hindrances” or those 


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G ENDER 

positions in the cosmos that are unavailable to her as 

a woman—including the position of buddhahood. 

Thus, BUDDHAS in the early tradition are never female, 

a view most likely due to the well-established notion 

that a buddha’s body is characterized by the thirty-two 

marks of the “Great Man,” including the mark of having 

the penis encased in a sheath. Even becoming a 

BODHISATTVA was an impossibility for a woman (at 

least according to the Pali sources) because one of the 

five requirements for making the bodhisattva vow was 

male gender. Nevertheless, since these sources envision 

both bodhisattvahood and buddhahood as exceedingly 

rare anyway and perceive arhatship as the only viable 

goal, this limitation has perhaps been less significant 

in practice than the unequivocal endorsement of 

women’s ability to attain nirvana. 

Overall, then, early Buddhist attitudes toward 

women and gender take a variety of different forms, 

some of which Alan Sponberg (1992) has usefully 

characterized as “soteriological inclusiveness,” “institutional 

androcentrism,” and “ascetic misogyny.” In 

the present-day THERAVADA cultures of Southeast 

Asia, many of these views persist, but are also affected 

by modern developments, such as the greatly increased 

role of the laity and the global movement for 

women’s rights. 

Gender in Maha ya na Buddhism 

All of the views on gender described above for early 

Buddhism, including the most misogynistic, continue 

to be found in the Mahayana traditions. Nevertheless, 

the advent of Mahayana also heralds some new notions 

of gender and significant adaptations of earlier ideas. 

In general, it is often said that female gender is revalorized 

to some degree in Mahayana thought. This may 

(or may not) be true, but one should be careful to draw 

a distinction between symbolic representation and historical 

reality. The revalorization of female gender 

symbolically does not necessarily imply a better status 

for women in Buddhism historically. There is no evidence, 

for example, that the position of women within 

Indian Mahayana was any better than in the mainstream 

tradition. 

In the Mahayana tradition, the earlier religious goal 

of becoming an arhat was replaced by the new religious 

goal of becoming a bodhisattva (and eventually a 

buddha)—something every Mahayanist should do. 

Thus, the bodhisattva path was open to both men and 

women equally, and Mahayana texts are often noted 

for their use of gender-inclusive language, frequently 

addressing themselves to those “good sons” and “good 

daughters” who adhere to the Mahayana teaching. Mahayana 

literature is also full of positive portrayals of 

women, who function not merely as “good daughters,” 

but even as advanced spiritual teachers to men and 

full-fledged female bodhisattvas. Mahayana texts are 

not consistent, however, about what level of bodhisattvahood 

a woman can attain without first becoming 

a man. Some of the most restrictive texts claim 

that as soon as a woman becomes a bodhisattva, she 

will never be reborn as a female again. Other texts, 

however, claim that bodhisattvas of quite an advanced 

degree can be female, though they ultimately must become 

male. Nevertheless, we also find in the Mahayana 

tradition the depiction of female bodhisattvas of the 

very highest order, such as Tara in India and Tibet and 

Guanyin in China, both of whom developed into major 

objects of worship and cult. 

Further complicating this matter is the narrative 

theme of sexual transformation found in many 

Mahayana texts, such as the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN DARIKA-SUTRA) and Vimalaklrtinirdeśasu 

tra (Discourse on the Teaching of Vimalaklrti). In 

episodes that make use of this theme, a woman is depicted 

as being an advanced bodhisattva who has attained 

the highest wisdom and understands the true 

nature of reality. Despite these obvious capabilities, she 

is challenged in some way by a man, who expresses 

doubts about the spiritual abilities of women, often 

asserting the idea that a woman cannot attain buddhahood. 

The woman then refutes this idea by instantaneously 

changing her sex and becoming a man 

(sometimes a fully enlightened buddha). These 

episodes of sexual transformation have been interpreted 

in a number of different ways. Most simply, they 

can be seen as Mahayana attempts to refute the traditional 

idea that a woman could not attain buddhahood 

or advanced bodhisattvahood within the present life. 

Such episodes suggest that women can, in fact, attain 

these states, yet they also depict these women transforming 

themselves into men, thus ultimately holding 

to the technical requirement of a male body. Alternatively, 

however, these episodes can also be interpreted 

in light of the Mahayana philosophical notion of ŚU NY- 

ATA (EMPTINESS). Mahayana philosophy maintains that 

all phenomena are “empty” of any inherent selfexistence, 

and all conceptual distinctions are thus relative 

in nature and not ultimately real—including 

distinctions of gender. “Male” and “female” are nothing 

more than conventional categories, and for one 

who does not cling to such categories, they are as fluid 

and malleable as a magical creation. In this interpre- 


G ENDER 

tation, then, the sexual transformation is not to be 

perceived as a necessary step or prerequisite for buddhahood, 

but rather, as a teaching device—a playful 

performance by means of which the female bodhisattva 

demonstrates to her male challenger the essencelessness 

of all dharmas. This interpretation is supported 

by the fact that the sexual transformation is often accompanied 

by statements asserting the truth of emptiness 

and the ultimate irrelevance of all gender 

distinctions. It is also compromised, however, by the 

fact that it is always women who transform themselves 

into men (not vice versa), and that most of these transformations 

appear to be real and permanent. Episodes 

involving the theme of sexual transformation thus ultimately 

remain ambiguous. Nevertheless, they do at 

least demonstrate that the Mahayana’s insistence on 

emptiness and the relative nature of all distinctions was 

explicitly and frequently applied to gender. Similar 

ideas are also found in schools that derive from the 

Mahayana; in the CHAN SCHOOL, for example, the irrelevance 

of gender in light of all beings’ possession of 

buddha-nature is a common theme. 

In addition to the positive portrayal of female characters, 

Mahayana thought also revalorizes feminine 

gender on the symbolic level by identifying prajñaparamita 

or the “perfection of wisdom” as a female goddess. 

The goddess Prajñaparamita is worshiped and 

praised as the “mother of all buddhas” (since it is she 

who “gives birth” to buddhahood) and she is frequently 

represented in Pala-period Buddhist art. Since 

prajña is a feminine noun, wisdom itself is also seen as 

a feminine quality and is often paired with a masculine 

quality equally necessary for the attainment of 

buddhahood—compassionate skillful means or UPAYA 

(a masculine noun). The attainment of buddhahood is 

then envisioned symbolically as the union of male and 

female forces, whose complementarity and interdependence 

are emphasized. This type of gender symbolism 

becomes significantly more pronounced, 

however, with the advent of tantra. 

Gender in tantric Buddhism 

Tantric or VAJRAYANA Buddhism represents a stark departure 

from both the mainstream and Mahayana traditions 

in its emphasis on the category of gender. 

Gender, in fact, becomes absolutely central: Whereas 

other forms of Buddhism may have certain attitudes 

about gender, tantric thought is inseparable from its 

gender ideology. This makes it difficult to isolate the 

discussion of gender from a more thorough consideration 

of tantric philosophy and practice. Nevertheless, 

this discussion will limit itself to a consideration of 

gender symbolism, female roles, and male attitudes 

toward women characteristic of the tantric tradition. 

The gender symbolism involving the union of male 

and female qualities to produce the ultimate goal of 

enlightenment (noted above for Mahayana thought) 

comes to full force and becomes explicitly sexual in 

tantric Buddhism, especially in the highest and most 

esoteric class of tantras, the Anuttarayoga Tantras 

(Highest Yoga Tantras). These texts are pervaded by a 

sexual symbolism in which the female (often symbolized 

as a lotus) stands for prajña or wisdom, the male 

(often symbolized as a vajra or thunderbolt) stands for 

upaya or skillful means, and male-female sexual union 

stands for the joining of wisdom and means in the great 

bliss of perfect enlightenment. In tantric art, this is often 

symbolized by depicting buddhas and bodhisattvas 

in sexual union with female consorts. In Tibet, where 

they were to become very popular, these depictions are 

known as yab-yum or “father-mother” images. The 

same symbolism is also physically enacted through a 

highly esoteric form of yoga involving ritualized sexual 

intercourse between male and female lay tantric 

practitioners, who together strive to produce the great 

bliss of perfect enlightenment within their own bodies. 

Even monastic tantric practitioners bound by the 

vow of celibacy engage in this sexual yoga—although 

in their case, the union takes place within the meditator’s 

own mind. The symbolism of sexual union is thus 

basic to tantric ideology and practice. 

Within this sexual symbolism, it is the polarity, 

complementarity, and interdependence of the two genders 

that is emphasized. Buddhahood is envisioned as 

a perfect integration of male and female qualities, 

which join together seamlessly yet retain their distinctive 

natures. Philosophically, the union of male and 

female also stands for the overcoming of all dualistic 

thinking (including distinctions of gender) and the attainment 

of an enlightened perspective of emptiness. 

At the same time, however, female gender alone is 

sometimes explicitly privileged. Thus, for the first time 

in the Buddhist tradition, we see the depiction of true 

female buddhas such as Vajrayogin, sometimes in 

consort with male partners but often alone, as well as 

other divine and powerful female figures such as goddesses, 

yoginls, and D A KINIS. Such images were made 

the object of complex visualization and meditation 

practices, as well as worship and cult. 

The dramatic revalorization of female gender that 

is characteristic of tantric symbolism also applies to 

men’s and women’s roles as depicted in tantric texts. 


305

G ENDER 

Perhaps the most striking aspect of higher tantric practice 

is the prevalence of women’s participation, particularly 

in connection with the sexual yoga mentioned 

earlier. In tantric literature, women are often depicted 

as accomplished tantric practitioners and the teachers 

and founders of specific tantric techniques. Exemplary 

women such as Princess Laksmṅkara in India or Ye 

shes mtsho rgyal in Tibet are remembered and eulogized 

as respected tantric gurus, while the life stories 

of many of the most important male “founders” of 

tantric Buddhism mention female teachers and consorts. 

Male practitioners are repeatedly instructed to 

serve and worship their female consorts as goddesses 

and to see all human women as divine. Moreover, 

women are often depicted as reservoirs of spontaneous 

and enlightened wisdom, which is contrasted with the 

stale intellectualism of men. A constant theme in 

tantric biographies, in fact, is that of the male practitioner 

who is stuck in habitual patterns of thought and 

behavior until spurred on to a new realization through 

his encounter with a wise and enlightened woman (often 

described as a dakin or “sky-going” goddess). 

Exactly how this dramatic revalorization of female 

gender on both the symbolic and literary levels relates 

to the actual status of women in tantric communities 

historically is open to considerable debate. While it is 

clear in the case of India that some historical women, 

such as Princess Laksmṅkara, must have attained positions 

of great prominence, the status of ordinary female 

practitioners is far less certain. Female gender is 

indeed valorized in tantric literature, but perhaps this 

valorization is largely for the benefit of men. One could 

argue, in fact, that the constant attention paid to 

women merely demonstrates that the vast majority of 

tantric texts assume the perspective of a male subject. 

Likewise, though wise and enlightened women often 

appear in tantric biographies, the biographies themselves 

are overwhelmingly about men, while many of 

the women are ethereal dakinls encountered in dreams 

and visions who seem to lack the historical specificity 

of the men. Finally, it is also important to place the 

revalorization of female gender within the larger context 

of tantric Buddhism’s use of transgressive sacrality. 

One of the basic principles of higher tantric 

practice is to overcome all dualistic thinking through 

the intentional violation of societal taboos and the 

breaking of social conventions (such as we see in the 

practices of sexual intercourse, meat eating, and liquor 

drinking). From this perspective, the valorization of 

women (often low-caste women) as pure and goddesslike 

is effective precisely because it overturns the conventional 

assumption that women are inferior and impure. 

Thus, it may be the case that women, no matter 

how glorified, function more as a symbolic resource 

for men than as independent agents and subjects. 

In any case, it is not at all clear that the tantric valorization 

of female gender has had any discernible 

effect on the general status of women in tantricinfluenced 

cultures, such as that of Tibet. Nevertheless, 

this does not mean that women themselves cannot 

make use of tantric gender symbolism in new ways, 

and this is indeed a recent trend among modern female 

practitioners, particularly in Euro-American 

Buddhism in the West. 

See also: Body, Perspectives on the; Mainstream Buddhist 

Schools; Sexuality; Women 

Bibliography 

Blackstone, Kathryn R. Women in the Footsteps of the Buddha: 

Struggle for Liberation in the Therlgatha. Richmond, UK: 

Curzon, 1998. 



Harvey, Peter. “Sexual Equality.” In An Introduction to Buddhist 

Ethics: Foundations, Values, and Issues. Cambridge, UK: 


Klein, Anne Carolyn. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, 

Feminists, and the Art of the Self. Boston: Beacon, 1995. 

Lang, Karen Christina. “Lord Death’s Snare: Gender-Related 

Imagery in the Theragatha and the Therlgatha.” Journal of 

Feminist Studies in Religion 11, no. 2 (1986): 63–79. 

Paul, Diana. Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in the 

Mahayana Tradition, 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of 


Schuster, Nancy. “Changing the Female Body: Wise Women 

and the Bodhisattva Career in Some Maharatnakutasutras.” 

Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 4, 

no. 1 (1981): 24–69. 

Sponberg, Alan. “Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine 

in Early Buddhism.” In Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. 

José Ignacio Cabezón. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1992. 

Tsomo, Karma Lekshe, ed. Buddhist Women across Cultures: Realizations. 


Wilson, Liz. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine 

in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature. Chicago: 

University of Chicago Press, 1996. 

Yuichi, Kajiyama. “Women in Buddhism.” Eastern Buddhist 15, 

no. 2 (1982): 53–70. 

REIKO OHNUMA 


G HOST 

F ESTIVAL 

GENSHIN 

Genshin (Eshin So zu, 942–1017) was a Japanese 

Tendai Buddhist master who is best known for his 

teachings on PURE LAND BUDDHISM. Genshin helped 

popularize the deathbed nenbutsu ritual, in which the 

dying believer has a vision of Amida (AMITABHA) 

Buddha and his retinue coming to usher the person 

into the Pure Land paradise. Genshin’s most famous 

work, O jo yo shu (Collection of Essentials on Birth in the 

Pure Land), left an indelible mark on the thought and 

practice of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, influencing 

later masters such as HO NEN (1133–1212) and 

SHINRAN (1173–1262). 

Though Genshin is remembered principally for the 

O jo yo shu , he was also a proponent of mainstream 

Tendai beliefs, particularly in his later years. He compiled 

an important work on the Tendai doctrine of 

universal enlightenment found in the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), and he organized the 

Shakako, a religious association that constantly tended 

the icon of Śakyamuni Buddha in Ryozen’in hall at 

Yokawa on Mount Hiei. Thus, Genshin’s Pure Land 

teachings, though largely separated nowadays from 

their original context, were simply part of Mount 

Hiei’s Tendai culture during his period. 

The O jo yo shu is a compendium of quotations from 

scriptures, commentaries, and treatises on all aspects 

of Pure Land belief and practice. It may not have had 

an extensive readership in Genshin’s lifetime, but became 

widely known in subsequent centuries. Thematically, 

it focuses on the nenbutsu, the practice of 

contemplating Amida Buddha, particularly in meditative 

visualization, and of invoking his name as a verbal 

chant. Overall, the O jo yo shu presents visualization of 

the Buddha and his resplendent world as the superior 

practice for birth in the Pure Land. But it also recommends 

vocal invocation of his name as an important 

practice for those incapable of meditation. 

Among the practices outlined in the O jo yo shu , and 

also developed by the Nijugo zammaie (Twenty-five 

Member Meditation Society) on Mount Hiei, was the 

deathbed nenbutsu ritual. It was based on passages in 

the Pure Land scriptures indicating that Amida Buddha 

and his retinue would come to meet believers 

(raigo ) on their deathbed to usher them into the Pure 

Land. There thus developed the practice of sequestering 

the dying, surrounding them with spiritual friends, 

erecting an image of Amida before them, urging them 

to chant the nenbutsu, keeping their mind undistracted 

and focused on the next life, and thereby assisting them 

in a final vision of the Buddha coming to greet them 

at death. This ritual gradually spread and became especially 

popular among Kyoto aristocrats, though later 

PURE LAND SCHOOLS did not all adopt it. 

Genshin’s lasting influence is reflected in the fact 

that one of Mount Hiei’s two dominant doctrinal lineages, 

the Eshinryu, traced its beginnings to him. 

See also: Japan; Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, 

Yŏmbul) 

Bibliography 

Andrews, Allan A. The Teachings Essential for Rebirth: A Study 

of Genshin’s O jo yo shu . Tokyo: Sophia University, 1973. 

Dobbins, James C. “Genshin’s Deathbed Nembutsu Ritual in 

Pure Land Buddhism.” In Religions of Japan in Practice, ed. 

George J. Tanabe, Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1999. 

Horton, Sarah Johanna. “The Role of Genshin and Religious 

Associations in the Mid-Heian Spread of Pure Land Buddhism.” 

Ph.D. diss. Yale University, 2001. 

Reischauer, August Karl. “Genshin’s O joyoshu: Collected Essays 

on Birth into Paradise.” Transactions of the Asiatic Society 

of Japan, second series 7 (1930): 16–97. 

GHOST FESTIVAL 


The Ghost Festival is the Buddhist-inspired festival 

held throughout China and East Asia on the full moon 

(fifteenth day) of the seventh lunar month. In modern 

China it is known as the Ghost Festival (guijie) or Rite 

of Universal Salvation (pudu). Older sources describe 

it as the Yulanpen Festival; various Sanskrit etymologies 

have been provided for the term yulanpen, which 

refers to “the bowl” (pen) in which food offerings are 

placed for bringing aid to the ancestors suffering the 

fate of “hanging upside-down” (yulan) in purgatory. 

In Japan the festival is known as urabon (the Japanese 

pronunciation of yulanpen) or more colloquially as 

Obon, the Bon festival, while in Korea it is called 

manghon il, “Lost Souls’ Day.” 

Most of the components of the festival were known 

in early Indian Buddhism, but it was only in China that 

they coalesced into a single mythological and ritual 

unit. Indian saṅghas observed a rain retreat that ended 

with a monastic ritual in the middle of the seventh 


307

G HOST 

F ESTIVAL 

Japanese Americans light candles during Obon, the Ghost Festival commemorating the ancestors, at Senshin Buddhist Temple, Los Angeles, 

1991. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

month. In India monks and laypeople engaged in a 

cycle of exchange, laypeople providing food, clothing, 

and other necessities to the professionally religious, 

who in turn supplied instruction and the 

chance of improving one’s REBIRTH. ANCESTORS and 

filial piety were always important parts of Indian religion, 

and one of the DISCIPLES OF THE BUDDHA, 

MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, was well known throughout 

Buddhism for his abilities to travel to heaven and hell. 

Uniting all these elements, the Ghost Festival was 

celebrated in China as early as the fifth or sixth century. 

By that time canonical scriptures, probably composed 

in China, provided a Buddhist rationale for the 

practice. According to the Yulanpen jing (Yulanpensu 

tra), Mahamaudgalyayana searches the cosmos for 

his mother. He finds her reborn in hell for her evil 

deeds, but is unable to release her from torment. He 

appeals to the Buddha, who founds the Yulanpen 

Festival and decrees that all children can bring salvation 

to their parents by making offerings to monks 

on the full moon of the seventh lunar month. In practice 

the festival was part of the cycle of holy days, 

Buddhist and non-Buddhist, linked to the lunar calendar. 

With laypeople flocking to monasteries on behalf 

of their ancestors, the ritual was one of the 

highlights of the religious year, a kind of Buddhist 

mirror to the New Year, held six months earlier. The 

story of Mahamaudgalyayana proved that one could 

be both a monk—one who renounces family and 

leaves home—and a son who fulfills his obligations to 

his ancestors. Tang-dynasty (618–907) commentaries 

on the Yulanpen-su tra emphasize the importance of 

filial piety (xiao), the central ideal of the Chinese kinship 

system. Thus, the festival symbolized the accommodation 

between monasticism and lay life. 

In later centuries the Ghost Festival moved 

increasingly out of the Buddhist sphere and into 

other domains of Chinese social life. The legend of 


G HOSTS AND S PIRITS 

Mahamaudgalyayana (Mulian in Chinese) was retold 

in popular entertainments and enacted in a wide range 

of operas sung in local dialects. Storytellers and artists 

were especially interested in his tours of the various 

compartments of hell and in his mother’s misdeeds. 

Focusing on a boy’s devotion to his mother, the myth 

was part of the emerging Buddhist discourse about 

GENDER, female pollution, and the special forms of salvation 

required for women. The Daoist religion developed 

its own analogue to the festival, celebrated on the 

same day, in which offerings to the Daoist deity known 

as “Middle Primordial” (Zhongyuan) brought salvation 

to the ancestors. The mythology of Mulian became 

part of the Daoist celebration and worked its way, 

in both Buddhist and Daoist guises, into funerary rituals 

performed by local priests all over China. 

The Yulanpen jing and its associated rituals were 

carried to Japan by the seventh century, when the state 

sponsored the chanting of the text by Buddhist monks. 

Beyond the reaches of government and monastic control, 

the festival of Obon later became an expression 

of Japanese local culture. In modern times many communities 

sponsor local troupes who perform dances. 

In both urban and rural Japan most people still return 

to their family home to observe the holiday, visiting 

gravesites, honoring spirit tablets, and taking part in 

festivities. 

See also: Ancestors; Daoism and Buddhism; Death; 

Ghosts and Spirits; Hells; Intermediate States 

Bibliography 

Cole, Alan. Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism. Stanford, 


Glassman, Hank. “The Tale of Mokuren: A Translation of 

Mokuren-no-so shi.” Buddhist Literature 1 (1999): 120. 

Johnson, David, ed. Ritual Opera, Operatic Ritual: “Mu-lien 

Rescues His Mother” in Chinese Popular Literature, Papers 

from the International Workshop on the Mu-lien Operas. 

Berkeley, CA: Institute for East Asian Studies, 1989. 

Mair, Victor H., trans. “Maudgalyayana.” In Tun-huang Popular 

Narratives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1983. 



Weller, Robert P. Unities and Diversities in Chinese Religion. 



GHOSTS AND SPIRITS 

By the time of the Buddha, around the fifth or sixth 

centuries B.C.E., there already existed the Brahmanic 

notion of a deceased person spending one year as a 

troublesome, disembodied spirit, or preta, wreaking 

domestic havoc to coerce still living relatives into performing 

the śraddha rites that would provide the deceased 

with a new body suitable for joining ANCESTORS, 

as a pitr, in heaven. 

In early Buddhist scriptures, the figure of the peta 

(a Pali equivalent of both Sanskrit preta and pitr) is retained, 

but is transformed from an intermediary, disembodied 

stage into a fresh rebirth in its own right, 

though one in which the peta is still dependent upon 

sacrificial assistance from living relatives. 

In the Petavatthu (Peta Stories), the canonical text 

dealing exclusively with the peta, some petas are said 

to endure an existence of total and continual suffering, 

in which they sustain themselves, if at all, on impurities. 

They exhibit a wretched appearance, and they 

are frequently found dwelling in such places as the latrine 

of a former monastery, at doorposts and crossroads, 

in moats, in forests, or in cemeteries where they 

feed off the flesh of corpses. 

In the MAHAYANA tradition, the preta is frequently 

depicted as a “hungry ghost,” a creature with a huge 

belly, but with a needle-shaped mouth through which 

it is impossible to pass sufficient nutriment to assuage 

the enormous pangs of hunger. 

No such description is found in the Petavatthu, according 

to which there are, in addition to those petas 

already mentioned, other petas who are said to resemble 

devatas (inhabitants of the various heavenworlds) 

of great psychic power, save for some deficiency that 

prevents them from fully enjoying the benefits normally 

associated with their world. Most notable of 

these are the vimanapetas (petas owning celestial mansions), 

who seem to be little different from other 

vimana-owning devatas, except that their heavenly 

bliss is interrupted at regular intervals by their being 

devoured by a huge dog, or by their having to consume 

the flesh they have already, as “back-biters,” 

gouged from their own backs. 

Though they often seem to dwell cospatially with 

humans, petas belong to a different plane, or dimension. 

This dimension clearly emerges to be the heavenworld 

associated with the Four Great Kings, who 


309

G UANYIN 

police that world, which extends from the earth’s surface 

to the summit of Mount Meru, with their troops 

of YAKSAs, nagas, gandharvas, and kumbhandas. All 

manner of other nonhuman creatures, such as pisacas, 

bhu tas, and eclipse-causing asuras, are assigned to that 

world, as are lesser deities, such as household devatas, 

tree devatas, guardian spirits of lakes, and so on. As 

Buddhism spread further into Asia, the various local 

deities and the like that Buddhism encountered were 

also assigned to this world. 

Despite the fact that rebirth as a deva and rebirth as 

a peta are deemed discrete types of REBIRTH, the devata 

and the peta seem to represent twin extremes of a 

whole spectrum of nonhuman beings dwelling in the 

heavenworld associated with the Four Great Kings. 

They are differentiated solely by the degree to which 

each is able to enjoy the pleasures of that world. 

Individuals become petas due largely to their failure 

in a former life to show charity to enlightened members 

of the SAṄGHA, or to demerit stemming from some 

previously committed evil deed. In order to understand 

the former, it is necessary to recall the earlier 

Vedic practice of pouring an oblation into the sacrificial 

fire to create a sphere of personal well-being embracing 

not only this life but also the life to come. In 

the Buddhist period, the saṅgha performs a function 

similar to the sacrificial fire, in that, through donating 

alms to the saṅgha, one brings into being a counterpart 

of those alms on the divine plane for one’s use after 

death. If one neglects to give alms, one naturally 

finds, in the life to come, no source of sustenance. 

Such postmortem deprivation of the Buddhist peta 

echoes the inability of the Brahmanic preta to join the 

pitrs due to lack of a suitable body. And just as the latter’s 

predicament could be rectified by relatives performing 

the śraddha rites, so could the peta have its 

deprivation ameliorated through still living friends and 

relatives offering a gift to the saṅgha on the peta’s behalf 

and then assigning the fruit of that donation to 

the benefit of the peta concerned. Whatever deprivation 

the peta had been experiencing is immediately rectified 

and the peta is, henceforth, able to enjoy the 

pleasures and comforts associated with the heavenworld. 

This practice, wrongly referred to as a “transfer 

of merit,” involves no transfer of merit whatsoever; 

rather, the peta is simply assigned the divine counterpart 

of the alms offered to the saṅgha on the peta’s 

behalf. 

There is, however, one proviso: If the reason for existence 

as a peta is due to, or complicated by, previous 

demerit, assistance cannot take place until that demerit 

has been exhausted. Moreover, it is said that part of 

such a peta’s plight is that living relatives forget that 

he or she ever existed, and thus fail to offer alms on 

the peta’s behalf. For this reason, modern Sinhalese 

Buddhists, when bestowing alms, do so in the name of 

any former relatives they may have overlooked. 

Although black magicians sometimes commandeer 

petas against their will to do the magician’s bidding, 

they more often enlist the more willing assistance of 

other nonhuman beings, such as malevolent yaksas 

and bhu tas, to achieve their ends, just as some of the 

latter have, on occasion, been transformed by powerful 

monks into Dharma-protectors. 

Although the ORDINATION of nonhumans is not 

permitted by the Vinaya, it is nonetheless practiced 

(e.g. in modern Thailand), and it is encouraged by certain 

Mahayana scriptures, such as the FANWANG JING 

(BRAHMA’S NET SU TRA). In East Asia (especially in 

Japan), ordination frees nonhuman beings from preta 

status. 

A Buddhist festival known as the Ullambana is still 

held annually in East and Southeast Asia. The festival 

is aimed at assuaging the suffering of “hungry ghosts.” 

See also: Cosmology; Death; Ghost Festival; Hells; 


Bibliography 

Kyaw, U Ba, trans. Peta Stories, edited and annotated by Peter 

Masefield. London: Pali Text Society, 1980. 

Masefield, Peter, trans. Vimana Stories. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 

1989. 

GUANYIN. See Bodhisattva(s) 

GYO NEN 

PETER MASEFIELD 

Gyonen (1240–1321) was a brilliant Japanese scholarmonk 

of the Kegon school (Chinese, Huayan) who 

lived in the great monastic center of Todaiji in Nara. 

Born into the aristocratic Fujiwara clan, Gyonen entered 

the priesthood at the age of sixteen and at eighteen 

moved to the Kaidan’in (Hall of Ordination) at 


G YO NEN 

Todaiji, where he later became abbot and remained for 

the rest of his life. 

With an eclectic approach to scholarship and practice, 

Gyonen dedicated himself to exhaustive studies of 

nearly every school of Buddhism, writing monographs 

on Buddhist thought and history from the age of 

twenty-eight, beginning with his Hasshu ko yo (Essentials 

of the Eight Doctrines), a survey of the core doctrines 

of the eight established schools of Buddhism in 

Japan in his time. Lucid and extremely informative, 

this work has served as a textbook for students of Buddhist 

thought from the thirteenth century into the 

modern period. Writing in Chinese, Gyonen went on 

to compose more than 125 learned works, exploring 

sutra exegesis, biography, ritual music, and so on. He 

also wrote the first detailed histories of individual 

schools in Japan and survey histories of Buddhism as 

a whole, carefully tracing the lineage, authoritative 

scriptures, and doctrinal evolution of all major traditions 

from their origins in India or China to Japan. 

Gyonen has had a profound impact upon Japanese 

BUDDHIST STUDIES, not only through the wealth of information 

his writings contain (modern Buddhist dictionaries 

in East Asia frequently use Gyonen’s works 

as source material), but also because his historical view 

defining Buddhism as a collection of schools identified 

by a doctrinal and transmission lineage became the 

normative Japanese approach to the study of religion, 

an approach that began to be challenged only at the 

end of the twentieth century. 

See also: Huayan School; Japan 

Bibliography 

Blum, Mark. The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism: 

A Study and Translation of Gyo nen’s Jodo Homon 

Genrusho. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 

2002. 

Ketelaar, James. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism 

and Its Persecution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1990. 

MARK L. BLUM 


311


H 

HACHIMAN 

Hachiman is one of the most popular Shinto deities. 

Originally a tutelary deity of a clan in Kyushu (southern 

Japan), Hachiman gained official recognition in 

the eighth century within the framework of state Buddhism. 

Until the anti-Buddhist persecution of 1868, 

Hachiman was worshiped as a “great bodhisattva” 

(daibosatsu) and functioned as a protector of Buddhism 

and of Japan. 

See also: Japan; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism 

HAIR 

FABIO RAMBELLI 

Manipulation of hair carries cultural meanings in most 

societies. In traditional India, individuals within society 

kept their hair controlled by some form of grooming. 

Controlled social hair stands in sharp contrast to 

ascetic hair, which is either left ungroomed to form a 

matted mass or completely shaved. The Buddha and 

Buddhist MONKS share this feature with other worldrenouncing 

ascetics, including Hindu sannyasis and 

Jain monks: They are all shaven-headed. 

Early texts state that the Buddha cut his hair to twofingers’ 

breadth in length when he renounced the 

world. His hair (and beard) remained at that length 

for the rest of his life, curling to the right. This is the 

way the Buddha is depicted in art. A stock phrase in 

Buddhist scriptures states that a monk “cuts his hair 

and beard and goes from home to the homeless state.” 

Shaving the head has remained a distinctive feature of 

Buddhist monks and NUNS. Hairs of the Buddha, along 

with his nail parings, also came to be enshrined and 

venerated as relics. 

Shaving symbolized an individual’s separation 

from society, marked both by the monk’s withdrawal 

from home and social institutions and by his exclusion 

from socially sanctioned structures for sexual expression. 

All ritually shaven individuals, both ascetics 

and nonascetics, such as criminals and widows, live 

celibate lives. Scholarship in a variety of disciplines 

has recognized the sexual symbolism of hair. Removing 

hair at ascetic initiation symbolically returns the 

ascetic to a prepubertal state of a sexually undifferentiated 

infant. Removing hair implies the uprooting 

of sexual desires. 

Hair has remained a focus of attention and anxiety 

among Buddhist monks. Anthropologists have noted 

that young monks often express rebellion against authority 

and left-wing political allegiances by allowing 

their hair to grow a little longer. 

See also: Ordination; Relics and Relics Cults; Sexuality 

Bibliography 

Hiltebeitel, Alf, and Miller, Barbara D., eds. Hair: Its Power and 

Meaning in Asian Cultures. Albany: State University of New 


PATRICK OLIVELLE 

HAKUIN EKAKU 

Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1768) was a Japanese Zen monk 

who worked to reform Rinzai Zen, and from whom 

313

H AN 

Y ONGUN 

modern Rinzai lineages in Japan are descended. For 

Zen monks, he is known as an artist, scholar, and systematizer 

of DOUBT in KO AN study. He stressed that 

koan introspection, especially the cultivation of doubt, 

was the only means to SATORI (AWAKENING) and that 

initial sudden awakening had to be followed with more 

koan study (gogo) to deepen the experience. 

In addition, Han’s social and literary activities occupied 

a great part of his life. He was one of the thirtythree 

leaders of the March First Movement, which 

proclaimed Korean independence from imperial Japan 

in 1919, and he assisted in drafting the Korean “Declaration 

of Independence” for the movement. In 1926 

he published a collection of his poems, Nim ŭi chimmuk 

(The Silence of the Beloved). This collection earned 

him a name as the first modern nationalist poet. He 

also left 163 Chinese poems, thirty-two sijo poetic compositions, 

and five novels. In 1944 Manhae died of 

palsy at the age of sixty-five. 

See also: Chan School 

Bibliography 

Yampolsky, Philip B., trans. The Zen Master Hakuin: Selected 

Writings. New York and London: Columbia University 

Press, 1971. 

HAN YONGUN 

JOHN JORGENSEN 

Han Yongun (Manhae, 1879–1944) was a monk, poet, 

and critic of the Japanese colonial rule of Korea. He 

was born in present-day Hongsŏng in South Ch’ungch’ŏng 

province in Korea. He took full ordination in 

1905 and devoted his life to Buddhist reformation, exploring 

ways of Buddhist engagement in society. By 

aiming to make Buddhism socially engaged, and thus 

accessible to the public, his Chosŏn Pulgyo yusin non 

(Treatise on the Reformation of Korean Buddhism) provided 

a rationale and blueprint for the modern reform 

of the Korean order. Areas of reform included: modernization 

of the monastery education, development 

of propagation methods, simplicity of rituals, and centralization 

of the SAṄGHA. Han offered leadership to 

the Buddhist youth movement that sought further 

Buddhist reforms and the saṅgha’s independence from 

the Japanese regime. 

In 1914 Han published the Pulgyo taejŏn (Great 

Canon of Buddhism), a digest of Buddhist scriptures in 

Korean vernacular intended to provide the gist of Buddhist 

teachings to laypeople and to help guide their religious 

lives. As a certified Sŏn master, Han emphasized 

mind cultivation through Sŏn (Chinese, Chan) meditation, 

considered the fountainhead of all other activities 

in life. 

See also: Chan School; Engaged Buddhism; Korea; Nationalism 


Bibliography 

An Pyong-jik. “Han Yongun’s Liberalism: An Analysis of the 

Reformation of Korean Buddhism.” Korea Journal 19, no. 

12 (1979): 13–18. 

Han Yongun chŏnjip (The Collected Works of Han Yongun). 

Seoul: Sin’gu Munhwasa, 1973. 

Lee, Peter, trans. The Silence of Love: Twentieth-Century Korean 

Poetry. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1980. 

HEART SU TRA 

PORI PARK 

A text of fewer than three hundred Chinese characters 

in its earlier short version, the Heart Su tra (Sanskrit, 

Prajñaparamitahrdaya; Chinese, Boruo boluomiduo xin 

jing) was given to the great translator XUANZANG (ca. 

600–664) to recite for protection on his pilgrimage to 

and from the holy land in India. Through his successful 

use of the sutra and its concise eloquence, the text 

became the single most commonly recited and studied 

scripture in East Asian Buddhism. The Heart Su tra is 

thought to embody the most profound teaching of 

prajñaparamita, the perfection of PRAJN A (WISDOM), 

and it is recited in rituals by participants in the CHAN 

SCHOOL, the TIANTAI SCHOOL, and other traditions. 

The longer version of the Heart Su tra has a conventional 

sutra opening in which A NANDA recites the 

teaching as given by Śakyamuni Buddha on Vulture 

Peak, followed by a formal conclusion. The short version 

lacks these framing elements, consisting solely of 

Avalokiteśvara’s explanation of the identity of form 

and ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS), as well as a MANTRA. Based 

on literary evidence, Jan Nattier has argued that the 

short version was constructed initially in Chinese and 

then translated into Sanskrit. If correct, this would be 

an otherwise unknown sequence in Buddhist literary 

history. 


H EAVENS 

The Heart Su tra opens with the statement that 

Avalokiteśvara understood the emptiness of all things 

and was thus liberated from all suffering. Addressing 

ŚARIPUTRA, the stand-in for the ABHIDHARMA understanding 

of Buddhism in this scriptural genre, 

Avalokiteśvara then describes the perfect equivalence 

of emptiness and form; that is, emptiness is not a separate 

realm underlying or transcending the mundane 

world, but a different aspect of that same world, or a 

transcendent realm entirely identical with mundane 

reality. With concise but systematic thoroughness, the 

text denies the ultimate reality of virtually all aspects 

of that mundane world, including such quintessential 

Buddhist teachings as the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS of 

DUH KHA (SUFFERING), its cause, its elimination, and 

the PATH to that end. With a wordplay on attainment, 

taken first as sensory apprehension and then as the 

achievement of spiritual goals, the Heart Su tra describes 

the perfection of wisdom as the source of the 

enlightenment of all the buddhas. Finally, it identifies 

the perfection of wisdom with a mantra: gate gate 

paragate parasam gate bodhi svaha. The grammar of 

this phrase is obscure (as is the case for mantras in 

general), even more so for East Asian users of the text, 

but it is usually understood to mean roughly “gone, 

gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond; enlightenment; 

hail!” 

See also: Prajñaparamita Literature 

Bibliography 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. The Heart Su tra Explained: Indian and Tibetan 

Commentaries. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1988. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart 

Su tra. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. 

McRae, John R. “Ch’an Commentaries on the Heart Sutra.” 

Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 

11, no. 2 (1988): 87–115. 

Nattier, Jan. “The Heart Sutra: A Chinese Apocryphal Text?” 


15, no. 2 (1992): 153–223. 

HEAVENS 

JOHN R. MCRAE 

Buddhist COSMOLOGY recognizes a hierarchy of heavens 

(svarga) comprising the six heaven realms of the 

“world of the senses” (kamaloka) inhabited by their respective 

gods, and the various heavens of the pure form 

and formless worlds inhabited by the various classes of 

higher gods known as brahmas. These heavens are 

places where any being can potentially be reborn. Existence 

in these heavens is essentially the fruit of wholesome 

(kuśala) or meritorious (punya) KARMA (ACTION), 

and is exceedingly pleasant. Indeed, in the higher heavens 

there is a complete absence of physical and mental 

pain. 

REBIRTH in the heaven realms of the world of the 

senses is a result of the practice of generosity (dana) 

and good conduct (ślla), while rebirth in the higher 

brahma heavens is a result of the development of sublime 

peace and wisdom through the practice of calm 

and insight MEDITATION. While life in these heaven 

realms is long and happy, it must eventually come to 

an end with the exhaustion of the good karma of which 

it is the fruit. Rebirth in a lower and less pleasant realm 

is then a distinct possibility. To this extent, heavenly 

existence is not entirely free of DUH KHA (SUFFERING) 

and falls short of the ultimate Buddhist goal of NIR- 

VA N A, which constitutes a complete and final freedom 

from the sufferings of the round of rebirth. Nonetheless, 

to be reborn in one of these heaven realms has often 

been presented and viewed, even in some of the 

earliest Buddhist texts (such as the Sigalovada-sutta), 

as forming a step in the right direction and an intermediate 

goal on the way to nirvana. The goal of rebirth 

in heaven has thus been considered an appropriate aspiration 

of especially the Buddhist LAITY, but also anyone 

else who finds the demands of the practice that 

leads to nirvana daunting. The underlying outlook 

here is connected with the notion of the gradual and 

inevitable decline of the Buddha’s teaching, which 

means that the further removed we are in time from 

the Buddha himself, the harder it becomes to reach the 

ultimate goal. Thus, even the great fifth-century monastic 

commentator of the THERAVADA tradition, BUD- 

DHAGHOSA, writes at the conclusion of his manual of 

Buddhist theory and practice, Visuddhimagga (The 

Path of Purification), that he hopes not for nirvana in 

his lifetime but to experience the joys of rebirth in the 

Heaven of the Thirty Three and subsequently to attain 

nirvana having seen and been taught by the next buddha, 

MAITREYA (Pali, Metteyya). 

In certain MAHAYANA sources the PURE LANDS of 

buddhas, while technically distinct from the heavens 

described above, perform a religiously analogous function. 

Rather than struggle for enlightenment here and 

now, far removed from the Buddha in time and space, 

and in circumstances that are somewhat unpropitious, 


315

H ELLS 

it is better to aspire to be reborn in a pure land such as 

Sukhavat, the Realm of Bliss of the Buddha AMITABHA/ 

Amitayus, where in the presence of a living buddha 

conditions are more conducive and enlightenment almost 

a certainty. 

See also: Dana (Giving); Divinities; Indra 

Bibliography 






HELLS 

RUPERT GETHIN 

Hells play an important part in virtually all Buddhist 

traditions, past and present. As the lowest of the six 

(or sometimes five) paths of REBIRTH, hell is one of the 

most colorful parts of Buddhist COSMOLOGY, mythological 

reflection, and practice. The hells are the worst 

(and therefore the best) example of the fate that greets 

the unenlightened after DEATH, just as a pleasurable rebirth 

in heaven serves as a positive incentive. Although 

one might be tortured for a lifetime in hell, rebirth 

there is, like all phenomena in Buddhism, temporary, 

leading either to further misery or escape from rebirth 

altogether. Various etymologies have been offered for 

the Sanskrit naraka and Pali niraya. The normal Tibetan 

translation is dmyal ba, while Chinese usage is 

usually diyu (Japanese, jigoku), literally “subterranean 

prisons.” 

Number and arrangement of hells 

Buddhist ideas of hell grew out of Vedic conceptions 

and share much with Brahmanical (and later Hindu) 

views of the underworld. Early Buddhist sources voice 

different opinions about the names, number, and location 

of the hells. Some texts discuss one great hell 

with four doors, each leading to four smaller hells; 

some claim there are five hells; some refer to seven unnamed 

hells; some mention ten specific cold hells; 

some refer to eighteen, thirty, or sixty-four hells. In the 

most common system, eight hells are located, one on 

top of another, underneath the continent of Jambudvpa. 

Closest to the surface is (1) Sam jva, the hell of 

“reviving,” where winds resuscitate victims after torture. 

Beneath it lie: (2) Kalasutra, named after the 

“black string” that cuts inhabitants into pieces; (3) 

Sam ghata, where inmates are “dashed together” between 

large objects; (4) Raurava, “weeping,” and (5) 

Maharaurava, “great weeping,” which describe how 

denizens behave; (6) Tapana, “heating,” and (7) Pratapana, 

“greatly heating,” which describe the tortures 

applied to residents; and (8) Avci, “no release” or “no 

interval,” where there is no rest between periods of torture. 

Each hell has sixteen smaller compartments, 

named after the method of punishment: (1) black sand, 

(2) boiling excrement, (3) five hundred nails, (4) 

hunger, (5) thirst, (6) copper pot, (7) many copper 

pots, (8) stone mill, (9) pus and blood, (10) trial by 

fire, (11) river of ashes, (12) ball of fire, (13) axe, (14) 

foxes, (15) forest of swords, and (16) cold. 

Representations of hells in art and literature 

Most accounts of the hells include elements of morality, 

deliverance, and entertainment. When understood 

properly, the underworld demonstrates the 

ineluctability of KARMA (ACTION). Every deed has a 

result, and if on balance one’s life is particularly evil, 

then one is likely to be reborn in hell. The entire cosmos 

is ranked; the various scales of measurement reflect 

an underlying moral hierarchy. The hells are 

situated below the other five paths, and hell beings 

lead a longer life than humans or animals. The natural 

order thus seems to maximize punishment. Some 

texts name the specific bad deeds that merit rebirth 

in specific hells: The more evil the deed, the more 

painful the form of punishment. 

Pointing beyond the realm of karma, most accounts 

of hell contain a soteriology, or theory of salvation. 

Literary descriptions of the tortures in hell encourage 

the reader to cultivate roots of goodness (kuśalamu la), 

leading to a better rebirth and eventually release from 

the pain of sentient existence. Paintings of the wheel 

of rebirth usually portray a BODHISATTVA or other 

saint bringing aid to hell beings, emphasizing that suffering 

can be conquered. And most images of the hell 

regions are juxtaposed to pictures of life in paradise or 

to portraits of buddhas who have transcended birth 

and death. 

In whatever genre they occur—folktales, drama, 

paintings, fictional accounts, or scholastic 

compendia—representations of the Buddhist hells are 

usually entertaining. Repetition is a common device in 

hell narratives: The inmates of the various compartments 

are tortured not once or twice, but three times. 

Their pains are described in grisly detail: People are 


H ELLS 

not simply ground to bits, but every component of the 

body (skin, bone, marrow, muscle, sinew, pus, blood, 

etc.) is discussed. Although Buddhist ethics are 

founded on nonkilling, Buddhist accounts of the underworld 

dwell on the violence meted out to average 

sentient beings. Alongside this graphic interest in the 

use of force, there is an equally strong comic strain. 

Many stories of Buddhist near-death experience involve 

mistaken identity, in which the protagonist is erroneously 

sentenced to someone else’s punishment. 

Even austere philosophical sources list the cold hells, 

three of which are named onomatopoetically after the 

sounds of chattering teeth: Atata, Hahava, Huhuva. 

Attitudes toward hells 

Buddhists take a wide range of attitudes toward the 

hells. Like most teachings, the hells can be regarded as 

an expedient device, an effective way of motivating 

people to follow the Buddhist PATH. The hells have also 

been interpreted as psychological metaphors, as summations 

of the state of mind one engenders by doing 

EVIL. While certainly authentic, these two interpretations 

do not exhaust Buddhist views of hell. 

Tours of hell are found throughout Buddhist cultures. 

MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, one of the DISCIPLES OF 

THE BUDDHA who was most skilled in supernatural powers, 

was especially famous for his travels up and down 

the cosmic ladder. His tours of the underworld are recounted 

in sources ranging from Mulasarvastivada 

mythology of the first few centuries C.E., to the 

MAHAVASTU (Great Story) in the fifth century, to popular 

literature in China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, and Thailand. 

Judging from the narratives of delok storytellers 

in Tibet, the hells are one of the most frequent destinations 

of modern spirit-mediums as well. 

The hells supply a rich fund of mythology for Buddhist 

preachers. Dharma talks use the tortures of hell 

to spark reflection on the law of karma and to encourage 

ethical action. Stories of what happens after 

death replay the process of warning, reflection, and 

conversion. Some tales portray the lord of the underworld, 

King Yama, questioning the dead about the 

“three messengers” (old age, sickness, and death) they 

have seen while alive. Most people ignore these signs 

of impermanence, perpetuating egocentrism and evil 

deeds. Under Yama’s questioning after death, people 

who awaken to the perils of attachment can be released 

from suffering. 

Many saviors are paired with King Yama’s unbending 

administration of impersonal law. Bodhisattvas like 

The Hell of Shrieking Sounds. (Japanese painting, Kamakura period, 

ca. 1200.) © Seattle Art Museum/Corbis. Reproduced by 

permission. 

Ksitigarbha (Chinese, Dizang; Japanese, Jizo) and 

Avalokiteśvara (Chinese, Guanyin; Japanese, Kannon) 

specialize in rescuing sentient beings from the torments 

of hell. Visions of the hell regions are also supposed 

to motivate believers. NAGARJUNA’s Dazhidu lun 

(Commentary on the Great Perfection of Wisdom) discusses 

the hells under the category of “vigor” (vlrya), 

one of the virtues of the bodhisattva. Reflecting on the 

pain people experience in the hells, the bodhisattva is 

supposed to develop greater energy. Surveying the underworld 

makes the bodhisattva think, “The causes of 

this painful karma are created through ignorance and 

the passions. I must be vigorous in cultivating the six 

perfections and amassing virtue. I will eliminate the 

sufferings of sentient beings in the five paths, give rise 

to great compassion, and augment my vigor” (Dazhidu 

lun, Mahaprajñaparamita śastra, trans. Kumarajva 

(350–413), T1509:25.177c). 

See also: Icchantika 

Bibliography 

Feer, Leon. “L’enfer indien.” Journal Asiatique, ser. 8, 20 

(September–October 1892): 185–232; ser. 9, 1 (January– 

February 1893): 112–151. 

Kloetzli, Randy. Buddhist Cosmology, from Single World System 

to Pure Land: Science and Theology in the Images of Motion 

and Light. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1983. 

La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. Abidharmakośabhasyam, Vol. 2., tr. 

Leo Pruden. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1988. 


317

H ELLS, IMAGES 

OF 

Matsunaga, Daigan, and Matsunaga, Alicia. The Buddhist Concept 

of Hell. New York: Philosophical Library, 1972. 

Pommaret, Françoise. Les revenants d’au-delà dans le monde 

tibétain: sources littéraires et tradition vivante. Paris: Éditions 

du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1989. 

Reischauer, A. K. “Genshin’s Ojo Yoshu: Collected Essays on 

Rebirth into Paradise.” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of 

Japan, second ser., 7 (1930): 16–97. 



University of California, Center for South and Southeast 


Sawada, Mizuho. (Shu tei) Jigoku hen: chu goku no meikaisetsu. 

Tokyo: Hirakawa shuppansha, 1991. 

Teiser, Stephen F. “The Scripture on the Ten Kings” and the Making 



HELLS, IMAGES OF 


Images of Buddhist HELLS are found largely in Central 

and East Asia. Although descriptions of hell exist within 

early Buddhist literature, hell was not a popular subject 

for depiction in India. The earliest extant Chinese 

images date to the fifth century and appear within representations 

of Buddhist COSMOLOGY. These hell images 

are components of singular carved statues (often 

referred to as cosmological buddhas), as well as larger 

painted cave programs. The hells are hierarchically 

placed at the bottom, with the earthly and heavenly 

realms above. Although the Shiji jing (Scripture of Cosmology) 

is fairly lengthy in the number and description 

of the various hells, the representations themselves are 

abbreviated. Numerous hell scenes in various media 

were produced between the seventh and eleventh centuries 

and were preserved in the DUNHUANG caves of 

northwestern China. This hell imagery consists mainly 

of three distinct iconographic programs: imagery related 

to Dizang Bodhisattva (Sanskrit, Ksitigarbha; 

Japanese, Jizo Bosatsu), to the Ten Kings of Hell, and 

to Mulian (Sanskrit, MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA). 

Dizang and the Ten Kings of Hell 

Images of Dizang Bodhisattva were often used in funerary 

rituals by relatives who viewed him as a savior 

of souls trapped in the various hells. Dizang is shown 

dressed either as a monk carrying a staff or as a princely 

bodhisattva. A number of hanging silk paintings show 

Dizang in the company of the Ten Kings of Hell, over 

whom he presides. Yet it is also common for the Ten 

Kings to be depicted independent of Dizang, ruling 

over their respective courts. The Chinese term for hell, 

diyu, translates as “subterranean prison,” and the Ten 

Kings are thus depicted as judges. The exception is 

King Yama, who is always in regal attire. Yama was the 

original king of the Indian Buddhist underworld, and 

it is in his court that the karmic mirror, showing an 

individual’s deeds, is often found. Variations often 

show all Ten Kings in royal trappings, leading to the 

common usage of the term Ten Yamas. Monkey-faced 

or military-attired attendants keep track of a soul’s 

crimes and aid in meting out the appropriate punishment. 

One common representational element found 

in virtually all hell imagery is that of the naked sinner 

in a cangue, a form of earthly punishment commonly 

seen in medieval China and Japan. Also critical to hell 

imagery is a preponderance of flames and blood. Yet 

unlike hell in a Judeo-Christian sense, Buddhist hells 

are not permanent, but a means to expiate bad KARMA 

(ACTION) before moving on to the next REBIRTH. 

Several hand scrolls depicting the Ten Kings were 

found at Dunhuang. These scrolls hint at the usage of 

hell imagery within a public sphere. Monks would edify 

the laity with visions of the torments of hell that 

awaited them, or more importantly, their deceased relatives. 

The belief in the apocryphal Shi wang jing 

(Scripture of the Ten Kings) led to their worship as intercessors 

who could move the deceased more quickly 

through the realms of hell to the promised Pure Land. 

Worship of the Ten Kings centers on the idea that each 

soul passes in front of each of the kings at predetermined 

points over a three-year duration. On these 

days, offerings need to be made to each of the Ten 

Kings. Besides hand scrolls, Ten Kings imagery also exists 

in smaller booklet format, indicating mass production 

as well as a more personal use. 

Depictions of hell far exceeded literary descriptions 

in both variety and detail, a fact most likely due to anxiety 

for the welfare of the dead. In the Scripture on the 

Ten Kings, no hells are actually described. Works can 

be found that are consistent in their depiction of the 

Ten Kings and their courts while greatly varying in the 

tortures shown. The largest sculpted depiction of hell 

scenes can be found at Baodingshan in Sichuan 

province in China. The worshipper at Baodingshan is 

confronted with an immediate reminder of how his 

present actions will affect his future fate—a twentyfive-foot-high 

sculpted depiction of the wheel of life, 

of which the six destinies of rebirth are one portion. 


H ELLS, IMAGES 

OF 

Ksitigarbha (Dizang) Bodhisattva rescuing vicitms from the torments of hell, from a painting at Dunhuang. (Chinese, eighth century.) 

© The Art Archive/British Museum/The Art Archive. Reproduced by permission. 

Hell is one of the six possibilities, the others being hungry 

ghost, animal, asura, human, or deva. The worshipper 

then moves around to the other side of the 

grotto where he first encounters the promise of the 

Pure Land, then the grim realities of hell. This hell 

tableau includes Dizang and the Ten Kings set above 

a chaotic grouping of eighteen hells. Engraved texts aid 

the worshipper by both identifying the sins committed 

and providing the necessary ritual hymn to recite 

in order to gain release. Unique to this hell grouping 

is a sculpted section devoted specifically to admonitions 

against alcohol consumption by, or sale to, the 

clergy. Also unusual is a depiction of a Freezing Hell, 

which is more common in Tibetan and Mongolian descriptions 

of hell. 

In Japan, the pains of hell, along with the Pure 

Land’s rewards, may have been imported in the seventh 

century from China, although extant hell imagery 

dates mainly to after the eleventh century. King Yama 

takes the form of Emma-O , being portrayed as a judge 

in both painted and sculpted form. There are also several 

twelfth-century versions of hell, collectively referred 

to as the Jigoku zoshi (Hand Scrolls of Buddhist 

Hells). These painted works are distinctive in the imagery 

shown. Although they share characteristics with 

Chinese hell imagery, such as the Hell of Feces and 

Filth and the Hell of Grinding, the Japanese works also 

include unique representations, such as the Hell of 

Cocks, for those cruel to living things; the Hell of 

Worms, for those who commit adultery or theft; and 

the Hell of Pus and Blood, in which the damned are 

tortured by being repeatedly stung by large wasps. 

Hungry ghosts are often linked to hell imagery, although 

technically they are not hell dwellers, but another 

option on the six destinies of rebirth. The 

best-known imagery depicting hungry ghosts is the 

twelfth-century Japanese work entitled Gaki zoshi 

(Hungry Ghosts Hand Scroll). 

Mulian 

The last iconographic program is that of Mulian, one 

of the ten chief DISCIPLES OF THE BUDDHA. Mulian goes 

in search of his deceased mother only to discover that 

she is not in a heavenly realm. The Yulanpen jing, colloquially 

referred to as “Scripture of Mulian Rescuing 

His Mother from the Underworld” was represented in 

a variety of media, including BIANWEN (transformation 

texts), which were used to propagate the Buddhist 

faith among the uneducated, and their accompanying 

BIANXIANG (TRANSFORMATION TABLEAUX), both of 

which first appeared in late Tang dynasty China 

(618–907). Celebrations of the annual GHOST FESTI- 

VAL often included theatrical productions of the Mulian 

story as well. Murals of the Mulian story in Cave 

19 at Yulin, near Dunhuang, depict his travels through 

the hell regions. These works afforded worshippers explicit 

glimpses into the horrors of hell as Mulian 

worked his way down to the Hell of the Iron Bed, 

where his mother was being tortured for keeping alms 

meant for the clergy. Hells seen along the way included 

Knife Mountain Hell, where one was repeatedly sliced 

open by knives while attempting to scramble out, or 


319

H ERMENEUTICS 

Boiling Cauldron Hell, where Horsehead or Oxhead, 

minions of the Ten Kings, ensured that the sinner 

stayed within a vat of boiling oil. Mulian eventually 

would find and free his mother, but not before reinforcing 

the Buddhist belief in karmic retribution. 

Bibliography 

Fan Jinshi, and Mei Lin. “An Interpretation of the 

Maudgalyayana Murals in Cave 19 at Yulin.” Orientations 

no. 27 (November 1996): 70–75. 



Kucera, Karil. “Lessons in Stone: Baodingshan and Its Hell Imagery.” 

Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities no. 

67 (1995): 79–157. 

Mair, Victor. T’ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist 

Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and 

Drama in China. Cambridge, MA, and London: Council on 

East Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1989. 








Visser, Marinus Willem de. The Bodhisattva Ti-tsang (Jizo) in 

China and Japan. Berlin: Oesterheld, 1914. 

HERMENEUTICS 

KARIL J. KUCERA 

The term hermeneutics derives from the Greek god Hermes, 

the messenger of the gods, whose task was to communicate 

between gods and humans. Since both sides 

had different languages and worldviews, it was necessary 

to interpret a god’s wishes in ways that humans 

could comprehend. In addition, Hermes had to understand 

the god’s intentions and how to translate them. 

In its earliest uses in Western thought, hermeneutics 

was mainly associated with biblical exegesis, and 

specifically with the rules and standards that should 

guide interpretation of scripture. During the twentieth 

century, its scope was considerably widened, and it is 

now generally seen as a fundamental aspect of all the 

humanities and social sciences. It should be noted, 

however, that the term hermeneutics is not generally 

conceived as applying to all interpretation, but rather 

to the rules and methods that guide it. 

In the Indian Buddhist context, hermeneutical literature 

is mainly concerned with identifying the 

intention (abhipraya) behind scriptural statements, 

particularly those that are viewed as being in conflict 

with other statements. The Buddhist case presents special 

difficulties for interpretation because of the vastness 

of Buddhist scriptural literatures and the plethora 

of conflicting doctrines and practices. According to 

Buddhist tradition, the Buddha traveled from place to 

place teaching those who came to him with questions. 

He is compared to a skilled physician who provides different 

medicines specific to particular illnesses. The 

Buddha taught each person or group what would be 

most helpful soteriologically; he was not principally 

concerned with creating an internally consistent doctrinal 

system. Thus, after his death, his followers were 

left with a corpus of texts that all claimed canonical status, 

but that contained often contradictory teachings. 

From an early period, Indian Buddhist exegetes 

strove to differentiate those statements that were of 

“provisional meaning” (neyartha) from those of “definitive 

meaning” (nltartha). The former were expedient 

teachings given to a particular person or group, but 

they do not represent the Buddha’s final thought, while 

the latter reflect the (often hidden) intention behind 

his teaching. 

Buddhist hermeneutics became even more difficult 

around the first century C.E. when large numbers of new 

texts began to appear that purported to have been spoken 

by the Buddha when he was alive, but that often 

differed in style, content, and doctrine from the texts 

contained in earlier canons. These were the sutras of 

the MAHAYANA school, which claimed to supersede 

earlier teachings, most of which were said to be of 

merely provisional meaning. Within this new literature, 

however, there were even more conflicting doctrines. 

Many texts contained statements attributed to 

the Buddha that claimed that a particular teaching 

should be viewed as his final thought, but these statements 

were sometimes contradicted by other sutras. 

Buddhist exegetes generally responded to this situation 

by privileging certain texts and basing their 

interpretive schemas on them. Some of the new 

Mahayana texts provided specific guidelines for interpretation. 

The SAM DHINIRMOCANA-SU TRA (Tibetan, 

Dgongs pa nges par ‘grel pa’i mdo; Su tra on 

Unfurling the Real Meaning), for example, states that 

Buddha’s teachings may be divided into three “wheels 

of doctrine” (dharmacakra). The first two wheels— 

comprising certain HINAYANA doctrines and teachings 


H ERMENEUTICS 

relating to ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) in Perfection of Wisdom 

sutras—are said to be of provisional meaning, 

while the third (the teachings of the Sam dhinirmocana) 

is said to be definitive. 

In some Mahayana sutras, an alternative strategy is 

proposed: The level of a particular text is determined by 

subject matter. The most advanced sutras are those that 

directly discuss emptiness, a doctrine only taught to 

the most advanced disciples. Thus, if a sutra examines 

emptiness as its main object of discourse, it should be 

viewed as representing Buddha’s definitive intention. 

Tibetan exegetes generally based their interpretive 

schemas on Indian precedents. Several, for example, 

used the “three wheels of doctrine” model as a basis 

for differentiating interpretable from definitive scriptures. 

In his Legs bshad snying po (Essence of Good 

Explanations), TSONG KHA PA (1357–1419) divided 

his presentation into two sections, one based on the 

Sam dhinirmocana-su tra, the main scriptural source 

for the YOGACARA SCHOOL, and the other on the 

Aksayamatinirdeśa-su tra (Tibetan, Blo gros mi zadpas 

bstan pa’i mdo; Chinese, Achamo pusa jing; Discourse 

Taught by Aksayamati), which he considered to be 

definitive for MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL hermeneutics. 

Other Tibetan exegetes altered the three wheels 

schema, and claimed that the first wheel was comprised 

of Hnayana teachings, the second of Mahayana 

teachings, and the third and definitive wheel was declared 

to be the tantric teachings of VAJRAYANA. 

East Asian exegetes faced all the same problems as 

their counterparts in India and Tibet, but they also encountered 

difficulties related to the haphazard nature 

of textual transmission to the region. Unlike the relatively 

ordered transmission of texts to Tibet, Buddhist 

literature came to China via numerous different routes, 

and there was little coordination in these efforts. Sometimes 

a commentary would arrive in China before the 

root text, and the Chinese were faced with an enormous 

imported literature containing various competing and 

incompatible claims to authority. Several Chinese 

Buddhist exegetes developed classification schemes 

(panjiao), which were generally based on a particular 

text (or a related group of texts) and which ranked 

scriptures hierarchically. One of the most important of 

these was the Tiantai schema, which was based on the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA; Chinese, 

Miaofa lianhua jing) and divided the Buddha’s 

teaching career into five periods and eight teachings 

(wushi bajiao). FAZANG (643–712) and the HUAYAN 

SCHOOL had an alternative five-teaching schema, which 

culminated in the Perfect Teaching (yuanjiao) of the 

HUAYAN JING (Sanskrit, Avatam saka-sutra; Flower Garland 

Su tra). 

In Japan, the Kamakura period (1185–1333) saw the 

development of indigenous Buddhist schools, and 

most of these also developed their own classification 

systems. NICHIREN (1222–1282), for example, used the 

Lotus Su tra as the basis for his teachings, and the Zen, 

Esoteric, and Pure Land schools also developed ranking 

systems in which their own doctrines and scriptures 

were placed at the top of the doctrinal hierarchy, 

while others were relegated to inferior positions. 

Most traditional Buddhist exegetes have been involved 

in what the German philosopher Hans-Georg 

Gadamer (1900–2002) dismissed as the “Romantic 

endeavor,” that is, attempting to discern the intention 

of the purported author of their scriptures (i.e., the 

Buddha). Underlying their efforts was a shared conviction 

that the experience of buddhahood is available 

to all and that as one approaches it, one’s mind more 

and more closely approximates that of the Buddha. 

Thus it is assumed that competent exegetes are able to 

re-create the true intentions underlying apparently 

contradictory scriptural statements and arrive at interpretations 

that accurately reflect the Buddha’s ultimate 

intent, which is assumed by traditional Buddhists 

to be free from contradiction. 

See also: Commentarial Literature; Scripture 

Bibliography 

Broido, Michael M. “Some Tibetan Methods of Explaining the 

Tantras.” In Contributions on Tibetan Language, History and 

Culture: Proceedings of the 1981 Csoma de Körös Symposium, 

ed. Ernst Steinkellner and H. Tauscher. Vienna: Wiener Studien 

zur Tibetologie zur Buddhismuskunde, 1983. 

Chegwan. T’ien-t’ai Buddhism: An Outline of the Fourfold Teachings, 

tr. Buddhist Translation Seminar of Hawaii, ed. David 

W. Chappell. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983. 



Lopez, Donald S., Jr., ed. Buddhist Hermeneutics. Honolulu: 


Powers, John. Hermeneutics and Tradition in the Sam dhinirmocana-su 

tra. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1993. 

Ruegg, David S. “Purport, Implicature, and Presupposition: 

Sanskrit Abhipraya and Tibetan dGoṅs pa/dGoṅs gzì as 

Hermeneutical Concepts.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 13 

(1985): 309–325. 

JOHN POWERS 


321

H IMALAYAS, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

HIMALAYAS, BUDDHIST ART IN 

The wide geographic area covered by the Himalayan 

range and reaching from Kashmir in the west to Mongolia 

in the east includes several civilizations dedicated 

to Buddhism, often in close symbiosis with other religions. 

The strength of autochthonous traditions and 

the different ways in which Buddhism was imported 

from foreign cultures resulted in different types of 

Buddhist art in this region. 

Kashmir 

Sarvastivada Buddhism was the dominant religion in 

Kashmir until the sixth century; from the eighth to the 

twelfth centuries MAHAYANA Buddhism was also a 

strong force. During this period Buddhist art in Kashmir 

developed a characteristic national style embodying 

elements from Gupta India and Gandhara, and 

even from Syrian-Byzantine styles. 

No early Kashmiri Buddhist monastery remains intact, 

but in structure and style they were probably similar 

to the still existing brahmanical structures. In 

Parihasapura (Paraspor), there are remains of temples 

and of a STU PA that date to the first half of the eighth 

century. The square halls and chapels of these structures 

were characterized by lantern-ceilings consisting 

of superimposed intersecting squares and tympana of 

triangular gables over openings in the facade that enclosed 

a trefoil arch. The chapels had fluted pillars and 

stepped pyramidal roofs. A special type of building design 

was the pañcayatana form, which consisted of a 

cubic structure with entrances in all four walls and a 

large central tower and smaller caitya-like elements at 

all four corners. 

The remains of stupas allow scholars to reconstruct 

their original appearance. The stupa in Huviskapura 

(Uskur), located inside a large courtyard, includes 

terra-cotta and stucco fragments that show Gandhara 

influences. Other remains at Sadarhadvana (Harvan), 

datable to between 400 and 500 C.E., can be reconstructed 

by terra-cotta plaques showing miniature 

stupas. The enormous Caṅkuna-stupa at Parihasapura, 

datable to the first half of the eighth century, had 

a large square double platform with projecting staircases 

on each side and indented corners, making it 

somewhat similar to the BOROBUDUR in Java. 

Only a few early Kashmiri Buddhist sculptures in 

stone have survived, including a life-size standing bodhisattva 

unearthed at Pandrenthan (Puranadhisthana), 

datable to the seventh or eighth century. Stucco and 

terra-cotta fragments, stylistically comparable to Hadda 

and Taxila, were found in the ruined stupa at Uskur. 

Sculptures in bronze are also well documented; their 

yellowish brass material, often with inlays of copper 

and silver, is typical. Beginning in the eighth century, 

standing figures of Buddha Śakyamuni wore garments 

with stylized folds, sometimes including a capelike 

“cloud-collar” around the neck. The Buddha was also 

often represented seated and wearing a crown. The 

stylistic roots for such representations may be found 

in Bengal. Kashmiri bodhisattvas were generally ornamental, 

with a luxuriant surface. Avalokiteśvara is often 

shown seated in a pensive mood, a form probably 

derived from Gandhara models. There are also examples 

of other bodhisattvas, such as MAITREYA or Vajrapani, 

as well as goddesses like Tara clad in tight 

bodices accentuating their feminine appearance. After 

the eighth century, fierce deities of the tantric pantheon 

were also represented. 

An impression of what the lost Buddhist murals in 

Kashmir must have looked liked may be gained from 

the enormously rich twelfth-century wall paintings in 

Ladakh, especially those at ALCHI, which were probably 

executed by Kashmiri artists. 

Nepal 

Nepal’s proximity to Northern India influenced the 

Buddhist art in Nepal on many levels; these Indian influences 

were later integrated into existing local traditions. 

The earliest still existing monuments were stupas. 

The four AŚOKA stupas erected at the cardinal points 

near the entrances to the city of Patan are related to basic 

Indian forms of the third century, as exemplified by 

the Great Stupa of SAN CI. The stupas at Patan have flat 

tumulus-like cupolas on low walls, small shrines for reliefs 

of buddhas, and square harmikas (pavilion-like 

blocks of stone atop the domelike stupas) that show 

Pala influence. The large Svayambhunath stupa to the 

west of Kathmandu, first erected around 400 C.E., is 

dedicated to the five tathagatas. It shows a relationship 

to a Mauryan tumulus, but pairs of eyes painted onto 

the four sides of the harmika are a Nepalese characteristic. 

They symbolize the all-seeing eyes of the 

supreme adi-buddha. The stupa is designed as a representation 

of the axis of the world, and it is thus surrounded 

by four shrines marking each of the heavenly 

directions. The plan of the second monumental stupa 

of Bodhnath in Bhatgaon (Bhaktapur) is related to the 

concepts of a MAN D ALA. It is also orientated to the four 

heavenly directions; it has a flat large tumulus on a 

three-step foundation, as well as eyes on the harmika. 



A mural depicting a many-headed, many-armed bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara at the ancient Buddhist center of Alchi, in Ladakh, India. 

© Hulton/Archive by Getty Images. Reproduced by permission. 

One hundred and eight niches in the low base of the 

anda contain statues of AMITABHA. 

The earliest representations of monastic architecture 

in Newari style are found in illustrations of prajñaparamita 

sutras that date to 1015. These buildings 

were characterized by a combination of plain brick 

walls, with roofs, doors, and windows made of elaborately 

decorated wood, a style possibly derived from 

Gupta architecture. Such structures are also characterized 

by slanting struts supporting the weight of the 

projecting roofs, which sometimes have Chineselooking 

upturned corners. 

In Nepal, there is a close technical and structural 

parallelism between nonreligious and monastic buildings, 

whether Buddhist or brahmanic. Three or four 

upper stories were often added to such buildings beginning 

in about the fourteenth century. Nepalese 

monasteries and temple complexes consisted of a 

square courtyard surrounded by buildings, with a main 

chapel at the end of the central axis. The center of the 

courtyard was sometimes occupied by a caitya or a 

mandala structure. 

The coexistence of Buddhism and Brahmanism in 

Nepal resulted in a similarity in iconographical types 

and forms. The earliest stone and wood sculptures of 

bodhisattvas in the Licchavi period (300–850) show a 

relationship to Kushan or Gupta art, but certain influences 

from Sarnath may also be observed. During 

the Thakuri phase (beginning about 1480) some Pala 

influences became apparent, and between the fourteenth 

and seventeenth centuries, there develops a distinctive 

Newari style that can no longer be labeled as 

a regional variety of Indian art. In this style, the sculptural 

surfaces, especially of bronze figures, is smooth 

and usually gilded. There are no obvious stylistic 

changes over longer periods, although a predilection 

for sensual representations of Avalokiteśvara and the 

female deity Vasudhara began in the eleventh century. 

After 1278 Newari artists were frequently employed by 

Tibetan monasteries, including the famous Aniko. 

In part because of differences in architectural structures, 

murals played a much smaller role in Buddhist 

painting in Nepal than in Ladakh or Tibet. Instead, 

narrative scenes and holy figures of the pantheon were 

painted on cotton and mounted as movable hanging 


323


scrolls (pata or paubha) to be shown during appropriate 

ceremonies, a tradition that continued well into 

the eighteenth century. The earliest dated piece is a 

mandala of the deity Vasudhara from the year 1367. 

These scrolls are characterized by detailed and elegant 

execution, the use of primary colors (especially red), 

the hieratic frontality of central figures, and visual order 

and spatial symmetry. 

Another characteristic field of Buddhist painting in 

Nepal are illustrations in manuscripts on palm leaf or 

paper, an art practiced since the first half of the 

eleventh century. The roots for this form may be found 

in Eastern India, but the Nepalese paintings are more 

expressive and painterly than Indian Pala versions. 

During the first half of the seventeenth century, a new 

stylistic tradition developed as Nepalese artists came 

under the influence of Rajput paintings. 

Ladakh and western Tibet 

Buddhist art in the regions of Ladakh, Spiti, and Guge 

in western Himalaya mainly came to life under the influence 

of the “second spread” (bstan pa phyi dar) of 

Buddhism, which was started by Rin chen bzang po 

(958–1055) and sponsored by the local royal families. 

Rin chen bzang po is said to have founded many temples, 

although only few such reports can be substantiated 

historically. The new religious trends, with roots 

in Northern India and Kashmir, were characterized by 

a cosmic conception centered on the transcendental 

Buddha Vairocana and the four tathagatas. This focus 

is reflected clearly in iconography. Influences from 

Nepal can also be traced. Later, artists in central Tibet, 

under the influence of the Bka’ gdams pa (Kadampa 

order), introduced sexually tinted yab-yum figures in 

sculpture and painting (“yab-yum,” literally “fathermother,” 

is a couple in an erotic embrace—he a tantric 

deity, she the embodiment of transcendental wisdom, 

or prajña). After the sixteenth century, when the DGE 

LUGS (GELUK) order became the leading power, Tibetan 

art shows Chinese influence, especially in 

monastic architecture, and monasteries of this period 

often look like fortresses. 

Nyar ma, near the capital Leh, is the only monastery 

in Ladakh that can be confirmed as having been 

founded by Rin chen bzang po, in about 1000 C.E. This 

monastery was an influential religious center during 

the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but only ruined 

foundations of the buildings remain. Another early 

building is a small temple at Lamayuru Monastery 

(Gyung drung dgon pa) in the Indus valley. This building 

contains murals and a sculpture of Vairocana 

flanked by the four tathagatas. The other buildings at 

Lamayuru were redecorated later. 

The temples in the village of Alchi (A lci) on the left 

bank of the Indus, to the east of Leh, occupy an exceptional 

position in the Himalayan history of Buddhist 

architecture and wall painting. While the structures of 

the walls follow the local Ladakhi-Tibetan tradition, 

the wooden facade and pillars, elements of the ceilings, 

and especially the wall paintings, clearly represent 

Kashmiri traditions, and were probably executed by 

Kashmiri artists invited to western Tibet by Rin chen 

bzang po. Whereas the congregation hall (Du khang) 

was erected and decorated early in the twelfth century, 

the three-storied temple (Gsum brtsegs) dates slightly 

later to around 1200 C.E. The murals at Alchi are extremely 

elegant and stylistically quite different from 

paintings in Tibetan style. The secular scenes depicting 

male and female donors in royal attire show Indian 

and Central Asian influence, whereas the Great 

Stupa, which is actually a pañcayatana chapel, and its 

murals belong to the same period as the early Alchi 

temples. Rich wall paintings of male and female deities 

united in the yab-yum position correspond to a typical 

Tibetan style. The only known temple complex in 

a style closely related to that of Alchi are the four 

chapels and a pañcayatana building in the small village 

of Mang rgyu, which is located in a valley near Alchi. 

Whereas many of the earlier temples in Ladakh were 

built on flat ground near villages, beginning in the fifteenth 

century most monastic complexes were constructed 

on hills. These fortresslike complexes consisted 

of several courtyards with temples. Painted and 

sculpted icons used the tantric iconography of Tibetan 

Buddhism. A typical example is Spituk (Dpe thub) 

near Leh. The temples at Tiktse (Khrig rtse) and Likir 

(Klu dkyil) show later repainting and restoration. The 

wealthy ’Brug pa monastery at Hemis consists of several 

large buildings, some with murals from the eighteenth 

century. 

Five cave temples above the village of Saspol (Sa spo 

la) opposite Alchi house rich murals with a wide spectrum 

of iconography. These show Śakyamuni, the 

Sukhavat Paradise, many bodhisattvas, protective 

deities, and monks. 

The important temple complex at Tabo (Rta bo) in 

Spiti was founded in 996 by Rin chen bzang po and 

the religious king Ye shes ’od. The walls (lcags ri) surround 

eight asymmetrically arranged temple buildings. 



The temple and other buildings of the religious compound at Alchi in Ladakh, India. © Craig Lovell/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

The entrance hall (sgo khang) includes murals from 996 

that show influences from Central Asia, especially in 

the representation of human figures. The main hall 

(Gtsug lag khang), which was renovated in 1042, is divided 

by rows of pillars into three naves with a circumambulation 

route at its end. The walls show a 

Sarvavid-Vairocana mandala; the main figures are affixed 

as sculptures to the walls and are surrounded by 

paintings. The wooden portals are framed by panels of 

sculptures with scenes from Śakyamuni’s life, probably 

executed by Kashmiri artists. There are also remarkable 

painted portraits of royal patrons, nobles, 

and monks with their names added. Several other 

chapels are dedicated to different deities. 

The group of temples at Tholing (Mtho lding), the 

religious center of the kingdom of Gu ge, was founded 

at the end of the tenth century by Ye shes ’od and Rin 

chen bzang po, who served as the first abbot. The layout 

was modeled after the Tibetan monastery BSAM YAS 

(SAMYE). The rectangular outer walls surround a row 

of small chapels. The greatest building in the center, 

dedicated by Ye shes ’od, is accentuated with stupas over 

its four corners, resulting in a pyramidal effect, the 

arrangement of which, together with the interior decoration, 

represents a Vajradhatu mandala. The masonry 

structure is Tibetan; the Chinese-style copper roofs were 

added during the fifteenth century. There are several 

other buildings, including a congregation hall (’Du 

khang). The hall for initiations (Gser khang) has three 

stories representing the three bodies of a buddha and a 

mandala-like plan with chapels; the wooden columns 

are in Central Asian style and are similar to the wooden 

portal of the White Temple (Lha khang dkar po). 

The surviving murals in the temples at Tsaparang 

(Rtsa pa brang), only ten kilometers from Tholing, and 

the later capital of Gu ge, were painted during the fifteenth 

and sixteenth centuries and are related to those 

of Gyantse (Rgyal rtse). The White Temple had twentytwo 

stucco statues affixed to its walls; these were destroyed 

during the Cultural Revolution. Remaining 

murals show scenes from Śakyamuni’s life. The Red 

Temple (Lha khang dmar po), built during the fifteenth 

century, has murals with tathagatas executed 

about two centuries later. 


325


Central and eastern Tibet 

Whereas Ladakh and western Tibet were strongly influenced 

by the art of Kashmir, the Buddhist art of central 

and eastern Tibet was in its formative period 

stimulated by the introduction of Buddhism from India, 

via Nepal, and from Central Asia, and in its later 

phase from China. Characteristic local styles were the 

result of mingling adaptations with autochthonous traditions, 

especially in architecture. 

The JO KHANG in Lhasa, its founding in the eighth 

century attributed to King Srong btsan sgam po, is close 

to Indian Gupta models. There are three stories over a 

square plan, the third story probably constructed later. 

The five inner chapels are surrounded by corridors for 

circumambulation. The wooden chapel doors and 

heavy columns are decorated with carvings resembling 

a mid-seventh century Newari style. The projecting 

Chinese-style roofs were built later. The principal 

chapel contains a sculpture of the eastern tathagata, 

AKSOBHYA, as its main image, with sculptures of 

Amitabha and Maitreya in side chapels. The original 

monumental murals are lost; the existing paintings 

were executed in the twelfth century and show Tibetan 

style with some Nepalese and Pala influences. 

The temple complex of Bsam yas (Samye) in the 

Tsangpo valley was founded in 779 by King Khri srong 

lde btsan. The layout comprises several buildings and 

four outer chörten (mchod rtens), or stupas, which were 

based on mandala concepts. The three-storied central 

temple (dbu rtse) symbolizes Mount Sumeru as axis 

mundi. The circular perimeter wall stood for the chain 

of mountains surrounding the world (lchags ri). The 

differing architectural structures of the three stories reflect 

the pluralism of religious and stylistic sources 

from India, Khotan, and China. Turrets at the four corners 

of the upper story transform it into a pañcayatana 

structure. The wall paintings in the chapels symbolize 

the ascent of the adept through the spiritual layers of 

the Buddhist religion. 

The extremely dilapidated temple of Yemar (Gye 

dmar) in the Khangmar county, erected early in the 

eleventh century, holds an important position in art 

history. Three chapels inside a processional path (skor 

lam) house larger than life-size clay figures of buddhas, 

bodhisattvas, and guardian deities, which were originally 

colored and gilded. The figures are characterized 

by fine molding of the faces and the folds of garments, 

the latter featuring rich ornamental medallions showing 

Central Asian influence. The figures represent a Tibetan 

substyle with Pala and Central Asian elements. 

All the murals have disappeared. 

A highlight of the later phase of Tibetan art is the 

temple complex Dpal khor chos sde at Gyantse (Rgyal 

rtse), formerly the third-largest city in Tibet. Gyantse 

is crowned by a fortress (rdzong), destroyed in 1904 by 

the Younghusband expedition, but partly reconstructed. 

The temple complex was founded in 1418 by 

a Gyantse prince and comprised many buildings and 

eighteen colleges run by different Buddhist schools, including 

SA SKYA (SAKYA), KARMA PA, Dge lugs (Geluk), 

and others. Most of the buildings were destroyed during 

the Cultural Revolution. Most important is the 

building of the Sku ’bum, erected and decorated between 

1427 and 1442. Its ground plan has the character 

of a mandala and its four-storied elevation 

resembles an “auspicious stupa with many doors,” the 

so-called Bkra shis sgo mang mchod rten. The building 

contains seventy-two temples and chapels that are decorated 

with sculptures and paintings of more than 

twenty-seven thousand deities. These images illustrate 

the esoteric and cosmological speculations of the Sa 

skya school, which are experienced by adepts during 

circumambulation. A central figure is that of the transcendental 

Vajradhara, located in the fourth story. The 

stucco statues and the paintings represent a typical Tibetan 

style called “school of Gyantse,” into which foreign 

influences have been fully integrated. 

Beginning in the fifteenth century, temple plans in 

Tibet develop according to different systems, culminating 

in complex monastic cities like Dga ldan, especially 

under the influence of the Dge lugs order. An 

increasing Chinese influence is noticeable, mainly in 

roof structures. Examples are the Kumbum (Sku ’bum; 

Chinese, Ta’ersi) at the birthplace of TSONG KHA PA 

(1357–1419) in Amdo, and Labrang Tashi Khyil (Bla 

brang bKra shis dkyil), founded in 1710 by the Dge 

lugs order. 

A special position in Tibetan architecture is occupied 

by the political and religious center of the POTALA 

on the Red Mountain at Lhasa. Since the fifth DALAI 

LAMA started construction on the White Palace in 

1645, the fortresslike palace and temple complex, rising 

thirteen stories and covering more than 100,000 

square meters, served as a residence for the dalai lamas. 

The palace comprises halls, chapels, shrines, chörtens, 

and libraries, as well as quarters for administration and 

living. Its architectural style is a combination of Tibetan 

and Chinese features, but it has a uniquely Tibetan 

appearance. It has slightly slanting stone walls 

and golden roofs for the main buildings, and it is filled 

with murals, paintings, and sculptures of historical figures 

from the seventh to the seventeenth century and 



of deities of the pantheon, along with many other treasures. 

The rich interior wooden structures are heavily 

painted. 

In Tibet, sculptures that were not permanently fixed 

into an architectural context were rarely executed in 

stone, but rather in stucco, clay, and metal. The center 

of bronze casting was Kham in western Tibet, especially 

Sde dge (Derge); the technique was cire perdue, 

often gilded. Foreign influences, especially from Pala 

and Sena in eastern India, are obvious during early periods 

in western Tibet and Ladakh. During the Yuan 

period (1279–1368) in China, artists from Nepal were 

also active. Different local stylistic varieties exist over 

longer periods. Whereas icons used in rituals were subject 

to formal rules and measurements of iconography, 

the portraits of historical saints and monks show tendencies 

toward realism. 

Paintings not executed on walls of temples may be 

grouped into two categories: mobile hanging scrolls 

(thang ka) and book illustrations. Thang kas, which 

show Chinese influences, were painted mainly in 

gouache on cotton or paper and framed in elaborate 

mountings, often of brocade. Icons were governed by 

strict rules of iconometry; illustrations of texts or biographies 

and views of temples were more freely represented. 

The different styles were connected to the 

spread of religious schools, but beginning in the fourteenth 

century there was a stylistic unification connected 

with the spread of the Sa skya order over Tibet. 

Chinese influences are obvious after the fifteenth century 

in landscape images, even when these images 

serve only as settings for compositions centered on 

figures. 

Mongolia 

Knowledge about Buddhist art of the Mongolian region 

is limited, partly because many monuments have 

been destroyed through the centuries. Only a few 

lamaistic monasteries remain, their architectural structure 

and style exhibiting a mingling of autochthonous 

and Tibetan traditions, with increasing Chinese influence 

beginning in the eighteenth century. Beginning in 

the sixteenth century, Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia 

were established as centers of cities. Buildings in 

Tibetan style, like the temple in the monastery Erdeni 

Zuu, erected in 1586, had a square plan with enclosing 

walls that were crowned by stupas. Erdeni Zuu has 

108 small stupas on its walls, as well as three temples 

and a stupa inside. The temple Wudang-zhao, erected 

in 1749 in Inner Mongolia, looks purely Tibetan and 

contains wall paintings of Śakyamuni, Yamantaka, and 

Tsong kha pa in its three stories. The most important 

temple in Mongolian style was located at Maidari, but 

it was destroyed in 1938. The Da Kürij-e of 1651 is 

crowned by an upper story with a roof in the form of 

a Mongolian tent. Monastic buildings in Sino-Tibetan 

style, like the Dalailama Temple of 1675 at Erdeni Zuu, 

are characterized by Chinese roofs. Stupas, called suburgan 

in Mongolian, resemble Tibetan chörten in form 

and style. 

The sculptor Bogdo Gegen Zanabazar (1635–1723), 

trained at Lhasa as both a religious patriarch and an 

artist, created in Outer Mongolia a tradition of bronze 

sculpture with characteristic drum-shaped pedestals 

that exhibits simplicity and excellent workmanship. 

Slight influences from Nepal and China are observable. 

Another school of Dolonnor at Urga in Inner Mongolia 

is stylistically closer to China. 

Buddhist painting in Mongolia is directly related to 

that of Central Tibet, the paintings mostly being 

framed with silk brocades from China. Typical are 

hanging scrolls formed by application of textiles in different 

colors and showing mandalas or icons. 

Bhutan 

Most early monuments and buildings in Bhutan were 

destroyed during an earthquake in 1896. Monastic 

complexes have three-story temples at the end of a 

square court with habitations at the sides. The upper 

stories contain chapels, with the most important 

chapel at the top center. The slightly projecting roofs 

are designed like those in secular mansions. Typical for 

Bhutan are monastic fortresses (rdzong) with inner 

courts containing religious and secular wings and surrounded 

by galleries. The main building has five floors 

with chapels. The court of Tashi chödzong (Bkra shis 

chos rdzong) at Thimbu is used for religious dance festivals. 

The compact structure at Paro (Spa gro) was 

burnt, but reconstructed in 1864; today it is a museum. 

See also: Central Asia, Buddhist Art in; Huayan Art; 

India, Buddhist Art in; Monastic Architecture; Mongolia; 

Nepal; Silk Road; Tibet 

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Berger, Patricia, and Bartholomew, Terese Tse. Mongolia: The 

Legacy of Chinggis Khan. London: Thames and Hudson, 

1995. 


327

H I NAYA NA 

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Brill, 1978. 

HINAYA NA 

ROGER GOEPPER 

Hlnayana is a pejorative term meaning “Lesser Vehicle.” 

Some adherents of the “Greater Vehicle” (MA- 

HAYANA) applied it to non-Mahayanist schools such as 

the THERAVADA, the Sarvastivada, the MAHASAM GHIKA, 

and some fifteen other schools. This encyclopedia uses 

the term MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS instead of 

Hlnayana. 

HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM 


The term Hinduism as used in this entry (but not usually 

elsewhere) covers the whole Brahmanical tradition, 

which initially expresses itself in Vedic and its 

ancillary literature and is in its later phases characterized 

by its acceptance of the authority of the Veda. Hinduism 

understood in this manner is no monolithic 

whole, and a discussion of the importance of Hinduism 

in the development of Buddhism is not possible without 

some understanding of the development of Hinduism 

itself. 

Vedic religion and Buddhism 

Little is known about religion in early India beyond 

what can be learned from the corpus of texts collectively 

known by the name Veda. Vedic literature is extensive 

and was produced over a very long period: The 

earliest parts of the Rgveda were composed many centuries 

before the Vedic Upanisads, which constitute the 

most recent part of this corpus. Vedic literature is expressive 

of what is commonly called Vedic religion. 

Vedic religion did not remain static, yet manifests as a 


H INDUISM AND B UDDHISM 

whole a clear continuity. It is on the other hand becoming 

increasingly clear that early Indian religions 

cannot be reduced to Vedic religion alone. There were 

other, non-Vedic, religions that, unlike Vedic religion, 

have left no early texts. 

Some of those non-Vedic religions will be referred 

to here collectively as the Śramana (mendicant) 

movement. Buddhism originally belonged to the Śramana 

movement, as did Jainism and other religious 

currents. The Śramana movement also came to exert 

an important influence on later forms of Vedic religion, 

more commonly known by the name of Brahmanism. 

This means that at least some of the ideas and 

ideals that characterized the Śramana movement came 

to be absorbed into Brahmanism and are not necessarily 

borrowings from Buddhism and Jainism. At least 

in part on account of these influences, the Brahmanical 

tradition underwent profound changes. Many later 

forms of Hinduism therefore share certain notions 

with Buddhism that early Hinduism (i.e., Vedic religion) 

does not contain. 

Which were the ideas and ideals that characterized 

the Śramana movement? The single most important 

idea is the doctrine of KARMA (ACTION): the belief that 

acts bring about their retribution, usually in a following 

existence. Connected with this belief is the religious 

aim of finding liberation from the eternal cycle of rebirths 

(SAM SARA). Various methods to reach this aim 

existed. Buddhism primarily distinguished itself from 

other currents within the Śramana movement by its 

specific method, which consisted of a psychological 

strategy for destroying desire. 

Several features of early Buddhism can be understood 

in the light of the fact that it arose out of the Śramana 

movement. It shared with this movement the 

general ideas of karma and REBIRTH, and the ideal of 

liberation from the eternal cycle of rebirths. It distinguished 

itself through its specific understanding of 

karma, and through the method it preached. 

Early Buddhism, then, was a special development 

of, and within, the Śramana movement. As such it had 

little to do with early Hinduism, that is, Vedic religion. 

It was not a development of, or a reaction 

against, Hinduism, nor was it conceived of as one. It 

is not, therefore, necessary to study the Veda in order 

to understand most aspects of early Buddhism. Nor 

does it make sense to claim that Buddhism is a branch 

of Hinduism, unless, of course, one chooses to redefine 

the term Hinduism in a way that suits this purpose, 

as some thinkers have done. 

The fact that the youngest parts of Vedic literature 

have themselves undergone the influence of ideas belonging 

to the Śramana movement complicates the 

picture to some extent. One of the ideas current in at 

least some circles belonging to the Śramana movement 

concerned the true nature of the “self.” It was believed 

that the self, by its very nature, never acts. Insight into 

the true nature of the self entailed the realization that 

one never acts and has never acted. Retribution of acts 

no longer concerns those who have realized that they 

have never acted to begin with. This belief about the 

true nature of the self found its way into certain passages 

of the Vedic Upanisads, in a suitably adjusted 

form: The self, it is here stated, is really identical with 

Brahman, the highest principle of the universe. Some 

Upanisadic passages freely admit that this knowledge 

had not been known to the Vedic Brahmins until it 

was revealed to them by others. The most orthodox 

continuation of Vedic religion went on ignoring this 

“knowledge” for another millennium, most notably in 

the Mmam sa system of Vedic hermeneutics. 

The Buddhist doctrine of no-self (anatman) is to be 

understood against the background of the Śramana belief 

in the inactive nature of the self. Early Buddhism 

rejects the idea that knowledge of the true nature of 

the self leads to liberation (it does not say, but it does 

suggest, that such an inactive self does not exist at all). 

In rejecting this idea, the early Buddhist texts do not 

so much express disagreement with Vedic religion, 

which had only recently accepted the idea in some of 

its texts, but with the milieu from which the Vedic text 

had borrowed this idea, that is, certain circles within 

the Śramana movement. This is not to deny on principle 

that the Buddha, or the early redactors of the 

Buddhist CANON, may have been acquainted with the 

contents of some of the Upanisads, as is claimed by 

some scholars (unfortunately scholarly research has 

produced few, if any, convincing reasons to believe that 

this must have been the case). But in this context it is 

no doubt important that the canonical passages that 

present the doctrine of no-self do not link the view 

criticized with Vedic religion or with the Upanisads. 

There are, to be sure, passages in the early Buddhist 

canon that do depict encounters between the Buddha 

and representatives of Vedic religion. The subject matter 

of these discussions frequently focuses on the position 

of Brahmins in society, and on the question of 

who is a true Brahmin (answer: a Buddhist practitioner), 

what is the right sort of sacrifice (answer: faith, 

training in the precepts, and other Buddhist virtues), 

and so on. There may be no canonical passages in 


329


The Hindu deities Brahma and Indra invite the Buddha to preach. (Gandhara, first–second century.) © Scala/Art Resource, NY. Reproduced 


which a Brahmin is presented as defending points of 

view that are associated with the Vedic Upanisads. This 

confirms the conclusion that Buddhism did not arise 

as a reaction against Vedic religion in any of its forms. 

However, the preaching Buddha and his early followers 

did come across Vedic Brahmins and had to take 

position with regard to their views; traces of these confrontations 

have been preserved in the Buddhist canon. 

Philosophy 

It was pointed out above that Hinduism underwent 

major developments during which it absorbed several 

features from the Śramana movement. Once Buddhism 

had been established as an independent tradition, 

Hinduism started to absorb certain features 

directly from Buddhism. An important form of interaction 

between the two was, for a long time, that of intellectual 

debate. This explains that mutual influence 

is clearly discernible in the systems of thought (philosophy) 

that developed within the two religions. 

Surviving texts—both Chinese translations and 

original manuscripts dating from the first centuries 

of the common era, along with indirect evidence— 

support the view that systematic philosophy arose in 

Buddhism before it made its appearance in Hinduism. 

Perhaps the first to systematize Buddhist teachings into 

a coherent whole were the Sarvastivadins, who elaborated 

a vision of the world in which no composite 

wholes were believed to exist: Only the ultimate constituents 

of all there is (called dharmas) really exist. In 

a similar manner no entities extended in time were 

considered to exist. As a result only momentary dhar- 



mas have real existence. The false impression that there 

are composite things is due to the words of language: 

A chariot is in the end just a word, or exists merely by 

virtue of the word. 

One of the two major Hindu ontologies that arose 

in the early centuries of the common era, Vaiśesika, 

can be understood as a reaction against Sarvastivada 

ontology. Vaiśesika agreed with Sarvastivada that there 

is a close parallelism between the objects of phenomenal 

reality and the words of language. Where, however, 

the latter combined this point of view with the 

conviction that the objects of phenomenal reality do 

not really exist, because they are composite, the former 

did not share this conviction. For Vaiśesika, composite 

objects exist just as much as their constituent 

parts: They exist beside each other. This implies that a 

jar and the two halves that constitute it are together 

three different things. There are other features that 

Vaiśesika shares with Sarvastivada, which confirm that 

the former, while opposing the latter, was created under 

its influence. 

The other major Hindu ontology of that period is 

Sam khya, which does not appear to have been deeply 

influenced by Buddhist thought. Sam khya is linked to 

Yoga, a form of spiritual practice. Yoga, which was 

originally quite distinct from Buddhism, soon came to 

undergo its influence. Some early evidence for this influence 

is already discernible in the Mahabharata, and 

Buddhist influence has become strong and unmistakable 

in the classical texts of Yoga, the Yoga Su tra and 

the Yoga Bhasya, both attributed to a Patañjali by the 

early tradition. 

Hindu linguistic philosophy, whose classical representative 

is Bhartrhari (fifth century C.E.), has been influenced 

by Buddhist thought in various ways. Let it 

suffice here to point out that the notion of words and 

sentences as entities that are different from the physical 

sound that produces them—often referred to by 

the term sphota—corresponds to several linguistic 

dharmas that had been postulated in Sarvastivada. 

Systematic Vedanta philosophy, whose earliest surviving 

texts date from the middle of the first millennium 

C.E., owes so much to Buddhist influence that one 

chapter of the A gamaśastra of Gaudapada—supposedly 

the teacher of the teacher of the famous Vedantin 

Śaṅkara (ca. 700 C.E.)—is to all intents and purposes a 

Buddhist text. Śaṅkara himself has been accused of being 

a pseudo-Buddhist, which shows that some of his 

early Hindu opponents did not fail to see the extent to 

which Buddhist influence is recognizable in his work. 

Other forms of interaction 

There can be no doubt that Hinduism and Buddhism 

have interacted in many other ways during their long 

coexistence in South Asia. Unfortunately the surviving 

literature does not shed light on all of them. The 

idea, for example, that the great Hindu epic called Mahabharata 

was composed as a Hindu “riposte” to Buddhism 

(Biardeau), though interesting, remains for the 

time being speculative. There is, however, one area in 

which interaction between Hinduism and Buddhism 

has left clear traces: the complex of religious practices 

and beliefs commonly known by the name TANTRA. 

Both texts belonging to Hinduism and others belonging 

to Buddhism testify to the strong interest in the 

forms of ritual, the use of MANTRAs and MAN D ALAs, 

the sexual symbolism, and other features that come 

together under this label. Buddhist and Hindu tantric 

deities often share the same characteristics: Both are 

smeared with ashes, drink blood from skulls, have the 

third eye that is typical of the Hindu god Śiva, wear 

Śiva’s sickle moon in their matted hair, and so on. 

Sometimes Buddhist tantric texts refer to major Hindu 

deities by their Hindu names. Similar ideas about the 

nature of the mystical body, with its various nerve 

centers and channels, are found in texts belonging to 

both religions. The interaction between Buddhist and 

Hindu tantrism was undeniably intense, and here it 

seems that it was most often the Buddhists who borrowed 

from the Hindus. Indeed, it has been observed 

that it is particularly unlikely that the Buddhist doctrinal 

tradition could have developed an offshoot so 

completely foreign to itself as tantra on its own accord 

(Goudriaan). At the same time the idea of a common 

“religious substratum” cannot be rejected outright 

(Ruegg). 

It should be clear from this short survey that at no 

moment of its existence in India was Buddhism completely 

isolated from its non-Buddhist surroundings. 

There are no doubt aspects of Buddhism on which 

those surroundings exerted a less identifiable influence 

than on others. It is also likely that the interaction with 

the non-Buddhist world was more intense during some 

periods than others. It is not at all implausible that 

Buddhist MONKS and NUNS, who spent most of their 

time in major monastic centers that were supported by 

the local ruler, would care little about the thoughts or 

practices of outsiders. However, not all Buddhists lived 

in such circumstances. There were monks and nuns 

who, through choice or necessity, spent much of their 

time outside monastic communities. And there were, 

of course, many Buddhists who were neither monk nor 


331

H ISTORY 

nun. Early and late Buddhism in India would seem to 

have interacted most intensely with non-Buddhists. 

But even the most isolated and protected monastic 

scholars of the middle period had to take heed of the 

thoughts of others, because they might be obliged to 

enter into debate with them. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Dharma and 

Dharmas; India; Jainism and Buddhism; Sarvastivada 


Bibliography 

Biardeau, Madeleine. Le Mahabharata: Un récit fondateur du 

brahmanisme et son interprétation, 2 vols. Paris: Editions du 

Seuil, 2002. 

Bronkhorst, Johannes. The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient 

India, 2nd edition. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993. 

Reprint, 2000. 

Bronkhorst, Johannes. The Two Sources of Indian Asceticism, 2nd 

edition. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998. 

Bronkhorst, Johannes. “Die buddhistische Lehre.” In Heinz 

Bechert et al., Der Buddhismus I: Der indische Buddhismus 

und seine Verzweigungen. Stuttgart, Germany: W. Kohlhammer, 

2000. 

Gombrich, Richard F. How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned 

Genesis of the Early Teachings. London and Atlantic Highlands, 

NJ: Athlone, 1994. 

Goudriaan, Teun; Gupta, Sanjukta; and Hoens, Dirk Jan. Hindu 

Tantrism. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1979. 

Oetke, Claus. “Ich” und das Ich: Analytische Untersuchungen zur 

buddhistisch-brahmanischen A tmankontroverse. Stuttgart, 

Germany: Franz Steiner, 1988. 

Ruegg, David Seyfort. “A Note on the Relationship between 

Buddhist and ‘Hindu’ Divinities in Buddhist Literature and 

Iconology: The Laukika/Lokottara Contrast and the Notion 

of an Indian ‘Religious Substratum.’ ” In Le Parole e i Marmi: 

Studi in onore di Raniero Gnoli nel suo 70° compleanno, a cura 

di Raffaele Torella. Rome: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e 

l’Oriente, 2001. 

Sanderson, Alexis. “Vajrayana: Origin and Function.” Buddhism 

into the Year 2000: International Conference Proceedings. 

Bangkok and Los Angeles: Dhammakaya Foundation, 1994. 

Snellgrove, David L. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists 

and Their Tibetan Successors. London: Serindia, 1987. 

HISTORY 

JOHANNES BRONKHORST 

The difference between notions of history in Buddhist 

literature and those typical in contemporary secular 

culture is evident when one contrasts certain popular 

Buddhist narratives with the accounts of modern 

scholars. One such contrast concerns the very beginning 

of Buddhism. Historically, scholars say, Buddhism 

began with the teaching activity of Śakyamuni, 

the historical Buddha, roughly twenty-five hundred 

years ago in northern India. Early Buddhist narratives, 

on the other hand, envision a teaching and indeed a 

universe with no beginning, say that there were twentyfour 

BUDDHAS who appeared before Śakyamuni, and recount 

that Śakyamuni himself remembered his 

numerous previous lives during the night of his awakening. 

In the LOTUS SUTRA (SADDHARMAPUN DARIKA- 

SUTRA), Śakyamuni reveals that he is eternal and 

universal, appearing over and over again in innumerable 

worlds and communicating the all-inclusive and 

superlative teaching that is the subject of this sutra. 

Scholars tell us that the Lotus Su tra was composed 

around 200 C.E. as an expression of a sectarian movement 

that eventually gave rise to distinct schools of 

Buddhism, such as the TIANTAI SCHOOL in China in 

the 500s and Tendai in Japan in the 800s, as well as the 

Japanese NICHIREN SCHOOL in the 1200s. In fact, scholarship 

shows, there is no evidence that any of the discourses 

were recorded during the lifetime of the 

historical Buddha; whatever Śakyamuni may have 

taught, recorded Buddhist teachings were embellishments 

and often fabrications of his words. What the 

scholarly work and traditional narratives have in common 

seems only to be a desire to connect their accounts 

with Śakyamuni Buddha. 

History in its barest sense is a narrative account that 

connects the present to the past in anticipation of an 

open future. The recognition of the world as a meaningful 

sequence of events, one leading to another, lends 

the word its common double usage: History means 

both the events themselves and the account of events. 

Modern scholars also use the word historiography for 

any written accounts of the past, although they sometimes 

restrict this term to critical accounts that evaluate 

multiple sources and try to establish “what actually 

happened.” Thus historicity refers to historical factuality 

or reality, of a person like Śakyamuni for example. 

The naturalistic attitude in modern scholarship differentiates 

fact from fiction and history from myth or legend. 

This distinction is not at all obvious in traditional 

histories and stories, which often bear witness to transcendent 

spiritual realities at work in the course of time. 

A few scholars contend that Buddhism has no use 

for history at all since its doctrines imply that change 

over time is inherently meaningless. They see Bud- 


H ISTORY 

dhism as sharing an Indian worldview where time is 

cyclical and events (like the Buddha’s awakening) are 

repeatable, where true reality transcends time. They 

find no writing in pre-Muslim India at all that deserves 

the name of history. Scholars like Robert Frykenberg 

argue that this view is a simplistic stereotype. A. K. 

Warder proposes that the story of the Buddha’s life, 

the record of episodes after his death in early VINAYA 

literature, and the separate accounts of various schools 

after their schism, all clearly indicate a sense of history 

in Indian Buddhism. Buddhist literature in all of Asia 

contains a rich array of historical schemes used to make 

sense of a changing world. 

The seeming lack of historical consciousness in 

Buddhism has also become a point of intense discussion 

in interreligious dialogue linking history and 

ethics. Jewish and Christian theologians often say that 

Buddhist PHILOSOPHY overlooks the possibility that ultimate 

reality (be it God or ŚU NYATA [EMPTINESS]) is 

of consequence to humans only in the vicissitudes of 

history—that to overcome historical EVIL we need ethical 

action, not liberation from KARMA (ACTION), or 

that any ultimate liberation will come only eschatologically, 

through history. Buddhists, for their part, do 

not recognize a historical battle between good and evil 

with only humans on earth at stake. They stress insight 

into the nature of the cosmos and the self more than 

ethical imperatives or an understanding of anthropocentric 

history. MAHAYANA Buddhist answers have 

emphasized the timeless inseparability of NIRVAN A and 

SAM SARA, the endless activity of the BODHISATTVA, and 

the perpetual danger of absolutizing the distinction between 

good and evil. (Another philosophical response 

is discussed at the end of this entry.) In any case, historical 

scholarship has found ample evidence that Buddhism 

has been anything but ahistorical. 

Patterns of didactic history: National order and 

eschatological decline 

All scholars recognize the Buddhist chronicles or VAM SA 

literature of Sri Lanka as historical in some sense. These 

works, composed by Buddhist monks, began in the 

sixth century C.E. and were continually supplemented 

until the British occupation in the early 1800s. In the 

Mahavam sa (The Great Chronicle), Śakyamuni Buddha 

visits the island and proclaims that it will become the 

repository of his teachings. A sequence of kings promotes 

the DHARMA and protects the SAṄGHA, at times 

against foreign invaders, and Sri Lanka appears as a 

model for an ideal Buddhist nation. This work organizes 

past events to demonstrate not only the effects of 

karma and the reality of ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE) but 

also the necessity of meritorious works and deeds for a 

better future. Its concern is to understand the progression 

of human society within a Buddhist worldview; a 

sense of right intention (a soteriological practice enjoined 

by the noble eightfold PATH) rather than factual 

accuracy guides its author. To modern critical sensibilities, 

the Mahavam sa mixes myth and history, religious 

doctrine and political motive. Its genealogies and 

arrangement of recognizable events make it historical, 

but it is didactic history with an agenda: to promote the 

welfare of the saṅgha through the centuries by legitimizing 

the Buddhist state. 

The motif of a perfect order in the Sri Lankan 

chronicles contrasts with the motif of decline in Indian 

and East Asian Buddhist literature. According to some 

early Indian literature, the dharma will vanish after five 

hundred years, a doctrine that has been called DECLINE 

OF THE DHARMA. Later texts say that it was the true 

dharma that disappeared. East Asian texts tell of three 

ages. In the first, the true dharma flourished and awakening 

was attainable. The following age of the semblance 

dharma meant that practice, but no attainment, 

was possible. In the third or current era of the final 

dharma, lasting some ten thousand years or virtually 

all countable time, not even practice is efficacious. 

Deleterious events, harmful deeds, and political circumstances 

are the cause of this deterioration; even the 

Buddhadharma is impermanent. Some texts place this 

scheme in a larger cycle where a period of ascent begins 

after the three ages of decline and culminates in 

the coming of MAITREYA, the future Buddha. Karmic 

conditions governing an entire people, indeed all humankind, 

must be right for Buddhism to thrive. 

Modern scholarship finds that a substantial body of 

Buddhist literature demonstrates a sense of progression 

(or decline) through time, and of distinct historical 

period and the causes for their difference. Jan 

Nattier argues that the variety of schemes and timetables 

were in part an attempt to resolve discrepancies, 

evident to the writers, between previous predictions 

and current historical conditions, and between the differing 

teachings of Buddhist schools. In this literature, 

human actions are significant for changing the world; 

the future is not the repetition of the past, and the era 

in which one lives matters greatly, especially when the 

march of time is toward decline. Instead of encouraging 

an attitude of hopelessness and inevitability, in 

medieval East Asia the doctrines of decline generated 

new teachings, interpretations, and even schools that 

proclaimed themselves necessary to address an age of 


333

H ISTORY 

crisis where traditional approaches no longer worked. 

Such doctrines often served to renew rather than 

weaken Buddhism. 

History as seamless transmission and as 

comprehensive vision 

In China, Buddhist texts of various schools often emphasize 

LINEAGE, the linear succession of patriarch 

teachers from Śakyamuni to the present. The case of 

the CHAN SCHOOL is particularly instructive. Although 

its texts contain divergent lineage charts and a wide variety 

of stories connecting teachers and disciples, one 

story line in particular has been popularized: In the 

sixth century the Indian patriarch BODHIDHARMA 

brings the correct understanding of the dharma to 

China—a nonverbal understanding achieved through 

sitting MEDITATION and enlightenment, with no place 

for scriptural study. Bodhidharma’s robe, symbolizing 

the direct transmission of mind from Śakyamuni Buddha 

through the generations, is passed to his successors 

one at a time when they too realize this ineffable 

truth. The sixth patriarch HUINENG (ca. 638–713) recognizes 

several successors, and their lineages eventually 

form the five houses of Chan and later the seven 

schools. Teachers in the two extant schools, Linji 

(Japanese, Rinzai) and Caodong (Soto), can therefore 

trace their lineage to Tang China and back to Śakyamuni 

himself; what the “true dharma eye” sees is retained 

in an unbroken history. 

The research of modern scholars demonstrates that 

this story line is largely a fabrication that served to legitimize 

the teachings and practices of a particular 

group, or to secure its place in a society of competing 

interests. Taken together, early DUNHUANG chronicles, 

Song-period lamp histories, and other texts present a 

far more complicated picture of lineages, schools, rivalries, 

and projections into the past. One might see 

the lineage charts as evidence of the lack of historical 

consciousness, insofar as they flatten time into a “continuous 

expression of a golden moment of the past” 

(McRae, p. 353) where the primordial event of enlightenment 

can be ever repeated. Another interpretation 

understands the lineage charts as proof-texts that 

the school has transmitted a thread of truth through 

history and in the midst of a chaotic world. 

Be that as it may, there is ample evidence of Chinese 

Buddhist historical writing in other records that 

extend beyond biographies of the Buddha and the patriarchs. 

Beginning in the fifth century, accounts modeled 

after dynastic and secular histories tried to 

demonstrate that Buddhism was truly Chinese and did 

in effect help to make it so. In the Song and Yuan eras, 

universal histories recounted developments of Buddhism 

over long periods, usually culminating in a particular 

school such as Tiantai that deemed itself 

superior because it included but surpassed all previous 

teachings. Occasionally these histories tested the reliability 

of their sources and their chronologies. Though 

these texts often mix realistic geography with mythical 

COSMOLOGY, they show that Buddhists in China also 

incorporated critical methods in composing history as 

a comprehensive vision. 

History as regeneration of a 

cosmological order 

Buddhist Tibet is distinguished by its layers of historical 

writing. According to one group of popular stories, Tibet 

is converted to Buddhism in the eighth century when 

the great Indian master, PADMASAMBHAVA, wields his 

magical powers to subdue local spirits and demons and 

persuades them to take an oath to protect the dharma 

from then on. He establishes Tibet’s first monastery at 

BSAM YAS (SAMYE). His ability to see the future as well 

as the past inspires him to hide certain “treasures,” including 

texts imparting ancient or even timeless wisdom 

that will be discovered in future times when they are 

needed and can be understood. Many stories celebrate 

great lamas through the centuries as treasure discoverers. 

Chronicles about the Tibetan empire, from 650 to 

the early 800s C.E., also tell of the introduction of Buddhism 

from China. The very first emperors marry Chinese 

princesses who bring the new religion to the land. 

Then about 760 Khri srong lde btsam (Tri Songdetsen) 

expands the empire into rival China and patronizes Indian 

Buddhism; it is he who invites Padmasambhava and 

establishes the first monastery. About 850 the last emperor 

persecutes Buddhism and initiates the dark ages 

lasting a century, until Buddhism is revived. Tibet appears 

as a field of sam sara ripe for the salvific work of 

numerous bodhisattvas, many appearing as rulers. Their 

dominion, in some accounts, is like that of the Buddha 

Vairocana in his own realm. 

Modern scholarship reads these accounts as embellished 

legends recorded centuries later and meant 

to associate the unification of Tibet with the arrival and 

flourishing of Buddhism. The later chronicles, along 

with numerous genealogies and sectarian histories, 

were composed to ensure political continuity and 

preservation of a tradition. The “treasure” texts are 

apocryphal revelations that link a later time to the imperial 

period. Like the rich tradition of various lamas’ 

autobiographies, they show an awareness of the devel- 


H ISTORY 

opment and differentiation of time periods. Yet the 

idea of reincarnation and the reappearance of bodhisattvas, 

such as Avalokiteśvara in the person of the 

DALAI LAMA, extend the sense of historical time far beyond 

the scope of merely human activity. 

Visionary history, critical history, and history 

as the field of emptiness 

Japanese historical writing includes both works that 

mix eschatological history with indigenous motifs, and 

others that criticize the scheme of decline and the sectarian 

biases of Buddhist comprehensive histories. The 

monk Jien’s Gukansho (Miscellany of Ignorant Views) 

of 1219 attempts to explain the tumultuous present by 

the karmic influences of previous times, leading to this 

age of the final dharma. The emperors, who are of divine 

origin and occasionally are incarnations of the 

Buddha, can still wield the dharma and gain the gods’ 

blessings to arrest the decline and establish peace and 

order. This work envisions a single course of events 

that shape the nation, have human as well as divine 

causes, and lead to a variable future depending upon 

the actions of the rulers. It exemplifies visionary history, 

a supernatural interpretation of why the present 

is as it is and how the future can be better. A hundred 

years later the Pure Land monk GYO NEN (1240–1321) 

wrote an account titled the Sangoku buppo denzu engi 

(Circumstances of the Transmission of the Buddhadharma 

in the Three Countries of India, China, and 

Japan) that disputes the prevailing philosophy of final 

dharma and explains Japanese Buddhism in terms of 

Indian and Chinese Buddhism. The transhistorical, 

unconditioned dharma is mediated by geographical 

and cultural factors. Gyonen’s work counts as international, 

if idealized, religious history. 

TOMINAGA NAKAMOTO’s more realistic work of 

1745, Shutsujo ko go (Emerging from Meditation) argues 

that Buddhism develops by reforming what came 

before and then appealing to the authority of the 

founder in order to justify the reforms as a return to 

original teachings—as if no essential change had taken 

place. His work articulates several criteria of textual 

criticism to uncover this process, and concludes that 

Śakyamuni Buddha could not have taught Mahayana 

Buddhism. His writing represents a rare instance of 

critical history in the service of Buddhism. Yet as late 

as 1935 the Pure Land thinker Soga Ryojin, rejecting 

naturalist as well as nationalist and Marxist explanations, 

proposed that Buddhist history is the timetranscendent 

dharma being realized in time by those 

who experience and practice it. 

Twentieth-century Japanese Buddhist philosophers 

offer some of the very few attempts to formulate a 

specifically Buddhist interpretation of what makes history 

possible. Nishitani Keiji argues that śunyata is 

what enables history to be free of predetermination 

and thus to be real. For the future to remain open and 

historical existence to be meaningful, emptiness must 

underlie each and every moment thus ensuring its absolute 

newness. Nishitani’s history as the field of 

emptiness does not consider the discrimination required 

by historians to select events of primary significance. 

But it does envision the task, common to the 

Buddhist senses of history sketched here, that the present 

must be accounted for not only in terms of the 

past with an eye to the future, but also as a moment 

in a cosmos that is beginningless, endless, and conditioned 

by timeless truth. 

Bibliography 

Beasley, W. G., and Pulleyblank, E. G., eds. Historians of China 

and Japan. London: Oxford University Press, 1961. 

Bechert, Heinz. “The Beginnings of Buddhist Historiography: 

Mahavam sa and Political Thinking.” In Religion and the Legitimation 

of Power in Sri Lanka, ed. Bardwell L. Smith. 

Chambersburg, PA: Anima Books, 1978. 

Blum, Mark L. The Origin and Development of Pure Land Buddhism: 

A Study and Translation of Gyo nen’s Jodo Homon 

Genrusho. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 

2002. 

Brown, Delmer, and Ishida, Ichiro. The Future and the Past: A 

Translation and Study of the Gukansho . Berkeley and Los 

Angeles: University of California Press, 1979. 

Frank, Herbert. “Some Aspects of Chinese Private Historiography 

in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.” In Historians 

of China and Japan, ed. W. G. Beasley and E. G. 

Pulleyblank. London: Oxford University Press, 1961. 

Frykenberg, Robert Eric. History and Belief: The Foundations of 

Historical Understanding. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 

1996. 

Gyatso, Janet. Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies 

of a Tibetan Visionary. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1998. 


Conversion, Contestation, and Memory. Oxford and New 

York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 

Maraldo, John. “Is There Historical Consciousness within 

Ch’an?” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 12, nos. 2–3 

(1985): 141–172. 

Maraldo, John C. “Hermeneutics and Historicity in the Study 

of Buddhism.” Eastern Buddhist 19, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 

17–43. 


335

H O NEN 

McRae, John. “Encounter Dialogue and the Transformation of 

the Spiritual Path in Chinese Ch’an.” In Paths to Liberation: 

The Marga and Its Transformations in Buddhist Thought, ed. 

Robert E. Buswell, Jr., and Robert M. Gimello. Honolulu: 


Nattier, Jan. Once upon A Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist 

Prophecy of Decline. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 

1991. 

Nishitani Keiji. Religion and Nothingness. Berkeley: University 


Perera, L. S. “The Pali Chronicle of Ceylon.” In Historians of India, 

Pakistan, and Ceylon, ed. C. H. Philips. London: Oxford 


Schmidt-Glintzer, Helwig. Die Identität der buddhistischen 

Schulen und die Kompilation buddhistischer Universalgeschichten 

in China. Wiesbaden, Germany: Franz Steiner, 

1982. 

Soga Ryojin. “Shinran’s View of Buddhist History,” tr. Jan Van 

Bragt, with an introduction by Yasutomi Shin’ya. Eastern 

Buddhist 32, no. 1 (2000): 106–129. 

Sørensen, Per K. Tibetan Buddhist Historiography: The Mirror 

Illuminating the Royal Genealogies. Wiesbaden, Germany: 


Tominaga Nakamoto. Emerging from Meditation, tr. Michael 

Pye. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990. 

Warder, A. K. An Introduction to Indian Historiography. Bombay: 

Popular Prakashan, 1972. 

HO NEN 

JOHN C. MARALDO 

Honen (Genku, 1133–1212) was a renowned master of 

PURE LAND BUDDHISM in medieval Japan. He is best 

known for his advocacy of the verbal nenbutsu as the 

exclusive practice for birth in the Pure Land paradise 

of the Buddha Amida. Honen is recognized as the 

founder of an independent Pure Land movement in 

Japan and of the Jodoshu, or Pure Land school. 

Honen was born in Mimasaka province (presentday 

Okayama prefecture) and entered the priesthood 

as a boy in 1141. In 1145 or 1147 he was sent to train 

at the Enryakuji, the preeminent Tendai monastic 

complex on Mount Hiei near Kyoto. There he studied 

a variety of Tendai traditions, but gravitated to its Pure 

Land teachings and practices. In 1150 he took up residence 

at the Kurodani hermitage on Mount Hiei, 

which was headed by the Tendai master Eiku (d. 1179) 

and devoted primarily to Pure Land practices. Honen 

explored widely other forms of Buddhism, and visited 

major temples in Nara and Kyoto. But the main influence 

on him came from the writings of the Chinese 

Pure Land master Shandao (613–681). 

In 1175 Honen left Mount Hiei in order to spread 

the Pure Land teachings in Kyoto; he resided for many 

of his remaining years at O tani on the east side of the 

city. Over time he became a Pure Land teacher of great 

renown, attracting aristocrats, samurai, and clerics, as 

well as lowly members of society. His primary message, 

based largely on his interpretation of Shandao’s teachings, 

was that invoking or chanting AMITABHA (Amida) 

Buddha’s name is the one and only practice assuring 

birth in the Pure Land, where Buddhist enlightenment 

would be certain. This teaching came to be known as 

the “exclusive nenbutsu” (senju nenbutsu). It is the message 

Honen articulated in his foremost doctrinal treatise, 

Senchaku hongan nenbutsu shu (Passages on the 

Selection of the Nenbutsu in the Original Vow), composed 

in 1198. 

The established monasteries, Enryakuji on Mount 

Hiei and Kofukuji in Nara, raised objections to Honen’s 

movement in 1204 and 1205, and called for its ban. In 

1207 the court executed four of his followers, and banished 

Honen and several disciples from the capital. 

Though Honen was revolutionary in his exclusive nenbutsu 

teaching, he was always an upstanding priest, observant 

of the Buddhist precepts, and he even 

administered the precepts to others. He also continued 

to practice Pure Land meditative visualizations 

throughout his life. Honen was allowed to return to 

Kyoto in 1211, and died at O tani in 1212. Many followers 

considered him a wordly incarnation of 

Amida’s companion bodhisattva Seishi, or even of 

Amida Buddha himself. 

See also: Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, Yŏmbul); 


Bibliography 

Andrews, Allan A. “The Senchakushu in Japanese Religious History: 

The Founding of a Pure Land School.” Journal of the 

American Academy of Religion 55, no. 3 (1987): 473–499. 

Coates, Harper Havelock, and Ishizuka, Ryugaku, trans. Ho nen, 

the Buddhist Saint: His Life and Teaching (1925), 5 vols. 

Reprint, Kyoto: Society for the Publication of Sacred Books 

of the World, 1949. 

Kleine, Christoph. Ho nens Buddhismus des Reinen Lande: Reform, 

Reformation oder Häresie. Frankfurt, Germany: Peter 

Lang, 1996. 


H UAYAN 

A RT 

Senchakushu English Translation Project, trans. and ed. Ho nen’s 

Senchakushu : Passages on the Selection of the Nembutsu in the 

Original Vow (Senchaku hongan nembutsu shu ). Honolulu: 


HONJI SUIJAKU 


The term honji suijaku (literally, “the original ground 

and its traces”) refers to a particular interpretation of 

the interaction between Buddhism and Japanese local 

cults. The term was used in medieval Japan to mean 

that Indian and Buddhist divinities constituted the 

“original ground” (honji) of their Japanese manifestations 

as local kami, defined as “traces” (suijaku). 

See also: Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Teeuwen, Mark, and Rambelli, Fabio, eds. Buddhas and Kami 

in Japan: Honji Suijaku as a Combinatory Paradigm. London 

and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003. 

HO RYU JI AND TO DAIJI 


Horyuji (Temple of the Exalted Law), located in 

Ikaruga Village (Nara) and first founded by Prince 

Shotoku (574–622), was rebuilt after a 670 fire under 

royal patronage. Long associated with Hosso (FAXIANG 

SCHOOL) teachings, the temple owes its survival to its 

celebration of Shotoku’s memory. Horyuji’s west and 

east precincts contain an extraordinary number of ancient 

buildings, images, and treasures dating from the 

seventh, eighth, and later centuries. Several seventhcentury 

images at Horyuji are associated by inscription 

or legend with the prince: gilt-bronze representations 

of Yakushi (Bhaisajyaguru) and Shaka (Śakyamuni) on 

the primary altar, a gilded wood image of Kannon 

(Avalokiteśvara) in the Dream Hall, and a seated 

Miroku (MAITREYA) at neighboring Chuguji. A large 

eleventh-century hagiographical painting of Prince 

Shotoku drew visitors to the Painting Hall (Edono), 

while memorial rites before his portrait were conducted 

at the Shoryoin. 

Todaiji (Great Eastern Temple), located in the former 

capital Heijo-kyo (Nara), was begun in the mideighth 

century by the sovereign Shomu (r. 723–749) 

as a state-supported centerpiece to a Chinese-style 

provincial temple system. Todaiji served as headquarters 

of the Kegon school (HUAYAN SCHOOL), but in fact 

functioned as the central venue for ordination and 

study of Buddhism more broadly. Shomu commissioned 

for its central icon a colossal gilt-bronze 

Rushana (Vairocana) dedicated in 752. After Shomu’s 

death, his consort Komyo offered their massive collection 

of precious and imported objects to the temple, 

much of which survives. Burned twice in civil wars 

(1180 and 1567), Todaiji has been repeatedly revived. 

Several precincts and storehouses preserve sculptures 

from the eighth and thirteenth centuries, as well as 

temple treasures, documents, and books. 

See also: Japan, Buddhist Art in; Monastic Architecture; 


Bibliography 

Cunningham, Michael R., ed. Buddhist Treasures from Nara. 


Guth, Christine M. E. “The Pensive Prince of Chuguji: Maitreya 

Cult and Image in Seventh-Century Japan.” In Maitreya the 

Future Buddha, ed. Helen Hardacre and Alan Sponberg. 


Kurata Bunsaku, ed. Ho ryu ji, Temple of the Exalted Law: Early 

Buddhist Art from Japan. New York: Japan Society, 1981. 

Mino, Yutaka, ed. The Great Eastern Temple: Treasures of Japanese 

Buddhist Art from To daiji. Chicago: Art Institute of 

Chicago, 1986. 

Sugiyama, Jiro. Classic Buddhist Sculpture: The Tempyo Period, 

tr. Samuel Crowell Morse. New York: Kodansha International 

and Shibundo, 1982. 

HUAYAN ART 


The comprehensive and multidimensional vision of reality 

as expounded in the HUAYAN JING (Sanskrit, 

Avatam saka-su tra; Flower Garland Su tra) has provided 

a wealth of inspiration to Buddhist artists in all the 

Asian cultures in which the scripture was received. Not 

only is the text filled with exalted visions and holy 

themes, but its elaborate descriptions of “ocean-like assemblies” 

and the “jewels of Indra’s Net” fired the 

imagination of the faithful. Hence it is no coincidence 

that in time an established set of themes associated 

with the various chapters of the Avatam saka-su tra was 


337

H UAYAN 

A RT 

developed. Most popular of these is the opening scene 

in which Śakyamuni Buddha, after his enlightenment, 

attains the transcendental body (dharmakaya) of 

Vairocana, the Cosmic Buddha. Later a pictorial 

scheme became popular in which the central scenes 

were represented together as the “nine assemblies in 

seven locations.” 

Each of these scenes is depicted as a standard buddha 

assembly with a seated Vairocana surrounded by 

all the BODHISATTVAS, ARHATS, DIVINITIES, and protectors. 

Another important Avatam saka-related theme is 

provided by the Gandavyu ha, a text that is an integral 

part of the long version of the Avatam saka-su tra. This 

embedded scripture describes the youth Sudhana’s 

spiritual journey in search of enlightenment. Some secular 

powers used its cosmological and encompassing 

vision of totality in order to adopt the authority and 

perceived enlightenment of a Buddhist theocracy. 

Hence the Avatam saka-su tra inevitably came to be associated 

with the divine mandate of various ruling 

houses in East Asia. 

China 

Among the earliest expressions of Huayan-related art 

in China are the so-called cosmic buddhas, images in 

stone and bronze that depict the standing Vairocana. 

What distinguishes these images from other standing 

buddhas is the fact that their robes are adorned with 

numerous small images of buddhas and other beings 

meant to represent the totality of the DHARMADHATU 

(dharma realm). The monumental BUDDHA IMAGES in 

the YUN’GANG caves outside of Datong in northern 

Shanxi are the earliest examples of Buddhist art in 

China relating to Vairocana. Stone sculptures dating 

from the late Northern Wei (386–534) and Northern 

Qi (550–577) found at the site of the Longxing Monastery 

in Shandong feature Vairocana images whose 

robes are painted with scenes of the dharmadhatu. 

The HUAYAN SCHOOL of Buddhism reached unprecedented 

popularity during the late seventh century 

through the efforts of the third Huayan patriarch 

FAZANG (643–712). With solid backing from Empress 

Wu Zedian (r. 684–704) and the imperial court, the 

creations of various monuments associated with the 

Huayan school and its cosmology were initiated as part 

of a new cult of KINGSHIP in which the empress played 

the role of a cakravartin (wheel-turning ruler). One of 

the most famous Huayan-related images made around 

this period is the large Vairocana image carved in the 

grotto of the Fengxian Monastery in the LONGMEN 

complex of grottoes. The 13.5-meter-high image is 

carved in the style characteristic of Buddhist sculptural 

art as it flourished in the central provinces during the 

second half of the seventh century. Iconographically it 

does not bear any distinctive marks or characteristics 

that clearly identify it with Vairocana. This indicates 

that at the time of its making a distinct Huayan iconography 

had not yet developed. However, this appears to 

have changed in the following decades. Images of the 

adorned Vairocana wearing crowns and jewelry, symbols 

representing the transcendent and cosmic nature 

of this buddha, are found among the Buddhist carvings 

of Sichuan in sites such as Wanfo cliff in Guangyuan 

and at Feixian Pavilion in Pujiang. 

The Huayan school remained influential throughout 

the Tang and left a strong imprint on the future 

development of Chinese Buddhism. Wall paintings 

and votive banners thought to date from the eighth 

century and featuring dharmadhatu tableaux—in 

essence an illustrated guide to the Avatam saka-su tra’s 

“nine assemblies in seven locations”—have been found 

in the Mogao caves in DUNHUANG. 

During the late Tang dynasty (618–907), Sichuan 

province developed a strong Huayan cult that is especially 

reflected in the expressive narrative stone carvings 

of Dazu. Some of the sculptural groups here give 

evidence of a merger between the imagery of Huayan 

and that of the MIJIAO (ESOTERIC) SCHOOL, a development 

that culminated in the creation of the pilgrimage 

center on Mount Baoding to the north of Dazu 

during the middle of the Southern Song dynasty 

(1127–1279). This important pilgrimage site features 

monumental sculptural groups in stone depicting central 

scenes and tableaux of the Avatam saka-su tra and 

related scriptures. 

During the Northern Song (960–1127), the 

Gandavyu ha reached new heights of popularity 

through the printing of the illustrated text of Sudhana’s 

journey by master Foguo (eleventh–twelfth centuries), 

a monk of the Yunmen branch of the CHAN SCHOOL. 

The presence of Huayan imagery within the context of 

Chan Buddhism shows the extent to which the former 

tradition influenced other schools of Chinese Buddhism 

during the Song dynasty. 

The Khitan rulers of the Liao empire (907–1125) 

were devout Buddhists and the Huayan school enjoyed 

special patronage. Numerous monasteries were built, 

including many belonging to the Huayan school. 

Among these were the Higher and Lower Huayan 

monasteries in Datong, where an impressive group of 

wooden sculptures stand on an altar in the center of 


H UAYAN 

A RT 

the temple building, creating a MAN D ALA-like arrangement 

with a figure of Vairocana in the center surrounded 

by attending bodhisattvas. 

Holy Buddhist mountains such as Mount Emei in 

Sichuan and Mount Wutai in northern Shanxi 

province, being the abodes of the bodhisattvas 

Samantabhadra and Mañjuśr, respectively, the primary 

attendants of Vairocana Buddha, have long been 

associated with the Huayan Buddhist tradition. 

Korea 

Huayan (Korean, Hwaŏm) Buddhism reached the Korean 

peninsula during the late seventh century, where 

it soon achieved the same importance and popularity 

as in China. A number of prominent monks, including 

ŬISANG (625–702) and his contemporary WŎNHYO 

(617–686), actively propagated the teachings prior to 

the actual founding of the Hwaŏm school in the early 

eighth century. During the eighth century a number of 

monasteries belonging to the Hwaŏm school were built 

in different parts of the country. Outside the Silla capital 

of Kyŏngju, King Kyŏngdŏk (r. 742–765) constructed 

SŎKKURAM, a manmade grottolike sanctuary, 

as a symbol of the close link between royal power and 

Buddhism. It would appear that the central buddha 

image at Sŏkkuram, an impressive sculpture in polished 

granite, was meant to depict Śakyamuni Buddha 

at the moment he manifests as Vairocana in accordance 

with the opening chapter of the Avatam saka-su tra. The 

image is iconographically identical to ordinary images 

of Śakyamuni, but the context of the shrine itself, with 

its central altar and special rounded ground plan (perhaps 

a symbolic representation of the dharmadhatu), 

as well as the secondary images carved in relief along 

the sides, suggest that the Sŏkkuram Buddha is actually 

a representation of Vairocana. 

During the ninth century, Esoteric Buddhism became 

increasingly popular in Korea, and many of its 

elements, such as its ritual practices and its art, were 

adopted by other schools of Korean Buddhism. 

Among other things this process resulted in the creation 

of Vairocana images that reflect the dual influence 

of both Hwaŏm and Esoteric Buddhism (Korean, 

milgyo). Vairocana images in early Korean Buddhism 

are always unadorned, that is, they are without crowns 

and bodily ornaments. It is only during the Koryŏ dynasty 

(918–1392) that adorned images chiefly associated 

with Esoteric Buddhism become prominent. 

With the first printing of the Buddhist CANON during 

the eleventh century, which established the Buddhist 

Vairocana, the Cosmic Buddha. (Chinese bronze sculpture, Sui 

dynasty, 581–618.) The Art Archive/Dagli Orti. Reproduced by 

permission. 

scriptures in their definitive form, the Koreans also fixed 

the associated iconography. It became common to carve 

frontispieces on the blocks with an opening chapter of 

a given scripture, whereby iconographical forms and typologies 

became standardized. This was also the case 

with the Avatam saka-su tra, which enjoyed a special popularity 

during the Koryŏ. Hence, all the major themes 

and scenarios of the sutra were illustrated with explanatory 

cartouches inserted throughout. 

During the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) the importance 

of Hwaŏm Buddhism as an intellectual tradition 

declined. However, its imagery and cosmology 

still captivated the minds of the Korean Buddhists. This 


339

H UAYAN 

JING 

is especially evident in the tradition associated with the 

distinctly Korean votive paintings (Korean, t’aenghwa) 

hung above the main altars of temple buildings. 

Among the many themes depicted is that of the dharmadhatu 

with the “nine assemblies in seven locations.” 

Interestingly, this follows more or less the same iconographical 

arrangement as the similar, but much earlier, 

Chinese Buddhist paintings from Dunhuang. 

Japan 

The teachings associated with Huayan (Japanese, 

Kegon) Buddhism were transmitted to Japan from 

China and Korea during the late seventh century, and 

the Kegon school became one of the leading denominations 

of Japanese Buddhism during the Nara period 

(710–794). During the eighth century a number of 

temples were established under imperial patronage for 

the Kegon school in the capital. Among these, Todaiji, 

located in the center of Nara, is the most important 

and imposing. In this temple Emperor Shomu (r. 

724–749), imitating Empress Wu Zedian, established 

the Kegon school as an imperial cult. To this end he 

had cast in bronze a sixteen-meter-high image of 

Vairocana Buddha, the largest such image in the world 

at that time. The lotus petals of its enormous seat are 

adorned with engraved scenes of the dharmadhatu and 

imagery from the Avatam saka-su tra. The image was 

dedicated in a large ceremony in 752. 

During the ninth century the Kegon school declined 

with the transfer of the capital to Heian (Kyoto) in 794 

and the rise of Tendai and SHINGON BUDDHISM. However, 

even after its decline the Kegon school continued 

to exert considerable influence on Japanese Buddhism. 

During the late Heian period the charismatic monk 

Myoe KO BEN (ca. 1173–1232) continued to transmit 

Kegon doctrines and practices at Kozanji outside Kyoto. 

Due to his influence many pieces of religious art associated 

with the Avatam saka-su tra were created, including 

paintings of the dharmadhatu and Sudhana’s journey. 


The Avatam saka-su tra also became popular in Southeast 

Asia, where we find Sudhana’s journey prominently 

displayed among the reliefs decorating the 

three-dimensional mandala edifice of BOROBUDUR in 

Java, which was part of the Śailendra kingdom (ca. 

750–860). Images in bronze and stone of Vairocana 

and other buddhas and bodhisattvas associated with 

the imagery of the Avatam saka-su tra have also been 

found elsewhere in Java, most notably in the vicinity 

of Prambanam in the central part of the island. 

See also: Central Asia, Buddhist Art in; China, Buddhist 

Art in; Horyuji and Todaij; Japan, Buddhist Art 

in; Korea, Buddhist Art in; Southeast Asia, Buddhist 

Art in 

Bibliography 

Foguo chanshi Wenshu zhinan tu zan (Hymns on Chan Master 

Foguo’s Pictures on Mañjuśr Pointing the Way to the 

South). In Dai-Nihon zo kuzo kyo 1021.58: 592a–619b. 

Fontein, Jan. The Pilgrimage of Sudhana: A Study of Gandavyu ha 

Illustrations in China, Japan, and Java. Paris and the Hague, 

Netherlands: Mouton, 1967. 

Fontein, Jan. The Sculpture of Indonesia. Washington, DC: National 

Gallery of Art; New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990. 



Ishida Hichitoyo. “Kegon kyo kai” (Paintings [relating to the] 

Avatam saka Su tra). Nihon no bijutsu 11, no. 270 (1988). 

Kobayashi, Takeshi. Nara Buddhist Art: Todai-ji. New York: 

Weatherhill; Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1975. 

Ko san-ji ten: Treasures of Ko san-ji Temple. Kyoto: Kyoto National 

Museum, Asahi Shimbun, Kyoro, 1981. 

Mun Myŏngdae. “Silla hadae Pirosana pulsang chogak ŭi 

yŏn’gu” (A Study of Vairocana Buddha Sculptures from the 

later Silla). Misul ch’waryo 21 (1977): 16–40; 22 (1978): 

28–37. 

Mun Myŏngdae. Han’guk chogak sa (The History of Korean 

Sculpture). Seoul: Yŏrhwa Tang, 1984. 

Mun Myŏngdae. Sŏkkuram pulsang chogak ŭi yŏn’gu (A Study 

of the Buddhist Sculptures in Sŏkkuram). Seoul: Tongguk 


Sørensen, Henrik H. “The Hwaŏm Kyŏng Pyŏnsang to: A Yi 

Dynasty Buddhist Painting of the Dharma Realm.” Oriental 

Art 34, no. 2 (1988): 91–105. 

Sørensen, Henrik H. “The Tang Buddhist Sculptures at Feixian 

Pavilion in Pujiang, Sichuan.” Artibus Asiae 63, nos. 1–2 

(1998): 33–67. 

Su Bai et al., eds. Masterpieces of Buddhist Statuary from 

Qingzhou City. Beijing: Beijing Chinasights Fine Arts, 1999. 

Yukata Mino, ed. The Great Eastern Temple: Treasures of Japanese 

Buddhist Art from To dai-ji. Chicago: Art Institute of 

Chicago, Indiana University Press, 1986. 

HUAYAN JING 

HENRIK H. SØRENSEN 

The Huayan jing, a key MAHAYANA scripture, is among 

the most influential texts in the history of East Asian 


H UAYAN 

S CHOOL 

Buddhism. The scripture’s cosmic vision of infinite 

and perfectly interfused worlds and its exalted depictions 

of an all-encompassing realm of reality inspired 

the formation of the HUAYAN SCHOOL, which adopted 

its name. In Chinese its full title is Dafangguang fo 

huayan jing. It is often referred to as the Avatam sakasu 

tra (an abbreviation of Buddhavatam saka-namamahavaipulya-su 

tra, a reconstruction of the Sanskrit 

title), and is also known by the English titles Flower 

Garland Scripture or Flower Ornament Scripture. The 

exact provenance of the text is uncertain. It was probably 

compiled around the third or fourth century C.E., 

perhaps in Central Asia. The scripture is of encyclopedic 

proportions and was composed by bringing together 

a number of shorter scriptures, some of which 

are preserved in extant Sanskrit versions or Chinese 

translations. The two best known of these constituent 

texts are the Daśabhu mika-su tra (Ten Stages Scripture) 

and the Gandavyu ha-su tra, both of which circulated 

widely as independent texts. 

The first Chinese translation, in sixty fascicles and 

thirty-four chapters, was completed by Buddhabhadra 

(359–429) from 418 to 421. Another translation, in 

eighty fascicles and thirty-nine chapters, was finished 

during the 695 to 704 period by the Khotanese monk 

ŚIKSANANDA (652–710). A third forty-fascicle translation, 

consisting of only the final chapter of the other 

two versions, was done from 795 to 798 by Prajña. 

There is also a Tibetan translation, which has forty-five 

chapters and is similar in scope to Śiksananda’s version. 

Chinese scholars wrote a number of commentaries 

on the scripture, the most important of which 

are those by FAZANG (643–712) and CHENGGUAN 

(738–840), two patriarchs of the Huayan school. 

Traditionally the Huayan jing is considered to be 

the first scripture preached by the Buddha, directed 

toward an audience of advanced BODHISATTVAS. Its 

contents were supposedly revealed just after the Buddha’s 

realization of awakening, as he was deeply immersed 

in a profound samadhi that illuminates the 

true nature of reality. In accord with the text’s arcane 

purport, its main buddha is Vairocana, the cosmic 

embodiment of the Buddha’s body of truth (dharmakaya). 

The contents of the scripture take on monumental 

proportions, covering a wide range of 

Mahayana beliefs, doctrines, and practices. Drawing 

heavily on rich traditions of Buddhist COSMOLOGY, 

the text is replete with mythical elements, including 

elaborate descriptions of otherworldly realms where 

limitless buddhas and bodhisattvas manifest sublime 

spiritual powers and perform the work of universal 

salvation. The scripture makes extensive use of visual 

metaphors, especially images of light and space, in its 

depictions of an infinite universe in which all things 

interpenetrate without obstruction. 

A central theme that runs throughout the whole 

text is the cultivation of the bodhisattva PATH, with 

its distinct stages, practices, and realizations. Chinese 

exegetical works analyze the scripture’s depiction of 

the bodhisattva path in terms of fifty-two stages, 

which include ten faiths, ten abodes, ten practices, ten 

dedications, and ten stages. The path culminates with 

the attainment of the two levels of equal and sublime 

enlightenment. The bodhisattva path is retold in a 

dramatic fashion in the last (and by far longest) 

chapter, which relates the pilgrimage of the youth 

Sudhana who, during his search for enlightenment, 

meets various teachers, each of whom represents one 

of these specific stages. With respect to its doctrinal 

orientations, the scripture makes extensive use of the 

TATHAGATAGARBHA doctrine and the attendant concept 

of Buddha nature, which are integrated into a 

larger theoretical framework that also incorporates 

the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL’s teachings on ŚU NYATA 

(EMPTINESS) and the YOGACARA SCHOOL’s theories of 

consciousness and reality. 

Bibliography 

Cheng-chien Bhikshu, trans. Manifestation of the Tathagata: 

Buddhahood According to the Avatam saka Su tra. Boston: 

Wisdom, 1993. 

Cleary, Thomas, trans. The Flower Ornament Scripture, 3 vols. 

Boston and London: Shambala, 1984–1987. Also published 

as a one-volume edition. 

HUAYAN SCHOOL 

MARIO POCESKI 

The Huayan school is one of the uniquely Chinese traditions 

of Buddhism that emerged during the Sui 

(581–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties. It is especially 

known for its comprehensive and rarefied system 

of religious philosophy, which is widely regarded 

as a pinnacle of doctrinal development in medieval 

Chinese Buddhism. Huayan teachings also exerted a 

significant influence on the doctrinal evolution of 

other Buddhist traditions throughout East Asia. 

Huayan’s formation was related to and inspired by the 

HUAYAN JING (Sanskrit, Avatam saka-su tra; Flower 

Garland Su tra), and the school adopted its name from 


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the scripture’s title. Key Huayan concepts and doctrines, 

such as mutual interpenetration and identity, 

are based on religious motifs and discussions presented 

in the Huayan jing. Nonetheless, the Huayan school 

also drew on other texts and traditions, and was predisposed 

toward imaginative theoretical innovation. 

Accordingly, the full range of its teachings goes beyond 

parameters set by the Huayan jing and other canonical 

sources, and involves novel philosophical reflections 

on the nature of reality. 

The mature Huayan system represents an ingenious 

amalgamation of mythopoetic motifs and doctrinal 

tenets of Indian provenance, on one hand, with philosophical 

outlooks and spiritual sentiments representative 

of indigenous Chinese religious and intellectual 

traditions, on the other. While they incorporate the 

main streams of MAHAYANA scholasticism and substantiate 

their arguments by referring to an array of 

canonical sources, the writings of the Huayan patriarchs 

also reveal an unmistakably Chinese concern for 

harmony and balance, and a tendency to valorize the 

phenomenal realm. For that reason, the formation of 

the Huayan school is regarded as one of the culminating 

chapters in the sinification of Buddhism, especially 

in the transformation of doctrine. 

The establishment of Huayan as a distinctive system 

of religious philosophy and practice was largely 

the work of a few brilliant monks active during the 

Tang dynasty, who were retroactively recognized as the 

tradition’s patriarchs. Although there was relatively little 

original doctrinal development that occurred after 

them, Huayan teachings continued to be admired as a 

theoretical hallmark of Chinese Buddhism. They also 

left imprints on the evolution of Buddhist SOTERIOL- 

OGY, especially as some of their key elements were absorbed 

into other traditions, such as the CHAN SCHOOL. 

Early on, Huayan was also transmitted to Korea and 

Japan, where it had a significant impact on the evolution 

of native Buddhist traditions. The Huayan worldview 

also exerted influence on other religious and 

philosophical traditions, such as neo-Confucianism, 

and it continues to provide a compelling vision with 

contemporary relevance. 

Early history 

The gradual formation of a loosely defined and broadly 

constituted Huayan tradition started soon after the 

first Chinese translation of the Huayan jing was made 

by Buddhabhadra (359–429) between 418 and 421. Before 

long, the scripture’s influence was felt in different 

spheres of medieval Chinese Buddhism. In the scholastic 

arena, the text inspired doctrinal speculations, gave 

rise to exegetical traditions, and appeared in taxonomies 

of teachings (panjiao), where it was typically 

treated as a repository of the Buddha’s most profound 

teachings. The Huayan jing also had broad popular appeal. 

It became a focal point of various cultic activities, 

including religious rites and vegetarian feasts, and 

it motivated pious acts such as chanting and copying. 

The text also inspired artistic responses, evident in 

the production of numerous images and painting of 

Vairocana, the cosmic buddha who is its central deity. 

The history of Huayan as a distinct school of Chinese 

Buddhism is usually discussed in reference to its 

famous five patriarchs, all of whom were creative 

thinkers who left their indelible marks on the history 

of East Asian Buddhism. Such a view of Huayan history 

is somewhat problematic, inasmuch as at the time 

of the early patriarchs there was no awareness of 

Huayan as an independent tradition and no notion of 

a patriarchal succession. The first four patriarchs were 

retroactively recognized as such only after their deaths, 

as the notion of spiritual LINEAGE became an important 

organizing principle, marker of religious orthodoxy, 

and source of legitimacy, largely due to the influence 

of the Chan school. Even so, there is no gainsaying 

the fact that the writings of the Huayan patriarchs 

are the core of Huayan’s unique worldview, and 

that they encompass the main doctrinal and soteriological 

perspectives identified with the tradition. 

Dushun. The putative first patriarch, Dushun 

(557–640), is an enigmatic figure who embodies both 

the popular and intellectual streams of the nascent 

Huayan movement. Also known as Fashun, he was 

revered by his contemporaries as a thaumaturge and 

meditation master, who was also recognized as a leading 

figure in local cultic traditions centered on the 

Huayan jing. His historical position in the doctrinal 

evolution of Huayan is based on his reputed authorship 

of Fajie guanmen (Discernments of the Realm of 

Reality), a seminal text that formulates some of the basic 

principles and themes of the mature Huayan system, 

most notably the causal relationship between 

principle (li) and phenomena (shi). Although recent 

scholarship has raised doubts about Dushun’s authorship 

of this text, the evidence is not conclusive. 

Zhiyan. Dushun was one of the teachers of Zhiyan 

(602–668), the second patriarch and the architect of 

the basic structure of Huayan’s doctrinal system. 


H UAYAN 

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Zhiyan came from a gentry family and was born in the 

vicinity of the capital. A quiet monk of scholastic bent 

and keen intelligence, he was steeped in the scholastic 

traditions of his time. Following his entry into monastic 

life in his youth, he mastered the doctrines of the 

Dilun and Shelun schools, which emerged during the 

sixth century in response to the transmission of 

TATHAGATAGARBHA doctrine and the YOGACARA SCHOOL 

into China. Dilun was an exegetical tradition based on 

VASUBANDHU’s commentary to the Daśabhu mikasu 

tra (Ten Stages Scripture), while Shelun was a Chinese 

version of the Yogacara tradition that was based 

on PARAMARTHA’s (499–569) translation of ASAṄGA’s 

Mahayanasam graha. Zhiyan was also well versed in the 

VINAYA and had studied key Mahayana scriptures, such 

as the NIRVAN A SU TRA, as well as earlier commentaries 

on the Huayan jing, especially the one written by 

Huiguang (468–537). Zhiyan used his extensive learning 

and doctrinal mastery in his study and thorough 

analysis of the Huayan jing. He wrote a ten-fascicle 

commentary on the scripture and a few shorter works. 

In them, he formulated some of the key doctrines that 

became hallmarks of Huayan thought, such as nature 

origination (xingqi) and conditioned origination of the 

realm of reality (fajie yuanqi). 

Fazang. During his most productive years Zhiyan 

lived a quiet life at Mount Zhongnan, south of 

Chang’an, and he shunned the public limelight. In 

contrast, his brilliant disciple FAZANG (643–712) was 

at the center of the empire’s cultural, religious, and political 

life, and was a recipient of great public recognition 

and imperial support. An exceptional scholar, creative 

thinker, and prolific writer, Fazang is regarded as 

the great systematizer of Huayan philosophy and effectively 

the founder of the tradition. Born in Chang’an 

of Sogdian ancestry, Fazang entered the monastic order 

only after Zhiyan’s death. As a young man he participated 

in XUANZANG’s (ca. 600–664) translation 

project, but left because of doctrinal disagreements. 

Later he was involved in ŚIKSANANDA’s (652–710) new 

translation of the Huayan jing, undertaken under imperial 

auspices. Fazang had an illustrious career, which 

was greatly helped by the unflagging patronage of Empress 

Wu Zetian, or Wu Zhao (r. 684–705). A record 

of Fazang’s teaching presented to the empress is preserved 

as Jin shizi zhang (Treatise on the Golden Lion), 

a popular summary of Huayan doctrine whose title is 

derived from a statue in the imperial palace that was 

used by Fazang to illustrate his ideas. 

Fazang was greatly successful in popularizing 

Huayan. His influence was such that the Huayan 

school is also often called the Xianshou school, after 

the honorific name Empress Wu bestowed on Fazang. 

His major works include a large (twenty-fascicle) commentary 

on Buddhabhadra’s translation of the Huayan 

jing, entitled Huayan jing tanxuan ji (Record of Exploration 

of the Huayan jing’s Mysteries); Huayan wujiao 

chang (Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan), which 

elaborates on his fivefold doctrinal taxonomy; and 

Wangjin huanyuan guan (Contemplation of Ending 

Falsehood and Returning to the Source), which deals 

with the philosophical and applied aspects of Huayan 

meditation. Fazang also wrote a history of the transmission 

of Huayan in China, Huayan jing zhuan ji, and 

an authoritative commentary titled Qixin lun yi ji on 

the AWAKENING OF FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN LUN), an 

important text that had profound influence on the development 

of Fazang’s thought. 

Huiyuan. After Fazang’s death, his student Huiyuan 

(ca. 673–743) completed Kanding ji, an abbreviated 

commentary on Śiksananda’s new translation of the 

Huayan jing, which was started by Fazang but left unfinished. 

Huiyuan also wrote a few additional works, 

but despite the prominent status he enjoyed during his 

lifetime he was subsequently ostracized and his teachings 

were labeled as heterodox. This censure was 

largely due to Huiyuan’s divergence from aspects of 

Fazang’s thought, especially his critique of Fazang’s inclusion 

of the sudden teachings (dunjiao) in his fivefold 

taxonomy of teachings. 

Chengguan. Huiyuan’s strongest critic was CHENG- 

GUAN (738–839), who came to be recognized as the 

fourth patriarch. Since he studied under a disciple of 

Huiyuan decades after Fazang’s death, Chengguan’s 

recognition as a Huayan patriarch was based on his 

high stature and his contributions to the evolution of 

Huayan doctrine, rather than on his direct connection 

with Fazang. 

An exceptional scholar of prodigious learning and 

deep religious commitment, Chengguan mastered a 

broad range of canonical literature. In addition, he 

studied the teachings of other Buddhist traditions, especially 

Chan, Tiantai, and Sanlun, and he was learned 

in non-Buddhist literature, including the Confucian 

and Daoist classics. Chengguan had a highly successful 

monastic career during which he served under 

seven Tang emperors and he was a recipient of 

numerous imperial honors, including the titles of 

national teacher, grand recorder of monks, and controller 

of the clergy. Chengguan’s magnum opus is his 


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H UAYAN 

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monumental commentary on Śiksananda’s translation 

of the Huayan jing, which he supplemented with a subcommentary. 

A masterpiece of medieval exegetical literature, 

Chengguan’s work superseded all earlier commentaries 

and was recognized as an authoritative study 

of the scripture. The commentary exceeds the scope 

and length of the scripture and is unrivaled in its comprehensive 

coverage and subtle analysis. Chengguan’s 

major contribution to Huayan’s doctrinal evolution 

was his theory of the four realms of reality (DHAR- 

MADHATU). He was also the first Huayan scholar to 

take into account the teachings of the Chan school, 

which he studied during his early years. 

Zongmi. The connection with Chan was further extended 

by Chengguan’s student ZONGMI (780–841), 

the fifth and last of the Huayan patriarchs. Born into 

a gentry family in Sichuan, Zongmi received a classical 

education in his youth. He became interested in 

Chan during his twenties, and before long decided 

to enter the monastic order. Zongmi became a 

student of Chengguan in 812 after his move to 

Chang’an. Subsequently he had a successful clerical 

career and authored a number of works that cover a 

broad range of topics. Zongmi’s position within 

Huayan is somewhat ambiguous because his writings 

do not focus directly on the Huayan jing, and because 

he was also recognized as a member of the 

Chan lineage. He made lasting contribution to the 

rapprochement between Chan and the doctrinal traditions 

of Buddhism (jiao), represented mainly (but 

not exclusively) by Huayan. He also introduced 

changes in his doctrinal taxonomy by including the 

teachings of Confucianism and Daoism, and by elevating 

the TATHAGATAGARBHA theory to a place of 

preeminence at the expense of the perfect teaching 

represented by the Huayan jing. 

Li Tongxuan. Another notable figure during the 

Tang period was Fazang’s contemporary Li Tongxuan 

(635–730), a lay recluse whose whole life is shrouded 

in mystery. Li’s major work was his commentary on 

the Huayan jing (in forty fascicles), and he also wrote 

a few shorter works. Li studied Fazang’s writings, but 

his exegesis of the scripture often adopts a different 

approach and puts forward novel ideas and interpretations. 

Although he was not widely recognized during 

his lifetime, Li’s writings became popular after the 

Tang period among Chan monks, and they were 

transmitted to Japan and Korea, where they achieved 

high acclaim. 

Further spread and influence 

With Zongmi, the patriarchal tradition came to an end. 

Yet, that was not the end of Huayan history in China. 

Huayan continued to be studied as a major system of 

Buddhist philosophy. Its key tenets also became diffused 

as part of a general Chinese Buddhist worldview 

and they were gradually absorbed into other Buddhist 

schools. Huayan influences can be found in the records 

of many Chan teachers, including Dongshan (807– 

869), Caoshan (840–901), Fayan (885–958), and Dahui 

ZONGGAO (1089–1163). Huayan concepts and teachings, 

such as nature origination, were also absorbed 

into the TIANTAI SCHOOL. Huayan influences are evident 

in the writings of ZHANRAN (711–782), who revived 

Tiantai’s sagging fortunes during the Tang, even 

as he tried to demonstrate the superiority of Tiantai 

over Huayan. The increasing scope of Huayan influences 

became a point of contention during the Tiantai 

debates of the Northern Song period (960–1126), as 

proponents of the Shanwai (Off Mountain) faction of 

Tiantai were criticized by ZHILI (960–1028) and his 

Shanjia (Home Mountain) faction for their unwarranted 

adoption of Huayan metaphysics, mainly derived 

from the writings of Chengguan and Zongmi. 

There was also a modest Huayan revival during the 

Song, spearheaded by the reputed “four masters”— 

Daoting, Shihui, Xidi, and Guanfu—but their main focus 

was on commenting on the works of the Tang patriarchs 

rather than on charting new paths of doctrinal 

development for the school. 

Korea. Beyond China, Huayan entered Korea (where 

it is known as Hwaŏm) at an early stage of the tradition’s 

history. The first transmitter and leading 

Hwaŏm figure during the Silla period (668–935) was 

ŬISANG (625–702). Ŭisang traveled to China and became 

a student of Zhiyan at Mount Zhongnan. He was 

a senior colleague of Fazang and the two formed a lasting 

friendship. After returning to his native land in 671, 

Ŭisang was successful in establishing Hwaŏm as a major 

Buddhist tradition on the Korean peninsula. He 

built a number of monasteries and secured the official 

patronage of the royal court, which bestowed on him 

the title of national teacher. Ŭisang’s major work, the 

brief Hwaŏm ilsŭng pŏpkye to (Chart of the Huayan 

One-Vehicle Realm of Reality), was presented to Zhiyan 

during his stay in China and it remains a classic exposition 

of Huayan thought. 

Because of the great influence of Ŭisang and his disciples, 

Hwaŏm became the primary theoretical system 

of Korean Buddhism and served as the foundation for 


H UAYAN 

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the subsequent doctrinal evolution of the native tradition, 

even after Chan (or Sŏn in Korean) became established 

as the predominant Buddhist school. Another 

major figure during the Silla period was Ŭisang’s friend 

WŎNHYO (617–686), arguably the foremost scholar in 

the history of Korean Buddhism. Although not formally 

affiliated with the Hwaŏm tradition, Wŏnhyo 

was deeply influenced by Hwaŏm ideas and teachings, 

which shaped his creation of an integrated system of 

Buddhist philosophy that attempted to harmonize the 

differences of the various schools. Some of Wŏnhyo’s 

writings were transmitted to China and his commentary 

on the Awakening of Faith exerted considerable influence 

on Fazang’s thought. 

Hwaŏm continued to be a major tradition of Korean 

Buddhism into the early part of the Koryŏ dynasty 

(918–1392). Its predominant position was supplanted 

by the resurgent Sŏn school, but Korean 

thinkers were able to create an integrated Buddhist tradition 

that incorporated teachings and practices from 

both of these schools. Major contributions in that direction 

were made by CHINUL (1158–1210), the most 

prominent monk of the period, who created a successful 

synthesis that incorporated both Hwaŏm 

scholasticism and Sŏn meditation practice. Chinul was 

also fond of Li Tongxuan’s commentary on the 

Huayan jing, which became an important text in Korean 

Buddhism thanks to his advocacy. Chinul’s vision 

of an integrated and ecumenical Buddhist church became 

normative within Korea and, notwithstanding its 

past and present detractors, remains a principal model 

for a distinctive native tradition, in which Hwaŏm 

thought plays a more central role than it does in any 

other contemporary Buddhist tradition. 

Japan. Huayan also entered Japan (where it is known 

as Kegon) at an early date. In 740 the Korean monk 

Simsang (or Shinjo in Japanese, d. 742), a disciple of 

Fazang, was invited by Emperor Shomu (r. 724–749) 

to lecture on the Huayan jing at Konshoji (later renamed 

Todaiji) in Nara, the Japanese capital. The invitation 

was extended at the urging of Roben 

(689–773), a descendant of Korean immigrants and a 

specialist in the doctrine of the Hosso school (Chinese, 

FAXIANG SCHOOL). As a leading Buddhist figure with 

good political connections, Roben was instrumental in 

the establishment of Kegon as one of the eight schools 

of NARA BUDDHISM, which functioned as traditions of 

Buddhist learning rather than as independent sects. 

Roben was also involved in the construction of the 

great Buddha at Todaiji, and subsequently he became 

the monastery’s chief priest. The great Buddha, representing 

Vairocana as the principal Buddha of the 

Huayan universe, was consecrated in 752 under the 

auspices of Emperor Shomu. Todaiji emerged as a focal 

institution for Kegon studies (and the study of other 

scholastic traditions) and a prominent center of Buddhist 

culture. Despite its turbulent history, including 

its destruction in 1180, the rebuilt monastery and its 

great Buddha statue remain potent symbols of Kegon’s 

prominent place in Japanese Buddhism. 

While interest in the study of the Nara schools declined 

during the Heian period (794–1185), there were 

prominent scholar-monks during the following Kamakura 

era (1185–1333) who continued the tradition 

of Kegon learning. Well-known examples include 

Myoe KO BEN (1173–1232) and GYO NEN (1240–1321). 

Known as a restorer of the Kegon tradition, Myoe was 

also well versed in the teachings of esoteric Buddhism 

and Chan, and he was known for his strict observance 

of the precepts. His supporters included a number of 

prominent aristocrats, and he was successful in turning 

Kozanji, a monastery located in the vicinity of Kyoto, 

into a center of Kegon studies. Gyonen, a Kegon 

monk of extensive learning, was known for his expertise 

in the vinaya. He moved to Todaiji in 1277 and afterwards 

he lectured on the Huayan jing. He also presented 

lectures on Fazang’s Wujiao zhang at the imperial 

court, which later awarded him the title of national 

teacher. Although Gyonen is chiefly associated with the 

Kegon school, he was well versed in the teachings of 

other schools of Buddhism, as can be seen from one 

of his principal works, Hasshu ko yo (Outline of the 

Eight Schools), which is still read as a popular summary 

of the history and doctrines of the major schools of 

Japanese Buddhism. 

Beyond the narrowly defined Kegon tradition, evidence 

of Huayan influences can be found in the writings 

of other major figures in the history of Japanese 

Buddhism. One such example is KU KAI (774–835), the 

founder of SHINGON BUDDHISM, who drew on Huayan 

doctrine in his systematization of esoteric Buddhism, 

and who ranked Huayan just below Shingon in his tenfold 

taxonomy of the Buddhist teachings. Another example 

is SAICHO (767–822), the founder of Tendai, who 

studied Huayan texts during his formative years and 

whose writings reflect the influence of Huayan ideas. 

Taxonomies of teachings 

Like other taxonomies of teachings (or “classified 

teachings”; panjiao) created by medieval Chinese scholiasts, 

Huayan taxonomies involve the ordering of the 


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major doctrines of Buddhism and exemplify the Chinese 

penchant for order and hierarchy. Within a given 

taxonomy each doctrine is recognized as a meaningful 

part of the totality of Buddhist teachings, while the 

whole structure performs the hermeneutical function 

of relating diverse Buddhist traditions to each other 

and integrating them into a comprehensive conceptual 

framework. At the same time, within such a rigid hierarchical 

ordering, all teachings, with the exception of 

the highest teaching, are judged to convey only partial 

understanding of the ultimate truth. The best-known 

Huayan taxonomy is the fivefold classificatory scheme 

created by Fazang. Within it, the lowest level is represented 

by the HINAYANA teaching, which reveals the 

emptiness of self but not the emptiness of phenomena 

(dharma). Next comes the elementary teaching of Mahayana, 

which consists of two parts: the Faxiang version 

of Yogacara and the Madhyamaka/Sanlun teaching 

of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS). At the third level there is 

the advanced teaching of Mahayana, which is identified 

with the tathagatagarbha doctrine (combined with 

the earlier type of Yogacara that was transmitted to 

China by Paramartha). That is followed by the sudden 

teaching, which involves the abandonment of words 

and concepts and the immediate realization of reality. 

Finally, at the pinnacle there is the perfect teaching that 

consummately reveals the whole truth without the 

slightest deficiency or partiality; Fazang identifies this 

teaching exclusively with the Huayan jing. While 

Fazang’s fivefold nomenclature was based on earlier 

classificatory schemes developed by Zhiyan, who himself 

drew on taxonomies formulated by pre-Tang 

scholars such as Huiguang, his taxonomy represents 

an important point of departure inasmuch as it is the 

first one to present Huayan as being absolutely superior 

to all other traditions. 

Fazang was criticized by his disciple Huiyuan for including 

the sudden teaching in his doctrinal taxonomy. 

Huiyuan argued that the sudden teaching does not 

qualify as a separate category because it has no doctrinal 

content specific to it. Following criteria employed 

in Tiantai taxonomies, he also noted that the sudden 

teaching refers to the manner of instruction and thus 

does not belong to Fazang’s classification, given that 

its basic organizing principle is the content of the 

teaching rather than the manner in which it is communicated. 

Fazang’s doctrinal taxonomy was defended 

by Chengguan, who argued (perhaps not entirely convincingly) 

that Huiyuan’s critique was unwarranted, 

since he failed to realize that the sudden teaching corresponded 

to the newly formed Chan tradition. By 

identifying Chan with the sudden teaching, Chengguan 

was able to assign Chan a high position within 

his taxonomy and integrate it into the Buddhist mainstream, 

while still subordinating it to Huayan. 

Doctrines 

Huayan’s system of religious philosophy and practice 

is a vast conglomeration of abstruse doctrines, expounded 

by recourse to a highly technical vocabulary. 

At its core is a holistic vision of the universe as a dynamic 

web of causal interrelationships, in which each 

and every thing and event is related to everything else 

as they interpenetrate without any obstruction. The 

Huayan depiction of reality is an ingenious reworking 

of the central Buddhist doctrine of PRATITYASAMUT- 

PADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINATION), which postulates that 

things are empty of self-nature and thus lack independent 

existence, and yet they exist provisionally as they 

are created through the interaction of various causal 

factors. In Huayan’s discussion of causality, the focus 

shifts away from the correlation between emptiness and 

form representative of PRAJN APARAMITA LITERATURE 

and toward the relationship between individual phenomena 

or events (shi) and the basic principle(s) of reality 

(li). The causal relationship between phenomena 

and principle is that of mutual inclusion, interpenetration, 

and identity. That relationship is elaborated in 

Chengguan’s doctrine of the four realms of reality 

(dharmadhatu): (1) the realm of individual phenomena 

(shi fajie); (2) the realm of principle (li fajie); (3) 

the realm of nonobstruction between principle and 

phenomena (lishi wuai fajie); and (4) the realm of nonobstruction 

between all phenomena (shishi wuai fajie). 

The last two realms are also explained by the doctrines 

of nature origination and dependent origination 

of the realm of reality, respectively. According to 

Fazang’s explanation of nature origination, all phenomena 

are ultimately created based on the “nature,” 

which stands for the emptiness or suchness of things. 

Therefore, the nature is the source of all phenomena, 

and yet it does not exist outside of them. In that sense, 

the theory does not postulate a dichotomy between the 

absolute and phenomenal orders, but rather elucidates 

the interdependent relationship between ultimate reality 

and phenomenal appearances. The doctrine of dependent 

origination of the realm of reality goes a step 

further and shifts the focus to the causal relationship 

that obtains between individual phenomena. Based on 

the notions of lack of self-nature and the dependent 


H UINENG 

origin of all things, it postulates that each phenomenon 

is determined by the totality of all phenomena of 

which it is a part, while the totality is determined by 

each of the phenomena that comprise it. Therefore, 

each phenomenon is determining every other phenomenon, 

while it is also in turn being determined by 

each and every other phenomenon. All phenomena are 

thus interdependent and interpenetrate without hindrance, 

and yet each one of them retains its distinct 

identity. 

According to Huayan’s viewpoint, any individual 

thing or phenomenon, being empty of self-nature and 

thus identical to the principle, can be seen both as a 

conditioning cause of the whole and as being caused 

by the whole. In addition, every phenomenon conditions 

the existence of every other phenomenon and 

vice versa. Accordingly, nothing exists by itself, but requires 

everything else to be what it truly is. The Huayan 

analysis of causality is not concerned with temporal sequencing 

and does not postulate causal processes that 

involve a progressive unfolding of events. Instead, its 

philosophy represents an attempt to elucidate the 

causal relationships that obtain among all phenomena 

in the universe at any given time. 

A popular metaphor that exemplifies Huayan’s notion 

of mutual interpenetration of all phenomena is 

that of Indra’s net. The image of Indra’s net of jewels 

originally comes from the Huayan jing, which describes 

how in the heaven of the god Indra there is a 

vast net that extends infinitely in all directions. Each 

knot of the net holds a gleaming jewel, and because the 

net is limitless in size it contains an infinite number of 

jewels. As the multifaceted surface of each jewel reflects 

all other jewels in the net, each of the reflected jewels 

also contains the reflections of all other jewels; thus 

there is an unending process of infinite reflections. 

Notwithstanding the complex and recondite character 

of much of Huayan doctrine, its principles found 

resonance within large segments of the Buddhist world 

in East Asia. As they became key influences on religious 

and intellectual life, they were absorbed as elements of 

the native cultures. Huayan thinkers constructed a 

compelling and deeply satisfying worldview that was 

distinctly Chinese, yet based on essential concepts and 

teachings presented in the Buddhist canon. Huayan religious 

philosophy still retains its relevance to vital 

human concerns and has stimulated a significant crossfertilization 

of ideas and viewpoints with modern 

philosophical and humanistic movements, including 

ENGAGED BUDDHISM and environmentalism. 

Bibliography 

Chang, Garma C. C. The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The Philosophy 

of Hwa Yen Buddhism. University Park and London: 


Cleary, Thomas. Entry into the Inconceivable: An Introduction to 

Hua-yen Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1983. 

Cook, Francis H. Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra. 

University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University 

Press, 1977. 

Gimello, Robert. “Apophatic and Kataphatic Discourse in Mahayana: 

A Chinese View.” Philosophy East and West 26, no. 

2 (1976): 117–136. 

Gimello, Robert. “Li T’ung-hsüan and the Practical Dimensions 

of Hua-yen.” In Studies in Ch’an and Hua-yen, ed. Robert 

M. Gimello and Peter N. Gregory. Honolulu: University of 




Gregory, Peter N., trans. Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity: 

An Annotated Translation of Tsung-mi’s Yüan jen lun with a 

Modern Commentary. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1995. 

HUINENG 

MARIO POCESKI 

Huineng (ca. 638–713) is the putative sixth patriarch 

of the Chinese CHAN SCHOOL. It is best to recognize 

two Huinengs, historical and legendary. Very little is 

known of the rather insignificant historical figure, who 

was an early Chan teacher of regional prominence in 

the far south, perhaps a member of a local gentry family. 

Even his most famous student and promoter, Heze 

Shenhui (684–758), remembered virtually nothing 

about his master’s biography. The dates given for 

Huineng’s life are at least approximately correct, but 

they derive from a later legendary source. 

The far more important legendary image of Huineng 

is based primarily on the PLATFORM SU TRA OF THE 

SIXTH PATRIARCH (LIUZU TAN JING), which appeared 

around 780. Here Huineng is depicted as an illiterate 

and impoverished layman whose grandfather had been 

banished to the far south and who supported his 

mother by the very humble endeavor of collecting firewood. 

Hardworking and filial, in spite of his total lack 

of social advantages this Huineng possessed innate spiritual 

insight. This gift led him to the monastic training 


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H UIYUAN 

center of Hongren (601–674), described in the Platform 

Su tra as the “fifth patriarch” of Chan. After eight 

months as a menial worker at Hongren’s monastery in 

central China (Hubei province), Huineng composed a 

verse in response to one by Shenxiu (ca. 606–706), 

known historically as the central figure of the so-called 

Northern school of Chan. Because of the insight supposedly 

shown in his verse, that very night Hongren 

taught Huineng the ultimate teachings of Chan (based 

on the DIAMOND SU TRA), appointed him the sixth patriarch, 

gave him the robe and bowl of the founding 

patriarch BODHIDHARMA (ca. early fifth century), and 

sent him away to protect him from jealous rivals. After 

spending sixteen years in hiding, Huineng announced 

his identity and became ordained as a Buddhist monk, 

after which he taught at Caoqi (Guangdong province) 

until his death. 

Precisely because of his historical obscurity, Chan 

lineages from the late eighth century onward were easily 

able to identify themselves with him. Accounts connecting 

him with Nanyue Huairang, and through him 

Mazu DAOYI (709–788) and the later Linji (Japanese, 

Rinzai) lineage, as well as with Qingyuan Xingsi, and 

through him Shitou Xiqian (700–790) and the later 

Caodong (Japanese, Soto) lineage, are palpably fictional. 

However, those accounts are of foundational 

importance to the Chan tradition, and they draw on 

the legendary image of Huineng to create a totalistic 

explanation of Buddhist spiritual training that fits the 

contemporary Chinese social world. 

The thorough fictionality of the legendary image of 

Huineng only indicates its great literary and mythopoeic 

power. This image resonates deeply with Buddhist 

and native Chinese mythic themes: Social 

standing and family identity were theoretically unimportant 

in the face of true virtue and insight, which is 

personified in the most humble of figures. The interaction 

between Hongren, Shenxiu, and Huineng dramatized 

and helped define for later readers the 

generational dynamics of Chan religious training, in 

which the achievement of enlightenment gives one access 

to authority within the lineage. 

In the Chan tradition, Huineng is associated with the 

“sudden” teaching, whereby enlightenment occurs in a 

single instantaneous transformation. This is often contrasted 

with the “gradual” teaching, whereby one moves 

toward enlightenment through progressive stages. 

Members of both the Linji and Caodong lineages generally 

claim the subitist teaching for themselves and 

criticize the other as gradualist. 

Bibliography 

McRae, John R. Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, 

and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism. Berkeley: University 


HUIYUAN 

JOHN R. MCRAE 

Huiyuan (334–416) is an important vaunt-courier of 

the PURE LAND SCHOOLS of Buddhism. As a young man 

Huiyuan applied himself to Confucian and Daoist 

studies until he met DAO’AN (312–385), whereupon he 

took the tonsure to become Dao’an’s disciple. After 

their monastery suffered military attack in 378, 

Huiyuan moved to South China, settling on Lushan 

(Mount Lu), where he remained until his death. 

Huiyuan thereafter established an extremely vibrant 

monastic and lay community that, in its devotion to 

doctrinal study, practice, and rigorous maintenance of 

the precepts, became a model for later Buddhist 

monasteries. His correspondence with KUMARAJIVA 

(350–409/413), later compiled as the document 

Dasheng dayizhang (The Chief Ideas of the Mahayana), 

is an important resource for understanding the difficulties 

faced by the Chinese Buddhist community in 

understanding such concepts as ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS), 

dharmakaya, and momentariness. 

Huiyuan is also known as the first leader in China 

of organized ritual practice aimed at rebirth in the Pure 

Land of AMITABHA Buddha. Huiyuan’s group of 

monastic and lay Buddhists, in its devotion to samadhi 

via nianfo (Japanese, nenbutsu) practice, may have 

been the first of its kind. Aside from a preface to a collection 

of nianfo samadhi poems, everything known 

about Huiyuan’s Pure Land activities comes from 

sources written in the eighth century or later, when 

there was great interest in Pure Land thought and history. 

But Tang and Song period Pure Land scholars regarded 

Huiyuan and what some called his White Lotus 

Society as having played a foundational role in establishing 

Pure Land thought and practice in China, and 

some recognized Huiyuan as the first Chinese patriarch 

of this school. 

See also: Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, 

Yŏmbul) 


H YUJŎNG 

Bibliography 

Liebenthal, Walter. “Shih Hui-yuan’s Buddhism.” Journal of the 

American Oriental Society 70 (1950): 243–259. 




HWAŎM SCHOOL. See Huayan School 

HYESIM 

MARK L. BLUM 

Hyesim (Chin’gak kuksa, 1178–1234) was an eminent 

Sŏn (Chinese, Chan) school master from the mid- 

Koryŏ dynasty. Like many other Koryŏ- and Chosŏnera 

figures, he entered the Buddhist order with a strong 

Confucian background. Hyesim passed the highestranking 

civil service exam and taught at a Confucian 

institute. But in 1202, after the death of his mother 

(who had adamantly opposed his wishes to be ordained), 

he joined CHINUL’s Susŏnsa (Cultivation of 

Chan) Society and became his disciple. After studying 

with Chinul for a period of time, Hyesim went off on 

his own to practice in places such as Osan and 

Chirisan, learning from a number of different masters. 

He eventually returned to Chinul, who acknowledged 

his disciple’s attainment of enlightenment. When 

Chinul passed away in 1210, Hyesim was pressed into 

taking the mantle of leadership of the society, thus becoming 

its second patriarch. He spent the rest of his 

life expanding the society, studying the kanhwa meditation 

technique developed by Chinul, and writing 

and compiling voluminously. 

Most renowned of Hyesim’s extensive works are the 

Sŏnmun gangyo (Essentials of the Sŏn School) and the 

Sŏnmun yŏmsong chip (Enlightenment Verses of the Sŏn 

School). The latter is a massive collection of edifying 

ancient precedents from Chan and pre-Chan Buddhist 

literature, which has been viewed as an important 

source for adherents of KO AN (Korean, kongan) meditation 

throughout East Asia down to the present day. 

Hyesim passed away at the age of fifty-seven and received 

the posthumous title National Master Chin’gak 

(True Enlightenment). 


Bibliography 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. The Collected Works of Chinul. Honolulu: 


HYUJŎNG 

A. CHARLES MULLER 

The Buddhist monk Hyujŏng (1520–1604) lived during 

the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) in Korea, when 

Buddhism, marginalized by an aggressively neo- 

Confucian state, eked out survival in the form of 

so-called Mountain Buddhism. Buddhist monasteries 

were under the control of the government and Buddhist 

monks, placed at the bottom of the Chosŏn 

social spectrum, were prohibited from entering the 

capital. 

Hyujŏng is also known as Ch’ŏnghŏ taesa (Master 

Ch’ŏnghŏ) or Sŏsan taesa (Master of Western Mountain) 

because he resided primarily on Mount Myohyang, 

also known as Sŏsan (Western) Mountain. His 

secular name was Ch’oe Hyŏnŭng; Hyujŏng is his 

dharma name. He was orphaned at the age of ten, and 

raised by Yi Sajŭng, a Confucian scholar who was a 

local government official. After being educated in the 

Confucian classics at home, Hyujŏng entered the 

Sŏnggyun’gwan, an academy for the Confucian elite. 

He failed the rigorous civil service examination necessary 

for government office, however, and then embarked 

on a period of travel, during which time he 

was introduced to MAHAYANA Buddhist texts at 

Mount Chiri. This experience set the stage for his decision 

to become a monk. He later studied Sŏn (Chinese, 

Chan) under the guidance of Master Puyong 

Yŏnggwan (1485–1571), who eventually recognized 

his enlightenment. 

During his career as a Sŏn monk, Hyujŏng did not 

ignore the importance of kyo (doctrinal teaching); he 

acknowledged that doctrine is a companion to practice. 

In his work Sŏn’ga kwigam (Speculum on the Sŏn 

School), he states “Sŏn is the mind of the Buddha and 

doctrine is his word.” However, he never thought doctrine 

to be the equal of meditation. This is clear in his 

theory of sagyo ipsŏn, which means “abandon doctrine 

and enter Sŏn.” Hyujŏng authored a number of texts 

on the relation between Sŏn and doctrine, and the importance 

of Sŏn practice for attaining enlightenment. 

The most important are Sŏn’gyo sŏk (The Exposition of 

Sŏn and Doctrine), Sŏn’ gyo kyŏl (The Secret of Sŏn and 


349

H YUJŎNG 

Doctrine), and Simbŏp yoch’o (The Essential Excerpts of 

the Teachings of Mind). He also wrote books attempting 

to incorporate the three main traditions in East Asian 

thought—Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism—into 

a Sŏn framework, such as Samga kwigam (Speculum on 

the Three Teachings). 

Hyujŏng also played a role in Korean political history 

as the organizer of the so-called Monk’s Militia 

that helped repel the Japanese invasion of 1592. Depending 

on one’s point of view, this can be seen as a 

highly successful manifestation of the Korean tradition 

of hoguk pulgyo (state-protection Buddhism) or as a 

striking example of the distorting influence of political 

involvement on Korean Buddhism. Considering 

the strongly Confucian tenor of the culture at that 

time, however, and the fact that Hyujŏng was raised in 

the home of a Confucian scholar, it might not be surprising 

that he chose a more actively patriotic course. 

See also: Chan School; Confucianism and Buddhism; 

Korea; Yujŏng 

Bibliography 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. “Buddhism under Confucian Domination: 

The Synthetic Vision of Sŏsan Hyŭjŏng.” In Culture 

and the State in the Late Chosŏn Korea, ed. JaHyun Kim 

Haboush and Martina Deuchler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 

University Asia Center, 1999. 

Kim, Yŏng-t’ae. “Master Hyujŏng: His Thought and Dharma 

Lineage.” In Buddhism in the Early Chosŏn: Suppression and 

Transformation, ed. Lewis R. Lancaster and Chai-shin Yu. 

Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1996. 

SUNGTAEK CHO 


I 

ICCHANTIKA 

The notion of the icchantika (loosely rendered into 

English as “hedonist” or “dissipated”) is the closest 

Buddhism comes to a notion of damnation or perdition. 

Icchantika refers to a class, or “lineage” (Sanskrit, 

gotra), of beings who are beyond all redemption and 

lose forever the capacity to achieve NIRVAN A (Sanskrit, 

aparinirvanagotraka). The NIRVAN A SU TRA defines the 

icchantika as one who “does not believe in the law of 

causality, has no feeling of shame, has no faith in the 

workings of KARMA, is unconcerned with the present 

or the future, never befriends good people, and does 

not follow the teachings of the Buddha.” The term is 

often employed polemically in MAHAYANA texts, as for 

example the LAṄKAVATARA-SU TRA (Discourse of the 

Descent into Laṅka), to refer to beings who are antagonistic 

toward the Mahayana canon. Their destiny is 

typically an eternity in the HELLS. Some BODHISATTVA 

icchantikas intentionally choose this spiritual lineage 

because they “cherish certain vows for all beings since 

beginningless time” (sattvanadikalapranidhanata), and 

they wish to help all beings gain nirvana. 

The icchantika doctrine has long been controversial 

in Mahayana because it seems to contradict an axiom 

of many strands of Buddhism: the innate presence of 

the buddha-nature, or TATHAGATAGARBHA, in all sentient 

beings. The Chinese commentator DAOSHENG 

(ca. 360–434), for example, debunked the theory and 

even had the audacity to question the accuracy of passages 

in sutra translations that mentioned the lamentable 

destiny of icchantikas. With the prominent 

exception of the FAXIANG SCHOOL, the Chinese branch 

of Yogacara, East Asian Buddhists resoundingly rejected 

the icchantika doctrine in favor of the notion 

that all beings, even the denizens of hell, retained the 

capacity to attain enlightenment. 

See also: Cosmology; Path 

Bibliography 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. “The Path to Perdition: The Wholesome 

Roots and Their Eradication.” In Paths to Liberation: The 

Marga and Its Transformations in Buddhist Thought, ed. 

Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Robert M. Gimello. Honolulu: 


Suzuki Daisetz Teitaro. Studies in the Laṅkavatara Su tra (1930). 

London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972. 


IGNORANCE. See Pratltyasamutpada (Dependent 

Origination) 

IKKYU 

Born in Kyoto to a court lady-in-waiting and, according 

to some sources, the young sovereign Gokomatsu 

(1377–1433), Ikkyu Sojun (1394–1481) became an 

acolyte at age five at the Zen temple Ankokuji. He later 

trained under two harsh, iconoclastic Zen masters, first 

Ken’o Soi (d. 1414) and then Kaso Sodon (1352–1428). 

Kaso granted his student the name Ikkyu (One Pause) 

after he had an awakening experience in 1418. Around 

1425 Ikkyu moved to Sakai, where he reveled in an independent, 

pleasure-loving way of life. At age seventyseven, 

he fell in love with the blind minstrel Lady Mori, 

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I MPERMANENCE 

and may have fathered a daughter with her. At eighty, 

he was appointed abbot of the great Zen monastery 

Daitokuji, which had been mostly destroyed in the 

O nin war (1467); Ikkyu completely rebuilt it in the last 

years of his life. 

Ikkyu is a Zen master beloved as much for his outlandish 

jokes and erotic affairs as for his ascetic meditation 

practice. One New Year’s Day he appeared in 

the streets of Kyoto brandishing a human skull on a 

pole, claiming that this reminder of death should not 

dampen the day’s spirit of celebration. Ikkyu refused 

to receive or grant official dharma transmission, compared 

the Zen of his day to a wooden sword—all show 

and no substance—and flouted convention by frequenting 

bars and brothels. He is well known for his 

literary works, including Skeletons (Gaikotsu), Crazy 

Cloud Collection (Kyo unshu ), and many other poems 

and prose works, as well as calligraphy and paintings. 

See also: Chan Art; Chan School; Japanese, Buddhist 

Influences on Vernacular Literature in 

Bibliography 

Arntzen, Sonya. Ikkyu and the Crazy Cloud Anthology: A Zen 

Poet of Medieval Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 

1987. 

Berg, Stephen, trans. Crow with No Mouth: Ikkyu , Fifteenth Century 

Zen Master. Reprint. Port Towsend, WA: Copper 

Canyon Press, 2000. 

Sanford, James. Zen-Man Ikkyu . Chico, CA: Scholar’s Press, 

1981. 

SARAH FREMERMAN 

IMPERMANENCE. See Anitya (Impermanence) 

INDIA 

For Buddhists, India is a land of many buddhas. From 

time immemorial, bodhisattvas have been born within 

India’s borders, have awakened there, and have attained 

final NIRVAN A. As the buddha of our present 

era, Śakyamuni is crucial but not unique: The dharma 

he taught has been found and lost countless times over 

the ages. This myth of buddhahood has profoundly 

affected traditional biographies of Śakyamuni, a fact 

that limits their utility as evidence for “what really 

happened.” 

Historians accept that Śakyamuni lived, taught, and 

founded a monastic order. But they cannot easily accept 

most details included in his biographies. Available 

sources are twofold—textual and archaeological—and 

neither is satisfactory. Textual sources cannot be fully 

trusted, since even the earliest extant texts date to five 

centuries after Śakyamuni’s death; archaeological 

sources are older, but sparser in their details. For this 

reason, scholars cannot agree upon the century in 

which Śakyamuni lived. One chronology places his life 

circa 566 to 486 B.C.E.; a second, circa 488 to 368 B.C.E., 

and other dates are proposed as well. Scholars do not 

know all the doctrines Śakyamuni taught, nor how 

people regarded him in his own day. Lacking even such 

basic knowledge, one can consider the social milieu of 

Buddhism’s origins in only the most general terms. 

The social milieu of early Buddhism (fifth or 

fourth century B.C.E) 

To understand the rise of Buddhism, one must look to 

a world in transition. Approximately one millennium 

before Siddhartha Gautama—the man who was to become 

the Buddha Śakyamuni—was born, waves of nomads, 

the Indo-A ryans, crossed the mountain passes 

of Afghanistan in approach to South Asia. Little is 

known about these people. What is known comes from 

their sacred Vedas, collections of hymns and lore to be 

used in the performance of ritual. These texts represent 

the Indo-A ryans as proud warriors, noble masters 

of the world who by 1000 B.C.E. began replacing their 

caravans with agrarian settlements. As agricultural 

production increased, villages developed into towns, 

and towns into cities. 

As the Indo-A ryans settled, Vedic lore increasingly 

became the dominant ideology of the Gangetic plain in 

North India. Vedic Brahmin priests performed rituals, 

told stories of the gods, and explained the working of 

the universe; they even guaranteed supporters a favorable 

place in the afterlife. But the Vedas had been composed 

when the Indo-A ryans were nomad-warriors. 

Although the Brahmins held that their sacred knowledge 

was valid in this new urban context, some found 

that a hollow claim. Men like Siddhartha Gautama were 

not satisfied by the ordinary patterns of daily life, or the 

Vedic legitimations thereof. Such men left their families 

and wandered out of the cities to become śramanas 

(seekers). Siddhartha was to become the most successful 

critic of the Vedic Brahmins, and the most famous 

representative of India’s seeker movement. 

The problem, as Siddhartha saw it, was that the 

Vedic priests of his day did not merit their high social 


I NDIA 

status. Those Brahmins claimed to be the offspring of 

Brahma (the creator god), and thus to be conduits of 

supermundane power (Brahman) in the human world. 

When the seeker Siddhartha encountered these priests, 

however, he did not find them upright or learned godson-earth. 

To the contrary, Buddhist texts present them 

as beguiled by the wealth and tumult of urban India. 

They come across as greedy, foolish, proud men who 

hide their fraud behind high-flown claims to supremacy 

based upon the ancient names of their clans 

and caste. 

By considering the institutional foundation of Buddhism 

in its sociohistorical context, one finds Śakyamuni 

to have been a critic and innovator whose 

institutional genius lay in his ability to legitimate new 

rituals of social engagement appropriate to the economic 

situation of his day through claims that he was 

merely reforming a broken social-spiritual order. For 

instance, verse 393 in DHAMMAPADA (Words of the 

Doctrine) reads: “One is not a Brahmin because [one 

wears] dreadlocks, or due to one’s clan or caste. It is 

due to truth and dharma that one is pure, and is a 

Brahmin.” This verse promises that Buddhist “Brahmins,” 

unlike the Vedic, are not frauds, for their brahminhood 

is guaranteed by the imprimatur of 

Śakyamuni himself, the teacher of true dharma. Vedic 

priests, by contrast, were not only frauds, but dangerous 

frauds. For by denouncing these priests’ brahminhood, 

Śakyamuni also denied the efficacy of their 

rituals. In their place he offered his own disciples, who 

had realized FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS and become worthy 

“Brahmins.” The multiple connotations of the word 

arya—the ethnonym for India’s conquerors, the 

adjective noble, a description of Buddhist truths— 

connect Śakyamuni’s religious innovations with hallowed 

memories of the past. In sum, rather than sponsor 

elaborate Vedic rites or pay the fees of Vedic priests, 

the laity were directed to make offerings of food, clothing, 

and medicine to Śakyamuni and his SAṄGHA 

(community of monks). This was presented as a truly 

efficacious way to earn spiritual merit, ensuring a family 

member’s favorable afterlife. As receivers of gifts, 

Buddhist monks were ideally suited to the new urban 

landscape of northern India. 

The saṅ˙ gha and social norms (fifth or fourth 

century B.C.E.) 

According to Buddhist lore, the saṅgha was founded 

when Śakyamuni taught the Dharmacakrapravartanasu 

tra (Turning the Wheel of the Law) to five men who 

had been his companions when he undertook intense 

ascetic rigors before he attained buddhahood. Swiftly, 

Śakyamuni attracted many more followers, ascetics, 

and seekers to his community. As the saṅgha’s reputation 

spread, it earned support from wealthy merchants 

and kings. Such patronage was necessary, for 

this community was comprised of bhiksus (beggars living 

on alms). Thus, monastic rule books represent 

Śakyamuni as fervent in his pursuit of a monastic “good 

neighbor” policy. For as a social institution, Buddhism 

was woven into a web of parallel institutions— 

economic, political, familial, medical, cultural—that 

had no necessary stake in the saṅgha’s perpetuation. 

Potential donors had definite expectations about how 

bhiksus should comport themselves. If monks transgressed 

those expectations, they stood to lose support. 

It is thus crucial to recognize that although Buddhist 

monks took the radical step of leaving their families, 

the Buddhist saṅgha was neither a radical nor an 

antisocial institution. It did not strive to undermine 

fundamental social canons. Indeed its rules often legitimated 

and conserved those canons. 

Tensions between the saṅgha’s identity as a community 

of beggars, and its need to conform to public 

norms of behavior, are exemplified by stories about 

founding the order of NUNS. When asked to admit his 

foster-mother, MAHAPRAJAPATI GAUTAMI, as the first 

female bhiksunl, Śakyamuni refused, even though he 

admitted that women are as capable as men of becoming 

arhats. The rationale given for his reluctance 

was that bhiksunls would be like blight in a field of 

sugarcane, weakening the saṅgha’s vitality. Śakyamuni 

prophesied that if he founded an order of nuns the 

saṅgha would remain true to his teachings for five 

hundred years only, whereas if he did not admit 

women, his male brotherhood would survive one 

thousand years without decay. Ultimately Śakyamuni 

relented, after pledging Mahaprajapat and all future 

nuns to accept eight extraordinary rules, which thoroughly 

subordinated the female bhiksunls to the male 

bhiksus. In sum, the male institution’s reluctance to 

grant unreserved legitimacy to its female counterpart 

reflected a broader cultural ambivalence in India concerning 

women, one that was misogynist in its value 

judgments, even while it recognized the inevitability 

of women’s social presence. 

The Buddha’s death and the First Council 

(fifth or fourth century B.C.E.) 

If the saṅgha was founded with Śakyamuni’s first sermon, 

his death forced it to be reborn. Without a single, 

universally accepted voice of authority, Buddhist 


353

I NDIA 

monks became increasingly divided over wisdom, 

practice, conduct, and religious goals. The ongoing history 

of the saṅgha presents a tug-of-war between, on 

the one hand, individuals or groups seeking to conserve 

what they considered the core of Śakyamuni’s religion, 

and on the other hand, the continuing need to 

conform to changing social, cultural, political, and 

economic structures. 

The first example of such a battle comes from the 

stories of Śakyamuni’s own life, when his cousin, 

DEVADATTA, attempted to supplant him as the saṅgha’s 

leader. The sources suggest that this rebellion was swiftly 

quashed by ŚA RIPUTRA and MAHA MAUDGALYA YANA, 

Śakyamuni’s chief disciples. After Śakyamuni’s death, 

however, a more comprehensive strategy was needed to 

keep the saṅgha whole. That strategy is contained in the 

legend of a First Council: a convocation held in the city 

of Rajagrha during the first summer after Śakyamuni’s 

death. Buddhist traditions claim that this council was 

comprised of five hundred monks, all arhats. It was 

presided over by Mahakaśyapa, an early convert and the 

most accomplished monk still alive. The purpose of this 

council was to recollect all Śakyamuni’s teachings, and 

thus to establish the discourses (sutra), monastic rules 

(VINAYA), and formal doctrines (ABHIDHARMA) that 

would sustain the unified saṅgha in Śakyamuni’s absence. 

Scholars do not regard narratives about this 

council as historically credible. Nevertheless, one can 

certainly see its rhetorical value. Buddhists could affirm 

that within one year of Śakyamuni’s final nirvana, 

all of his pronouncements were recited, confirmed as 

the legitimate BUDDHAVACANA (WORD OF THE BUD- 

DHA) by a congregation of perfect men, and set in their 

appropriate canonical baskets. 

Schism after schism (fourth through second 


The same institutional memory that lauds this “orthodox” 

meeting also tells of other, “dissident” monks, 

who rejected the council’s authority. Accordingly, even 

if scholars knew that a council of elite disciples really 

did convene in the year after Śakyamuni’s death, they 

still could not reckon how many subgroups existed 

within the saṅgha that followed a dharma and vinaya 

owing nothing to Rajagrha’s convocation. The meeting 

held in Rajagrha is remembered as only the first of 

several. As time progressed, the ideally unified saṅgha 

splintered into numerous disparate sects (nikaya), each 

claiming to faithfully preserve Śakyamuni’s dharma 

and vinaya. It is difficult to give a precise account of 

these later councils, for each sect relates this history 

from its own biased point of view. Nevertheless, the 

most important of these later councils can be dated to 

approximately one hundred years after Śakyamuni’s 

death, and placed in the north Indian city of Vaiśal. 

At issue were several practices of Vaiśal’s saṅgha, 

which some from outside the city considered violations 

of the vinaya. With the exception of Theravada materials, 

all other sources agree that the dispute was resolved 

and that the “lax practices” of the Vaiśal monks 

were declared unacceptable, a verdict apparently accepted 

by the Vaiśal monks themselves. Thus, for the 

time being, the unity of the saṅgha was restored. 

Some time after the council at Vaiśal, however, a 

more far-reaching dispute erupted, which resulted in 

the first schism in the Buddhist community: a division 

between one group that styled itself the Sthaviravada 

(Pali, THERAVADA; The Teaching of the Elders) and a 

second group that called itself the MAHASAM GHIKA 

SCHOOL (The Great Assembly, or “Majorityists”). Accounts 

vary as to the cause of the dispute; according to 

some, the disagreement was occasioned by the so-called 

five points of a certain Mahadeva, which concerned the 

fallibility of the ARHAT. It now seems more plausible, 

however, that these points arose later and occasioned 

a schism within the Mahasam ghika subgroup itself. 

More likely is that the original dispute was provoked 

by the addition of some new vinaya rules by the group 

that styled themselves the “Elders,” which were rejected 

by the more conservative Mahasam ghikas. In any 

event, the division between the Mahasam ghika and the 

Sthaviravada is universally accepted within the tradition 

as the first real schism to split the Buddhist community. 

All the schools that subsequently emerged 

within Indian Buddhism are offspring of one of these 

two main groups. 

The schism between the Mahasam ghika and the 

Sthaviravada was but one example of centrifugal forces 

that had long been present in the saṅgha. Multiple 

claims to authority, differences of language, of location, 

and of monastic rules, as well as burgeoning differences 

over doctrine and religious practice all contributed to 

the further division of the saṅgha into numerous 

nikayas, as the Sthaviravada and Mahasam ghika sects 

both ruptured internally. Though the absolute number 

of nikayas is not known, it is popularly held that 

several centuries after Śakyamuni’s nirvana, the 

saṅgha had split into eighteen separate nikayas. Some 

of these nikayas were distinguished by little more than 

geography, others by unique doctrines, and still others 

in terms of their ritual practice. Each nikaya possessed 

its own canon, grounding its own profession of 


I NDIA 

orthodoxy. Unfortunately, with the exception of the 

Theravada’s canon in Pali, and scattered fragments 

from other nikayas, little of this once vast literary corpus 

survives. 

Institutionalization and the worship of stupas 

(fifth through third century B.C.E.) 

Monastic competition after Śakyamuni’s death was not 

the only agent of institutional change. Traditional 

tellings of Śakyamuni’s biography do not end with his 

final nirvana in Kuśinagara. These narratives describe 

the people gathered at Śakyamuni’s death as observing 

a body progressively emptied of personal vitality. The 

body was cremated. But a dispute soon arose over who 

owned the funerary remains. The people of Kuśinagara 

claimed these relics (śarlra) for themselves, since 

Śakyamuni had chosen their territory for his final nirvana. 

But the people of other territories swiftly demanded 

relics as well. To stave off war, equal shares of 

Śakyamuni’s remains were given to all. Each of these 

measures was then housed in a memorial STU PA. 

Why would people have been willing to go to war 

over the funerary fragments of a dead holy man? Here 

one finds a window onto early Indian Buddhism. 

Stupas associated with Śakyamuni provided sacred 

sites at which lay and monastic Buddhists alike were 

able to enter his otherwise inaccessible presence. 

Once in that presence, they could make offerings and 

reap merit. Thus, stupas promised spiritual power to 

the kings who controlled them, and particularly prestigious 

sites would also have generated great revenues 

from pilgrims who traveled from far and near for 

worship. Similarly, caityas (shrines commemorating 

places visited, and objects used, by Śakyamuni) also 

became pilgrimage centers. 

PILGRIMAGE was enormously important in Buddhism’s 

development. Laymen, laywomen, monks, and 

nuns all encountered one another traversing the 

Ganges basin, from sacred site to sacred site. Such 

shared ritual, in turn, became the foundation of a 

shared religious identity, an all-inclusive community 

called “the fourfold assembly” in Buddhist texts. But 

even though patterns of worship gave the laity a bona 

fide position within this assembly, the institutionalization 

of pilgrimage also granted additional duties and 

opportunities to the monks. Large monastic communities 

grew up around major stupas; these monasteries’ 

inhabitants served as caretakers, priests, and 

teachers. Acting for the good of the buddha, of their 

brotherhood, and of their kingdom, monks made Buddhism 

a fixture of the Indian religious landscape for 

nearly two millennia. 

Aśoka Maurya (third century B.C.E.) 

Artifacts dating to the reign of AŚOKA, ruler of the 

Mauryan dynasty (third century B.C.E.), provide the 

oldest extant evidence for Buddhism in India. Aśoka 

was an important early patron of the saṅgha, and his 

exertions on its behalf are celebrated in traditional 

Buddhist writings from Sri Lanka to China. Legend 

holds that Aśoka raided the original group of stupas in 

order to redistribute Śakyamuni’s relics into eightyfour 

thousand stupas, making that presence available 

throughout his kingdom. Aśoka is said to have held a 

grand council in order to reestablish a single orthodoxy 

within the saṅgha; he also supposedly made pilgrimage 

to all the places important to Śakyamuni’s life. 

Though hyperbolic, these literary paeans point to 

Aśoka’s prominent role in Buddhism’s institutionalization. 

Archaeological remains provide more precise, 

through less glorified, evidence of Aśoka’s activities. 

Among the many edicts Aśoka incised on pillars and 

boulders, several speak to his interest in Buddhism. 

The Bhabra edict, for instance, recommends a set of 

seven texts for Buddhist monks and laity to read and 

study (all the texts focus on ethics, suggesting that, for 

Aśoka, good Buddhists were also good citizens). The 

Kauśamb edict denounces disunity within the saṅgha, 

ordering schismatic monks to return to lay status. The 

Nigliva inscription tells that Aśoka doubled the size of 

a stupa dedicated to a past buddha named Konakamana. 

In short, although sectarian Buddhist writings 

on the religion’s early historical development cannot 

be trusted in their details, archaeological evidence from 

Aśoka’s reign allows us to accept these texts’ broad 

characterization of this era, when worship focused on 

stupas, devoted Buddhists made pilgrimages, and nostalgic 

tales of Śakyamuni’s harmonious saṅgha contrasted 

with the sharp-edged glare of contemporary 

circumstances. 

A time of change and development (second 

century B.C.E. to fourth century C.E.) 

The Mauryan empire did not long survive Aśoka. It 

was followed by five centuries of political turmoil, 

during which indigenous dynasties and foreign invaders 

vied for supremacy. Although Buddhism established 

a base identity during Mauryan times, the 

succeeding era of political competition and social diversification 

fostered new doctrinal and institutional 

expressions. During these centuries, monastic spats 


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increased the number of nikayas to eighteen, or more. 

Additionally, monasteries and pilgrimage centers were 

increasingly founded outside the Gangetic basin: in 

the South (Amaravat, Nagarjunkonda), central India 

(Barhut, SAN CI), and the Northwest (Taksaśla, 

Hadda, BAMIYAN). A tradition of representing the 

buddha in iconic form developed during this period 

as well, alongside numerous regional styles. 

Religious creativity was not the sole property of 

Buddhists, however. This era also saw innovations in 

Hinduism, leading to its increased popularity. The 

Mauryan dynasty was succeeded in north India by the 

Śuṅga, whose first ruler, Pusyamitra (187–151 B.C.E.), 

showed a strong interest in Vedic ritual, and governed 

with the support of Vedic Brahmins. Buddhists number 

Pusyamitra among the saṅgha’s greatest enemies. 

In central India during this same century, a Greek 

legate erected a pillar in Krsna’s honor. Still, such developments 

do not signal Buddhism’s eclipse. One of 

the Indo-Greek kings, Menander (ca. 150 B.C.E.), is 

claimed as a Buddhist convert, while the Kushan royal 

Kaniska (first or second century C.E.) sought to emulate 

Aśoka through his largesse and close stewardship 

of the saṅgha. 

The bodhisattvaya na (second to first 


The Buddhist saṅgha was a ritual community pledged 

simultaneously to the preservation of an ultimate truth 

and the legitimation of social norms. As social forms, 

economic systems, and rulers changed, Buddhist 

monks devised new, locally appropriate expressions of 

their core principles. The fact that so many nikayas 

came into being so quickly testifies to the ideological 

ferment of this time. 

A backlash against this turmoil produced the most 

comprehensive breach in Buddhism’s early history. 

Each nikaya claimed orthodoxy, inspiring some partisans 

to adopt stalwart sectarian identities. But other 

Buddhists found this strident sectarianism a violation 

of Śakyamuni’s ideals. These latter viewed their 

brethren as backsliding from the original intent of the 

renunciant’s life. Zealous to recover that origin, they 

accused those monks of being hypocritical, hedonistic, 

lazy, and unstudied in the rules of conduct. These 

reformers singled themselves out by advocating living 

in forests, an optional practice for all monks. But even 

more importantly, these monks sought to reform 

Buddhism by declaring themselves to be bodhisattvas, 

riding the bodhisattva-vehicle (bodhisattvayana) to 

perfect buddhahood. 

Institutionally, this bodhisattvayana had a diffuse 

origin. It cannot be traced to a single social group, 

nikaya, locale, or founder. Its members did not claim 

to be the First Council’s heir, and thus to form a new 

nikaya. Rather, these bodhisattvas were united by a 

common vision, for which nikaya membership was beside 

the point. They held that bodhisattvahood, and 

ultimately buddhahood, was the only legitimate aspiration 

for Śakyamuni’s followers. 

This bodhisattvayana was adopted by monks and 

laity alike. For the renunciants, monastic vows and 

bodhisattva’s vows were not in conflict. To the contrary, 

by aspiring to become Śakyamuni’s equal, a 

monk demonstrated just how seriously he took his renouncer’s 

role. For the laity, too, to articulate a bodhisattva’s 

vows was to signal one’s serious religious 

intent. Most nikayas held that only monks can become 

arhats; individuals who aspired thus were expected to 

abandon lay life. But the nature of the bodhisattva path 

made it such that a bodhisattva could marry, work, 

raise a family, and still be spiritually adept. Thus the 

same vow that enabled bodhisattva monks to aggrandize 

themselves as Śakyamuni’s legitimate heirs, allowed 

bodhisattva laity to aggrandize almsgiving and 

worship as significant accomplishments on the path to 

buddhahood. 

From bodhisattvaya na to Maha ya na (first 

century B.C.E. to second century C.E.) 

The fact that the bodhisattvayana developed simultaneously 

in many centers makes it difficult to speak of 

an origin per se, or even a single bodhisattvayana. However, 

there is one aspect of religious life that these scattered 

bodhisattvas did share in common: a desire to 

learn more about how they should live, practice, and 

think as bodhisattvas. The nikayas had little to say 

about the bodhisattva figure, and what information 

their canons did provide was general and retrospective. 

In the centuries after Śakyamuni’s nirvana, members 

of the nikayas composed (or edited) sutras, but 

they presented their work as the Buddha Śakyamuni’s. 

Bodhisattvas were no exception to this practice. By the 

first century B.C.E., a new genre of Buddhist literature 

was being written, focusing upon the path and practices 

of bodhisattvas. The first works of this literature 

are lost. The earliest texts that do still exist, from circa 

first century C.E., reveal this bodhisattva movement to 

have been diffuse and numerically insignificant. But 

they also begin to use a distinctive name, MAHAYANA 

(Great Vehicle). The Mahayana began as a minor reform 

movement within the constraints of nikaya- 


I NDIA 

Buddhism. It soon developed new and distinct forms 

of the religion. 

The wide range of subjects one finds in early Mahayana 

sutras is suggestive of the diverse origins from 

which it arose. These sutras show that Mahayanists 

were concerned with reforming Buddhism on a number 

of fronts: doctrinal, sociological, soteriological, 

cultic, and mythological. Some severely criticize Buddhists 

who do not take the bodhisattva vow, while others 

contain no such polemic; some speak to a monastic 

milieu, while others champion lay bodhisattvas. This 

early Mahayana was heterogeneous, with bodhisattvas 

even disputing other bodhisattvas in an open-ended 

process of decentralized change. 

Institutionalization of the Maha ya na (second to 

twelfth century C.E.) 

Although sutras provide the first evidence for the Mahayana’s 

existence, few contemporaneous material 

artifacts show their influence. That is to say, archaeological 

data do not suggest that the Mahayana directly 

affected monastic life, patronage, ritual, or even education 

during the first, second, or third centuries C.E. 

Only in the fifth century is there significant public evidence 

of Mahayana Buddhism in India. 

The “underground” nature of Mahayana at its inception 

is one factor in this slow transition from spiritual 

movement to public institution. But an important 

catalyst toward change came in 320 C.E., when Candragupta 

I founded a dynasty that united north India 

as a single state for the first time since Aśoka. The 

changes initiated by Candragupta’s ascension are so 

numerous that 320 C.E. is often cited as the first in a 

new era of Indian history. For explaining the Mahayana’s 

institutionalization, however, the most profound 

development was economic. 

Before the Guptas, monetary exchange formed the 

basis of the north Indian economy. A money-economy 

circulates wealth through direct transactions between 

people. Nikaya-Buddhism was well suited to such a 

system because the nikayas emphasized the worth of 

the monks (or the stupas they controlled) as recipients 

of donation. Indeed, Buddhism gained such prominence 

in the centuries after Śakyamuni’s death in large 

part because its ideology justified the accumulation of 

money, and provided a way to benefit from that accumulation 

even after death. Beginning with the Gupta 

dynasty, however, this money-economy began to give 

way to one based upon ownership of land. The Guptas 

did not attempt to govern their entire territory directly 

from their capital city. Rather, as “Lords of the 

Earth,” the Guptas permitted petty kings to retain 

residual control over their regions, and gave fields and 

villages to Brahmins, who then administered those 

lands. Thus, beginning with the Guptas, wealth became 

less associated with amassing money than with holding 

jurisdiction over a quasi-independent territory; 

one did not have prestige because one could enter into 

many exchange relationships, but due to one’s close alliance 

with the imperial suzerain. 

For Buddhism this meant that the wealth, position, 

and surplus resources of the merchants who had made 

up the bulk of the religion’s early lay followers were 

diminished, leaving only members of the royalty and 

Buddhists themselves as donors. As possession of land 

became essential for Buddhism’s survival, Buddhist institutions 

were ever more dependent upon direct royal 

patronage. This required Buddhists to adjust the tenor 

and focus of their religious productions, and directly 

address royal concerns in Buddhist media. 

The Mahayana was particularly well suited to this 

new economy. Its sutras had long used royal imagery 

when speaking of buddhas and bodhisattvas. Thus, the 

PRAJN APARAMITA LITERATURE (Perfection of Wisdom 

texts) describes bodhisattvas as fearless heroes, wearing 

armor while mounted on the great vehicle. Buddhas, 

similarly, are presented by the Mahayana as 

lords, each of his own personal buddha-land, surrounded 

by divine retinues; they engage in demonstrations 

of mutual admiration and support; they send 

bodhisattva emissaries to one another. In the fifth century, 

these literary tropes begin to make their mark on 

public art and inscriptions, revealing the symbolic maneuvers 

by means of which Mahayana Buddhism became 

prominent in India. 

The institutionalization of Indian Mahayana Buddhism 

reached its apogee in the great monastery at 

Nalanda, which, as a center for higher education, 

attracted students to Northern India from throughout 

Asia. As delineated by the seventh-century pilgrim 

XUANZANG (ca. 600–664), Nalanda’s foundation 

dated to the imperial Guptas. In the early fifth century, 

one king built a monastery at a lucky spot in this 

town. Over the next century, subsequent Gupta rulers 

added to that establishment. Eventually, devout rulers 

from other parts of India, and even other countries, 

made their own donations of buildings and resources. 

By Xuanzang’s day, Nalanda had become the preeminent 

Buddhist university. Its endowment included 

several hundred villages; its dormitories housed 


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I NDIA 

Tibetans light butter lamps for world peace at Bodh Gaya, India, 1997. Bodh Gaya is where the Buddha achieved enlightenment and 

is Buddhism’s most sacred pilgrimage site. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

several thousand students. And although a liberal education 

was possible—including the Vedas, medicine, 

and art—every student was required to study Mahayana 

literature as well. In later centuries, Nalanda 

was supplemented, and then surpassed, by two other 

Mahayana universities, Otantapuri and Vikramaśla; 

both were established by the Pala dynasty that ruled 

in India’s Northeast from about 750 to 1150 C.E. Furnished 

with ample lands by their Pala patrons, these 

great monasteries were eventually depopulated, their 

books destroyed, during the thirteenth-century Muslim 

conquest of north India. 

The end of Buddhism in India (seventh to thirteenth 

century C.E.) 

The fact that Mahayanists came to have a significant 

public presence does not mean that nikaya-Buddhism 

was eclipsed. A census of monks, made by Xuanzang 

in the seventh century, reveals that monks who were 

primarily identified with the nikayas still outnumbered 

Mahayanists. Yet, of the original eighteen-plus nikayas, 

only four remained vital, and almost half of all nikaya- 

Buddhists belonged to the Sam mitlya sect, whose 

tenets were the object of considerable intra-Buddhist 

polemic. 

When Xuanzang’s census is compared with an account 

given by FAXIAN (ca. 337–418) in the fifth century, 

however, one notices that the Mahayana’s 

institutional gains took place in a landscape within 

which Buddhism as a whole had become less prominent. 

The same economic developments that supported 

the Mahayana also instigated an effloresence of 

sectarian Hinduism devoted to VISN U and Śiva. Like 

the Buddhists, these Hindus sought royal patronage. 

But unlike the Buddhists, the Hindus were effective allies 

for kings who needed to socialize indigenous and 

tribal peoples. Brahmin legal codes, rooted in the 

Vedas, legitimated a strictly stratified society, and gave 

every person a fixed place within that society. Such 

codes eventually gave rise to a “caste system.” Though 

Buddhist texts take the existence of “caste” for granted, 

they attempt neither to justify this social system, nor 

to disseminate it. From the point of view of India’s 

rulers, Buddhist monks were less effective ideologues 

than Brahmins. In turn, as Brahmins held primary re- 


I NDIA 

sponsibility for transforming villagers and tribals into 

royal subjects, those peoples came to identify themselves 

with the Brahmins’ own gods. Thus, although 

Buddhism flourished in the post-Gupta period, the religion 

became increasingly rarified and disengaged 

from the immediate interests of the common masses. 

This transformation of Buddhism’s social base was, 

ultimately, the cause of its downfall in India. Buddhist 

monks became increasingly professionalized: intellectuals 

in “ivory towers,” uninvolved in the day-to-day 

lives of common folk. The destruction of the great 

monasteries (Nalanda in 1197; Vikramaśla in 1203) 

by invading Turks provided the coup de grace. Lacking 

strong royal support, and long since having lost 

that of the populace, India’s Buddhist monks had 

nowhere to turn. A travelogue written by Dharmasvamin, 

a monk from Tibet, reveals that by the midthirteenth 

century there were almost no self-professed 

Buddhists remaining in India. 

Over the preceding two millennia, Buddhist institutions, 

ritual practices, ideas, ideals, and ways of life 

had become a part of the social landscape in almost 

every Asian land. These regional and national Buddhisms 

all looked back to Śakyamuni for authority, 

though the incredible diversity of their forms and 

expressions might have astounded him. Despite Buddhism’s 

demise in its first home, its traditions continued 

to thrive. 

The revival of Buddhism in India (nineteenth to 

twenty-first century C.E.) 

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a resurgence 

of Buddhism in India. The first concerted 

attempt toward reintroducing Buddhism to the land 

of its origin was made in 1891, when ANAGARIKA 

DHARMAPALA (1864–1933), the son of a wealthy furniture 

dealer in Sri Lanka, visited BODH GAYA, the site 

of Śakyamuni’s awakening. Distressed by the sorry 

neglect of this site, he founded the Maha Bodhi Society 

with the aim of fostering its restoration. Dharmapala’s 

motives were missionary as well as devotional. 

Educated in the Christian missionary schools of colonial 

Sri Lanka, Dharmapala imagined that a renewed 

Bodh Gaya would serve as a center for the propagation 

of Śakyamuni’s teachings. The fact that this small 

town is now filled with monasteries and hostels serving 

pilgrims from all over the world is the realization 

of Dharmapala’s dream. 

However, in terms of the re-creation of a native Indian 

Buddhism, no figure has been more important 

than Dr. Bhimrao Ramji AMBEDKAR (1891–1956). As 

a leader of India’s Untouchables, Ambedkar renounced 

Hinduism in favor of Buddhism, believing 

that this conversion would lead to greater respect for 

his downtrodden people. Ambedkar himself has now 

become a central figure of reverence for India’s neo- 

Buddhist movement. 

In 1959 Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, 

escaped to India, soon followed by many thousands of 

his countrymen. In exile, the Tibetans have remained 

vigorous patrons of Buddhism: establishing monastic 

centers that serve their own people as well as the curious 

who visit India to learn about Buddhism. Indeed, 

as Buddhism became a religion with a global reach during 

the latter half of the twentieth century, all evidence 

has shown a burgeoning appreciation within India itself 

for its Buddhist heritage. 

See also: Ajanta; Councils, Buddhist; Hinduism and 

Buddhism; India, Buddhist Art in; India, Northwest; 

India, South; Mainstream Buddhist Schools 

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Satguru, 1989. 

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Emergence of Cities and States. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


Almond, Philip C. The British Discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge, 


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South Vietnam: École Française d’Extrème-Orient, 1955. 

Bechert, Heinz, and Gombrich, Richard, eds. The World of Buddhism: 

Buddhist Monks and Nuns in Society and Culture. London: 

Thames and Hudson, 1984. 


Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987. 

Dutt, Sukumar. Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India: Their 

History and Their Contribution to Indian Culture. London: 


Hirakawa, Akira. A History of Indian Buddhism: From Śakyamuni 

to Early Mahayana, tr. Paul Groner. Honolulu: University 


Joshi, Lal Mani. Studies in the Buddhistic Culture of India, during 

the Seventh and Eighth Centuries A.D. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1967. 


to the Śaka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain, Belgium: 


Legge, James, trans. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an 

Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of His Travels in India 

and Ceylon (A.D. 399–414) in Search of the Buddhist Books 

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Masefield, Peter. Divine Revelation in Pali Buddhism. Colombo, 

Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka Institute of Traditional Studies, 1986. 

Mitra, Debala. Buddhist Monuments. Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 

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Mus, Paul. Barabudur: Sketch of a History of Buddhism Based on 

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Nattier, Janice J., and Prebish, Charles S. “Mahasaṅghika Origins: 

The Beginnings of Buddhist Sectarianism.” History of 

Religions 16 (1977): 237–272. 

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Links of Early South Asia. Delhi: Oxford University 

Press, 1994. 


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Roerich, George, trans. Biography of Dharmasvamin (Chag lo 

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K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1959. 

Sarkar, H. Studies in Early Buddhist Architecture of India. Delhi: 

Munshiram Manoharlal, 1993. 




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Zelliot, Eleanor. From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the 

Ambedkar Movement. New Delhi: Manohar, 1992. 

RICHARD S. COHEN 

INDIA, BUDDHIST ART IN 

Sometime around the fifth century B.C.E., the historical 

Buddha Śakyamuni encouraged his disciples to 

spread his teachings in all directions. Although Buddhism 

was thus established as a missionary religion, 

the earliest remaining artworks devoted to the Buddhist 

tradition date from the mid-third century B.C.E. 

After that time, however, Buddhist arts and teachings 

flourished together, propagating outward from their 

Indian home to the farthest points of Asia, until the 

advent of Muslim hegemony, when Buddhism virtually 

ceased on the Indian subcontinent. Today India is 

mainly of historical interest to scholars and art historians 

of Buddhism; to Buddhists, however, India is 

home to the most important PILGRIMAGE sites. India is 

the land where Buddha Śakyamuni lived, taught, and 

died, as well as where the familiar and beloved arts and 

literature of Buddhism first developed. Indeed, much 

of the history of India’s culture is only known through 

the accounts of travelers and pilgrims and through the 

arts and literature they brought home with them. Particularly 

important are the many Buddhist pilgrims 

from China—especially FAXIAN (ca. 337–418) in the 

late fourth century C.E. and XUANZANG (ca. 600–664) 

in the seventh century—and the countless merchants 

and monks who traveled along the SILK ROAD and to 

Southeast Asia. 

The materials used for Buddhist arts in India range 

from precious metals to the cliffs that edge the Deccan 

plateau. Artworks made of more ephemeral materials, 

such as clay or wood, have not survived but 

were probably made in abundance starting in the second 

century B.C.E. The most prominent medium is 

stone relief sculpture, sometimes carved nearly in the 

round, along with the context of the sculptures— 

monumental reliquary mounds (STU PAs) and architecture 

in brick or stone. Although today most Indian 

Buddhist sculptures are found in museums, they once 

were part of stupa railings, were arrayed in niches on 

the exterior walls of temples, or were placed on altars 

with other images. Free-standing sculptures were also 

important; bronze-casting achieved a high degree of 

perfection in south India and in Kashmir, where they 

inlaid the bronze with silver. Mural painting in dryfresco 

was established early in India, culminating in 

the preserved works at AJAN T A in the fifth century C.E., 

but influencing later mural painting throughout Buddhist 

Asia. Manuscript illuminations and sacred writings 

on palm leaves were specialties in Pala northeast 

India, providing models for the vast corpus of Hi- 



The exterior of cave 19 at Ajanta, Maharashtra, India. © Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

malayan books. RITUAL OBJECTS, usually made of 

metal alloys, were always in demand for Buddhist ceremonies 

and initiations. 

The themes of the earliest Buddhist arts in India 

celebrate nature’s abundance, ironically in Western 

eyes, around the stupas that commemorate the Buddha’s 

death. The flourishing forces of water, plant life, 

and animals and spirits are all evoked in the reliefs at 

Bharhut and SAN CI. The motivation for this “iconography 

of abundance” has piqued the curiosity of many 

generations of art historians. When MAHAYANA Buddhism 

arose in India, with its emphasis not on the humanity 

of the Buddha Śakyamuni but on his spiritual 

attainment, another irony was embodied by representing 

this ethereal spirit in physical form. Images of 

the Buddha and BODHISATTVAs became the focus of 

devotion and complicated meditations. The primacy 

and the very existence of bodhisattvas, beings whose 

only purpose is to devote their enlightened energies 

to the benefit of others, may have been the impetus 

for formulating images of the Great Persons (Mahapurusas) 

in the first century C.E. 


361


Pillars and edicts of the Mauryan emperor 

Aśoka (mid-third century B.C.E.) 

An apparent convert to Buddhism, Emperor AŚOKA 

(r. ca. 268–232 B.C.E.) of the Mauryan period sponsored 

the first large-scale and most well-known Indian 

imagery. After witnessing the carnage at an excessively 

bloody battle in Orissa, it is said that Aśoka took up 

the Buddhist cause of nonviolence. Throughout his 

empire, at crossroads and places sacred to Buddhists, 

Aśoka had monolithic pillars engraved with political 

edicts and Buddhist precepts. Most of the messages 

are in the Brahm script, the earliest writing used in 

India. Only about thirty of the Mauryan-period 

columns remain. The capitals of the pillars are composite, 

with inverted lotus-petal bells, an abacus, and 

crowning animals. The pillars are made from one shaft 

of sandstone (monolithic) from thirty- to forty-feet 

high, sunk deep into the ground, and polished by the 

application of heat, which gives them a glassy and 

durable finish. 

The modern flag of India includes the Aśokan lion 

capital as an emblem of the unification of India under 

one government during the Mauryan period. Its 

powerful silhouette of four addorsed lions once supported 

an enormous wheel that symbolized the Buddha’s 

first sermon, the “turning of the Wheel of 

the Dharma” (dharmacakrapravartana), which took 

place near Sarnath. The lions are carved in a highly 

abstract way reminiscent of the composite lion capitals 

of Achaemenid Persia, but all other features of 

these free-standing pillars are purely Indian. The 

four lions facing in four directions probably signify 

the sovereignty of both Aśoka, since the pillar was 

erected near the capital of his kingdom, and of the 

truths taught by the Buddha, whose clan, the Śakyas, 

used the lion as their emblem. Around the abacus are 

four small wheels alternating with naturalistically 

carved animals (lion, elephant, bull, horse), which 

have great significance to indigenous clan traditions. 

The lion is especially associated with royalty and 

power in India. The pillars themselves also signify 

the pan-Indian idea of the axis of the world (axis 

mundi) that links the cosmic waters below with the 

sun above. Floral motifs, such as the palmettes and 

rosettes sometimes found on the Aśokan capitals, are 

more familiar in distant Mediterranean regions, but 

their appearance in India can be explained by the 

trade relations of India with the West and by the incursion 

of Alexander the Great into the northwest 

provinces of India. 

Stu pas and stone reliefs (second century B.C.E. 

to first century C.E.) 

In addition to free-standing pillars, Aśoka had stupas, 

or reliquary mounds, erected in India, Sri Lanka, and 

Nepal to commemorate the Buddha and to designate 

worship and teaching centers. According to legend, 

Aśoka opened up the original eight stupas containing 

the Buddha’s relics and redistributed them in eightyfour 

thousand simple burial mounds. 

The earliest known monumental stupa was erected 

at Bharhut in Madhya Pradesh in about 100 to 80 B.C.E. 

Constructed in red sandstone, it consisted of a central 

burial mound, now lost, surrounded by elaborate railings 

(vedika) with four gates (torana) carved with reliefs. 

Most of the fragments from Bharhut are on 

display at the Indian Museum in Calcutta. The reliefs 

emphasize the abundance of nature in their depictions 

of YAKSAS and yaksls (male and female fertility spirits), 

lotuses, elephants, and composite water creatures. 

Medallions with vignettes of the Buddha’s life, as well 

as stories of his previous births (JATAKA), are carved in 

a low-relief style, often using continuous narration, 

with the same characters appearing more than once, 

in a shallow, almost two-dimensional space. The carvings 

accentuate geometric patterns, including elaborate 

tattoos on some of the figures. 

The Buddha himself does not appear in any of these 

narratives. His presence is indicated by aniconic symbols, 

such as his footprints, an empty seat beneath the 

bodhi tree under which he became enlightened, the 

dharmacakra or Wheel of the Dharma that he set in 

motion, or a parasol over a horse with no rider to indicate 

that he left his princely home. Some consider 

these aniconic images to be representations of shrines 

or pilgrimage sites, and therefore not merely symbols 

of the Buddha’s person. Images of the Buddha are not 

used until the Kushan period in the north and the late 

second century C.E. in south India. 

The Great Stupa at SAN CI, first erected during 

Aśoka’s reign, was completed and elaborated around 

the beginning of the first century C.E. with railings, 

balustrades, and gates covered with narrative relief 

carvings. Reliefs of city scenes describe the sophisticated 

urban culture of ancient India. Probably because 

many of the relief panels were sponsored by a guild of 

ivory carvers, the scenes emulate the precise density of 

small-scale reliefs. The natural liveliness of these carvings 

shows a significant change from the geometric 

style used at Bharhut. Impressive scenes abound on the 

elaborate gateways that narrate the life of the Buddha 



and some of the jataka stories. Nature, demons, and 

mythical creatures are all portrayed with great imagination, 

utilizing a vast visual vocabulary culled from 

indigenous sources, as well as adaptations of Western 

composite creatures and plant life. 

On the eastern Deccan, the broad central plateau of 

India, the Buddhist center at Amaravat (Andhra 

Pradesh, Śatavahana period, second century C.E.) was 

the site of a large stupa that was faced and surrounded 

by elegantly carved white-green limestone slabs. The 

stupas themselves are gone, but many of the railings 

and facing slabs can be seen in Indian and Western 

museums. Many of the slabs reproduce in section the 

whole stupa with its intricate railings and gateways. 

The narrative scenes are taken mainly from the life of 

the Buddha, although the Buddha image is still not 

shown. The style is naturalistic, as at Sañc, but uses 

more layering of figures to give a greater sense of depth. 

Figures are rounded, like those at Sañc, but the outlines 

are slightly elongated and nervous in their movements. 

Remains of temples and monastic dwellings 

have also been found at Amaravat and at the related 

sites of Ghantaśala, Jaggayyapeta, and later at Nagarjunakonda 

(third century C.E.). 

Stupas and monastic centers were usually patronized 

by guilds and by individuals, both lay devotees and 

monks or nuns, not by royalty or wealthy merchants. 

This public interest aspect of stupas is reflected in 

everyday scenes from the Buddha’s life, usually depicted 

in the reliefs, rather than scenes of royal and 

godly figures in palace halls. This patronage may also 

have contributed to the prohibition against using 

BUDDHA IMAGES: Lay Buddhists may have felt that you 

should not represent in art a person who had entered 

NIRVAN A, a TATHAGATA (one who has gone), the name 

most often used to refer to the Buddha in the texts. 

Rock-cut architecture (first century B.C.E. to second 

century C.E.) 

Beginning in the first century B.C.E., rock-cut or CAVE 

SANCTUARIES and monasteries carefully imitated 

wooden structures of the day. In the centuries around 

the beginning of the common era the rock-cut worship 

hall (caitya) and monastery (vihara) became established 

forms in northern and central India. The 

earliest site known is Bhaja (100 to 70 B.C.E., contemporary 

with Bharhut) in Maharashtra, where a large 

caitya hall and many small monastic dwellings were excavated. 

Its imitation of wooden constructions includes 

the use of actual wood beams in the hall’s barrel ceiling; 

wooden architectural sculpture and balconies once 

adorned the front. Other rock-cut sites, all found along 

the high escarpment in Maharashtra, are Pitalkhora 

(also 100–70 B.C.E.), Bedsa (early first century C.E.), and 

Nasik and Kanheri (both about 125–130 C.E.). 

The largest caitya hall is at Karl, Maharashtra, 

carved out of a stone cliff in about 50 to 75 C.E. near 

Bombay. It has a navelike form, 125-feet in length including 

apse and colonnade, and has stone reliefs of 

a palatial facade; a free-standing lion-topped pillar 

marks the entrance. An enormous horseshoe-shaped 

window with a wooden lattice filters light into the hall, 

illuminating the monolithic stupa at the apse-end of 

the hall. This window shape and lattice decoration 

characterizes Indian facades to this day. An elaborately 

sculpted veranda has high-relief elephants “supporting” 

the side walls and voluptuous couples on either 

side of the main door. Figures ride animals on the interior 

column capitals and the facade has multiple balconies 

decorated with reliefs of smiling people. Overall, 

Karl shows a sensuous environment equal to that created 

on Sañc’s carved gateways in miniature, here on 

a large scale carved right out of the living rock. 

The Buddha image: Mathura and Gandhara 

(Kushan period, first to third centuries C.E.) 

The beginnings of figural sculpture of the Buddha in 

India is a controversial and intriguing study in the 

motives for image-making, as well as the development 

of both indigenous and adapted styles. Two 

sites—Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, in northern India, 

and the Gandhara region in present-day Pakistan— 

sponsored parallel versions of Buddha images and 

narrative reliefs at least as early as the first century 

C.E. (some fragments may be from the first century 

B.C.E.). The Kushan rulers, under whom this new 

trend in Buddhist imagery arose, came from Central 

Asia and dominated the area from Bactria to the 

Gangetic plain. Buddhism was spreading actively 

along the Silk Road through Central Asia at this time, 

making Gandhara a fertile site for trade in artworks 

in service of the faith. Mathura, the Kushan southern 

capital, had long been an artistic center, and artists 

there also made images for the monastic centers that 

had spread throughout northern India. 

The Mathura images follow indigenous forms with 

geometric, full volumes and attributes signifying a spiritual 

being (called laksana). The solid power of the 

Mathura buddhas follow the prototype of the village 

yaksas found so frequently around stupas—nature 


363


Buddha Preaching the First Sermon, Sarnath, India, about 

465–485, buff sandstone. Archaeological Museum, Sarnath. Reproduced 

by permission. This Buddha image embodies the Gupta 

style that became an international model for Buddhas throughout 

Asia. 

spirits standing apart from the everyday world. The 

Gandhara images resemble Hellenistic figural and relief 

traditions first imported with Alexander the Great 

when he conquered the area in 327 B.C.E. The Gandhara 

buddha looks like a perfect, sensuous human 

being—a nobleman wearing heavy monk’s robes. 

Narrative reliefs of the Buddha’s life also flourished 

at this time, especially in the Gandhara region, now 

freely using the figure of the Buddha in the scenes. The 

Gandhara scenes are very like those found on Roman 

sarcophagi—set pieces in niches separated by Westernstyle 

columns and pediments. Reliefs from the third 

and fourth centuries at Amaravat in south India also 

began to include images of the Buddha. 

Gupta period “classical” style (fourth to sixth 

centuries C.E.) 

The disparate styles of Kushan Mathura and Gandhara 

blended into an eloquent compromise during the fifthcentury 

C.E. hegemony of the famous Gupta clan. The 

Gupta “classical” style became the prototype for Buddha 

images throughout Asia. A sandstone image found 

at Sarnath, the site of the Buddha’s first sermon, exemplifies 

this style—sensuous human volumes combined 

with abstract religious symbolism. The 

ornamental finesse of this style was to be admired and 

imitated throughout South and Southeast Asia for centuries. 

It also provided the visual vocabulary for much 

of the religious art in Central Asia, China, Korea, and 

Japan. Although in India the remaining Gupta period 

images are usually stone, metal-cast images were also 

commissioned and exported. A larger than life-size 

copper alloy sculpture weighing about one metric ton 

was found at Sultangañj in Bihar. 

The Guptas arose as the first major Indian dynasty 

since the Mauryas, but they maintained missionary 

and trade relationships with Central, Southeast, and 

East Asia. Although the rulers were themselves mostly 

Hindu, they sponsored a rich environment for the 

flourishing of a variety of art forms and dedications, 

from Hindu plays to Buddhist monuments. Mathura 

continued to be a major artistic center, but Sarnath 

arose as the leading innovator of the style. As the Buddha 

image became firmly established as the primary 

focus of Buddhist devotions, aniconic expressions of 

the religion, such as the stupa, became less important 

in India in favor of temples to enshrine statues of Buddhist 

figures. During the fifth century, Gupta-style 

buddhas were placed at each of the gateways of the 

Great Stupa at Sañc. 

The multi-tiered MAHABODHI TEMPLE tower at 

BODH GAYA in Bihar, the site where the Buddha 

reached enlightenment, was first built during the 

Gupta hegemony. A descendant of the bodhi tree under 

which the Buddha sat is enshrined there and the 

site remains a major pilgrimage destination for Buddhists. 

The outer facets of the temple have enumerable 

niches for Gupta-style images of the Buddha and bodhisattvas. 

Miniature votive temples are placed around 

the main structure, intermingled with remains of earlier 

stupa railings, shrines, and altars, providing important 

archaeological evidence of the development of 

pilgrimage site arts. At Bharhut and Sañc there are 

clear reliefs showing what the earlier Bodh Gaya 

shrines looked like. 



The classic Gupta proportions and spiritually 

charged detail appealed to patrons of Buddhist arts 

throughout India. Art and artists from Sarnath were 

exported especially to the Deccan and southern India, 

as well as to Orissa and northeastern India. From there 

the style spread to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Art 

and artists from Mathura, the northernmost center of 

the Gupta style, were exported north toward Kashmir 

and the Gandhara region. From there the style spread 

through Central Asia along the silk routes into western 

China, where it ultimately influenced Buddhist arts 

of the Tang dynasty (618–907). 

Painting and sculpture at Ajan ta (fifth century 

C.E.) and related sites 

New rock-cut architecture was excavated beginning in 

the fifth century, serving both Buddhist and Hindu 

worship needs. The best-known group of Buddhist 

caitya halls and viharas is at Ajanta on the eastern 

Deccan (Maharashtra, latter half of the fifth century). 

Dry-fresco murals on many of the walls portray the 

previous lives (jatakas) of the Buddha, as well as Buddhist 

saints and divine beings. Figures seem to glow in 

the dark interior because of the use of brilliant color 

and white highlights. Although the images use courtly, 

sophisticated compositions, they evoke a strong spiritual 

presence. Remarkable for their rich modeling and 

palatial imagery, these paintings also provided models 

for designs in Sri Lanka and especially for the murals 

of rock-cut halls in Central Asia and China for the next 

three centuries. 

Imitations of wooden facades and high-relief sculptures 

at Ajanta cut into the caitya halls and vihara walls 

also carried forward the Gupta opulence into ever 

more elaborate displays. The style and skill of the 

painting and sculpture at Ajanta continued to flourish 

in India in works dedicated to Hinduism, Jainism, and 

Buddhism. Auraṅgabad, also in Maharashtra, was an 

important site for both rock-cut and structural Buddhist 

architecture, as well as relief sculpture. Buddhist 

and Hindu rulers excavated the long cliff at Ellora on 

the Deccan from the seventh to the ninth centuries. 

Buddha Śakyamuni Becoming Enlightened, Bodh Gaya, India, 

about 850, black schist. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Reproduced 

by permission. This Pala style sculpture illustrates the 

moment when the Buddha became enlightened as he sat beneath 

the Bodhi tree—notice the leaves arranged at the top of the 

throne—and touched the earth (bhu misparśa-mudra) to affirm that 

through his many lives he had achieved moral perfection. This 

style influenced the Mahayana and Vajrayana arts throughout 

South, Southeast, and East Asia. 

Final phase of Buddhist art in India (sixth to 

twelfth centuries C.E.) 

Buddhist structural architecture, sculpture, and 

manuscript illumination continued in India until 

the twelfth century. Two major sites were 

Nagarjunakonda on the Deccan plateau and Nalanda 

in the northeast. Both rock-cut and structural complexes 

served as universities for Buddhist scholars 

from all over Asia and as monasteries for monks and 

nuns. The Gandhara region and Kashmir in northwestern 

India remained strong producers of distinctive 

arts that combined the humanistic Gandhara ideal 

with Gupta spiritual sensibilities. 

Buddhist stone and metal-cast sculptures, as well as 

manuscript illustrations, of the Pala and Sena dynasties 

in northeastern India (eighth to twelfth centuries) 

are well known for their supreme elegance and fine detail. 

Usually called the Pala style, this lithe and refined 

tradition was exported to Burma, Java, Nepal, Tibet, 

and China, especially in service of the Mahayana and 

VAJRAYANA Buddhist traditions. By the beginning of 


365

I NDIA, NORTHWEST 

the thirteenth century the Pala style was declining in 

Bihar and Bengal, until this last stronghold of Buddhist 

art in India finally collapsed under the advent of the 

Muslims in the northern regions of India. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the, in Art; India; India, 

Northwest; India, South; Jataka, Illustrations of; 


Bibliography 

Craven, Roy C. Indian Art: A Concise History, revised edition. 

London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997. 

Dallapiccola, Anna L., and Lallemant, Stephanie Zingel-Avé, 

eds. The Stu pa: Its Religious, Historical, and Architectural Significance. 

Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner, 1980. 

Dehejia, Vidya. Indian Art. London: Phaidon, 1997. 

Dumoulin, Heinrich. “The Mystery of Personhood in Buddhist 

Art.” In Understanding Buddhism: Key Themes, tr. Joseph 

O’Leary. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1993. 

Fisher, Robert E. Buddhist Art and Architecture. London and 

New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993. 

Harle, James C. The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent. 

Middlesex, UK: Penguin, 1986. 

Huntington, Susan L. The Art of Ancient India: Buddhist, Hindu, 

Jain. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1985. 

Huntington, Susan L., and Huntington, John C. Leaves from the 

Bodhi Tree: The Art of Pala India (8th–12th centuries) and Its 

International Legacy (exhibition catalogue, Dayton Art Institute). 

Seattle and New York: University of Washington 

Press, 1990. 

Irwin, John. “Aśokan Pillars: A Reassessment of the Evidence, 

Parts I–IV.” Burlington Magazine 115 (1973): 706–720; 116 

(1974): 712–727; 117 (1975): 631–643; 118 (1976): 734–753. 

Maxwell, Thomas S. “Cult Art in the Buddhist Systems.” In The 

Gods of Asia: Image, Text, and Meaning. Delhi: Oxford University 

Press, 1997. 

McArthur, Meher. Reading Buddhist Art: An Illustrated Guide 

to Buddhist Signs and Symbols. London: Thames and Hudson, 

2002. 

Michell, George. The Penguin Guide to the Monuments of India, 

Vol. 1: Buddhist, Jain, Hindu. London: Viking, 1989. 

Rosenfield, John M. The Dynastic Arts of the Kushans. Berkeley 

and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967. 

Schopen, Gregory. “On Monks, Nuns, and Vulgar Practices: The 

Introduction of the Image Cult into Indian Buddhism.” Artibus 

Asiae 49 (1988–1989): 153–168. 

GAIL MAXWELL 

INDIA, NORTHWEST 

By the first century C.E., distinct regional styles of Buddhist 

art, architecture, and literature had emerged on 

the northwestern Indian subcontinent. Buddhist materials 

from the borderlands of modern India, Pakistan, 

and Afghanistan reflect prolonged contact between Indian, 

Iranian, Central Asian, and Hellenistic cultural 

traditions. As a pivotal transit zone for the movement 

of people, practices, and ideas both into and out of 

South Asia, the northwestern frontier was a dynamic 

launching pad for the early transmission of Buddhism 

to Central Asia and China. 

Numerous Buddhist centers in the Northwest were 

located on the “northern route” (uttarapatha), a major 

artery for trade and travel that connected the northwestern 

frontiers with the Buddhist homeland in northeastern 

India. Mathura, a city located on the northern 

route south of modern New Delhi, was a significant 

node for trade and administration and an important 

center for Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain art and literature. 

Mathura had close ties with Kashmir in the western 

Himalayas, where the Sarvastivadin tradition of ABHI- 

DHARMA scholasticism developed. The northern route 

linked Mathura with Taxila (Taksaśla), an ancient metropolis 

on the northern route near modern Islamabad 

in Pakistan, where extensive archeological remains of 

stupas and monasteries have been excavated. Gandharan 

art and the Gandhar language (written in the 

Kharosth script) were transmitted together with 

Buddhism beyond the Gandharan heartland in northwestern 

Pakistan to Central Asia. Buddhist art and 

architecture in Afghanistan at sites such as Hadda 

(south of Jalalabad), Bagram (north of Kabul), and 

BAMIYAN led French art historian Alfred Foucher to 

label paths across the Hindu Kush to Bactria and western 

Central Asia the Vieille Route (Ancient Route). 

Buddhist petroglyphs and inscriptions in the upper Indus 

River valley indicate that Buddhist travelers also 

followed capillary routes across the Karakoram Mountains 

of northern Pakistan to eastern Central Asia. 

Buddhism was established in Northwest India during 

the late centuries B.C.E. and the early to mid first 

millennium C.E. Afghanistan, Gandhara, and the lower 

Indus River valley were Achaemenid provinces until 

327 to 326 B.C.E., when Alexander of Macedon attempted 

to conquer these areas. The Mauryan emperor 

AŚOKA (r. ca. 268–232 B.C.E.) provided the impetus for 

the introduction of Buddhism in the Northwest. A devout 

lay Buddhist, Aśoka had two sets of major rock 

edicts in Kharosth inscribed in northwestern Pakistan, 



Margiana 

Marv 

TURKMENISTAN 

Oxus River 

Kashgar 

UZBEKISTAN 

TAJIKISTAN 

CHINA 

Sogdiana 

Bactria 

H I N D U 

Ba\miya\n 

AFGHANISTAN 

Kabul 

Bagra\m a\m 

Had≥d≥a 

K U S 

River 

Swat 

H 

Gilgit 

Kashmir 

KARAKORAM 

MOUNTAINS 

To China 

Khotan 

India, 

Northwest 

“Northern route” 

(Uttara\patha) 

City 

N 

Helmand River 

Taxila (Taks≥as;êla) as;êla) 

Gandhara ¯ 

Jhelum River 

Chenab River 

Punjab 

Indus River 

H I M 

A L A 

Y A S 

0 100 200 mi. 

0 100 200 km 

PAKISTAN 

Sutlej River 

Indus 

River 

Mathura\ 

Ganges 

(Ganga) River 

NEPAL 

Yamuna River 

Sa\rna\th 

Pa\èaliputra 

INDIA 

Bodh Gaya\ 

INDIAN 

OCEAN 

Ujjain 

Sa\n]cê 

Buddhist centers on the “northern route” (uttara patha). XNR Productions, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the Gale Group. 

with shorter versions in Greek and Aramaic in eastern 

Afghanistan and Taxila. Foundations of large early 

stupas at Taxila and at Butkara in the Swat valley probably 

belong to the Mauryan period, and may be connected 

with Aśoka’s patronage. Menander, one of 

Alexander’s Indo-Greek successors who ruled the Punjab 

around 150 B.C.E., was a patron of Buddhism, according 

to Pali and Chinese literary traditions. Saka 

(or Indo-Scythian) and Parthian rulers of the Northwest 

continued to support Buddhist institutions, since 

the names and titles of these Iranian rulers appear on 

coins and in Buddhist inscriptions and texts of the first 

century B.C.E. and first century C.E. 

During the Kushan period in the early centuries C.E., 

Buddhism began to expand beyond the northwestern 

frontiers of South Asia. The Kushan empire extended 

from Bactria to Bengal at the beginning of the second 

century C.E. during the reign of Kanishka, who is portrayed 

in Chinese and Central Asian Buddhist literature 

as the greatest Buddhist royal patron after Aśoka. 

In the post-Kushan period, local rulers and other patrons 

maintained Buddhist monastic communities 

where surplus resources for donations were available. 

Buddhist monastic communities in Bamiyan in central 

Afghanistan and Gilgit in northern Pakistan evidently 

remained connected with Buddhist centers in 


367


Central Asia in the late first millennium C.E. Buddhism 

in the Northwest gradually declined as lay support diminished 

and Hinduism and Islam eventually became 

more prevalent. 

Discoveries of inscribed reliquaries and archeological 

excavations of stupas and monasteries provide material 

evidence for a wide spectrum of Buddhist 

practices in Northwest India. A growing number of 

Kharosth inscriptions record the donation of reliquaries 

containing physical relics (śarlra). Stupas built 

to enclose these relics replicated the presence of the 

Buddha. The primary STU PA was typically surrounded 

by smaller stupas and columns, which often contained 

secondary relic deposits. Permanent Buddhist monastic 

structures consisting of cells for monks and nuns 

around open rectangular courtyards were usually built 

near stupas. Such Buddhist sacred complexes were often 

decorated with stone and stucco sculptures. Art 

produced by Gandharan workshops incorporated Indian, 

Iranian, and Hellenistic elements in distinctive 

iconographic patterns. Gandharan Buddhist art of the 

Northwest continued to have an impact on Buddhist 

artistic traditions of Central Asia and China, where 

worship of images played a prominent role in popular 

practice. 

Several narratives associated with the Buddha’s previous 

lives have Northwest India as their setting, although 

the historical Buddha did not visit this region 

during his lifetime. The earliest conversion of Kashmir, 

the Indus valley, and Gandhara to Buddhism is 

attributed to a disciple of A NANDA named Madhyantika 

(Pali, Majjhantika). MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST 

SCHOOLS in Northwest India included Śravakayana (or 

HINAYANA) sects that were active in the transmission 

of Buddhism to Central Asia and China. Kharosth 

inscriptions record donations of relics, images, water 

pots, utensils, and other gifts to teachers of the DHAR- 

MAGUPTAKA, Sarvastivadin, MAHASAM GHIKA, Mahśasaka, 

and Kaśyapya schools. For example, a clay pot 

dedicated to the Dharmaguptakas contained early 

Buddhist manuscripts from the first century C.E. Another 

collection of Buddhist manuscripts from the second 

or third to seventh centuries C.E. may have come 

from the library of a Mahasam ghika monastery in 

Bamiyan. Parts of the MU LASARVASTIVADA-VINAYA are 

preserved among Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts from 

the sixth to seventh centuries C.E. found near Gilgit in 

the 1930s. Manuscripts from Bamiyan and Gilgit include 

several MAHAYANA texts, which are apparently 

absent in earlier Kharosth manuscript collections. 

Further research in the relationships between Buddhist 

manuscripts from the Northwest and Buddhist texts 

translated into Chinese and Central Asian languages 

should clarify patterns of textual transmission. 

With new discoveries of Buddhist inscriptions and 

manuscripts and additional excavations of Buddhist 

sites in northwestern India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, 

it is becoming increasingly clear that the northwestern 

borderlands of Kashmir, Gandhara, and Bactria linked 

older Buddhist communities in the Indian homeland 

with those developing in Central Asia during the first 

millennium C.E. Therefore, the Northwest played a 

critical role in the movement of Buddhist institutions, 

ideas, and practices beyond the Indian subcontinent to 

Central Asia and China. 

See also: Gandharl, Buddhist Literature in; Hinduism 

and Buddhism; India; India, Buddhist Art in; India, 

South; Islam and Buddhism; Sarvastivada and 


Bibliography 

Errington, Elizabeth, and Cribb, Joe, eds. The Crossroads of Asia: 

Transformation in Image and Symbol in the Art of Ancient 

Afghanistan and Pakistan. Cambridge, UK: Ancient India 

and Iran Trust, 1992. 

Foucher, Alfred. La vieille Route de l’Inde de Bactres à Taxila, 2 

vols. Paris: Les éditions d’art et d’histoire, 1942–1947. 

Fussman, Gérard. “Upaya-kauśalya: L’implantation du bouddhisme 

au Gandhara.” In Bouddhisme et cultures locales: 

Quelques cas de réciproques adaptations, ed. Fukui Fumimasa 

and Gérard Fussman. Paris: École Française d’Extrême- 

Orient, 1994. 

Hinüber, Oskar von. “Expansion to the North: Afghanistan and 

Central Asia.” In The World of Buddhism: Buddhist Monks 

and Nuns in Society and Culture, ed. Heinz Bechert and 

Richard Gombrich. London: Thames and Hudson, 1984. 


Lamotte, Étienne. History of Indian Buddhism from the Origins 

to the Śaka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: 

Université catholique de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste, 

1988. 

Marshall, John. Taxila: An Illustrated Account of Archaeological 

Excavations Carried Out at Taxila under the Orders of the 

Government of India between the Years 1913 and 1934, 3 vols. 



British Library Kharosthl Fragments. London: British Library; 


Zwalf, Wladimir. A Catalogue of the Gandhara Sculpture in the 

British Museum, 2 vols. London: British Museum, 1996. 

JASON NEELIS 


I NDIA, SOUTH 

INDIA, SOUTH 

Evidence for the history of Buddhism at the southernmost 

end of the Indian subcontinent (defined here 

as the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, 

Kerala, and Tamilnadu) is highly fragmented, a scattered 

collection of inscriptions, archaeological ruins, 

art-historical remains, and a few texts. Yet Buddhist 

institutions clearly once flourished in South India. 

From the edicts of AŚOKA (third century B.C.E.) and 

the written testimony of Chinese pilgrims to the presence 

of Buddhist interlocutors in Hindu and Jain texts 

for more than a millennium, Buddhists obviously 

played significant roles in the South Indian religious 

landscape until at least the fourteenth century. Yet 

what sort of Buddhism flourished there? What did it 

mean to be a “Buddhist” in early medieval South India? 

What kinds of interactions took place among 

Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains? Answers to such questions 

remain elusive. 

With no direct references to Buddhism found in any 

extant Malayalam or Kannada text, both Kerala and 

Karnataka harbor Buddhist archaeological records that 

are difficult to interpret. Only a meager collection of 

Buddhist images has been unearthed in Kerala, all 

roughly datable to the sixth through tenth centuries 

C.E. In Karnataka, the record expands ever so slightly, 

from the STU PA at Vanavas (third century C.E.) to the 

fifth-century caitya at Aihole and evidence of tantric 

worship at Balligave (eleventh century). STU PAs and 

caityas attest to some sort of institutional organization, 

royal or lay patronage, and active practices of worship, 

but the inscriptional record provides no further evidence 

concerning the status or use of such structures. 

Two more substantial bodies of evidence can be 

found in the archaeological ruins of Andhra Pradesh 

and in the Tamil literary record. While neither presents 

a complete picture of Buddhist life and practice 

in the South, each does provide a richer range of material 

for interpretation. 

The impressive ruins of Amaravat, Nagarjunakonda, 

and other sites in Andhra Pradesh constitute 

the earliest evidence for Buddhism in the South (second 

century B.C.E.). Although no textual production 

can be located here with any certainty, these grand 

stupas or mahacaityas, with their rich inscriptional 

records, narrative friezes, and hundreds of Buddhist 

sculptures, bespeak flourishing centers of Buddhist 

practice through at least the twelfth century. Due 

both to the traditional association of Amaravat and 

Nagarjunakonda with NAGARJUNA (the great Madhyamaka 

philosopher of the second century C.E.) and 

to the nature of the images found there, Andhra Buddhism 

has long been labeled “MAHAYANA” by scholars. 

The narratives of the Buddha’s lives carved in 

stone, the belief that each stupa contained relics of 

the Buddha’s earthly body, and the inscriptional references 

to lay donors (many of them women of the 

Iksvaku royal dynasty that ruled from Nagarjunakonda) 

all point to flourishing centers of Buddhist 

worship, where monastic and lay devotees honored 

the remains of the Buddha, contemplated the lessons 

of his many lives, and worshiped in myriad ways the 

figures of buddhas past and future. 

Turning southward to the Tamil-speaking region, 

the true treasure trove of Buddhist artifacts is Nakapattinam, 

a coastal site mentioned in Sri Lankan, 

Burmese, and Chinese sources from which over three 

hundred images have been recovered. Buddhist sculptures 

found in the midst of Hindu places of worship, 

such as the six-foot standing Buddha from the 

Kamaksyamman Temple in Kañcpuram (fourth century 

C.E.), attest to a long Buddhist influence in the 

Tamil region. Yet does the presence of a Buddha 

image mean that a Hindu temple was once truly “Buddhist”? 

A seventh-century inscription from Mamallapuram, 

listing the Buddha as an incarnation of the 

Hindu deity Visnu, suggests a more complex scenario. 

Does a Buddha image imply a strong sense of Buddhist 

sectarian affiliation, or had the Buddha simply been 

absorbed into the wider South Indian pantheon by the 

seventh century? 

What emerges uniquely in South India from the 

Tamil-speaking region is a Buddhist literary record 

in languages other than Sanskrit. The three famed Pali 

commentators of the fourth and fifth centuries, 

for example—BUDDHAGHOSA, Buddhadatta, and 

Dhammapala—claim some connection to beautiful 

monasteries patronized by beneficent Tamil kings. 

Through the twelfth-century works of Buddhappiya 

and Kassapa, eminent THERAVADA monks associate 

themselves with southern India, with monasteries 

from Nakapattinam to Kañcpuram. 

Tamil is unique among the regional literary languages 

of India for its two premodern Buddhist works. 

The older of the two remaining pieces of Buddhist literature 

composed in Tamil, the Manimekalai, attributed 

to Cattanar and dated to roughly the sixth 

century, narrates the story of a young courtesan who 

gradually turns away from that life to embrace Buddhism. 

The Manimekalai presents its audience with a 


369

I NDONESIA AND THE M ALAY P ENINSULA 

long and stylistically beautiful narrative meditation on 

the arising of the conditions that propel its heroine to 

eventual enlightenment, culminating in two densely 

terse chapters on Buddhist LOGIC and PRATITYASAMUT- 

PADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINATION). With the settings of 

its stories ranging from luxurious Tamil cities to 

Kapilavastu and the shores of a Southeast Asian island 

kingdom known as Cavakam, the Manimekalai clearly 

attests to a vibrant literary culture in Tamil that 

counted Buddhists, sophisticated in their knowledge of 

Buddhist tradition and highly technical philosophical 

language, among its participants. 

Further evidence of Buddhist literary culture in the 

South can be found in the Vlraco liyam, an eleventhcentury 

treatise on Tamil grammar and poetics attributed 

to Puttamittiran and accompanied by a 

commentary thought to have been composed by the 

author’s student, Peruntevanar. As the first Tamil 

grammar to claim direct appropriation of Sanskrit poetic 

theory (in its treatment of alaṅkara or “poetic ornamentation”), 

the Vlraco liyam explicitly forges a new 

Tamil-Sanskrit hybrid language in the name of Buddhism. 

Claiming that the literary language he describes 

first issued forth from the mouth of Avalokitan 

(Avalokiteśvara), Puttamittiran pioneers a new poetic 

style for his own sectarian community. The commentary 

then substantiates that project by gathering together 

examples of Tamil Buddhist poetry in 

illustration of this new Sanskrit-Tamil hybrid. Such 

scattered poetic phrases—many alluding to Tamil 

versions of JATAKA stories and to songs in praise of the 

Buddha and his many wonderful qualities—are, 

unfortunately, all that remain (apart from the 

Manimekalai, which the commentator never cites) of 

what must have once been a considerable corpus of 

Buddhist devotional, philosophical, and narrative poetry 

in Tamil. 

Evidence for the presence of Buddhists in southernmost 

India thus presents us with a series of disparate 

snapshots, some more in focus than others. 

Whether the substantial archaeological finds in southern 

Andhra Pradesh bear any relevance for understanding 

the Buddhist literary record in Tamil, or 

whether the scattered Buddhist images recovered from 

paddy fields across the region reveal anything of “Buddhism” 

per se in the South, are questions that await 

further research. 

See also: India; India, Buddhist Art in; India, Northwest 

Bibliography 

Alexander, P. C. Buddhism in Kerala. Annamalainagar, India: 

Annamalai University, 1949. 

Hikosaka, Shu. Buddhism in Tamilnadu: A New Perspective. 

Madras, India: Institute of Asian Studies, 1989. 

Hiremath, Rudrayya Chandrayya. Buddhism in Karnataka. New 

Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1994. 

Monius, Anne. Imagining a Place for Buddhism: Literary Culture 

and Religious Community in Tamil-Speaking South India. 

New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 

Richman, Paula. Women, Branch Stories, and Religious Rhetoric 

in a Tamil Buddhist Text. Syracuse, NY: Maxwell School of 

Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 1988. 

Schalk, Peter. Pauttamum Tamilum: Inventory, Investigation and 

Interpretation of Sources Pertaining to Buddhism among 

Tamilar in Pre-Colonial Tamilakam and Ilam (Ilaṅkai). Uppsala, 

Sweden: Uppsala University, 2002. 

Sivaramalingam, K. Archaeological Atlas of the Antique Remains 

of Buddhism in Tamilnadu. Madras, India: Institute of Asian 

Studies, 1997. 

Subramanian, K. R. Buddhist Remains in Andhra and the History 

of Andhra between 224 and 610 A.D. Madras, India: 

Diocesan Press, 1932. 

INDONESIA AND THE 

MALAY PENINSULA 

ANNE E. MONIUS 

The geography of the Malay Peninsula and of Indonesia 

helps to explain the role the region played in the 

early spread of Buddhism to Southeast Asia and China. 

The peninsula includes the modern nation-states of 

Malaysia and Singapore and the southern portion of 

Thailand. Malaysia occupies the end of the peninsula, 

with the small city-state of Singapore at its southern 

tip on the Sunda Strait. Malaysia shares its northern 

border, halfway up the peninsula, with Thailand. For 

purposes of examining the role of ancient Buddhism, 

the entire peninsula can be seen as a single geographical 

area. Some twenty-five miles from Singapore, 

across the Sunda Strait, is the island of Sumatra, one 

of about three thousand islands that make up the archipelago 

of modern Indonesia. The peninsula and the 

islands, surrounded by water, are an environment that 

produces cultures that rely on boats. Likewise, the 

peninsula is located about halfway between India and 

China along the route taken by trading vessels. The 

area was a crossroads for both local and international 

trade and communication. It is thus not surprising that 


I NDONESIA AND THE M ALAY P ENINSULA 

most of the earliest evidence for Buddhism in Southeast 

Asia comes from the peninsula, and that both the 

peninsula and the islands reveal in their art, culture, 

and religion very direct and frequent interchanges with 

South Asia. 

These interchanges, based on trading activities, 

brought Buddhism and Hinduism to Southeast Asia. 

There is archeological evidence on the Malay Peninsula 

for the presence of both Hinduism and Buddhism 

from about the fifth century C.E. Both these Indic religions 

are present together for centuries to follow at 

sites on the Malay Peninsula and in Indonesia, specifically 

on the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Bali. While 

one religion may have been favored over the other at 

certain times and places, they rarely were set in opposition 

to one another. Indeed, as on Bali today, they 

tended to blend together. 

The evidence for Buddhism comes from three 

sources: Chinese histories, local inscriptions, and art. 

The Chinese histories that mention early Southeast 

Asian polities have been very thoroughly explored by 

scholars. The Chinese sources present the Indian impact 

starting in the first century C.E., and at times references 

to Buddhism can be discerned for this early 

period. By around the fifth century, there are reports 

from Chinese monks who traveled by ship to and from 

India, and who thus passed through Southeast Asia. 

One monk, YIJING (635–713), stopped in the capital of 

Śrvijaya in 671 on his way to India in order to study 

Sanskrit. The capital is believed to have been Palembang 

on Sumatra. Yijing returned to Palembang after 

ten years in India to live again in Śrvijaya from 685 to 

695 (with one visit to China in 689), and it is there that 

he translated Indian texts into Chinese and wrote his 

memoirs. 

Srivijaya remained a center for Buddhist studies for 

hundreds of years. The famous Indian monk ATISHA 

(982–1054) went to Sumatra to study with the Buddhist 

teacher Dharmakrti. Atisha later traveled to Tibet in 

1042 and founded the Kadam lineage, which became 

the DGE LUGS (GELUK) school of Tibetan Buddhism. 

The second category of evidence for Buddhism on 

the Malay Peninsula and in Indonesia is inscriptions. 

The earliest inscriptions, mostly written on stone, date 

from around the fifth to the eighth centuries C.E. They 

are written in Indian-related scripts in Sanskrit, and 

often include phrases from, or similar to those in, 

Buddhist texts. The dating of these inscriptions, scattered 

at various sites, is generally based on paleography 

(that is, the style of the letters), which gives rise 

A Buddhist ceremony at Jakarta, Indonesia, 1994. © Don Farber 

2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

to varying opinions by scholars. Most of these inscriptions 

hold little historical information, but they 

tell us that Buddhism was practiced by some of the 

population and sometimes the school of Buddhism 

can be broadly identified. When the early Buddhist inscriptions 

are compared to those of similar date that 

relate to Hinduism, it appears that Hinduism was associated 

with those in power, the local chiefs or kings. 

Hinduism in Southeast Asia served the role of building 

royal power more frequently than did Buddhism 

during this early period. 

When one thinks of Buddhism in Java, it is the Central 

Javanese period (seventh to tenth centuries) and 

the truly spectacular monument of BOROBUDUR that 

come to mind. Borobudur is but one of the many Buddhist 

monuments built during this time, when hundreds 

of Buddhist images in stone and bronze were also 

made. Hinduism was practiced here as well, and the 

old theory that the two religions represented contending 

dynasties is today discounted. The coexistence of 

Buddhism and Hinduism continued when the cultural 


371

I NDONESIA, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

center of Java moved to the east. During the Majapahit 

period (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), Śiva and 

the Buddha were worshiped, both with tantric texts 

and rituals. 

Today, most of the population of Indonesia and the 

Malay Peninsula is Muslim. Islam appeared in Sumatra 

by the ninth century C.E. and by the sixteenth century 

had come to dominate most of the Indonesian 

islands and the Malay Peninsula up to about the border 

with modern Thailand. Although Thailand is today 

overwhelmingly Buddhist, its southern peninsular 

region has a large Muslim minority. Modern Thai 

Buddhism is not related to the earlier Buddhism of the 

peninsula, but is connected to that of Burma and Sri 

Lanka. Buddhism is also practiced in Singapore, but 

this is Buddhism of the large expatriate Chinese community. 

It is only on the tiny island of Bali that echoes 

of the region’s early Buddhism remain today, blended 

with Hinduism in a unique local religion and culture. 

See also: Hinduism and Buddhism; Indonesia, Buddhist 

Art in; Islam and Buddhism; Southeast Asia, 

Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Coèdes, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, tr. Susan 

Brown Cowing. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1968. 

Jacq-Hergoualc’h, Michel. The Malay Peninsula: Crossroads of 

the Maritime Silk Road (100 B.C.–1300 A.D.), tr. Victoria 

Hobson. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2002. 

Miksic, John N., ed. The Legacy of Majaphit. Singapore: National 

Heritage Board, 1995. 

Soekmono, R. The Javanese Candi: Function and Meaning. Leiden, 


INDONESIA, BUDDHIST ART IN 


The oldest Buddhist objects in Indonesia date from 

around the seventh century C.E. The major early focus 

of Buddhist activity in the archipelago lay in southeast 

Sumatra, where the kingdom of Śrvijaya was centered. 

By the late seventh century this kingdom had attained 

an important position in conducting trade between the 

Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. The Chinese 

Buddhist pilgrim YIJING (635–713), who traveled to India 

in ships belonging to the ruler of this kingdom in 

672 C.E., described Buddhism as flourishing in Śrvijaya’s 

capital, with a large monastery where he learned 

Sanskrit. 

A large granite standing Buddha image has been 

found at Seguntang Hill, on the fringe of the city. Such 

stylistic elements as emphasis on the folds of his robe 

are reminiscent of art from the Amaravat area in India, 

but it is more likely that the earliest Indonesian 

Buddhist art was influenced by Sri Lanka, where this 

style lasted longer than in southern India. Two other 

important bronze Buddha images found much farther 

east, at Sikendeng on Sulawesi and Kota Bangun on 

east Borneo, share these same features. They date from 

approximately the same period and demonstrate the 

extent to which Buddhism had already spread. Bronze 

images from the eighth century indicate that Buddhism 

made its presence felt as far east as Lombok during 

this period. 

The corpus of art directly associated with Sumatra 

during this period is scanty, but combined with statuary 

found in politically and culturally allied areas of 

the Malay Peninsula around the Isthmus of Kra and 

Kedah, images of Avalokiteśvara enable us to draw the 

inference that a generalized cult of this bodhisattva was 

common in this region. A bronze of the bodhisattva 

Tara and an Avalokiteśvara presumably from this period 

have also been found in Lombok. 

By the late eighth century, MAHAYANA Buddhist imagery 

also began to appear in central Java. Between 

about 780 and 850 C.E., this region produced unsurpassed 

works of sculpture and architecture. Some images 

bear indications of continued connections with 

centers of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and south India, such 

as Negapatam, while by the late ninth century connections 

with the monastery at Nalanda in what is now 

Bangladesh are also visible. 

Among the important complexes of Buddhist architecture 

constructed in central Java, the best known 

is the great site of BOROBUDUR. Few free-standing 

STU PA were built; instead most Javanese structures consisted 

of temples with chambers for statuary. The main 

image at Kalasan, erected around 780 C.E., was a large 

Tara (now lost). Around 800 C.E. a major revolution 

in Javanese Buddhism marked by intense interest in 

MAN D ALAs resulted in the reconstruction of all major 

sites. At Sewu, an earlier complex was altered to create 

a cruciform building with enclosed circumambulation 

pathway. A group of over two hundred stone 

structures formed a huge three-dimensional mandala. 

Major deities worshipped there may have included the 

bodhisattva Mañjuśr and the buddha Vairocana. 


I NDONESIA, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

Relief sculpture depicting the entourage of Mara surrounding the Buddha at the great eighth- and ninth-century Buddhist site of Borobudur 

in Java, Indonesia. © Charles and Josette Lenars/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

At Plaosan Lor, several types of structures were built 

in the early ninth century C.E. The two principal remaining 

buildings consist of approximately identical 

two-storied edifices with rectangular floor plans, each 

divided into three rooms. Against the east wall of each 

edifice, facing west, was a low stone bench upon which 

nine images were placed, three in each cella. The central 

images, probably of bronze, have all disappeared. 

They were flanked by other figures of stone that still 

remain. Among the bodhisattvas tentatively identified 

are Mañjuśr, Avalokiteśvara, MAITREYA, and Ksitigarbha. 

Mañjuśr was an important figure in the Javanese 

Buddhist pantheon. Among the most beautiful surviving 

images is a silver Mañjuśr from the village of 

Ngemplak. Another popular subject was Jambhala, god 

of wealth. Other important artistic expressions from 

this culture include vajra (thunderbolts) and ghanta 

(bells), sometimes combined into a single object. These 

may have been associated with the cult of Mahavairocana 

Sarvavid, who became important around the second 

half of the ninth century. 

Central Javanese civilization suffered a catastrophic 

decline in the early tenth century. What caused the decline 

is not clear, but complex art was no longer produced 

there. It took more than three hundred years 

before a new wave of Buddhist art arose in Java, by 

which time the center of activity had shifted toward 

the east. 

During this gap in the Javanese record, the Sumatran 

kingdom of Śrvijaya also came to an end. During 

the eleventh and twelfth centuries, two other 

important complexes of Buddhist art arose on that 

island. One complex, at an isolated hinterland site 

known as Muara Takus, consists mainly of a stupa of 

unusual elongated shape, made of brick, together with 

several other foundations of now-ruined structures. 

No statuary has been reported from Muara Takus, but 

pieces of inscribed gold foil attest to the site’s esoteric 

affiliation. 

The other important site, Padang Lawas, in the hinterland 

of North Sumatra, consists of numerous brick 

complexes scattered over a wide area. Statuary and inscriptions 

from Padang Lawas indicate affinities with 

KALACAKRA Buddhism: a shattered Heruka image and 


373

I NDRA 

inscriptions describing the ecstasy of the initiates occasioned 

by the aroma of burning corpses, and the demonic 

laughter that they are inspired to emit. 

Buddhism continued to be practiced in Sumatra into 

the fourteenth century. A huge Bhairava image over 

four meters tall, found at Padang Reco in West Sumatra, 

depicts an initiate with sacrificial skull bowl and 

knife, standing on a corpse resting on a pile of skulls. 

A major Buddhist center named Jago was erected 

around 1280 C.E. in an east Javanese kingdom named 

Singasari. The walls of the sanctuary base were embellished 

with reliefs of mixed Hindu and Buddhist 

character. Its interior was equipped with an elaborate 

system for lustrating statues. These include some of the 

most beautiful images ever created in Java, including 

a beautiful Sudanakumara and an impressively ugly 

Hayagrva. The main statue was probably an Amoghapaśa, 

of which several copies were made. One of these 

copies was found in Sumatra, probably sent there as a 

token of Singasari’s conquest of Malayu, the Sumatran 

successor to Śrvijaya. 

Another triumph of Javanese Buddhist art was created 

either in the last years of Singasari, or in the early 

phase of its successor kingdom, Majapahit. This image, 

of Prajñaparamita, was found at the site of Singasari’s 

capital. Similar statues were also carved around 

the same time, one of which was also found at Malayu’s 

capital, Muara Jambi. Inscriptions show that a Majapahit 

queen personally identified with this deity. 

See also: Cave Sanctuaries; Folk Religion, Southeast 

Asia; Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula; Monastic 

Architecture; Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Bernet Kempers, August Johan. Ancient Indonesian Art. 

Amsterdam: C. P. J. van der Peet; Cambridge, MA: Harvard 


Dumarçay, Jacques. The Temples of Java, tr. Michael Smithies. 

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Oxford University Press, 1986. 

Fontein, Jan, ed. The Sculpture of Indonesia. New York: Abrams, 

1990. 

Lunsingh Scheurleer, Pauline, and Klokke, Marijke J. Ancient 

Indonesian Bronzes: A Catalogue of the Exhibition in the 

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1988. 

Miksic, John N., ed. Indonesian Heritage, Vol. 1: Ancient History. 

Singapore: Archipelago Press, 1996. 

Satyawati Suleiman. The Archaeology and History of West Sumatra. 

Jakarta, Indonesia: Berita Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional 

Number 12, 1977. 

Schnitger, F. M. Forgotten Kingdoms in Sumatra. Leiden, 


Subhadradis Diskul, M. C., ed. The Art of Śrlvijaya. Kuala 

Lumpur, Malaysia, and New York: Oxford University Press, 

1980. 

INDRA 

JOHN N. MIKSIC 

Indra, also known as Sakka (Pali) and Śakra (Sanskrit), 

is initially the Vedic lord of the heavens. Indra is incorporated 

into Buddhism in several ways. He is said 

to have been converted and to have attained the first 

stage of realization on the path (stream winner) in the 

Group of Long Discourses (Pali, Dlghanikaya) (II. 288). 

He is typically portrayed as a guardian of the religion 

and the chief deity in the heaven of the thirty-three 

gods. In some versions of the Buddha’s life story, Indra 

receives the infant Buddha as he emerges from his 

mother’s side and then bathes him. Likewise, when the 

recently enlightened Buddha is reluctant to share his 

insight with the world, it is Indra (along with Brahma) 

who convinces him to teach. Indra also accompanies 

the Buddha to the heaven of the thirty-three gods to 

preach to his mother, and it is Indra who provides the 

ladder on which the Buddha descends. Iconographically, 

Indra is often depicted as subservient to the 

Buddha. In Gandharan sculpture, for instance, he is 

sometimes depicted, along with Brahma, worshipping 

the Buddha, sometimes holding an umbrella to shade 

him from the sun, or sometimes holding the Buddha’s 

alms bowl. 

The image of Indra’s net, which stretches infinitely 

across the heavens, becomes important in the MA- 

HAYANA tradition—particularly in the HUAYAN SCHOOL 

and its text, the HUAYAN JING (Sanskrit, Avatam saka 

Su tra; Flower Garland Su tra)—as a metaphor for the 

interconnectedness of all beings. This image has been 

frequently adopted by modern Buddhist activists. Indra 

continues to be an important deity in a number 

of Southeast Asian countries, both as the model ruler 

and active force. In legend, he frequently appears as a 

deus ex machina, sometimes in disguise to test the 

BODHISATTVA, more frequently to assist devotees in 

their merit-making. He is venerated at the end of the 

year as Thagya Min in Myanmar (Burma). Elsewhere, 

Indra is invoked to protect those gathered at festivals 

and important ceremonies. 


I NITIATION 

See also: Divinities; Hinduism and Buddhism 

INGEN RYU KI 


Ingen Ryuki (Chinese, Yinyuan Longqi; 1592–1673), 

although unknown from Chinese sources, was the 

founder of the O baku sect of Japanese Zen and was the 

most prominent figure in introducing Ming dynastystyle 

Buddhism to Japan. After completing the restoration 

of Wanfu Monastery on Mount Huangbo in 

China, Ingen arrived in Japan in 1654 at the invitation 

of the Nagasaki Chinese community. He reinvigorated 

Zen training in the Nagasaki area and was invited to 

Kyoto in 1655. In 1658 Ingen traveled to Edo and impressed 

many important officials, including the 

shogun, who granted him land in 1665 for the founding 

of O baku-san Mampukuji in the Uji area. The 

name and style of the monastery was copied from Ingen’s 

home monastery. By 1745 the O baku sect had 

1,043 monasteries in its network; 431 of them are still 

in operation today. 

Wanfu Monastery belonged to one of the many 

branches of the Linji lineage of the Chinese CHAN 

SCHOOL and did not form an independent sect in 

China. Thus, Ingen’s teachings were not substantially 

different from other Japanese Rinzai Zen branches. 

Major differences can be found, however, in his emphasis 

on VINAYA and on following the O baku shingi 

(Pure Rules for the O baku Sect) and maintaining Ming 

dynasty-style music, rituals, and robes. The O baku 

sect’s social engagement, differing use of text, and its 

acceptance of Pure Land practices are also significant. 

Chinese-style arts also played a role at Mampukuji, 

where Chinese artists were employed, and Ingen is famous 

for his calligraphy. 

Bibliography 

Baroni, Helen J. O baku Zen: The Emergence of the Third Sect of 

Zen in Tokugawa Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 2000. 

A. W. BARBER 

INITIATION 

Initiation (or “CONSECRATION” in tantric Buddhism) 

brought a candidate into the MAN D ALA of buddha 

families and, most frequently, authorized the individual 

to visualize himself or herself as some form of a 

buddha or BODHISATTVA. Only partly similar to initiation 

rituals in the Mediterranean mystery religions, 

Buddhist initiation was initially patterned on political 

rites of coronation that had been developed in the early 

medieval period of India (ca. 500–1200 C.E.). As such, 

the individual was consecrated or anointed with water 

at a specific moment in the ceremony; the ritual derived 

its name, abhiseka, from this process of anointing 

(Öabhisic means “to asperse”). The term abhiseka 

also denotes rituals employed in the bathing of images, 

such as pouring fragrant water on a Buddha 

statue during the Buddha’s birthday celebrations, and 

the cleansing aspect of the consecration ritual was 

never entirely lost. 

Buddhists had consistently relied on formal rites 

of passage, whether those of taking refuge (śaranagamana) 

for the laity, or lower and higher ORDINATION 

(pravrajya and upasampada) for MONKS and NUNS. 

Mahayanist authors had developed a new ceremony 

for the assumption of the bodhisattva vow and had 

eventually termed it “bodhisattva ordination” (bodhisattva-upasampada). 

The idea of royal consecration, 

however, was first applied to the bodhisattva MAITREYA, 

who was said to be the crown prince (yuvaraja) of the 

dharma, as the successor to Śakyamuni Buddha, who 

was denoted the king of the dharma. Thus, consecration 

indicated a political metaphor, which assumed a 

position of increasing importance during the fifth- and 

sixth-century transition between the classical Gupta 

and the early medieval period of India. As MAHAYANA 

developed this metaphor, a mythic rite of consecration 

became applied to all bodhisattvas who reached 

the tenth stage of the Mahayana path, so that the 

bodhisattva at the tenth stage became consecrated 

(abhisikta) in the heavenly realm of Akanistha by all 

the buddhas. 

With tantric Buddhism, the initiation rite went 

from a narrative applied to exalted bodhisattvas to a 

new rite of passage indicating the entrance into a new 

vehicle, the vehicle of mantras, or the adamantine 

vehicle (VAJRAYANA). Initiation into this vehicle, employing 

the imperial metaphor, meant that the candidate 

was consecrated as the head of a ritual family 

(kula) through a Buddhist form of the medieval Indian 

coronation ritual. While details vary between texts and 

lineages, by the eighth century the normative initiation 

ritual involved a day of preparation and a day of consecration. 

The preparatory day was devoted to the 

consecration of the site, which included a request for 

permission from the snake spirits and autochthonous 


375

I NITIATION 

gods to hold the ceremony. The preparatory day also 

included the performance of a fire ritual (homa) for the 

sake of purity and auspiciousness. After the mandala 

was constructed and consecrated by the master, the 

candidate would be prepared by some teaching. After 

being presented with a piece of kusha or other variety 

of grass, the candidate would be told to place the consecrated 

grass under the pillow and to remember whatever 

dreams might occur in the night. Auspicious dreams 

(e.g., a sunrise or a view from the pinnacle of a high 

mountain) would mean that the candidate was appropriate; 

conversely, inauspicious dreams (e.g., imprisonment 

or losing one’s way in a unknown place) might 

convince the master than the candidate was inadequate 

to the task, and cause the consecration to be canceled 

or postponed. 

On the day of the consecration, the candidate would 

be brought in, sometimes blindfolded, to relate the 

dreams. The blindfold or screen would then be removed 

and the mandala revealed. The master would 

then have the candidate throw a flower into the mandala 

to determine which of the five families (buddha, vajra, 

ratna, padma, or karma) the person belonged to, so 

that the appropriate MANTRA and form of the buddha 

could be conferred. The candidate was then consecrated 

by anointing from a pot of water, by conferring 

a vajra-scepter, by bestowing a ritual bell, by placing a 

crown on the candidate’s head, by entrusting a buddha’s 

mantra to the candidate, and by granting the candidate 

a new name. Other subsidiary consecrations 

could be added as well, but the above were standard, 

although the order in which they were granted would 

vary with the event or lineage. The candidate was instructed 

especially in the proper use of the mantra and 

in the ritual of contemplation on the buddha, and was 

further granted the authority (in some traditions) to 

become a teacher. Vows of secrecy were essential to 

this process, even though the content of the secrets 

continued to change as the understanding of the ritual 

and its literature progressed. Other vows would include 

nonrepudiation of mantras, acquiescence to the 

authority of the buddhas, and acquiescence to the 

authority of the candidate’s master (who was the buddhas’ 

representative), all allied with the general commitment 

to cultivate the attitudes associated with the 

Mahayana. Increasingly, the candidate was instructed 

to visualize himself as the buddha or bodhisattva on 

whom the flower fell during the mandala rite. Finally, 

the candidate was granted the authority to perform rituals 

(especially fire rites) associated with pacification, 

accumulation, subjugation, and destruction; these 

were traditionally exercised on behalf of patrons and 

so represented the newly consecrated master’s potential 

source of income. 

By the late eighth century, the development and institutionalization 

of the new “perfected” (siddha) figures 

in Indian Buddhism led to a change in some of 

the initiatory rituals. In siddha-inspired literature, the 

above rites all came to be subsumed into the category 

of the “jug” or “ewer” consecration, since the candidate’s 

aspersion from a pot was its hallmark. Added to 

this were three new forms of consecration, derived 

from siddha rituals, for ascension to kingship over celestial 

sorcerers (VIDYADHARA): the secret consecration, 

the insight/gnosis consecration, and the fourth consecration. 

The first was secret, for the master was to copulate 

with a woman (often a prostitute), and the 

candidate was instructed to consume the ejaculate. In 

the insight/gnosis consecration, the candidate himself 

copulated with the consort, experiencing great bliss as 

a symbol of liberation. The fourth consecration was 

the revelation of a symbol to the candidate, who was 

expected to understand its significance. 

These new rituals were not introduced without 

comment, for they represented a dramatic reorientation 

toward the fundamental values of Buddhist clerical 

celibacy. Although multiple opinions on their 

desirability or necessity were voiced throughout the 

ninth to twelfth centuries, they were eventually enacted 

almost exclusively in a visualized form, rather than the 

literal enactment seen earlier. Over time, the new consecrations 

were combined with new forms of yoga 

developed from non-Buddhist analogs and a new set 

of vows and sacraments (samaya) were added to provide 

a framework for the yogin’s subsequent behavior. 

See also: Mahasiddha; Tantra 

Bibliography 

Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History 

of the Tantric Movement. New York: Columbia University 

Press, 2002. 

Lessing, Ferdinand D., and Wayman, Alex, trans. Mkhas Grub 

Rje’s Fundamentals of the Buddhist Trantras. The Hague, 

Netherlands, and Paris: Mouton, 1968. 

Snellgrove, David L. “The Notion of Divine Kingship in Tantric 

Buddhism.” In La Regalità Sacra: Contributi al Tema dell’ 

VIII Congresso Internazionale di Storia delle Religioni. Leiden, 



and Their Tibetan Successors, 2 vols. Boston: Shambhala, 

1987. 


I NTERMEDIATE 

S TATES 

Strickmann, Michel. “The Consecration Sutra: A Buddhist Book 

of Spells.” In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, ed. Robert E. 

Buswell. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990. 

Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: Le bouddhisme 

tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. 

INOUE ENRYO 

RONALD M. DAVIDSON 

Inoue Enryo (1858–1919) was an O tani-branch Jodo 

Shin philosopher and educator. Born into a Jodo Shin 

family in Japan’s Niigata region, Inoue eventually studied 

philosophy with Ernest Fenollosa, graduating with 

a degree in that subject from Tokyo Imperial University 

in 1885. Inoue was highly critical of the Buddhist 

clergy of his day and decided that the best way to work 

for the revitalization of Buddhism in Japan was as a 

layman. He renounced his status as a Shin cleric in the 

late 1880s. 

Inoue was convinced that philosophy was the key 

to understanding absolute truth and that Buddhism, 

properly understood, was consonant with both Western 

philosophical and modern scientific understandings 

of the world. To promote the study of 

philosophy, particularly his Hegelian-tinged, Buddhist 

philosophical rationalism, Inoue founded the 

Tetsugakukan (Academy of Philosophy; later Toyo 

University) in 1887. An ardent nationalist and opponent 

to Christianity in Japan, Inoue was a vigorous 

apologist for Buddhism. Inoue argued that Buddhism 

provided the best ideological support for modernizing 

the Japanese nation-state and served as a bulwark 

against Western missionaries, offering its emotional 

dimension (the Pure Land traditions) to the masses 

and its profound intellectual facets (Tendai and 

Kegon thought) to the elite. 

In an effort to uplift those he viewed as the ignorant 

masses (gumin) and combat Christian missionary 

influence, Inoue promoted various Buddhist social reform 

activities, including the founding of orphanages, 

reform schools, and hospitals, as well as more active 

proselytization efforts by Buddhist organizations. Ever 

the rationalist, Inoue also embarked on an ambitious 

project to catalogue and analyze numerous accounts 

of supernatural phenomena throughout Japan with an 

eye to debunking empirically the supernatural tales 

that loomed large in Japanese popular culture. 

See also: Meiji Buddhist Reform; Philosophy 

Bibliography 

Figal, Gerald. Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in 

Meiji Japan. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University 

Press, 1999. 

Snodgrass, Judith. “The Deployment of Western Philosophy in 

the Meiji Buddhist Revival.” Eastern Buddhist 30/2 (1997): 

173–198. 

INTERMEDIATE STATES 


Intermediate state (Sanskrit, antarabhava; Chinese, 

zhongyou; Tibetan, bardo) is the interim between death 

and the next birth. The term refers both to the postmortem 

state of transition and to the subtle entity that 

abides in that state. During the early period of Buddhism 

in India, the status of the intermediate state between 

lives was a subject of some controversy. The 

doctrine was not accepted by some early Buddhist 

schools, including the THERAVADA, Vibhajyavada, 

MAHASAM GHIKA, and MAHIŚASAKA. The schools that 

accepted some version of the theory were the Sarvastivada, 

SAUTRANTIKA, Sam mitiya, Purvaśaila, and 

Darstantika. 

The doctrinal controversy is described briefly in the 

Kathavatthu (Points of Controversy) of Moggaliputta 

Tissa (second century B.C.E.). There the problem focuses 

on how to properly interpret the expression 

“completed existence within the interval” (antarabhavu 

pagam ). Some argued that this phrase referred 

to the existence of an actual intermediate period between 

death and rebirth. Others held that such an intermediate 

period was never taught explicitly by the 

Buddha and thus does not exist. According to opponents 

of the intermediate state doctrine, since the Buddha 

taught that there are only three realms of 

existence—desire (kamadhatu), form (ru padhatu), and 

formlessness (aru padhatu)—an intermediary realm 

cannot be accepted as valid. Even proponents of the 

doctrine were not always in agreement as to how this 

intervening realm should best be understood. There 

were a number of detailed early doctrinal expositions 

of the intermediate state written in India, such as the 

second-century compilation Mahavibhasa (Great Exegisis), 

a Sarvastivada ABHIDHARMA commentary. VA- 

SUBANDHU codified the doctrine in his fifth-century 

ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHASYA, and this became the standard 

presentation and subsequently the basic model 

adopted in East Asia and Tibet. 


377

I NTERMEDIATE 

S TATES 

In this monumental work, which represents essentially 

the position of the Mulasarvastivada school, 

Vasubandhu compiled all previous arguments in favor 

of interim existence and offered descriptions of the 

intermediate state and the liminal entity who abides 

there. His presentation can be encapsulated in six basic 

points: 

1. The duration of the intermediate state is divided 

into seven short phases, each lasting no more 

than a week, for a total of up to seven weeks or 

forty-nine days; 

2. The entity that abides in this interim state is defined 

as a being that arises between the moment 

of death and the next state of birth on its way to 

a new existence; 

3. Because this being subsists on fragrance it is 

called a gandharva, meaning literally “that which 

eats (arvati) odors (gandham)”; 

4. The shape and form of this liminal entity resembles 

that of the beings in the realm where it 

is to be reborn; 

5. Its senses are intact, though in subtle forms; no 

one can resist it, it cannot be turned away, and 

it can only be seen by those of its own class and 

by those with pure divine eyes; 

6. Rebirth occurs when the mind (mati) of the 

gandharva is troubled by the sight of its future 

parents having sexual intercourse and when the 

emotional quality of that mind propels it into a 

new existence. Accordingly, when the gandharva 

enters the womb it becomes male if it is attracted 

to its future mother and repulsed by its father, 

or female if attracted to its future father and 

repulsed by its mother. These agitated thoughts 

of desire and repulsion cause the mind to cohere 

to the semen and blood mixed in the womb 

just prior to conception. At the point of conception, 

the psychophysical SKANDHA (AGGRE- 

GATES) gradually become coarse and coagulate, 

the intermediate-state being dies, and a new life 

is conceived. 

There are three conditions, therefore, necessary for 

conception: The mother must be healthy, the parents 

must be engaged in sexual intercourse, and a gandharva, 

an intermediate-state being, must be present. These six 

basic components of the Buddhist intermediate-state 

doctrine had been formalized by at least the fifth century 

C.E. 

The doctrine is expounded also in a number of 

Buddhist MAHAYANA sutras influenced by Abhidharma 

interpretations, most notably the Garbhavakrantinirdeśa-su 

tra (Su tra on Entering the Womb) and 

the Saddharmasmrtyupasthana-su tra (Su tra on Stability 

in Mindfulness of the True Dharma). The Garbhavakrantinirdeśa-su 

tra is extant in four recensions, 

the earliest being a Chinese translation. The later versions 

from the MULASARVASTIVADA-VINAYA detail the 

progression of the intermediate-state being from the 

final moment of death, to conception in the future 

mother’s womb, and subsequently through each week 

of fetal development. This particular version of the 

Garbhavakrantinirdeśa appears to have been the primary 

source for the descriptions of the intermediate state 

found in the Yogacarabhu mi (States of Yoga Practice). 

The Saddharmasmrtyupasthana-su tra is noteworthy in 

that it includes elaborate discussion of as many as seventeen 

individual intermediate states. Some features of 

this exposition accord with earlier Abhidharma formulations, 

while others resemble later tantric descriptions 

similar to those found in Tibetan literature. 

Over time the doctrine of the intermediate state was 

reformulated and embellished within the soteriological 

framework of Tantric Buddhism. A distinctive feature 

of the tantric reinterpretation of the doctrine was 

the proliferation of the intermediate state, originally a 

single period, into a series of distinct and separate 

phases. Some Buddhist tantric systems enumerated as 

many as three, four, five, and even six individual intermediate 

states. This expansion of the concept of interim 

existence was derived in part by a conflation of 

the earlier Abhidharma doctrine of the intermediate 

state with the Mahayana idea of a buddha’s three 

bodies (trikaya): truth body (dharmakaya), enjoyment 

body (sam bhogakaya), and emanation body 

(nirmanakaya). The combination of these conceptual 

elements was grafted onto an advanced twofold yogic 

system, which the Tibetans were later to classify as 

Supreme Yoga Tantra (Sanskrit, anuttarayoga-tantra; 

Tibetan, rnal ’byor bla na med pa’i rgyud), involving 

the successive stages of generation (Sanskrit, utpannakrama; 

Tibetan, bskyed rim) and completion (Sanskrit, 

sampannakrama; Tibetan, rdzogs rim). This particular 

tantric program does not appear to have been introduced 

into China or Japan, but it did enter Tibet as 

early as the eleventh century through the efforts of 

Tibetan disciples of Indian tantric adepts (siddha). 


I NTERMEDIATE 

S TATES 

One of the most famous and influential of these Indian 

siddhas was NAROPA (1016–1100), who codified 

a diverse system of tantric instruction that would come 

to be widely known in Tibet as the “Six Doctrines of 

Naropa” (Tibetan, Na ro chos drug). In Naropa’s system 

the intermediate state was expanded to include 

three separate states: 

1. The long period between birth and death, which 

was identified as the “intermediate state of birthto-death”; 

2. The interval between sleep and waking consciousness 

called the “intermediate state of 

dreams”; 

3. The intervening period between death and rebirth 

identified as the “intermediate state of becoming.” 

The tradition argued that all three intermediate states 

provide particularly fruitful opportunities for tantric 

practice leading eventually to buddhahood itself. The 

aim of such practice was to actually become embodied 

as a buddha using special tantric techniques of yoga 

and contemplation to mix or blend (Tibetan, bsres ba) 

one’s experience with the three bodies of a buddha 

during each of the three transitional periods—in meditation 

during life, in dreams during sleep, and in the 

interim state after death. In Tibet this practice of 

blending the intermediate states with the three embodiments 

of buddhahood is commonly referred to as 

“bringing the three bodies to the path” (sku gsum lam 

’khyer). 

In Tibet the tantric reinterpretation of the intermediate 

state inspired even further innovations. In time 

there emerged several Tibetan religious systems that 

posited multiple intermediate states beyond the three 

separate interim periods developed previously by Indian 

siddhas like Naropa. The ritual and literary tradition 

of the famous TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD (Bar 

do thos grol chen mo, pronounced Bardo thödol), for 

example, enumerates six individual states, including 

the three described in Naropa’s scheme and adding: 

4. The intermediate state of meditative stabilization; 

5. The intermediate state of dying; and 

6. The intermediate state of reality-itself, wherein 

the deceased encounters the true nature of reality 

manifest as a radiant display of one hundred 

peaceful and wrathful deities. 

In particular, the concept of the intermediate state of 

reality-itself is derived from the unique doctrines of 

the Great Perfection tradition that began to emerge in 

Tibet in the eleventh century and became fully systematized 

by the late fourteenth century. The Tibetan 

Great Perfection tradition was promoted largely by the 

RNYING MA (NYINGMA) and non-Buddhist BON orders. 

As for the formal doctrine of the intermediate state 

in its ritual dimension, Buddhist funeral rites in Tibet 

and East Asia are timed ideally to coincide with the 

forty-nine days of postmortem intermediate existence, 

although it is not uncommon for this prolonged period 

to be abbreviated depending on the resources and 

influence of the deceased’s family. In Tibet the fully 

developed liturgical sequence, inscribed in specialized 

texts such as those belonging to the Tibetan Book of the 

Dead, consists of a variety of offerings for generating 

merit, tantric initiation rites for the ripening of virtues, 

prayers of confession and reconciliation in the purification 

of nonvirtuous karma, and guidance rites for 

leading the deceased through the perilous intermediate 

state into the next life. 

In East Asia the doctrine of the intermediate state 

is linked to bureaucratic notions of the judgment of 

ten postmortem kings and to rituals performed for 

the benefit of the deceased presumed to be undergoing 

a kind of purgatory, a period in which the good 

and bad deeds of the departed are put under judicial 

review. The ritual actions performed by the living for 

the penitent dead include the dedication of merit, 

almsgiving, and the recitation of Buddhist scripture. 

The general assumption underlying the intermediatestate 

funeral rites in Tibet and East Asia is that actions 

performed by the living affect directly the 

condition of the dead. Buddhist funerals are thus designed 

to provide for the dead a means of expediting 

safe passage over death’s threshold and of ensuring an 

auspicious future destiny. 

See also: Cosmology; Death; Mainstream Buddhist 

Schools; Rebirth; Sarvastivada and Mu lasarvastivada 

Bibliography 

Bareau, André. “Chuu.” In Ho bo girin, ed. Jacques May. Paris 

and Tokyo: L’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 

Institut de France, 1979. 


379

I PPEN 

C HISHIN 

Cuevas, Bryan J. “Predecessors and Prototypes: Towards a Conceptual 

History of the Buddhist Antarabhava.” Numen 43, 

no. 3 (1996): 263–302. 

Evans-Wentz, W. Y., and Kazi Dawa Samdup, eds. and trans. 

The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927). New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2000. 

Kritzer, Robert. “Antarabhava in the Vibhasa.” No tom Damu 

Joshi Daigaku Kirisutokyo Bunka Kenkyojo Kiyo (Maranata) 

3, no. 5 (1997): 69–91. 

Kritzer, Robert. “Rupa and the Antarabhava.” Journal of Indian 

Philosophy 28 (2000): 235–272. 

Lati Rinbochay, and Hopkins, Jeffrey, trans. Death, Intermediate 

State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism. Ithaca, NY: Snow 

Lion, 1979. 




Wayman, Alex. “The Intermediate-State Dispute in Buddhism.” 

In Buddhist Studies in Honor of I. B. Horner, ed. L. Cousins, 

Arnold Kunst, and K. R. Norman. Dordrecht, Netherlands, 

and Boston: Reidel, 1974. 

IPPEN CHISHIN 

BRYAN J. CUEVAS 

Ippen Chishin (1239–1289) was an itinerant monk 

who popularized Pure Land Buddhist faith in rural areas 

of Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333). 

His teachings emphasized the doctrine of Other Power 

(tariki, reliance on the saving power of AMITABHA Buddha 

alone), the practice of dancing while chanting 

Amitabha Buddha’s name (nenbutsu odori), and the 

distribution of paper tallies to confirm one’s connection 

to Amitabha Buddha. Today Ippen Chishin is 

revered as the founder of the Jishu (Time) denomination 

in Japan. 

See also: Japan; Kamakura Buddhism, Japan; Pure 

Land Buddhism; Pure Land Schools 

ISLAM AND BUDDHISM 


The historical meeting between the various powerful 

states that drew political legitimacy from either Islam 

or Buddhism was a violent one. The Arab conquest of 

Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan) in 696 C.E., in 

which a mosque replaced a monastery, and the Turkic 

destruction of the important Buddhist monasteries of 

Nalanda and Vikramaśla in India in 1202, are widely 

recognized as the end of Indian Buddhism. Similar 

devastation was glorified in a Turkic folksong recorded 

in Al-Kashgari’s twelfth-century dictionary, which revels 

in the desecration of Buddhism during the tenthcentury 

Karakhanid attack on the Uygur Buddhist 

kingdom of Turfan along the SILK ROAD. With the Inner 

Asian imperial revival of Buddhism in the twelfth 

century, however, the direction of religious violence was 

reversed. The Kara Khitais launched pogroms against 

Muslims, and Hülegü, a supporter of the Tibetan Phag 

mo gru pa, killed the ‘Abbasid Caliph in 1256. 

Of course there were exceptions to these norms of 

imperial violence. Kabul Shah converted to Islam only 

in 814. When BAMIYAN and Gandhara were seized in 

711, Buddhism and Islam coexisted. When Sind was 

conquered it was decreed that Buddhists, like Christians 

and Zoroastrians, should be taxed though not 

killed, as was the case during the reign of Zayn al- 

‘abidn in Kashmir (1420–1470). Early Arabic sources 

also note that sometimes Buddhists and Muslims were 

military allies. Taranatha’s Rgya gar chos ‘byung (History 

of Buddhism in India, 1608), in accord with other 

Indian sources, notes that Buddhists rejoiced in the 

Muslim destruction of Hinduism and records that 

Buddhists even acted as agents and intermediaries for 

the Turkic assault on Magadha in central India. The 

Buddhist–Muslim encounter has manifested a full 

range of experiences and dialogues. 

Arabic translations of Indian Buddhist works reflect 

the earliest engagement between Buddhism and Islam. 

These include the animal tales of the Kallla wa-Dimna 

(Kalila and Dimna, ca. eighth century), based on the 

Pañcatantra (Five Treatises, ca. 300 C.E.), and the Kitab 

Bilawhar wa-Yu dasaf (The Book of Bilawhar and Yudasaf, 

ca. seventh–eighth century), a compilation from 

various sources of the Buddha biography that became 

the prototype for the Christian legend of Barlaam and 

Josaphat. Although these translation projects ceased by 

the mid-ninth century, Muslim scholars continued to 

describe and interpret the Buddhist tradition. In the 

tenth century, Ibn al-Faqh and Yaqut described in 

detail the Buddhist architecture, ritual, and doctrine 

as witnessed at Nowbahar in Afghanistan. Similarly, 

Jayhan’s description of Buddhism in his now lost 

gazetteer Kitab al-masalik (The Book of Roads) provided 

material on Buddhist thought for both Maqdis 

and Gardz in their brief descriptions of religion in 


I SLAM AND B UDDHISM 

India. More detailed descriptions of the dharma, as 

well as the standard categorization of Indian religions, 

are found in Ibn al-Nadm’s Fihrist (Catalogue, 987) 

and Shahrastan’s Kitab al-milal wa-n nihal (The Book 

of Religions and Faiths, 1125), works superseded only 

by Rashd al-Dn’s Ta’rlkh al-Hind (History of India, 

ca. 1305/6), which explores at length the Buddha and 

Buddhist concepts of time as presented by the Kashmiri 

monk Kamalaśri (dates unknown). 

Muslim engagement with Buddhism, however, was 

not limited to theological and historical works. Islamic 

architecture derived inspiration from and appropriated 

localized Buddhist forms across Asia. And in 

opposition to Islam’s well-known iconoclasm, an 

extensive Muslim trade in Buddhist icons flourished 

through the tenth century. Indeed, over time the term 

bot (idol, presumably deriving from Buddha) lost its 

religious significance and became a clichéd metaphor 

of idealized beauty in Persian poetry. 

Extant sources for the Buddhist interpretation of 

Islam are more limited. The main source is the 

KALACAKRA (Wheel of Time), a work composed in India 

during the early eleventh century at a time of increased 

Muslim migration, primarily Shi’ite groups 

fleeing persecution from the Sunni caliphate. The work 

outlines Muslim dietary laws, circumcision, marriage, 

the nature of god, and god’s relationship to humanity. 

Why there are not more Buddhist interpretations of 

Islam is uncertain, though the retreat of Buddhism as 

a culturally dynamic force certainly played a role. 

This retreat was premised on many factors— 

economics, politics, and most importantly, the growing 

fusion between Hindu and Buddhist thought, particularly 

among the laity. A syncretism fueled by 

Advaita Vedanta and tantric thought also played a role 

in South Asia’s Islamization, as Sufi saints appropriated 

indigenous Indian religious discourses in transmitting 

and developing Islam in South Asia. Thus, for 

a time these traditions engaged one another, and holy 

sites came to share narratives of sacrality. The most famous 

of these narratives concerns the footprint on a 

mountain in Sri Lanka traditionally attributed to the 

Buddha. In the Akhbar al-Sln wa-l-Hind (Stories about 

China and India, 851), this site was identified as the 

place where Adam descended after his expulsion from 

paradise. In the fourteenth century, Ibn Batuta noted 

that Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists all regarded 

“Adam’s Peak” as holy. 

Yet amid this South Asian religious multiplicity, 

Buddhism became intellectually isolated, losing both 

royal and lay support. Chinese pilgrims to India witnessed 

this diminishing interest and recorded the concurrent 

disappearance of Buddhist temples and 

monasteries. Similarly, artistic remains from the period 

reflect a systematic shift of royal patronage from 

Buddhism to Hinduism. Although the Turkic destruction 

of two monasteries in 1202 is held up as the 

ultimate demise of Buddhism in India, seventy-eight 

Hindu temples were also destroyed in the creation of 

an Indo-Muslim state. Islam was a threat, but Buddhism’s 

inevitable absorption into the amorphous 

doctrinal and ritual category of Hinduism was a 

greater one. 

This transition occurred so seamlessly in Southeast 

Asia that when Islam finally arrived, the pre-Hindu 

layer of Buddhist religious history and culture was 

largely forgotten except in its famous monuments. In 

Java, Buddhism eventually merged into tantric 

Śaivism, only to be displaced by Islam after royal conversion 

in the fourteenth century, a trajectory also 

found in Kashmir. More often, Buddhist sources wrote 

of fearing Hinduization rather than defeat by Muslim 

forces. The nexus of Buddhism’s imminent internal 

absorption into Hinduism and the external threat 

posed by Islam is most eloquently captured in the central 

eschatological myth of the Kalacakra. This narrative 

refashioned the Hindu myth of Visnu’s final avatar 

Kalkin Cakrin into a Buddhist apocalypse where 

Kalkin rides out of Shambhala, the mythical kingdom 

where the Buddha’s final teachings are preserved, and 

kills the Muslims who have taken over the world, ushering 

in an age of pure dharma. This vision of Islamic 

perfidy has influenced Buddhist representations of 

Islam up to the present time. 

In modern Buddhist states, these negative images 

are often framed in terms of such categories as ethnonational 

identity, politics, and demographics, with at 

times devastating consequences, as witnessed in Burma 

(Myanmar), where, in Arakan State, a predominantly 

Muslim area, the Burmese government has carried out 

policies of institutionalized discrimination including 

forced labor, restrictions on freedom of movement, and 

destruction of mosques. Elsewhere, however, dialogue 

between the traditions is again progressing as Muslim 

and Buddhist states and citizens grapple with the religious 

consequences of migration and conversion. 

See also: Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula; Nationalism 

and Buddhism; Persecutions; Politics and Buddhism; 

Thailand 


381

I SLAM AND B UDDHISM 

Bibliography 

Barthold, V. V. Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion. 

Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1977. 

Beal, Samuel. Chinese Accounts of India: Translated from the Chinese 

of Hiuen Tsiang. Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1958. 

Bechert, Heinz. “The Buddhayana of Indonesia.” Journal of the 

Pali Text Society 9 (1981): 10–21. 

de Silva, K. M., et al., eds. Ethnic Conflict in Buddhist Societies: 

Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Burma. Boulder, CO: Westview 

Press, 1988. 

Eaton, Richard M. “Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim 

States.” In Essays on Islam and Indian History, ed. Richard 

Eaton. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 

Hasan, Perween. “Sultanate Mosques and Continuity in Bengal 

Architecture.” Muqarnas 6 (1989): 58–74. 

Huntington, Susan L. The “Pala-Sena” Schools of Sculpture. Leiden, 


I-ching. A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practiced in India 

and the Malay Archipelago (A.D. 671–695), tr. J. Takakasu. 

Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966. 

Ishii, Yoneo. “Thai Muslims and the Royal Patonage of Religion.” 

Law and Society Review 28 (1994): 453–460. 

Jahn, Karl. Rashld al-Dln’s History of India. The Hague, Netherlands: 

Mouton, 1965. 

Knodel, John, et al. “Religion and Reproduction: Muslims in 

Buddhist Thailand.” Population Studies 53 (1999): 149–164. 

Lawrence, Bruce B. Shahrastanl on the Indian Religions. The 


Newman, John. “Islam in the Kalacakra Tantra.” Journal of the 

International Association of Buddhist Studies 21 (1998): 

311–371. 

Roy, Asim. The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal. Princeton, 


Smith, Jane I. “Early Muslim Accounts of Buddhism in India.” 

Studies in Islam 10 (1973): 87–100. 

Taranatha. History of Buddhism in India, tr. Lama Chimpa and 

Alaka Chattopadhyaya. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1990. 

JOHAN ELVERSKOG 


J 

JAINISM AND BUDDHISM 

Jainism and Buddhism have a common origin in the 

culture of world-renunciation that developed in India 

from around the seventh century B.C.E. This common 

origin can be confirmed by the many similarities between 

their respective ancient codes of practice, and 

the two traditions have always shared an acceptance of 

the transformative powers of human effort in effecting 

freedom from REBIRTH. 

Although evidence beyond that afforded by partisan 

texts is not available, Jainism can be judged to be 

the older religion because from a relatively early period 

it claimed as authoritative a teacher called Parśva, 

who can reasonably be dated to around two centuries 

before the Buddha. Mahavra, who is generally credited 

with being the “founder” of Jainism, appears to 

have built upon Parśva’s teachings. Jainism eventually 

located Parśva and Mahavra as the twenty-third and 

twenty-fourth of a succession of teachers called fordmaker 

(tlrthaṅkara) or conqueror (jina). The word jina 

is the source of the Sanskrit name Jaina, used to refer 

to a follower of these teachers, although the earliest 

term to designate them was nigantha (bondless). While 

early Buddhism developed a succession of twenty-five 

buddhas, most likely under the influence of Jainism, 

both traditions assert that their teachings are uncreated, 

without beginning or end, and outside the parameters 

of historical time. 

The date of Mahavra relies on synchronicity with 

that of the Buddha, who is now regarded by scholars 

as having lived in the fifth century B.C.E. Although the 

two teachers were contemporaries who lived in the 

same area of the Ganges basin, there is no record of 

them having met. The Saṅglti-sutta of the Dlghanikaya 

describes the strife that broke out in the Jain community 

after Mahavra’s death and the Buddha’s contrast 

of this with the stability of his own teaching and followers. 

Mahavra, under the name of Nigantha Nataputta, 

is conventionally located by early Buddhist 

scripture within a group of six rival ascetics (śramana) 

who taught a variety of false doctrines. Nigantha Nataputta 

is associated with a “fourfold restraint” with regard 

to evil, which, in the light of the fact that Mahavra 

taught five “great vows,” suggests that the early Buddhists 

were familiar with members of the community 

of the earlier Jain teacher, Parśva. 

The Pali CANON views the Jains in inimical terms 

and frequently describes ascetic and lay followers of 

Mahavra joining the Buddhist community. Jain doctrine 

advocated the existence of a permanent soul or 

life monad (jlva) that changed only in respect to its 

modifications, a standpoint also applied to reality as a 

whole. Such a view was very much at variance with 

Buddhist teaching, which denied the possibility of the 

existence of entities that were not impermanent or 

conditioned. Buddhism also rejected as fruitless Jainism’s 

strong ascetic ethos, which held that only fasting 

and intense forms of religious exercise would lead to 

liberation. A further area of Jain teaching that the Buddhists 

found inadequate was that of intentionality. Although 

the Jains were aware of the role of mental 

attitude in determining the moral tone of an action, 

the Buddhists accused them of advocating a crude 

mechanistic approach to agency and retribution. 

The Jains, for their part, regarded the Buddhists as 

incorrigibly lax in their behavior and as promoting a 

view of the momentary nature of the world that verged 

on nihilism in that moral retribution could not operate 

without some kind of permanent self. According 

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J APAN 

to one medieval writer of the Digambara sect, the Buddha 

himself had originally been a Jain monk who abandoned 

the true path because of his inability cope with 

its rigorous demands. Buddhism’s claims to be nonviolent 

were rejected on the grounds that Buddhism 

lacked Jainism’s radical analysis of reality as composed 

of embodied, eternally existing souls, and the Buddhists, 

whether renouncers or laity, were portrayed by 

their vegetarian opponents as habitual meat eaters. 

MAHAYANA Buddhism’s teaching of ŚU NYATA (EMPTI- 

NESS) was stigmatized by the Jains as promoting a brand 

of illusionism where no ethical values could hold sway, 

while the bodhisattva’s supposed postponement of enlightenment 

to aid others’ attainment of the goal was 

deemed to be illogical because it entailed a possible situation 

in which all beings could be in a state of liberation 

at one and the same time, thus voiding the realms 

of rebirth and liberation of any distinct meaning. 

In the light of these differences, it might appear difficult 

to locate areas of interaction or mutual influence 

between the two traditions. However, a consistent Jain 

interest in Buddhist learning can be seen in the use of 

the term basket (pidaga) to refer to their scriptures (like 

the Buddhist expression tripitaka) and the fact that the 

titles of several Jain works are modeled on Buddhist 

originals. Particularly noteworthy is the eighth-century 

teacher Haribhadra, who wrote several works in which 

he pointed to soteriological similarities between Jainism 

and Buddhism. From the doctrinal perspective, it 

is likely that the Jains borrowed the term pudgala 

(atom) from Buddhism, where, at least among the Sarvastivadins 

and the Vatsputryas, the term carried the 

sense of the individual perceived as an aggregate. As 

for ritual, a Buddhist text on mantras, the Vasudha- 

radharanl (The Magic Formula of the Goddess Vasudhara), 

has been used by the Jains of Gujarat for the last 

three centuries. 

Certain aspects of early Buddhist meditation practice 

that relate to the suppression of bodily and mental 

activity and the senses suggest some sort of external 

influence, most likely Jain, since such techniques are 

otherwise said to have been rejected by the Buddha. 

The Buddhists also appear to have been obliged to consider 

the nature of the Buddha’s omniscience in light 

of the Jain claim that Mahavra and other enlightened 

people were, as a result of the purification of their souls 

from karmic accretion, literally “all-knowing” with regard 

to all constituent elements of the universe in every 

temporal and spatial location simultaneously. Omniscience 

was ascribed to the Buddha in the early texts 

only in respect to aspects of the religious path. Later 

Buddhism attributed to him the capacity to know all 

objects, but only individually, each at one time. 

See also: Hinduism and Buddhism; Karma (Action) 

Bibliography 

Balbir, Nalini. “Jain-Buddhist Dialogue: Material from the Pali 

Scriptures.” Journal of the Pali Text Society 26 (2000): 1–42. 

Bollee, W. B. “Buddhists and Buddhism in the Earlier Literature 

of the Śvetambara Jains.” In Buddhist Studies in Honour 

of I. B. Horner, ed. L. Cousins, A. Kunst, and K. R. 

Norman. Boston and Dordrecht, Netherlands: Reidel, 1974. 

Bronkhorst, Johannes. “The Buddha and the Jainas Reconsidered.” 

Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques 49 (1995): 

333–50. 

Dundas, Paul. The Jains, 2nd revised edition. London and New 

York: Routledge, 2002. 

Jaini, Padmanabh S. Collected Papers on Buddhist Studies. Delhi: 


Tatia, N. “The Interaction of Jainism and Buddhism and Its 

Impact on the History of Buddhist Monasticism.” In Studies 

in History of Buddhism: Papers Presented at the International 

Conference on the History of Buddhism at the University 

of Wisconsin, Madison, August 19–21, 1976, ed. A. K. Narain. 

Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 1980. 

JAPAN 

PAUL DUNDAS 

Buddhism in contemporary Japan exhibits several distinctive 

characteristics. In a country that sometimes 

prides itself on having achieved a secular society of the 

sort predicted for modernity by Max Weber, the Buddhist 

religion often seems marginal to contemporary 

Japanese culture. Yet surveys of the populace reveal 

that a large majority (roughly 75%) identifies itself as 

Buddhist. These same surveys indicate that an even 

larger majority sees itself as Shinto, suggesting that, at 

least for many Japanese, being Buddhist does not necessarily 

entail exclusive allegiance to the religion. Indeed, 

it is sometimes said that Japanese are born Shinto 

(i.e., receive blessings from a Shinto shrine at birth) 

and die Buddhist (receive Buddhist funeral and memorial 

services). The division of spiritual labor here tells 

us something not only about the fluid character of 

religious identities but about one of the primary functions 

of Buddhism in contemporary society. If Bud- 


J APAN 

dhism often seems marginal to public life, it remains 

central to private life through its role in the care and 

commemoration of the family dead. 

Contemporary organization 

The representative institution of contemporary Buddhism 

is the local temple, which serves as the residence 

of a married cleric and his family. The temple 

is supported by a lay membership, for which it provides 

a calendar of rituals and festivals, occasional pastoral 

care, and especially funerals and memorial 

services. Such local institutions usually represent 

branch temples (matsuji) of the many denominations, 

or schools (shu ), into which Buddhism is divided. 

These organizations, registered with the government 

as religious corporations (shu kyo ho jin), are typically 

centered in a main temple (honzan), which serves as 

symbolic and administrative headquarters. The larger 

denominations, which can claim thousands of local 

temples, may include several monastic centers, as well 

as parochial schools and universities. Whether large 

or small, the denominations operate as independent 

religious entities, with their own clergy and real property, 

their own distinctive scriptures and rituals, and 

their own lay membership. There is no significant ecumenical 

body that governs the Buddhist community 

as a whole. Hence, in institutional terms, Japanese 

Buddhism is simply the sum of its denominations, and 

being a Buddhist means being a member of one of the 

denominations. 

The various Buddhist organizations are typically divided 

into two categories: denominations that trace 

their origins to ancient and medieval times, and the 

so-called new religions (shin shu kyo ), founded in modern 

times. The former category is often understood as 

consisting of six sets of denominations, grouped on the 

basis of their historical association with particular traditional 

forms of Japanese Buddhism: (1) denominations 

based at temples in the ancient capital of Nara 

(e.g., the relatively small Hosso shu, Kegon shu, Risshu, 

and Shingon risshu); (2) denominations associated 

with the Tendai tradition; (3) denominations 

associated with the Shingon tradition; (4) denominations 

associated with the Pure Land form (e.g., the 

large Jodo shu, and still larger Honganji and O tani 

branches of the Jodo shinshu); (5) denominations associated 

with Zen (e.g., the large Soto shu, the small 

O baku shu, and the various branches of the Rinzai 

shu); and (6) denominations associated with the tradition 

of NICHIREN (e.g., the Nichiren shu and Nichiren 

shoshu). These groupings do not typically reflect 

institutional affiliations; contrary to common usage, 

there is no organization that could be called, for example, 

the Zen school or the Pure Land school. 

In the category of new religions, there is a wide variety 

of organizations, from small local groups, to large 

national, and even international, bodies such as the 

SO KA GAKKAI. A few date back to the mid-nineteenth 

century; most of the largest, such as Soka Gakkai, 

Reiyukai, and Rissho kyoseikai, were founded during 

the first half of the twentieth century and flourished 

following World War II; still others arose in the last 

decades of the twentieth century, the most recent 

sometimes being referred to as the “new new religions” 

(shin shin shu kyo ). Occasionally these organizations 

represent lay movements within a traditional denomination 

(such as Shinnyoen within a branch of Shingon 

or, until 1991, Soka Gakkai within Nichiren 

shoshu), but for the most part they are wholly independent 

bodies, typically founded and run by a lay 

leadership. The older, more established organizations 

function much like the traditional denominations in 

providing services to a stable membership of lay households; 

the newer groups tend to be tailored somewhat 

more to the spiritual aspirations of individual converts. 

Some organizations base their teachings primarily on 

texts of the Buddhist canon, perhaps most often on the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA); others 

have developed a distinctive scriptural corpus, which 

may combine traditional Buddhist material with elements 

drawn from other sources. Indeed, within the 

broad category of new religions are organizations, such 

as the notorious Aum shinrikyo, so eclectic in their beliefs 

and practices that it is difficult to identify them as 

Buddhist. 

If the identification of some of the new religions as 

Buddhist may mask their more complex religious characters, 

the standard division of contemporary Buddhism 

into traditional denominations and new 

religions may also obscure as much as it reveals. The 

category of traditional denominations, for example, 

may suggest an orthodox, historically sanctioned heritage 

reaching back into premodern times, yet many of 

the contemporary forms of these denominations owe 

much to the same modern developments that produced 

the new religions. By the same token, the tendency, 

ascribed to the new religions, to incorporate into 

their Buddhism elements drawn from other sources, 

such as Shinto and popular religion, has an ancient history 

common to all the traditional denominations. 


385

J APAN 

Still, whether or not they can easily be applied to the 

contemporary scene, the two categories can be useful 

in revealing tensions, present throughout the history of 

Japanese Buddhism, between tradition and innovation, 

orthodoxy and heterodoxy, elite establishment and 

popular practice. 

Early modern developments 

Many of the distinctive characteristics of the contemporary 

Japanese Buddhist institution have their origins 

in government policies of the Meiji period 

(1868–1912) and the long Edo (or Tokugawa) period 

(1600–1868) that preceded it. In the years immediately 

following the revolution that overthrew the 

Tokugawa administration, the new Meiji government 

sought to establish an officially sanctioned Shinto in 

support of imperial rule. It thus drew a sharp, and 

historically dubious, distinction between a native 

Shinto and the imported Buddhism, and sought institutionally 

to separate the two—a policy that had 

the practical effect of a brief but severe persecution of 

many Buddhist establishments. In the end, the government 

adopted a policy that at once separated 

church and state and reasserted state authority over 

the church: On the one hand, it revoked the old Tokugawa 

laws governing the clergy, decriminalizing violations 

of the Buddhist precepts and allowing the 

clerical marriage that has now become common; on 

the other hand, it carried forward the Tokugawa practice 

of legal recognition and regulation of Buddhist 

organizations, setting the precedent for the pattern of 

religious corporations that we see today. 

The contemporary pattern of separate denominations 

with branch temples serving a local congregation 

of member households can be understood as a remnant 

of the Tokugawa government’s administration of 

Buddhism through what are known as the honmatsu 

and terauke systems. The former term refers to the organization 

of the Buddhist institutions into a fixed set 

of sanctioned denominations, each governed from a 

headquarters responsible to the secular authorities. 

The latter term refers to the practice of requiring lay 

households to register their members at a recognized 

local temple. These two systems, developed during the 

seventeenth century in order to regulate both the Buddhist 

institutions and the religious options of the populace, 

had the effect of establishing Buddhism as a 

branch of government administration and the local 

temples as the registrars of the citizenry. 

Such an arrangement assured Buddhism throughout 

the Edo period of both government support and 

popular patronage; and indeed, though the period is 

sometimes regarded as one of Buddhist decline, in 

many ways the religion flourished. Not only did many 

of the sanctioned denominations thrive as institutions, 

but the period also witnessed a marked growth in the 

popularity of Buddhist funeral rites and pilgrimage to 

Buddhist sacred sites that cut across sectarian divides. 

It also saw the persistence of unauthorized Buddhist 

communities and the rise of new religious fraternities 

outside the sanctioned ecclesiastical establishment. 

And it fostered within that establishment the development 

of Buddhist centers of sectarian learning 

(shugaku) that generated scholarship on the history, 

texts, and doctrines of the various denominations. 

The Buddhist sectarian scholarship that developed 

during the Edo period and continued into the twentieth 

century did much to frame the modern understanding 

of the religion. In general, it may be said that 

such scholarship sought to create a systematic account 

of the history and teachings of each school: to establish 

the orthodox tenets (kyo gi) of the school, to define 

the corpus of its scriptural canon, and to provide a history 

of its origins and transmission. In more modern 

times, when attempts were made to tell the story of 

Japanese Buddhism as a whole, these separate sectarian 

accounts were often simply brought together in a 

collection of loosely related narratives. Indeed, to this 

day, the story of Buddhism in Japan is often told primarily 

through an accounting of the basic doctrines 

and founding figures recognized by the major denominations 

(or their groupings into related traditions). 

Because of the emphasis on the founders, the history 

of the religion is typically punctuated by the dates of 

the origins of the schools, which fall into three distinct 

phases, located in the periods of Nara (710–784), Heian 

(794–1185), and Kamakura (1185–1333). 

The first of these phases covers those schools (traditionally 

numbered as six) founded in the years 

between the introduction of Buddhism from the mainland 

(usually dated 552) and the end of the Nara. The 

second is associated with the two schools of Tendai and 

Shingon, introduced near the start of the Heian period. 

To the last are assigned the traditions of Zen, Pure 

Land, and Nichiren, all of which look back to founding 

figures in the Kamakura period. To the extent that 

these three periods are plotted in a larger historical narrative, 

it is often one of recurrent spiritual renewal and 

decline. Thus, the founding of the Heian schools of 

Tendai and Shingon are seen as a reaction by the 

founders (SAICHO and KU KAI, respectively) against the 

stale scholarship and corrupt politics of the Nara Bud- 


J APAN 

The Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion Temple) in Kyoto, Japan, so called because it is covered in gold leaf. © Chris Lisle/Corbis. Reproduced 


dhist establishment, and the rise of the “new Buddhism 

of the Kamakura” (kamakura shin bukkyo ) is understood 

as a reformation, led by famous founders such 

as HO NEN, SHINRAN, DO GEN, and Nichiren, in response 

to a Heian Buddhism increasingly dominated 

by the secular concerns of its aristocratic patrons. The 

period following the Kamakura is often seen as another 

time of decline, during which the reforming spirit of 

the Kamakura founders was lost once again. 

Needless to say, this neatly articulated account of 

the history of the various schools, however well it may 

reflect the self-understanding of the modern denominations, 

is hardly the whole, or necessarily the most 

instructive, story of Buddhism in Japan. Not surprisingly, 

it has been challenged by historians who seek a 

broader understanding of the character of the religion 

and its role in society. For such historians, an account 

that focuses on the sectarian traditions of the schools 

and the lives and teachings of their founding figures 

exaggerates not only the historical significance of a few 

great men but the historical status of the schools themselves. 

Even in the early modern and modern periods, 

when the institutional and intellectual definitions of 

the schools are fairly well established, popular Buddhist 

belief and practice has often, perhaps typically, 

been oblivious of sectarian distinctions, and the meaning 

of such distinctions during the premodern period 

developed only gradually over a millennium of Japanese 

history. 

Premodern background 

The founding of the Nara schools is but a minor note 

in the early history of Japanese Buddhism, which is itself 

but part of a larger story of the formation of a central 

Japanese court and its wholesale importation of 

continental culture during the seventh and eighth centuries. 

While the transmission of Chinese Buddhist 

books and ideas was certainly one feature of this 

process, far more conspicuous was the creation of a 

court-supported clerical establishment, housed at great 

monasteries in and around the capital cities. Much of 

the subsequent institutional history of Japanese Buddhism 

revolves around the shifting relations between 

the central government and the increasingly powerful 

and independent monastic centers. 


387

J APAN 

Throughout the eighth century, the court sought to 

bring Buddhism under civil control through the promulgation 

of regulations (so niryo ) governing the ordination, 

offices, and activities of monks and nuns. 

Court ambitions for a national Buddhism administered 

from the capital reached its apogee during the 

middle of the century, with the government’s dedication 

of the great bronze buddha image of Todaiji in 

Nara and the founding of national monasteries 

(kokubunji) in the provinces. What came to be known 

as the Nara schools of Buddhism represent simply the 

curriculum of the scholar monks of Todaiji and other 

officially recognized institutions in the capital, a curriculum 

of particular Buddhist texts for the study of 

which the government came to sponsor an annual allotment 

of ordination rights (nenbun dosha). 

Though the court would continue to claim authority 

to regulate the religion, the vision of a national 

Buddhism did not survive the Nara period. 

Already in this period, it is clear from government efforts 

to restrict it that Buddhism was taking on an 

independent life of its own, in the proliferation of unofficial 

monasteries sponsored by the laity (chikishiji), 

the development of independent centers of Buddhist 

practice, often associated with sacred mountains, and 

the unauthorized activities of popular preachers, 

healers, wonder-workers, and the like. These trends 

toward an independent Buddhism would only increase 

as the religion spread throughout the country 

and into all levels of society during the succeeding 

Heian period. 

The growing autonomy of Buddhism in the Heian 

period was occasioned not only by the diffusion of the 

religion to the populace but by the consolidation of 

power in the monastic centers. Just as the major aristocratic 

families came increasingly to dominate the 

court through the independent means provided by 

their private land holdings, so too certain monasteries 

acquired extensive property rights that made them significant 

socioeconomic institutions. As such, they were 

players in Heian politics, supported by, and in turn 

supporting, one or another faction at court; as a result, 

their elite clergy interacted with, and was itself often 

drawn from the scions of, the aristocracy. This development 

produced what is often referred to as Heian 

“aristocratic Buddhism,” with its ornate art and architecture, 

its elegant literary expression, and its elaborate 

ritual performance. 

The new style of autonomous Buddhist institution 

is well represented by Todaiji, with its historic status 

as a national shrine, and the great Kofukuji and Kasuga 

Shrine complex, with its links to the powerful Fujiwara 

clan. But the Nara monasteries were challenged 

and often superseded by institutions in and around the 

new capital of Heian (modern Kyoto), of which the 

most historically influential became Enryakuji, on 

Mount Hiei, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) Toji. 

The former was the seat of the Tendai school; the latter 

was the metropolitan base of the Shingon (which 

had established itself on isolated Mount Koya). Like 

Todaiji, Kofukuji, and other major monasteries, these 

institutions not only held significant land rights but 

developed networks of subsidiary temples that made 

them, in effect, the headquarters of extended organizations. 

The identity of the Tendai and Shingon organizations 

was ritually reinforced by the adoption of 

new, private rites of ordination (tokudo) and initiation 

(kanjo ) that supplemented and in some cases even replaced 

the standard rituals of Buddhist clerical practice. 

Thus, the first steps were taken toward a division 

of the Buddhist community into ritually distinct and 

institutionally separate ecclesiastic bodies. 

It is sometimes suggested that these great Buddhist 

institutions went into decline at the end of the Heian, 

to be replaced by the new Buddhism of the Kamakura 

period. In fact, such was their power and prestige that 

they continued to exercise great influence well into 

medieval times, as what is sometimes called by historians 

the exoteric-esoteric establishment (Kenmitsu 

taisei). Just as the rise of the provincial warriors in the 

Kamakura did not displace the old court aristocracy 

but rather added new layers of power, so too the development 

of new Buddhist movements did not replace 

the establishment but introduced additional 

options of religious belief, practice, and organization. 

While some of these options were resisted by members 

of the establishment, others were welcomed and, indeed, 

incorporated into the catholic Buddhism of the 

great monasteries. 

The decision to resist or accept rested heavily on the 

degree to which spokesmen for the new movements 

aggressively sought patronage in order to establish separate 

institutions. Thus, to cite the two most conspicuous 

examples of the time, while many within the 

Nara-Heian establishment saw both the Pure Land 

preachers’ call to faith in AMITABHA (Amida) and the 

Zen masters’ emphasis on meditation as legitimate 

forms of Buddhist teaching, they opposed those versions 

of the teachings that sought to convert the laity 

to the new movements as alternatives to other forms 

of Buddhism. In this issue, we see not simply a famil- 


J APAN 

iar institutional struggle for patronage but the rise of 

a novel model of religious organization, in which the 

laity identifies with, and becomes, in effect, a member 

of a particular Buddhist faction. The new model 

would become increasingly popular during the medieval 

period (especially in the traditions of Pure 

Land, Nichiren, and Soto Zen) and led to the development 

of powerful national organizations that could 

claim millions of adherents. This is the prime institutional 

development that made possible the formal division 

of Japanese Buddhism into the denominations 

of early modern and modern times. 

Belief and practice 

The outreach to lay believers characteristic of some of 

the new movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 

involved not only novel institutional models but 

new styles of Buddhist belief and practice. Conspicuous 

among these is a style, sometimes termed “selective 

Buddhism” (senchaku bukkyo ), in which the 

believer is urged to exclusive faith in a particular version 

of Buddhist teaching and exclusive commitment 

to a particular form of spiritual practice. So, for example, 

preachers of the Pure Land movement called 

for abandonment of the spiritual exercises of the bodhisattva 

path in favor of faith in the vow of the Buddha 

Amida to take his devotees into his Western Pure 

Land. Similarly, followers of the Tendai reformer 

Nichiren sharply criticized other forms of Buddhism 

and taught exclusive resort to the Lotus Su tra and its 

revelation of the ongoing ministry of the Buddha 

Śakyamuni. In both these movements, the new selective 

style was justified in part by the doctrine that Buddhist 

history had entered its “final age” (mappo ), a 

period of spiritual decline during which it was no 

longer possible to achieve buddhahood through the 

traditional practices of the monastic community. 

Monks of Tofukuji, Kyoto, going out to beg for alms, 1992. © Don 

Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

This new religious style of popular outreach, lay organization, 

and sectarian faith is often said to constitute 

a “reformation” of Japanese Buddhism, through 

which the religion emerged from the confines of the 

cloister into the lives of ordinary people. Yet this account, 

based heavily on a model provided by the Pure 

Land tradition (and influenced in modern times by 

Western religious historiography), hardly does justice 

to the full range of Buddhism in the late Heian and 

Kamakura periods. It does not, for example, adequately 

account for one of the most conspicuous developments 

of the age: the renewed emphasis within 

the Buddhist establishment on monastic discipline and 

the founding of major centers of Chinese-style monastic 

practice within the new Zen movement. And it tells 

us little about the religious lives of the bulk of Buddhists, 

who neither entered the monasteries nor joined 

the new movements. Hence, historians of the period 

warn against a narrow focus on the novel teachings of 

the new Kamakura movements, often preferring to see 

them against the background of an older, broader religious 

style of thought and practice that permeated the 

medieval Buddhist world—a style we may loosely call 

mikkyo , or “esoteric teachings.” 

The esoteric style developed initially within the 

schools of Tendai and Shingon but spread widely during 

the Heian period to influence all forms of Japanese 

Buddhism. This style was built on a common 

MAHAYANA vision of universal buddhahood—universal 

both in the metaphysical sense that the “dharma 

body” of the buddha was present in all things and all 

people, and in the soteriological sense that all people 

could themselves become buddhas through the realization 

of this presence. Given such a vision—what 

scholars sometimes call ORIGINAL ENLIGHTENMENT 


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J APAN 

The famous Zen garden at the Ryoanji, Kyoto, Japan, which probably dates from the late fifteenth century. © Abe Ahn and Tim Ciccone, 

www.orientalarchitecture.com. Reproduced by permission. 

(HONGAKU) thought—the chief religious issue was often 

cast in terms less of how one might purify and perfect 

the self than of how one might best contact the 

realm of universal buddhahood and tap into its power. 

The new Buddhist movements of the Kamakura period 

can themselves be seen as variant strategies for answering 

this question. 

Thus, for example, the Pure Land teachings tended 

to treat the symbol of buddhahood in anthropomorphic 

terms, as the figure of the Buddha AMITABHA, and 

to understand the universality of enlightenment as the 

unlimited power of Amitabha’s compassionate concern 

for all beings. The religious strategy, then, was to 

access this power by surrendering the pride that separated 

us from Amitabha, humbly accepting his help, 

and calling his name (nenbutsu) in faith and thanksgiving. 

In contrast, the new Zen movement preferred 

to think of universal buddhahood less in anthropomorphic 

than in epistemological terms, as a subliminal 

mode of consciousness shared by all beings. Here, 

the prime religious problem lay not in pride but in the 

habits of thought that obscured the enlightened consciousness, 

and the chief religious strategy was to suspend 

such habits, through Zen meditation (zazen), in 

order to “uncover” the buddha mind within. 

For its own part, the esoteric tradition itself tended 

to conceive of buddhahood in cosmological terms, as 

the hidden macrocosm of which the human world was 

the manifest embodiment. An elaborate system of homologies 

was developed between the properties of the 

buddha realm and the physical features of Japan, between 

the deities of the Buddhist pantheon and the local 

gods of Japan, between the virtues of the cosmic 

buddha and the psychophysical characteristics of the 

individual, and so on. The chief means of communication 

between the two realms was ritual practice— 

recitation of spells and prayers, performance of mystic 

gestures, repentance, sacrifice, PILGRIMAGE, and the 

like—through which the forces of the other realm were 

contacted and channeled into this world, and the people 

and places of this world were mystically empowered 

by (or revealed as) the sacred realities of the 

buddha realm. 

This cosmological style of religion is often now held 

up as one of the key unifying forces of Japanese Buddhism, 

a force that flows across history, from the 


J APAN, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

Heian, through the medieval period, and even into 

modern times; a force that spreads across the boundaries 

of clerical and lay communities or elite and popular 

Buddhism—a force, in fact, that reaches beyond 

Buddhism proper into Shinto and FOLK RELIGION, allowing 

a remarkable freedom of accommodation between 

the more universal Buddhist vision and the 

various local Japanese beliefs and practices. The prevalence 

of this style may help to explain why Japanese 

Buddhists tend to think of their dead as ancestral “buddha” 

(hotoke) spirits dwelling in the other world, and 

why, though the Buddhist denominations today are so 

sharply divided in formal doctrine and institutional 

organization, they are so similar in their social function 

as the intermediaries between the realms of the 

living and the dead. 

See also: Chan School; Clerical Marriage in Japan; 

Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu) Buddhism in Japan; 

Horyuji and Todaiji; Japan, Buddhist Art in; Japanese 

Royal Family and Buddhism; Kamakura Buddhism, 

Japan; Mahayana Precepts in Japan; Meiji 

Buddhist Reform; Nara Buddhism; Parish (Danka, 

Terauke) System in Japan; Pure Land Schools; Shingon 

Buddhism, Japan; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and 

Buddhism; Tiantai School; Temple System in Japan 

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Press, 1999. 

Bielefeldt, Carl. Do gen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation. Berkeley: 


Blum, Mark L. The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism: 

A Study and Translation of Gyo nen’s Jo do Ho mon Genrusho 

. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 



Collcutt, Martin. Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution 

in Medieval Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 1981. 

Dobbins, James C. Jo do Shinshu : Shin Buddhism in Medieval 

Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. 

Fauré, Bernard. Visions of Power: Imagining Medieval Japanese 

Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. 



Press, 1992. 

Groner, Paul. Ryo gen: The Restoration and Transformation of the 

Tendai School. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. 

Groner, Paul. Saicho : The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai 

School. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. 

Jaffe, Richard M. Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage 

in Modern Japanese Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


Kasahara, Kazuo, ed. A History of Japanese Religion. Tokyo: Kosei 

Publishing, 2001. 



Press, 1990. 

Lafleur, William R. The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary 

Arts in Medieval Japan. Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1983. 

McMullin, Neil. Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth Century 


Payne, Richard K., ed. Re-Visioning Kamakura Buddhism. Honolulu: 


Reader, Ian. Religion in Contemporary Japan. Honolulu: University 


Ruppert, Brian D. Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power 

in Early Medieval Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 2000. 

Stone, Jacqueline. Original Enlightenment and the Transformation 

of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of 


Tamamura Yoshio. Japanese Buddhism: A Cultural History. 

Tokyo: Charles Tuttle, 2001. 




Tanabe, George J., Jr., ed. Religions of Japan in Practice. Princeton, 


Yamasaki, Taiko. Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism. Boston: 

Shambala Publications, 1988. 

JAPAN, BUDDHIST ART IN 


The juxtaposition of the words Buddhist and art may 

seem natural, requiring no comment. But this concept 

is of recent vintage and stems from encounters between 

traditional societies and modern interpreters. 

In the case of Japan, the creation of an elite canon of 

“Buddhist art” took place in the late nineteenth century, 

building upon earlier precedents. Over the twentieth 

century, numerous temple buildings, icons, and 

other objects received state-approved designations as 

National Treasure, Important Cultural Property, and 


391


Important Art Object. Artifacts not deemed artistically 

or historically important have receded from view. 

Many “art objects” left temple precincts for the art 

market and now reside in museums and private collections 

both in Japan and abroad. Icons in temple 

settings, whether on permanent view or revealed periodically, 

as often submit to the gaze of tourists and 

photographers as to visiting worshippers or temple 

congregations. 

Japanese Buddhist art refers primarily to sculpture 

and painting of the seventh through thirteenth centuries, 

which is perceived to be the most creative period. 

Canonical objects were commissioned by elite 

patrons who founded temples and engaged the services 

of metalworkers, woodcarvers, painters, weavers, and 

lacquerers—artisans in every media. Initially, people 

without wealth and property who contributed their labor 

and skill in the service of the elite would not have 

participated in the religious practices their productions 

served. Over time some artisans rose in status as they 

held lower aristocratic rank or obtained honorary Buddhist 

titles for their service at court. By the thirteenth 

century some painters and carvers joined their patrons 

as donors, even signing their names inside images or 

on paintings. As Buddhism spread both geographically 

and socially, groups of devotees visited temples 

and made monetary donations for the construction 

and upkeep of images, halls, and festivals. Indeed, by 

the sixteenth century temples depended on patronage 

from all levels of society as merchants and artisans 

grew wealthy at the expense of the aristocratic and 

military elites. 

Many scholars now challenge long-held assumptions 

about what constitutes “Buddhist art” and 

whether such a concept remains valid. Art historians 

and Buddhologists have renewed their scrutiny of objects, 

sites, practices, and beliefs long forgotten, giving 

more attention to functions and audiences than to aesthetic 

properties, and hence opening up later periods 

and commoner arts to scholarly inquiry. With this 

process in mind, this entry focuses specifically upon 

the dynamic of making and using “Buddhist art” in 

Japan: It only hints at specific objects, their style, 

iconography, and relationships to other objects. 

MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE, PORTRAITURE, and arts associated 

with individual schools of Buddhism are 

treated in separate entries. Unlike some Asian countries, 

Japan has preserved material and documentary 

traces of Buddhist patronage to a remarkable degree. 

Much that is discussed in this entry would have been 

equally true for other Buddhist countries. 

Consecrated images 

The most prominent Buddhist objects are cast, carved, 

modeled, or painted images of buddhas and bodhisattvas 

(collectively, butsuzo ). In the eyes of makers 

and worshippers, these things were not sculpture, statuary, 

or painting, but were rather animate, living images 

that manifested the aura of the deities they 

represented. Materials—most commonly wood, silk, 

mineral pigments, and gold—were themselves sacred, 

prepared and worked by artisans who were part of the 

Buddhist establishment. When an image was finished, 

an eye-opening (kaigen) ceremony was held in which 

the officiant dotted in the pupils of the eyes to signify 

its birth as a sacred image. Once animated, an image 

would be placed on a temple altar or in a temporary 

space, to be provided with offerings of light, incense, 

water, and food. 

Large altar platforms in the main halls of Buddhist 

temples from all periods generally held ensembles 

of images including BUDDHAS, BODHISATTVAS, and 

guardian figures. In many cases these images date 

from different periods and have separate histories, 

and may have come from other temples or private residences. 

Whether an altar maintains its originally 

planned complement of images, or has been changed, 

a central buddha or bodhisattva image serves as the 

main icon of the hall. That image is generally larger 

in scale than attendant deities. In addition to buddha 

icons and ensembles in the main halls, most temples 

also established separate halls devoted to a single deity 

worshipped alone or as part of an ensemble. 

Much smaller images, both carved and painted, were 

often made for particular occasions and may have been 

used only once or periodically. During ceremonies and 

lectures, images served as the fundamental deity (honzon), 

were offered greetings, offerings, prayers, music, 

and the like, and were then de-animated as the ceremony 

closed. Smaller images could be returned to 

shrine boxes or temple storehouses. Some images became 

the focus of monthly or yearly ceremonies or 

sutra readings, but many were kept secret, locked away 

in cabinets that ultimately enhanced their efficacy and 

aided in their preservation. 

Because buddha images must be made to exacting 

iconographical standards, most in fact copy other images, 

leaving little room for innovation on the part of 

their makers, except perhaps in stylistic detail or technique. 

The act of making and worshipping an image 

was a good deed, and inscribed or documented examples 

reveal that buddha images were dedicated to trans- 



fer merit to someone else, to cure illness, to improve 

the KARMA (ACTION) of someone already deceased, to 

pray for future generations, and to beseech protection 

of family and state. Such motivations have remained 

constant for centuries. 

The statue of Vairocana Buddha at Todaiji, Nara, Japan. This 

statue is a seventeenth-century replacement for a destroyed eighthcentury 

original. © Robert D. Fiala, Concordia University, Seward, 

Nebraska. Reproduced by permission. 

Cast, carved, and modeled images 

Small images initially came to Japan as the baggage of 

immigrants from the Korean peninsula during the 

mid-sixth century. Official accounts of the introduction 

of the dharma from the Korean peninsula devote 

considerable attention to gifts of BUDDHA IMAGES, to 

their circulation among the elite, and to building temples 

to house them. The first images do not survive, 

but numerous sixth- and seventh-century examples of 

both imported and local manufacture remain. Most are 

of gilt-bronze, less than fifty centimeters in height; their 

iconographic and stylistic diversity reflects both earlier 

and contemporary developments on the mainland. 

Thus Shaka (Śakyamuni), Yakushi (Bhaisajyaguru), 

Miroku (MAITREYA), and Kannon (Avalokiteśvara) 

predominate. These earliest images are generally not 

inscribed or recorded in documents, nor do they remain 

in their original settings. 

During the seventh and eighth centuries, members 

of the court took up image-making on a grand scale, 

sponsoring a succession of massive projects designed 

to unite the populace, assert state authority, and create 

a material presence for the Buddhist establishment 

to rival those abroad. A succession of increasingly ambitious 

state temples built in Fujiwara-kyo and Heijokyo 

(among them Hokoji, Daikandaiji, and Yakushiji) 

culminated in the building of Todaiji, with its colossal 

cast bronze and gilded image of Rushana (Vairocana), 

a project modeled directly on Tang-dynasty precedents. 

Because bronze was too costly for most image 

production, during the eighth century state and temple 

workshops employed a variety of carving and modeling 

techniques to achieve an increasingly lifelike 

appearance. Horyuji, Todaiji, and Kofukuji all contain 

numerous life-size or larger images of clay modeled 

on a wooden armature, as well as those modeled in 

lacquer-soaked cloth over a wooden frame. Mineral 

pigments and gold enhanced the surface of the images. 

These costly and time-consuming techniques died 

out in the late eighth century as a result of patronage 

shifts and the closing of temple and state workshops. 

During the late eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, Buddhism 

spread throughout the provinces, where local 

leaders built temples in the mountains and on provincial 

estates. Image-making in wood proliferated, resulting 

in a variety of regional styles, iconographies, 

and carving techniques. 

Buddha and bodhisattva images were not the only 

deities within temple precincts in the eighth and later 

centuries. Powerful local deities (kami) played critical 

roles in the lives of temples and monks, as for instance 

when in 749 a HACHIMAN shrine was built at Todaiji. 

The making of carved images of kami began in the 

ninth century, and representations of Hachiman at 

Toji, Yakushiji, and elsewhere attest their growing importance 

as protectors of the dharma. Due to the “Separation 

of Gods and Buddhas” edicts of the 1870s, 

however, the prominence of kami images and the 

shrines that housed them at Buddhist temples has 

largely been obscured or forgotten. 

During the eleventh century in the capital Kyoto, 

members of the Fujiwara and ruling families dedicated 

themselves to temple-building and image-making on 

a grand scale. To meet their demands, wood-carvers 

devised an effective method for carving multiple blocks 

of wood, which were hollowed and reassembled to 


393


This statue depicts the Shinto deity Hachiman as a Buddhist priest. 

(Japanese sculpture by Kaikei, ca. 1201.) © Sakamoto Photo Research 

Laboratory/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

create large numbers of relatively lightweight images 

in a variety of challenging poses. This “joined woodblock” 

technique, augmented in the late twelfth century 

by painted glass eyes and painted or gilded 

surfaces, became the norm in later centuries. From the 

eleventh century, carvers and their assistants organized 

themselves into family-based workshops where such 

techniques and styles were passed on from one generation 

to the next. 

Hollowing out images created spaces where objects 

were deposited and inscriptions written. These inscriptions 

often give the date and circumstances of 

production, and include the names of donors and 

carvers. Objects deposited include dedicatory vows, 

sutras, smaller images, and personal possessions. 

Where intact, these collections of objects provide revealing 

information about the beliefs and practices of 

image-making. 

Painted images 

In addition to three-dimensional images installed on 

temple altars or kept in small shrine boxes, the walls 

of some temple buildings were themselves painted with 

ensembles of buddhas (Horyuji Golden Hall, early 

eighth century), deities of esoteric mandalas and Shingon 

patriarchs (Daigoji pagoda, 851), representations 

of the nine stages of Amida’s descent (Phoenix Hall, 

Byodoin, 1053), and other subjects. But most walls 

were never painted or have lost their paintings due to 

repeated restorations. Instead, buddhas and bodhisattvas 

were painted on silk, mounted in scroll format, 

and hung only for special occasions ranging from 

state-sponsored rites to childbirth or death rituals. The 

largest of these were the size of temple walls, and 

represented AMITABHA’s pure land, the two-world 

MAN D ALA of esoteric deities, and depictions of Śakyamuni’s 

parinirvana. 

Painted images often incorporated a profusion of 

deities and landscape or architectural settings and 

local Japanese details. Representations of Amida’s descent 

(raigo ) for instance, often show Amida (Amitabha) 

and his entourage descending in a seasonal 

landscape to a dying believer recognizably in aristocratic 

dress and surroundings. In some cases, dreams 

or visions led to the creation of hitherto unseen 

iconography, as in the case of standing deities, different 

colorations or attributes, or unusual juxtapositions. 

Paintings depicting buddhas (honji) and their 

kami manifestations (suijaku), or shrine and temple 

precincts, produced from the thirteenth and later centuries, 

reveal the localization of Buddhist beliefs and 

practices. 

Texts and tales 

The arrival of Buddhism in Japan brought with it the 

written word and an enormous body of sacred literature, 

including sutras, commentaries, practice manuals, 

and miraculous tales. Thousands of manuscripts 

survive from the eighth century on, some beautifully 

handwritten or printed, crafted of fine materials, or incorporating 

painting. Unlike living images installed on 

altars and wreathed in incense, flowers, and candle 

light during ceremonies, manuscripts brought individual 

devotees closer to the dharma, whether they 

themselves read or wrote the texts, or experienced 

them through lecture or oral storytelling. 

Sutra-copying was central to Buddhist practice in 

Japan from the earliest period, as every temple needed 

copies of basic texts. During the eighth century, most 

were produced at the state-sponsored workshop at 

Todaiji, but individual monks and lay patrons made 

their own copies for private use or donation. Like 

image-making and temple-building, sutra-copying 

was an act of devotion and merit, requiring a reverent 



attitude. Sutras were copied for a variety of occasions 

and reasons, and their completion was often accompanied 

by ceremonies or lectures. In the eleventh-century 

court, lavish projects to copy the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) mobilized teams of 

aristocrats who chose the finest materials—colored 

and decorated paper, gold and silver ink—to create 

manuscripts of extraordinary beauty and richness. The 

boom in sutra-copying in the mid-eleventh century 

was related to belief that the world had entered the final 

era of the dharma (mappo ). Many monks and lay 

patrons buried hand-copied sutras in specially designed 

sutra mounds (kyo zuka), in remote mountain 

settings where they were protected by local kami while 

awaiting the advent of Miroku (Maitreya). In some 

cases, letters or picture books of the deceased would 

be used as the paper for sutras written out by their descendants 

on behalf of the departed. But most sutracopying 

projects were a simple matter of ink and paper, 

and a private vow from the writer; most ended up in 

temple or family storehouses. This practice of copying 

sutras still flourishes at temples and in private homes. 

In addition to sutras, Buddhist literature abounds 

in biographies and miracle tales, many illustrated. 

The life of Śakyamuni was among the first narrative 

sequences to be represented in Japan in both sculpture 

(Horyuji pagoda) and painting. But the initial 

focus on Śakyamuni quickly expanded to include 

miracle tales, both imported and localized. In the 

tenth century, the Sanbo e (Illustrations of the Three 

Jewels), written on behalf of a princess, included 

painted depictions of episodes from the history of 

Buddhism as well as of contemporary Japanese religious 

festivals and ceremonies. 

Many temple icons were believed to have miraculous 

origins, and these origin tales (engi) were frequently 

illustrated in painted narratives. More 

extensive painted scrolls treat entire temple histories, 

from the making of icons, building of halls, to miracles 

wrought by their deities. A major genre of illustrated 

narrative was the sacred biography. In addition 

to Śakyamuni, the life of Prince SHO TOKU was illustrated 

repeatedly, first at temples he founded such as 

Shitennoji and Horyuji, and at numerous temples that 

claimed him as founder. At least as early as the eleventh 

century, painted narrative cycles of famous patriarchs 

stressed aspects of their lineage and teaching. Interest 

in the lives of teachers peaked in the thirteenth and 

fourteenth centuries with the lavish productions of 

pictorial biographies of Pure Land patriarchs IPPEN 

CHISHIN, HO NEN, and Ryonen produced in numerous 

copies for distribution to branch temples. Some of 

these survive in such pristine condition that one wonders 

if they were ever viewed. The small scale of handheld 

narrative scrolls proved unsuitable for more than 

intimate viewing, but at Dojoji (Wakayama prefecture) 

picture-explaining monks (etoki ho shi) unroll a largeformat 

scroll to tell the infamous story of Kiyohime’s 

unrequited love for a monk and her transformation 

into a dragon, which follows the monk to Dojoji and 

incinerates him with her fiery breath. 

However, large hanging scrolls more commonly 

served for picture-explaining lectures directed at visitors 

and pilgrims. Prince Shotoku’s life may have been 

the first instance of this, but many such wall-sized biographies 

and origin tales exist from the thirteenth and 

later centuries, often now worn and tattered from repeated 

use. In the sixteenth and later centuries many 

temples and shrines utilized pilgrimage mandala to instruct 

visitors about the history of their institution, its 

halls and deities, and miracles that had occurred within 

their precincts. These paintings served as effective 

fund-raising devices, as did representations of the six 

realms of existence (rokudo ) with their emphasis upon 

punishment and hell. Such paintings, crude in execution 

but powerful in message, were carried about by 

itinerant storytellers who worked the roadsides, festivals, 

cities, and even private gatherings. 

Practical needs 

Buddhist temples and their affiliated shrines are repositories 

of the myriad finely crafted objects used to 

adorn temple halls, ritual implements employed in ceremonies, 

articles used by temple inhabitants, and precious 

gifts donated by lay patrons. These constituted 

part of a temple’s material wealth, and thus could be 

sold if need dictated. Among the temples noted for 

their extensive storehouses are Horyuji (seventh- and 

eighth-century textiles and metalwork, etc.), Todaiji 

(eighth-century objects in all media of foreign and native 

manufacture), Toji and Daigoji (esoteric arts and 

manuscripts of all periods), Kozanji (manuscripts and 

printed books, including those from China and Korea), 

DAITOKUJI (imported Chinese paintings, calligraphies, 

and tea utensils), and Kodaiji (lacquerware and 

textiles), to name a few. 

The many public and private ceremonies conducted 

at Buddhist temples or even in private residences utilized 

a variety of finely crafted objects for sacred adornment 

(so gon) and in actual practice. Painted and woven 

banners were hung or were carried by participants in 


395

J APANESE, BUDDHIST I NFLUENCES ON V ERNACULAR L ITERATURE IN 

processions. Altar tables held ritual implements, incense 

burners, water dishes, and other items of bronze, 

gold, and silver. Monastic surplices, altar cloths, seat 

cushions, and other sacred textiles were made from 

donated women’s garments. Black lacquer with sprinkled 

gold patterns or precious inlays of silver or 

mother-of-pearl, adorned tables, cabinets, and boxes 

for storing objects, clothing, and sacred texts. Large 

ceremonies and theatrical performances required musical 

instruments, masks, and costumes. 

Because many temples also served as the private 

retreats for elite patrons, especially noblemen and 

women who themselves became monks and nuns, 

many paintings, manuscripts, textiles, lacquerware 

and other objects housed in temple storehouses cannot 

properly be characterized as “Buddhist art” even 

though they were perceived as “temple treasures.” 

The lower levels of society also participated in the 

material cultures of Buddhism, especially during the sixteenth 

and later centuries when a rise in quasi-religious 

travel by commoners created precursors of contemporary 

tourism. Temple icons, both carved and painted, 

were put on periodic display during temple airings and 

were sometimes sent outside temple precincts for 

fund-raising purposes. Devotional objects made expressly 

for purchase by visitors include printed Buddha 

images and sutras, AMULETS AND TALISMANS, and 

painted wooden plaques (ema) upon which prayers to 

specific deities are written. Pilgrims often left paper 

“calling cards” on temple gates, they piled up stones 

in the form of a STU PA, and deposited small carved 

Buddha images in the rafters of temple halls. In addition 

to PILGRIMAGE, temples also established vast funerary 

precincts that have become extraordinary stone 

graveyards, most notably near the tombs of Prince 

Shotoku, KU KAI, Honen, and other holy figures. While 

such material manifestations of Buddhist practice are 

not usually termed art, they are nonetheless a continuing 

feature of the visual culture of Buddhist practice 

in Japan today. 

See also: Chan Art; China, Buddhist Art in; Hells, Images 

of; Honji Suijaku; Horyuji and Todaiji; Huayan 

Art; Phoenix Hall (at the Byodoin); Pure Land Art 

Bibliography 

Cunningham, Michael R., ed. Buddhist Treasures from Nara. 


Kanda, Christine Guth. Shinzo : Hachiman Imagery and Its Development. 


McCallum, Donald F. Zenko ji and Its Icon: A Study in Medieval 

Japanese Religious Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1994. 

Morse, Anne Nishimura, and Morse, Samuel Crowell. Object as 

Insight: Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual. Katonah, NY: Katonah 

Museum of Art, 1995. 

Rosenfield, John M., and ten Grotenhuis, Elizabeth. Journey of 

the Three Jewels: Japanese Buddhist Paintings from Western 

Collections. New York: Asia Society, 1979. 

Sanford, James H.; LaFleur, William R.; and Nagatomi 

Masayoshi. Flowing Traces: Buddhism in the Literary and Visual 

Arts of Japan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 

1992. 

Sharf, Robert H., and Sharf, Elizabeth Horton, eds. Living Images: 

Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context. Stanford, CA: Stanford 


Sugiyama, Jiro. Classic Buddhist Sculpture: The Tempyo Period, 

tr. Samuel Crowell Morse. New York: Kodansha International 

and Shibundo, 1982. 

Tanabe, Willa J. Paintings of the Lotus Su tra. New York and 

Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1988. 



1999. 

Yiengpruksawan, Mimi Hall. Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional 

Politics in Twelfth-Century Japan. Cambridge, MA: 



JAPANESE, BUDDHIST INFLUENCES ON 

VERNACULAR LITERATURE IN 

Japanese secular literature is grounded in ways of feeling, 

thinking, and behaving that developed centuries 

before they were defined by the classifications used today: 

Shinto (Way of the Gods), the national memory 

of ancient myths and rituals; Buddhism, a religion 

teaching spiritual enlightenment, which originated in 

India circa 500 B.C.E. and spread to Japan through 

China by the middle of the sixth century C.E.; and Confucian 

social philosophy, which trickled into Japan 

from China and was selectively adapted to the country’s 

needs. 

It is equally important to stress that Western attitudes 

concerning proper feeling, thinking, and 

behavior—through the Christian missions circa 1549– 

1630, eighteenth-century Enlightenment notions of 

democracy, Marxism, and such—have left their mark 


J APANESE, BUDDHIST I NFLUENCES ON V ERNACULAR L ITERATURE IN 

mainly since the Meiji Restoration of 1868. To appreciate 

Japan’s literature is first to come to terms with 

Japan’s own deeply seated ideological roots before attempting 

to impose values and critical analyses developed 

in other societies. 

Evidence of Buddhist influence on Japanese vernacular 

literature—both doctrinal and secular 

writings—can be seen, of course, in obvious references 

to pagodas, sutras, and monks. But a more difficult, 

and far more rewarding, understanding can be found 

by exploring the aesthetic milieu that informs this literature 

rooted in a native tradition assimilated with 

Buddhism and Confucianism. The two oldest surviving 

Japanese literary works—composed in Chinese— 

the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters, 712 C.E.) and the 

Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720 C.E.), have much 

to offer historically, but say little about Buddhist literature. 

They offer slight opportunity to share an author’s 

feelings, ideals, and sentiments with the immediacy 

that distinguishes literature from reporting. 

The following short thirty-one-syllable Japanese 

poem (waka) by Buddhist novice Manzei (fl. 704–731) 

is a rare example of a verse arguably revealing Buddhist 

influence. This poem first appears in the monumental 

Man’yo shu (Collection of Ten Thousand 

Leaves, ca. 759): 

To what 

shall I compare this life? 

to the white wake 

of a boat rowing away 

at the break of dawn. 

yo no naka wo 

nani ni tatoen 

asaborake 

kogiyuku fune no 

ato no shiranami 

The reasons for the late appearance of Buddhist imagery 

and ideals in Japanese literary works were simply 

the late development of a comfortable vocabulary 

to supersede the often abrasive transliterations of Chinese 

(and even Indian) religious technical terms into 

the more fluid native language (yamato kotoba) and 

the refinement of a phonetic (kana) syllabary to supplant 

the often stodgy Chinese compounds. The syllabary, 

traditionally attributed to KU KAI (774–835), is 

now believed to have developed gradually, becoming 

standardized by the late eleventh century. The anonymous 

I-ro-ha uta (Syllabary Song), an imayo (“modernstyle”) 

verse organizing all but one of the syllabary’s 

sounds (“-n-”), first appeared in a work written in 

1079, and is still a familiar furnishing of the Japanese 

literary consciousness. Its message is the ancient Buddhist 

theme of ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE; mujo ): 

Blossoms glow 

but then they scatter, 

and in this life of ours 

who endures? 

Today we cross the 

dense mound 

of worldly illusion, 

dissolving our 

shallow dreams, 

beyond inebriation. 

iro ha ni(h)o(h)e to 

chirinuru wo 

wak[g]a yo tare so 

tsune naramu 

u[wi] no okuyama 

kefu koete 

asaki yume mish[j]i 

[w]ehi mo ses[z]u 

It should be noted, however, that this sense of impermanence, 

in spite of its terminology and somber 

shadings, is a powerful affirmation of the value and 

wonder of every moment of our brief lives. The courtly 

priest Yoshida Kenko declares in his Tsurezuregusa 

(Essays in Idleness, ca. 1330–1333): “If man were never 

to fade away like the dews of Adashino, never to vanish 

like the smoke over Toribeyama, but lingered on 

forever in this world, how things would lose their 

power to move us [mono no aware]! The most precious 

thing in life is its uncertainty” (Seeds in the Heart, 

p. 859). Some time later the great Nativist scholar 

Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801)—no friend of 

Buddhism—characterized Genji monogatari (The Tale 

of Genji, ca. 1007) as a novel of mono no aware, though 

he defined it somewhat differently, possibly as “sensitivity 

to the wonder of things.” 

It is also well known that in her defense of fiction 

(“lies” in the opinion of traditional moralists), Lady 

Murasaki, the author of Genji monogatari, appealed to 

the Buddhist doctrine of skillful means (ho ben; Sanskrit, 

upaya), which is so tenaciously argued in the 

LOTUS SU TRA (Saddharmapundarlka-su tra; Japanese, 

Myo ho rengekyo ), the source of seven parables whose 

imagery permeates traditional secular literature. There 

are many routes to religious enlightenment expressed 

through a variety of mythologies, modes of practice, 

and necessary “fictional” devices possible in literature. 

The blandness of many modern translations of traditional 

Japanese poetry and literature is often the result 

of its being sanitized to conform to Western expectations 

rather than asking the Western reader to suspend 

disbelief in a fascinating world of alien values and ideas. 


397

J APANESE R OYAL F AMILY AND B UDDHISM 

The aesthetics of mono no aware lead us to the related 

ideal of “mystery and depth” (yu gen), of major 

importance to the poetry of the Shinkokinshu (New 

Collection of Ancient and Modern Times, ca. 1206) and 

the Muromachi Noh theater. The phrase first appears 

in a Chinese Buddhist commentary, and the comments 

of Kamo no Chomei (1153–1216), the author of Ho jo ki 

(Essays in Idleness), point to the emotional ideal while 

reminding us of Buddhism’s understanding of the limitations 

of reason: 

On an autumn evening, for example, there is no color 

in the sky nor any sound, yet although we cannot give 

any definite reason for it, we are somehow moved to 

tears. . . . It should be evident that this is a matter impossible 

for people of little sensibility to understand. . . . 

How can such things be easily learned or expressed precisely 

in words? 

How, for example, can we explain why the following 

poem by Shunzei (1114–1204) moves us? And why 

should we try? 

As evening falls, 

autumn wind across 

the moors 

blows chill into 

the heart, 

and a quail seems to 

be crying 

in the deep grass 

of Fukakusa. 

yu sareba 

nobe no akikaze 

mi ni shimite 

uzura naku nari 

Fukakusa no sato 

But Japanese and English literature, however their 

fruits may compare or contrast, nevertheless shared a 

common chronological timeline. The bards of the Old 

English epic poem Beowulf were contemporaries of the 

guild of reciters (kataribe) that produced the Record of 

Ancient Matters. 


Literature in; Cosmology; Entertainment and Performance; 

Ikkyu; Poetry and Buddhism; Ryokan; Shinto 

(Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

deBary, William Theodore; Keene, Donald; Tanabe, George; 

and Varley, Paul, eds. Sources of Japanese Tradition, 2nd edition. 

Vol. 1: From Earliest Times to 1600. New York: Columbia 


Keene, Donald. Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenko . 

New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967. 

Keene, Donald. Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest 

Times to the Late Sixteenth Century. New York: Henry 

Holt, 1993. 

LaFleur, William R. The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary 

Arts in Medieval Japan. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University 


Miner, Earl; Hiroko Odagiri; and Morrell, Robert E., eds. The 

Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature. Princeton, 


Tanabe, George J., Jr., ed. Religions of Japan in Practice. Princeton, 


ROBERT E. MORRELL 

Without minimizing the profound influences of 

Shinto and Confucianism on traditional Japanese 

thought and feeling, we must recognize the preeminence 

of Buddhism in shaping the nation’s artistic 

production, providing much of its imagery and aesthetic 

direction. The impermanence (mujo ) behind the 

ideal of “sensitivity to things” and “mystery and 

depth,” the consciousness of moral retribution between 

existences (sukuse, karma), and myriad halfsensed 

feelings and images from an antique past 

inform a rich literature of some five centuries of histories, 

poetry (waka, renga, haiku, . . . ), novels (monogatari), 

“essays” (zuihitsu), anecdotal “tale literature” 

(setsuwa), theater (Noh, joruri, kabuki, and their modern 

successors), memoirs (nikki), and travel diaries 

(kiko ). 

JAPANESE ROYAL FAMILY 

AND BUDDHISM 

Although the royal family of Japan, headed by the 

tenno (heavenly monarch), has since 1868 been identified 

by the Japanese media and government with 

Shinto, it long led a religious life dominated by Buddhism. 

It was, indeed, the prince-regent SHO TOKU 

(574–622) who was identified as having the greatest 

impact on the early history of Buddhism in Japan, in 

emphatically supporting Buddhism in early proclamations, 

in supporting the construction of major temples 

such as Shitennoji in O saka, and in writing—or, 

more likely, sponsoring—one or more of the commentaries 

on Buddhist scriptures that have been attributed 

to him. 


J APANESE R OYAL F AMILY AND B UDDHISM 

The eighth-century sovereign Shomu combined a 

deep faith in Buddhism with an effort to incorporate 

the faith into his effort to undergird his authority. Following 

several years of natural disasters and pestilence, 

while queen Kogo administered a new and extremely 

active sutra-copying bureau, Shomu hatched a plan to 

establish a national system of provincial temples and 

nunneries (kokubunji). He surprisingly described himself 

at the dedication of the Great Buddha at Todaiji 

in Nara as a “slave” of the Three Jewels (a reference to 

Buddha, his teachings, and his community). 

Although the period after Shomu was infamous for 

the undue influence of clerics over the ruler, whatever 

qualms the family and court had vis-à-vis the Buddhists 

were no longer evident by the early ninth century, 

when sovereigns balanced support of the Nara 

schools with that of the new Tendai and Shingon 

schools. From the 830s on, Buddhist rites formed an 

increasingly large role in the ritual life of the royal family 

and court: The Shingon monk KU KAI successfully 

petitioned for the inauguration of the annual esoteric 

Latter Seven-Day Rite (go-shichinichi mishiho), to be 

conducted from January 8 through January 14, simultaneously 

with the long-established exoteric Misai’e 

(Gosai’e) rite for the welfare of ruler and realm, and 

for the construction of the palace chapel, Shingon’in 

in Kyoto. 

Increasing domination of the royal family by the 

northern Fujiwaras from the late ninth century on 

was also marked by an effort to promote the ruler’s 

authority in religious terms. For example, the increase 

in the number and volume of accession rites 

performatively represented the ruler’s sanctity and 

grace on a grand scale. As part of this effort, the 

court, in the name of the acceding ruler, sponsored 

the Great Treasures Offering (ichidai ichido daijinpo 

ho bei) and the Buddha Relics Offering (ichidai ichido 

busshari ho ken), both of which were made to native 

shrines throughout the realm. The offering of remains 

of the Buddha (housed in small STU PAS) to 

non-Buddhist religious institutions and local deities 

(kami), while seemingly odd, was focused especially 

on Usa Hachimangu shrine in Kyushu, where the 

local gods had been venerated since at least the early 

ninth century as both the spirit of the legendary 

ancient ruler O jin (ca. early fifth century) and the 

bodhisattva HACHIMAN. Meanwhile, tenno were 

sometimes cremated in Buddhist ceremonies, and the 

royal family increasingly sponsored Buddhist masses 

to memorialize their dead. 

Prince Shotoku (574–622), great Japanese patron of Buddhism, 

between two women of the court. 

Royal culture and Buddhism 

The retired ruler Uda (867–931) became the first retired 

tenno to become a monk (in), entering the Shingon 

order at Ninnaji Monastery in Kyoto and receiving 

the denbo kanjo initiation as acarya (ajari) there. Thus 

Uda set the precedent not only for royal relatives to often 

head Ninnaji but for princes to serve regularly as 

abbots of the so-called O’muro royal-temple compound 

(monzeki) in Ninnaji beginning in the late 

eleventh century, and, from the twelfth century on, effectively 

ruling over the entire Buddhist community. 

(Cloistered rulers also tended to have close ties with 

the Tendai temples Onjoji and the monzeki Shoren’in, 

both near Kyoto.) 

At the same time, Uda also established the pattern 

for a former tenno to engage in politics while donning 

clerical robes. From the late eleventh century on, retired 

sovereigns (insei) increasingly replaced the Fujiwaras 

as rulers, while symbolically demonstrating 

their religiosity by elaborating on precedents set by 

figures such as Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1027) and 

those around him. Thus, retired tenno Shirakawa 


399

J A TAKA 

(1053–1129) established magnificent temples and 

multiple stupas as expressions of his grace, and his 

son Toba (1103–1156)—on better terms with the 

Fujiwaras—established the Shokomyo’in chapel and 

treasury (ho zo ) near Kyoto, housing a Buddhist scriptural 

collection and other treasures in apparent imitation 

of the Fujiwara chapel Byodo’in, also near 

Kyoto, which similarly featured an Amidist sanctuary 

and a scriptural treasury (kyo zo ). This “royal culture” 

of powerful aristocrats and cloistered sovereigns, particularly 

with its emphasis on demonstrating largess 

and religious devotion as well as an increasing interest 

in acquiring knowledge of esoteric Buddhism—and 

influence over the clerical appointment system—was 

one of the primary factors that influenced Tendai and 

Shingon monks and temples of the medieval era. Under 

this influence, Buddhists increasingly sought to 

produce large iconographic collections (the first, Zuzo 

sho [ca. 1135–1141], was reputedly produced by order 

of Toba), to establish large treasuries of scriptures and 

other objects, and to specialize in particular tantric 

rites (shuho ) of concern to the royal family. 

Buddhist accession rites and Shinto 

Moreover, during the same period, particularly in the 

O’muro at Ninnaji, the enriching of esoteric Buddhist 

teachings with worship of native deities produced 

novel teachings and ritual practices that attempted to 

confer legitimacy on the ruler, and were later referred 

to as Goryu Shinto. At the latest, by Go-Uda’s accession 

(late thirteenth century), the ruler often underwent 

an esoteric Buddhist consecration rite (sokui 

kanjo ) as part of the accession process. The initiation 

of retired tenno Go-Daigo in the fourteenth century 

into what would later be deemed the “controversial” 

Tachikawa line of Shingon was, indeed, an elaboration 

of this trend. Moreover, the first use of the term Shinto 

was established in and through the so-called kenmitsu 

institutions of Shingon and Tendai. Even the 

emphasis on the three royal regalia was forged in the 

milieu of those institutions to legitimize royal rule 

amidst the impending split into rival lines: The jewel 

(magatama) was newly emphasized and was commonly 

compared to the wish-fulfilling jewel and Buddha 

relics of the treasuries of esoteric temples such as 

the Shingon temple Toji. 

In spite of the rising prominence of nativist scholars 

such as Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801), the royal 

family remained devoted Buddhists until the Meiji 

restoration in 1868, when mid-level samurai returned 

the Japanese government from Tokugawa warrior rule 

to royal rule in the name of the tenno . Rituals such as 

the Latter Seven-Day Rite were no longer held in the 

palace, and any public relationship between the royal 

family and the Buddhist community was dissolved—a 

government policy that has continued to the present. 

See also: Aśoka; Meiji Buddhist Reform; Nationalism 

and Buddhism; Politics and Buddhism; Tachikawaryu 

Bibliography 

Abe Yasuro. “Hoju to O ken: chusei to mikkyo girei” (Jewels and 

royal authority: esoteric Buddhist rites and the medieval era). 

In Iwanami ko za to yo shiso 16: Nihon shiso 2. Tokyo: Iwanami 

Shoten, 1989. 

Abe Yasuro. “Shukaku hosshinno to inseiki no bukkyo bunka” 

(The prince-monk Shukaku and the Buddhist culture of 

the cloistered-rule era). In Inseiki no bukkyo , ed. Hayami 

Tasuku. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1998. 

Amino Yoshihiko. “Igyo no O ken: Go-Daigo/Monkan/Kenko” 

(Awful royal authority: Go-Daigo/Monkan/Kenko). In 

Igyo no O ken. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1987. 

Kamikawa Michio. “Accession Rituals and Buddhism in Medieval 

Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 17, no. 

2/3 (1990): 243–280. 

Maki Toshiyuki. “Go-Uda tenno no mikkyo juho” (The ruler 

Go-Uda’s initiation into esoteric Buddhism). In Kodai/ 

chu sei no shakai to kokka, ed. Osaka Daigaku Bungakubu Nihonshi 

Kenkyushitsu. Osaka, Japan: Seibundo, 1998. 

Okano Koji. “Mudoen senji/isshin ajari/sozu chokunin” (Royal 

orders without official monastic identification/aristocraticappointed 

acaryas/directly-appointed bishops). In Inseiki no 

bukkyo , ed. Hayami Tasuku. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 

1998. 



Asia Center and Harvard University Press, 2000. 

Uejima Susumu. “Fujiwara no Michinaga to insei: Shukyo to 

seiji” (Religion and politics: cloistered rule and Fujiwara no 

Michinaga). In Chu sei ko bu kenryoku no ko zo to tenkai, ed. 

Uwayokote Masataka. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2001. 

JA TAKA 

BRIAN O. RUPPERT 

Jataka is the Sanskrit and Pali term for a particular 

genre of Buddhist literature. A jataka is a story in which 

one of the characters—usually the hero—is identified 

as a previous birth of the historical Buddha, generally 

appearing as a man, a deity, or one of the higher ani- 


J A TAKA, ILLUSTRATIONS 

OF 

mals (but only rarely as a female of any kind). The existence 

of the jataka genre is based on the notion that 

the Buddha, on the night of his enlightenment, attained 

the recollection of his previous lives, which 

then, throughout his life, he often had occasion to relate 

in order to illustrate a point, drive home a moral 

lesson, or shed light on some situation. It is these stories 

that constitute the jatakas. 

The jataka genre appears to be very old, for the term 

jataka is included in an ancient categorization of Buddhist 

literary styles, and depictions of jataka stories appear 

in Indian Buddhist art as early as the second 

century B.C.E. 

All of the lives related in the jatakas are understood 

to have taken place during the Buddha’s BODHISATTVA 

career, only after he had made a firm vow to become 

a buddha in the distant future. The general function 

of the jatakas, then, is to illustrate how the bodhisattva, 

in life after life, cultivated various virtues and qualities 

that ultimately contributed to his attainment of buddhahood. 

Accordingly, most jatakas portray the bodhisattva 

as an exemplary figure, highlighting such 

features as his wisdom, compassion, or ascetic detachment. 

Many jatakas, in fact, are explicitly intended to 

illustrate the bodhisattva’s cultivation of one of the 

PARAMITA (PERFECTION) needed for buddhahood. In 

the Śaśajataka, for example, the bodhisattva is a hare 

who offers his own body as food to a wandering traveler, 

thus cultivating the “perfection of generosity.” In 

the Brahmanajataka, he is a boy who refuses to steal 

even when his brahmin teacher urges him to do so, 

thus cultivating the “perfection of morality.” And in the 

Ksantijataka, he is an ascetic who calmly tolerates the 

mutilation inflicted on him by an angry king, thus cultivating 

the “perfection of forbearance.” Some jataka 

collections are even arranged on this basis: The JATAKA- 

MALA (Garland of Jatakas) of A ryaśura, a famous Sanskrit 

collection from approximately the fourth century 

C.E., arranges the bulk of its thirty-four stories (including 

the three mentioned above) in accordance with 

the first three of the six perfections; the Cariyapitaka 

(Collection on [the Bodhisatta’s] Conduct) of the Pali 

canon arranges its thirty-five versified jatakas in accordance 

with the THERAVADA list of ten perfections. 

The jataka genre was used to assimilate an enormous 

amount of traditional Indian folklore into the 

Buddhist fold, including many tales whose moral 

lessons were not specifically Buddhist (or that had no 

moral lesson at all). Any traditional tale could be 

transformed into a jataka simply by turning one of 

its characters into a previous birth of the Buddha. This 

is especially true of the Jatakatthakatha (Explanation 

of the Birth Stories), a massive Pali collection of 547 

prose and verse jatakas, of which only the verses are 

considered canonical. Much of the contents of the 

Jatakatthakatha are likely non-Buddhist in origin, including, 

for example, many animal fables, folk tales, 

and fairy tales. Similarly, as the jataka genre spread to 

Buddhist cultures outside of India, it often drew on local 

folklore to domesticate existing jatakas or compose 

wholly new ones more relevant to new environments. 

Jataka stories exist not only in Sanskrit and Pali literature, 

but also in the Chinese and Tibetan canons, 

as well as in many vernacular languages and texts. 

Throughout history and throughout the Buddhist 

world, jatakas have played a major role in the dissemination 

of Buddhist teachings, being the constant focus 

of sermons, rituals, festivals, and many varieties of 

art and performance. The relevance of the jatakas to 

everyday Buddhist life is perhaps most apparent in 

the Theravada cultures of Southeast Asia, where many 

jatakas of the Pali tradition are widely known and frequently 

alluded to in everyday conversation and moral 

argument. 

See also: Avadana; Buddha, Life of the; Viśvantara 

Bibliography 

Cowell, E. B., ed. The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha’s Former 

Births, 3 vols. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1990. 

Jones, John Garrett. Tales and Teachings of the Buddha: The 

Jataka Stories in Relation to the Pali Canon. London: Allen 




1989. 

Schober, Juliane, ed. Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions 

of South and Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 1997. 

JA TAKA, ILLUSTRATIONS OF 

REIKO OHNUMA 

Visual jatakas do not simply illustrate verbal jatakas 

(birth stories) but share equal status with them. Each 

is a unique narrative belonging to a genre of stories existing 

in a community of memory rather than in a specific 

verbal version. Except for the Viśvantara Jataka, 


401

J A TAKAMA LA 

individual jatakas are rarely narrated in isolation. They 

usually participate in larger texts, which occasionally 

have counterparts in literary genres. Since these larger 

texts are expressions of different Buddhisms in various 

times and places, JA TAKA narratives should be viewed 

in their embedded textual and sociocultural contexts. 

Despite the acknowledged antiquity of the 547 Pali 

verse jatakas, the earliest datable physical jataka narratives 

are the visual ones on the Bharhut stupa railing 

(ca. first century B.C.E.). With the exception of the coping 

reliefs, the Bharhut jatakas belong to a larger text 

that includes other kinds of narratives, such as incidents 

from the Buddha’s life, AVADA NAS, and “legends” 

concerning historical figures. The Bharhut coping takes 

the form of an s-shaped lotus vine-cum-garland, within 

each of whose lower curves a jataka is narrated. Hence, 

the coping functions as a unified text of the JATAKA- 

MALA (garland of jatakas) genre. 

The BOROBUDUR stupa contains another sculpted 

example of a unified jataka cycle within a larger monumental 

text, which is possibly an extended biography 

of the Buddha. Similar cycles proliferate in the murals 

of the pre-Tang (ca. 421–640 C.E.) SILK ROAD cave 

monasteries of Kucha and in various media in Burmese 

STU PAs and temples from the eleventh century onward, 

especially at Pagan. Burma has the longest and most 

prolific tradition of visual jatakas, which ceramists, 

painters, and woodcarvers narrate individually, in small 

groups, or in cycles. For example, glazed tiles line the 

upper circumambulatory terraces of the ANANDA TEM- 

PLE, composing a cycle of 554 jatakas, prefaced by events 

from the Buddha’s last birth on the lower terraces. The 

main hall narratives of AJAN TA’s fifth-century caves 1 

and 17 compose monumental jatakamalas, which are 

framed and bracketed by the cave’s porch, shrine 

antechamber, and shrine. The latter narrate important 

events from the Buddha’s ministry and represent cosmic 

landscapes and beings often shown worshiping the 

Buddha. 

How do visual jatakas function? Buddhist texts do 

not narrate jatakas concerning other buddhas and all 

buddhas perform the same deeds in their last births. 

Thus, the significant presence of jatakas in a Buddhist 

monastery indicates that Śakyamuni Buddha and his 

worship are the focus of Buddhist practice and belief 

there. Further, visual jatakas re-create the Bodhisattva’s 

marvelous deeds as models to be imitated and 

as transcendental actions to be worshiped, characterizing 

his nature as human and supramundane. Architecture 

and style express this visually, as in the jataka 

cycles painted on the sloping ceilings of the Kizil caves 

and in the idealized naturalism of paintings at Ajanta. 

Finally, jataka cycles allow Buddhist pilgrims to follow 

the Buddha’s steps by walking through his previous 

lives. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the, in Art; Dunhuang; Sutra 

Illustrations 

Bibliography 

Barua, Beni Madhab. Bharhut. Patna, India: Indological Book 

Corp., 1979. 

Cummings, Mary. The Lives of the Buddha in the Art and Literature 

of Asia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for 

South and Southeast Asian Studies, 1982. 



Girard-Geslan, Maud, et al. Art of Southeast Asia, tr. J. A. Underwood. 

New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998. 

Schlingloff, Dieter. Studies in the Ajanta Paintings: Identifications 

and Interpretations. Delhi: Ajanta Publications, 1987. 

Schlingloff, Dieter. Guide to the Ajanta Paintings: Narrative Wall 

Paintings. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1999. 

Whitfield, Roderick. Cave Temples of Mogao: Art and History on 

the Silk Road. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute and 

the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000. 

JA TAKAMA LA 


Jatakamala (Garland of Jatakas) is the title of a work 

by the poet A RYAŚU RA (fourth century C.E.). The title 

was later adopted by other authors, such as Haribhatta 

(early fifth century) and Gopadatta (seventh or eighth 

century), each of whom gives a personal slant to his 

own selection of thirty-four legends about the Buddha’s 

previous lives, refashioning them in a mixture of 

verse and prose. Fourteen of Haribhatta’s retellings 

survive in the original Sanskrit (the entire work is available 

in Tibetan), and about half of Gopadatta’s Garland 

has so far been retrieved from miscellaneous story 

collections in Sanskrit. 

See also: Jataka 

Bibliography 

Hahn, Michael. Haribhatta and Gopadatta: Two Authors in the 

Succession of A ryaśu ra, on the Rediscovery of Parts of Their 


J EWELS 

Jatakamalas, 2nd revised edition. Tokyo: International Institute 

for Buddhist Studies, 1992. 

Hahn, Michael, ed. Haribhatta’s Jatakamala. Wiesbaden, Germany: 

Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002. 



1989. 

JEWELS 


Jewels occupy important narrative and ritual spaces 

throughout the history of Buddhism. Buddhism, insofar 

as it constitutes the faith dedicated to elimination 

of desire, would seem at first consideration to be a religion 

at variance with objects that are culturally most 

directly associated with wealth. However, from an early 

stage Buddhists incorporated jewels into their teaching 

as part of a discourse on value. 

The Buddha routinely employed the metaphor of 

the jewel (ratna) in a variety of sutras to refer to the 

unlimited value of enlightened wisdom, a value that 

can be seen as represented in the form of an infinitely 

beautiful and valuable jewel that at the same time 

stands in contrast to the limitations of material jewels. 

Likewise, the jewel was often used as a metaphor to depict 

the conquest of death that is accomplished in Buddhist 

liberation—an item that, as with the metaphor 

of the diamond (vajra), represents absolute solidity, 

beauty, and permanence. Both of these metaphors 

are represented in their quintessential form in the 

Gandhavyu ha-su tra (Flower Garland Scripture), which 

elaborately deploys jewels and other glittering metaphors 

to illustrate enlightened vision of the absolute 

character of the interpenetration of all phenomena 

(dharma). While such discourse was often abstract, the 

jewel was also used in the phrase “Three Jewels” (triratna) 

to refer to the Buddhist tradition in its three basic, 

most treasured, aspects: Buddha, his teaching 

(dharma), and his community (SAṄGHA). 

Jewels have also been an essential feature in iconographic 

representations of celestial buddhas and BOD- 

HISATTVAS of the Mahayanist and tantric traditions. 

While the glittering character of the jewels and gold of 

the Buddha AMITABHA’s Pure Land Sukhavat are well 

known, a series of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other 

beings protective of Buddhism are routinely represented 

as carrying one or more jewels, which constitutes 

their so-called samaya (attribute). Among such 

figures are the bodhisattvas Ksitigarbha (Chinese, 

Dizang; Japanese, Jizo) and Avalokiteśvara (Chinese, 

Guanyin; Japanese, Kannon), the female protective deity 

Śr-mahadev (Japanese, Kichijoten), and figures of 

esoteric Buddhism, such as the Jewel Buddha Ratnasambhava. 

The so-called seven jewels (saptaratna), 

likewise, represent the splendid treasures of the ideal 

wheel-turning Buddhist king: the wheel, the white elephant, 

the deep blue horse, the sacred jewel, the jewel 

woman, the merchant-artisan, and the military commander. 

The same term was also used to refer to seven 

precious substances used in the construction of elaborate 

Buddhist edifices, such as brilliant STU PAS. 

The jewel was also the subject of the more elaborate 

discourse of the “wish-fulfilling jewel” (cintamani), 

which represents the absolute merit (punya) offered 

by the Buddhist dharma and scriptures. While originally 

an image, the term in some East Asian tantric 

traditions came to be venerated as an object of esoteric 

ritual, and was even regarded by some in medieval 

Japanese Shingon as equivalent with Buddha 

relics—and the greatest treasure of Shingon—or the 

product of alchemical production that used relics and 

other precious substances, and was coveted by the 

sovereign. 

See also: Huayan Jing; Kingship; Refuges; Relics and 

Relics Cults 

Bibliography 

Abe Yasuro. “Hoju to oken: chusei to mikkyo girei” (Jewels and 

royal authority: esoteric Buddhist rites and the medieval era). 

In Iwanami ko za to yo shiso 16: Nihon shiso 2. Tokyo: Iwanami 

Shoten, 1989. 

Cleary, Thomas, trans. The Flower Ornament Scripture. Boulder, 

CO: Shambhala, 1984. 

Cook, Francis D. Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra. 


Go yuigo (attributed to Kukai). Taisho shinshu daizo kyo 77, no. 

2431. 




Uehara Kazu. “Higashi ajia no bukkyo bijutsu ni mirareru mani 

hyogen no shoso” (Forms of expression of cinta[-manl] as 

seen in East Asian Buddhist art). In Kodai no saishiki to shiso : 

higashi ajia no naka no nihon, ed. Nakanishi Susumu. Tokyo: 

Kadokawa shoten, 1991. 



403

J IUN 

O NKO 

JIUN ONKO 

Jiun Onko (Jiun Sonja, 1718–1804) was born and 

raised in Osaka, the son of a masterless samurai and a 

devoutly Buddhist mother. Forced into the Buddhist 

clergy at thirteen at the time of his father’s death, Jiun 

became a novice under Ninko Teiki (1671–1750), a 

master in the Shingon Vinaya sect. This sect stressed 

both Shingon or Japanese tantric Buddhism and traditional 

monastic discipline. Under Teiki’s influence, 

and after a period of training in his late teens and early 

twenties that included Zen and further Confucian 

studies, Jiun went on to become one of the leading 

Buddhist scholars and reformers of the Tokugawa period 

(1603–1868). 

Early in his career, Jiun devoted much attention to 

the study of monastic discipline and the creation of 

supra-sectarian Buddhist communities that became 

part of his “Vinaya of the True Dharma” movement. 

To counteract a moral laxity that he saw in the Buddhist 

clergy, he advocated a return to what he judged 

to be a common core of Buddhist thought and practice 

that he called “Buddhism as it was when the Buddha 

was alive.” Buddhist ethics, the practice of 

meditation, and, for monks and nuns, the observance 

of the VINAYA or monastic discipline stood at the center 

of his movement. Jiun’s most famous work, Ju zen 

ho go (Sermons on the Ten Good Precepts), completed 

in 1774, was an argument for Buddhist ethics as the 

foundation of the Buddhist way of life. Jiun is also remembered 

as one of Japan’s greatest Sanskrit scholars. 

Working without the aid of a Sanskrit teacher and 

without a living tradition of Sanskrit studies, Jiun compiled 

the one thousand-chapter Bongaku shinryo 

(Guide to Sanskrit Studies, 1766) that included information 

on the geography, history, and customs of India, 

as well as dictionaries, grammars, and textual 

studies. 

In his later years, Jiun turned his attention to the 

study of nativism and articulated his own understanding 

of the positive relationship that existed between 

Buddhism and Japan’s local gods. His interpretation of 

nativism came to be known as Unden Shinto, or the 

“Shinto Transmitted by Jiun.” When Japan began a period 

of rapid modernization in the Meiji period 

(1868–1912), Buddhist leaders who shared Jiun’s concerns 

about the moral laxity of the clergy and the overly 

sectarian character of Japanese Buddhism drew inspiration 

from his Sermons on the Ten Good Precepts, and 

Japanese scholars who were learning of new research 

on Indian Buddhist languages in Europe looked with 

pride to Jiun’s pioneering Sanskrit studies. 

See also: Shingon Buddhism, Japan; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) 


Bibliography 

Watt, Paul B. “Sermons on the Precepts and Monastic Life by 

the Shingon Vinaya Master Jiun (1718–1804).” Eastern Buddhist 

25, no. 2 (1992): 119–128. 

Watt, Paul B. “Jiun Sonja (1718–1804): A Response to Confucianism 

within the Context of Buddhist Reform.” In Confucianism 

and Tokugawa Culture, ed. Peter Nosco. Honolulu: 


Watt, Paul B. “Shingon’s Jiun Sonja and His ‘Vinaya of the True 

Dharma’ Movement.” In Religions of Japan in Practice, ed. 


Press, 1999. 

JO KHANG 

PAUL B. WATT 

Jo khang is Tibet’s earliest and foremost Buddhist temple. 

It is located in the center of Tibet’s capital city, 

Lhasa. The Jo khang enshrines one of Tibet’s most sacred 

Buddhist images—a statue of the buddha Śakyamuni 

as a young man, said to have been crafted in India 

during his lifetime. The monastery takes its name from 

this icon: Jo bo (pronounced Jowo) means “lord”; 

khang means “house.” 

The Jo khang has been a major center for Tibetan 

Buddhist worship and religious practice, drawing pilgrims 

and devotees from all parts of the Tibetan cultural 

world for well over a millennium. In common 

parlance the temple, with its numerous side chapels, 

adjoining courtyards, walkways, and residential quarters, 

is referred to simply as the Gtsug lag khang (pronounced 

Tsuglag khang), perhaps translated as “grand 

temple” or “cathedral.” Western sources often describe 

it, somewhat misleadingly, as “the Cathedral of Lhasa.” 

Traditional sources such as the Mani bka’ ’bum (Hundred 

Thousand Pronouncements [Regarding] Mani) credit 

the Tibetan king Srong btsan sgam po (r. ca. 614–650) 

and his two queens with founding the Jo khang’s original 

temple in approximately 640. According to these 

accounts, the king’s Chinese bride Wencheng carried 

the Jo bo statue to Tibet as part of her dowry. Arriving 

in the capital city to inauspicious signs, however, 


J UEFAN 

(HUIHONG) 

she divined that the landscape of Tibet was like a great 

supine demoness, obstructing the introduction and 

spread of the dharma. She advised the king, a new 

Buddhist convert, and his Nepalese wife Bhrkuti to 

erect the Jo khang directly over the demoness’s heart. 

This project was later augmented with twelve temples 

constructed at other physiognomic locations, where 

they served as great geomantic nails to pin down and 

subdue the forces inimical to Buddhism. The Jo khang 

originally housed a statue of the buddha AKSOBHYA 

belonging to Bhrkuti. After the king’s death, the Jo bo 

was removed from its previous location in the nearby 

Ra mo che Temple, founded by Wencheng herself, and 

installed in the Jo khang’s inner sanctum. 

Modern scholarship now questions the historicity 

of many details of this episode, including Srong btsan 

sgam po’s exclusive dedication to Buddhism and the 

existence of his Nepalese queen. However, the narratives 

of Tibet’s Buddhist conversion through the subjugation 

of local deities continue to play a significant 

role in the religious life of many Tibetans, affirming 

the Jo khang’s key position in the sacred geography of 

the Tibetan Buddhist world. 

Since its founding, the Jo khang has been enlarged 

and renovated on numerous occasions, although architectural 

details from its original foundation are still 

evident, especially in the carved wooden door frames 

attributed to Newari craftsmen from Nepal. The temple 

suffered in the 1960s during the Chinese Cultural 

Revolution, when part of the complex and much of its 

original statuary were damaged or destroyed; restoration 

took place in the early 1970s and again during the 

early 1990s. 

The temple lies at the heart of Lhasa’s principal ritual 

ambulatory, called the bar skor (pronounced barkhor) 

or middle circuit, which skirts its outer walls and 

surrounding structures. The Jo khang and bar skor together 

continue to form Lhasa’s primary public religious 

space, where pilgrims and devotees daily walk, prostrate, 

pray, and perform offerings in the temple’s many 

chapels and around the circumambulation path. The 

site is also a lively marketplace and social scene, where 

individuals meander through street vendor’s stalls and 

modern Chinese department stores. Since the late 1980s 

the bar skor has also become the principal Tibetan stage 

for political protest and civil demonstration. 

Bibliography 

Aris, Michael. Bhutan: The Early History of a Himalayan Kingdom. 

Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips, 1979. 

Gyatso, Janet. “Down with the Demoness.” Tibet Journal 12, 

no. 4 (1987): 34–46. Reprinted in Feminine Ground: Essays 

on Women and Tibet, ed. Janice Dean Willis. Ithaca, NY: 

Snow Lion, 1989. 

Larsen, Knud, and Sinding-Larsen, Amund. The Lhasa Atlas: 

Traditional Tibetan Architecture and Townscape. Boston: 


Richardson, Hugh. “The Jo-Khang ‘Cathedral’ of Lhasa.” In 

Essais sur l’art du Tibet, ed. Ariane Macdonald and Yoshiro 

Imaeda. Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 1977. 

Reprinted in High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on 

Tibetan History and Culture, ed. Michael Aris. London: 


Vitali, Roberto. “Lhasa Jokhang and Its Secret Chapel.” In Early 

Temples of Central Tibet. London: Serindia, 1990. 

JUEFAN (HUIHONG) 


Juefan Huihong (1071–1128) was a Buddhist monk 

and poet active primarily during the tumultuous reign 

of the Chinese emperor Song Huizong (r. 1101–1125). 

Huihong promoted an approach to Buddhism he 

called literary Chan (wenzi Chan) that incorporated 

poetry, painting, and scholarship on religious and 

secular books, with contemporary CHAN SCHOOL 

practices. Several prominent literati including Zhang 

Shangying (1043–1122) and Huang Tingjian 

(1045–1105) befriended Huihong and advocated his 

literary Chan, helping to ensure his lasting fame. 

Huihong became a monk after he lost his parents 

at the age of fourteen and was ordained at nineteen. 

During his early years he primarily studied YOGACARA 

SCHOOL texts. In 1092 Huihong became a pupil of 

Zhenjing Kewen (1025–1102), a legendary Chan 

teacher from the Huanglong collateral branch of the 

Linji lineage. Between 1092 and 1105, Huihong investigated 

the sutras and Chan literature, and visited sacred 

sites throughout southern China. In 1105 

Huihong was jailed for the first of four incarcerations 

because of his connections to a faction opposed to 

Huizong’s anti-Buddhist policies. Huihong’s disfavor 

at court earned him an exile to Hainan island in 

1112–1113. During this time Huihong turned to writing 

and reading poetry for solace and compiled a treatise 

on poetic criticism called the Lengzhai yehua 

(Evening Discourses from a Cold Studio). In addition, 

Huihong finished work on his somewhat unorthodox 

discourse record, the Linjian lu (Anecdotes from the 


405

J UEFAN 

(HUIHONG) 

Groves [of Chan]), and one of the earliest commentaries 

to the Śu raṅgama-su tra (Chinese, Shoulengyan 

jing; Heroic March Su tra). During the last decade of his 

life, Huihong finished compiling the Chanlin sengbao 

zhuan (Chronicles of the Saṅgha Jewel within the Groves 

of Chan) with eighty-four biographies. 

See also: Chan Art; China; Poetry and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Gimello, Robert M. “Marga and Culture: Learning, Letters, and 

Liberation in Northern Sung Ch’an.” In Paths to Liberation: 

The Marga and Its Transformations in Buddhist Thought, ed. 

Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Robert M. Gimello. Honolulu: 


Keyworth, George. “Transmitting the Lamp of Learning in 

Classical Chan Buddhism: Juefan Huihong (1071–1128) and 

Literary Chan.” Ph.D. diss. University of California, Los 

Angeles, 2001. 



K 

KAGYU. See Bka’ brgyud 

KAILA ŚA (KAILASH) 

Kailaśa (Kailash) is one of Asia’s preeminent sacred 

mountains. It is located in southwestern Tibet near the 

borders of India and Nepal. By Himalayan standards 

Mount Kailaśa is a modest peak, standing at 22,028 

feet; yet the stature of its isolated snow-capped dome 

forms a striking image against the arid plateau. Together 

with Lake Manasarovar, eighteen miles to the 

southeast, Kailaśa forms one of the region’s richest and 

most active PILGRIMAGE sanctuaries, revered for nearly 

two millennia by followers of diverse religious traditions 

including Jains, Hindus, and members of the indigenous 

Tibetan BON religion. Beginning in the 

eleventh century, Mount Kailaśa occupied a central 

position in the sacred landscape of Tibetan Buddhists, 

who associate the sanctuary complex with an array of 

BUDDHAS, tantric deities, and past Buddhist masters. 

Situated at Asia’s watershed, four of the continent’s 

largest rivers originate within fifty miles of the mountain: 

the Brahmaputra, the Karnali, the Sutlej, and the 

Indus. Tibetan literature refers to the mountain as 

Gangs dkar Ti se (White Snow Mountain Ti se); in 

common parlance, however, it is simply called Gangs 

rin po che (Precious Snow Mountain). 

Mount Kailaśa is popularly associated with Mount 

Meru, the central pillar of the world system as depicted 

in Buddhist and Hindu COSMOLOGY. Tibetan descriptive 

guides to Kailaśa, however, equate the mountain 

with a site known as Himavat or Himalaya (the Snowy, 

or the Snow Mountain), one of twenty-four sacred 

lands (pitha) named in the Cakrasam vara-tantra as geographic 

locations efficacious for Buddhist practice (as 

well as sites “mapped” within the visualized vajra-body 

of the yogin meditator). The mythic narratives of the 

Cakrasam vara literature recount how, in primordial 

times, these twenty-four lands fell under the dominion 

of Maheśvara (Śiva), manifesting in the guise of the 

fierce, blood-thirsty god Bhairava (or Rudra). The 

buddha Vajradhara, in wrathful form as a Heruka deity, 

then subdued Bhairava, blessing each location as a 

MAN D ALA of the deity Cakrasam vara and his retinue. 

The tradition of identifying Kailaśa within this sacred 

landscape was especially promoted by members of the 

BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU) sect of Tibetan Buddhism, who 

grouped the peak together with two other important 

mountain pilgrimage sites in southern Tibet, La phyi 

and Tsa ri, identified respectively as Cakrasam vara’s 

body, speech, and mind. These claims drew criticism 

from some Tibetan quarters; the renowned scholar SA 

SKYA PAN D ITA (SAKYA PAN D ITA; 1182–1251), for example, 

argued that the sites associated with Cakrasam 

vara were located not in Tibet but India, and were 

part of a visionary geography accessible only to highly 

skilled meditators. Modern scholars such as Toni Huber 

have begun to track the manner in which important 

sacred locations of India were “remapped” onto 

Tibetan soil. 

Tibetan tradition credits both the historical Buddha 

and the Indian adept PADMASAMBHAVA (ca. eighth 

century) with visits to the mountain. Another important 

narrative recounts how the poet-yogin MI LA RAS 

PA (MILAREPA; 1028/40–1111/23) inaugurated Buddhism’s 

ascendancy at Mount Kailaśa by defeating a 

rival Bon priest, Na ro bon chung, in a contest of miracles. 

The mountain later became associated with the 

407

K A LACAKRA 

Kailaśa (Mount Kailash) in southwestern Tibet, the goal of many pilgrimages, is sacred to both Buddhists and Hindus. © Galen 

Rowell/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

followers of Mi la ras pa, principally members of the 

’Brug pa and ’Bri gung Bka’ brgyud sects, who traveled 

in great numbers to meditate there. 

Pilgrims from all quarters of the Tibetan Buddhist 

world continue to visit Mount Kailaśa, many remaining 

in residence for an entire season. Their primary 

practice is completing the arduous thirty-two mile 

clockwise circumambulation route around the mountain, 

often undertaken in a single eighteen-hour day of 

walking. (Bon pilgrims make the identical circuit in a 

counterclockwise direction.) Traditional pilgrimage 

guide books describe a complex array of sacred elements 

inscribed within the landscape around the 

mountain, as well as specific religious practices to be 

undertaken at various points along the trail. 

See also: Space, Sacred 

Bibliography 

Allen, Charles. A Mountain in Tibet: The Search for Mount Kailas 

and the Sources of the Great Rivers of India. London: André 

Deutsch, 1982. 

Chang, Garma C. C., ed. and trans. The Hundred Thousand 

Songs of Milarepa. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 

1962. Reprint, Boston: Shambhala, 1999. 

Huber, Toni. “Where Exactly Are Carita, Devikota, and Himavat? 

A Sacred Geography Controversy and the Development 

of Tantric Buddhist Pilgrimage Sites in Tibet.” Kailash 16, 

nos. 3–4 (1990): 121–164. 

Huber, Toni, and Rigzin, Tsepak. “A Tibetan Guide for Pilgrimage 

to Ti-se (Mount Kailas) and mTsho Ma-pham (Lake 

Manasarovar).” In Sacred Spaces and Powerful Places in Tibetan 

Culture: A Collection of Essays, ed. Toni Huber. 

Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 

1999. 

Ricard, Mathhieu, ed. and trans. “At Mt. Kailash.” In The Life 

of Shabkar: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Yogin. Albany: 


KA LACAKRA 


The Kalacakra Tantra (Tibetan, Dus kyi ‘khor lo’i 

rgyud; Wheel of Time, System of Mysticism) is the most 


K A LACAKRA 

complex of the numerous VAJRAYANA Buddhist systems 

of mysticism. Although it presupposes and draws 

on all of the preceeding developments of Indian Buddhism, 

it is innovative in both its soteriological doctrines 

and in its mythic prophetic vision. Based on the 

ancient idea of the homology of the macrocosm and 

the microcosm, the Kalacakra presents a tantric yogic 

method for transforming an individual from a suffering, 

sam saric state into the transcendent state of perfect 

awakening. Drawing on Hindu mythology and 

historical events, it predicts a conflict between the 

forces of good and evil out of which a new golden age 

will be born. 

Doctrine 

The subject matter of the Kalacakra system has a tripartite 

structure: the external world (bahya), the self 

(adhyatman), and the transcendent (para). The last 

topic can be subdivided into three: INITIATION (abhiseka), 

practice (sadhana), and gnosis (jñana). The 

yoga of the Kalacakra is founded on the idea that the 

world (the macrocosm) and the self (the microcosm) 

share essential properties and that a person contains 

all of the elements of the cosmos. Correspondences 

between world and self allow the universe to be treated 

as a unified field for the development of salvific 

knowledge—gnosis. 

In the Kalacakra initiation rites—the entryway to 

the tantric path—the guru introduces the disciple to 

the MAN D ALA, a palace inhabited by deities that represents 

the disciple’s world/self in a purified, awakened 

state. The mandala provides a new self-image for the 

disciple: Whereas previously the disciple was enmeshed 

in the impure, limited, and confused projections 

of ordinary sam saric mind, the mysteries of the 

mandala revealed in the initiation rites furnish a 

glimpse of the disciple’s potential for the realization of 

awakening. 

During the initial phase of tantric practice—the 

generation stage (utpattikrama)—the practitioner first 

dissolves ordinary perceptions of self and environment 

into a perception of emptiness, and then imaginatively 

generates a vision of self in the form of the buddha 

deities Śr Kalacakra (Splendid Wheel of Time) and 

Viśvamata (Mother of the Universe), together with 

their progeny, the rest of the mandala. This stage— 

explicitly correlated with the process of human conception, 

birth, and maturation—transforms and 

divinizes the power of imagination, loosens attachment 

to mundane concerns, and produces a great store 

of merit. 

The deity Śrl Kalacakra, a vision of self generated by the practitioner 

of tantra. © Lokesh Chandra. Reproduced by permission. 

The second phase of practice—the completion 

stage (utpannakrama)—uses controlled sensory deprivation, 

mental fixation, and manipulation of respiration 

and other energies in the body to induce a 

physiological and psychic condition similar to death. 

In this state all forms of ideation cease, and the practitioner 

obtains a vision of the emptiness image (śu n- 

yatabimbam). The emptiness image is a gnosis that 

nonconceptually cognizes the totality of the universe 

in terms of both conventional truth (the appearances 

of ordinary phenomena) and ultimate truth (the universal 

emptiness that is everything’s lack of absolute, 

autonomous existence). Vision of the emptiness image 

gives rise to imperishable bliss (aksarasukha), so 

that gnosis and bliss are inseparably fused. Repeated 

cultivation of this experience purifies the mind of obscurations, 

finally culminating in the practitioner’s 

achievement of the transcendent, perfect awakening 

of a buddha. 

Myth 

According to the Kalacakra tradition, the Buddha 

taught this tantra at the Dhanyakataka stupa in South 

India to King Sucandra, ruler of Shambhala, a vast 

empire located in Central Asia. The Kalacakra was 


409

K A LACAKRA 

name of Islam, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni conducted 

expeditions of plunder and iconoclastic destruction in 

northwestern India. Thus the Kalacakra’s retelling of 

the prophetic myth of Kalki replaces a brahman 

Hindu hero with a Buddhist messiah in response to 

the traumatizing depredations of the Muslim invaders 

of India. 

Cakrin, twenty-fifth Kalkin of Shambhala. A prophecy of the 

Kalacakra says that at the end of the current age of degeneration, 

Cakrin will conquer the followers of the “barbarian religion,” 

inaugurating a new golden age. © Lokesh Chandra. Reproduced 


preserved in Shambhala by Sucandra’s successors, the 

sixth of whom—Yaśas—was given the title Kalkin for 

unifying all of the castes of Shambhala within a single 

Vajrayana family. Also, the Kalacakra prophesies 

that at the end of the current age of degeneration, the 

twenty-fifth Kalkin of Shambhala—Cakrin—will lead 

the Hindu gods and the army of Shambhala in battle 

at Baghdad against the followers of the “barbarian religion” 

Islam. Kalkin Cakrin’s defeat of the forces of 

Islam will mark the end of the age of degeneration 

and the beginning of a new golden age. 

The preceding is a Buddhist rewriting of the earlier 

Hindu myth of Kalki updated to suit historical conditions 

contemporaneous with the origin of the 

Kalacakra. In the Hindu myth it is prophesied that the 

great god VISN U will incarnate as a brahman warrior 

named Kalki in the village of Shambhala. At the end 

of the age of degeneration, Kalki will eradicate barbarians 

and unruly outcastes, thus reestablishing 

brahman supremacy and initiating a new golden age. 

The Kalacakra first appeared in India during the 

early decades of the eleventh century C.E., when, in the 

History 

The most important texts of the Kalacakra system 

contain a date that enables scholars to determine that 

they were completed between 1025 and approximately 

1040. The authors of these works disguised their identities 

with mythic pseudonyms, but among the known 

early masters of the tradition is Pindo (tenth–eleventh 

century), a brahman Buddhist monk born in Java 

who taught the famous Dpam karaśrjñana (ATISHA; 

982–1054), and Naropada (d.u.–ca. 1040), the 

renowned Vajrayana teacher of Nalanda monastic 

university. The Kalacakra flourished among the Buddhist 

intelligentsia of northern India from the 

eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, and it continued 

to be studied and practiced in India until at 

least the end of the sixteenth century. 

From northern India the Kalacakra spread to Nepal 

and Tibet, and from Tibet it was transmitted to Mongolia 

and China. The Tibetans produced a vast literature 

on the system, and continue to study and practice 

the Kalacakra. During the last decades of the twentieth 

century, the fourteenth DALAI LAMA of Tibet performed 

the Kalacakra initiation rites on numerous 

occasions in Asia and in the United States, fostering 

the continued cross-cultural diffusion of this important 

Vajrayana tradition. 

See also: Hinduism and Buddhism; Islam and Buddhism; 

Tantra 

Bibliography 

Lamrimpa, Gen. Transcending Time: An Explanation of the 

Kalachakra Six-Session Guru Yoga, tr. B. Alan Wallace. 

Boston: Wisdom, 1999. 

Newman, John. “Eschatology in the Wheel of Time Tantra.” In 

Buddhism in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton, NJ: 


Newman, John. “Itineraries to Sambhala.” In Tibetan Literature: 

Studies in Genre, ed. José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson. 

Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996. 

Newman, John. “Islam in the Kalacakra Tantra.” Journal of the 

International Association of Buddhist Studies 21, no. 2 (1998): 

311–371. 


K AMAKURA 

B UDDHISM, JAPAN 

Newman, John. “Vajrayoga in the Kalacakra Tantra.” In Tantra 

in Practice, ed. David Gordon White. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


Sopa, Geshe Lhundub; Jackson, Roger; and Newman, John. The 

Wheel of Time: The Kalachakra in Context. Ithaca, NY: Snow 

Lion, 1991. 

KAMAKURA BUDDHISM, JAPAN 

JOHN NEWMAN 

Kamakura Buddhism is a modern scholarly term referring 

to a phase in the development of Japanese 

Buddhism coinciding with the Kamakura period 

(1185–1333). The term also refers to several new Buddhist 

movements that appeared during that time, 

specifically, Pure Land, Zen, and Nichiren. These 

movements eventually became the dominant schools 

of Buddhism in Japan. Kamakura Buddhism is typically 

contrasted to NARA BUDDHISM and Heian Buddhism, 

which denote other forms of Buddhism and 

the periods in which they emerged. These three categories—Nara, 

Heian, and Kamakura Buddhism— 

provide a historical periodization as well as a conceptual 

framework for the classification of Buddhist 

schools. Of the three, Kamakura Buddhism is frequently 

portrayed as the most significant, especially in 

light of the large memberships of its modern denominations. 

This threefold classification appears in most 

surveys of Japanese Buddhism, although some scholars 

question whether it accurately reflects the character 

of Buddhism in each historical period and the 

actual course of its development. 

The foundations on which Kamakura Buddhism 

arose were the religious traditions of the Nara 

(710–784) and Heian (794–1185) periods. These periods 

correspond to the time when Japan’s capital 

was located first in the city of Nara and then in Heian 

(Kyoto). The Kamakura period is likewise named 

after a city, Kamakura, where the first warrior 

government was established in 1185. Hence, the periodization 

of Japanese history, as well as the classification 

of its Buddhist schools, has arisen as an 

extension of Japan’s geography and political history. 

There are questions whether this political framework 

offers the best structure for categorizing and analyzing 

Japanese Buddhism, but it has become the most 

common template used in presentations of Japanese 


Nara and Heian Buddhism 

Nara Buddhism is typically equated with six schools, 

or more properly six traditions, of Buddhist scholarship. 

These developed during the eighth century at major 

monasteries in and around Nara, such as Todaiji, 

Kofukuji, Gangoji, Daianji, and Toshodaiji. The six 

consist specifically of: (1) Kusha, the study of the 

ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHA SYA, a treatise that analyzes all 

things into atomistic units; (2) Hosso, the study of 

YOGA CA RA, a philosophy attributing this atomistic reality 

to mind only; (3) Jojitsu (Chinese, Chengshi), the 

study of a treatise that recognizes discrete elements at 

a conventional level, but not at an absolute level; (4) 

Sanron, the study of MADHYAMAKA, a philosophy using 

emptiness as a concept to refute the standard ideas 

of existence and nonexistence; (5) Kegon (Chinese, 

HUAYAN), a philosophy of interdependence and mutual 

identification among all things; and (6) Ritsu 

(Sanskrit, VINAYA), a systematic exposition of the 

rules, procedures, and lifestyle applying to the Buddhist 

clergy. 

These six schools represent a complex body of 

knowledge transplanted from the Asian mainland and 

studied by clerics as correlative systems rather than as 

competing philosophies. The state sanctioned and supported 

the monasteries in which they flourished, and 

sought to make Buddhist learning and the entire Buddhist 

order its own preserve. It oversaw who could 

become priests and nuns, and issued regulations governing 

them. Such control, aimed at protection of the 

state and concrete benefits, is considered a defining 

characteristic of Nara Buddhism. Despite the state’s efforts, 

Buddhist beliefs and practices began to spread 

more widely in the population, primarily through itinerant 

Buddhist preachers such as Gyoki (or Gyogi, 

668–749). 

Heian Buddhism refers specifically to the Tendai 

and Shingon schools, which emerged at the beginning 

of the Heian period (794–1185) and quickly dominated 

religious affairs in Japan. This new phase commenced 

soon after the imperial capital was moved 

from Nara to Kyoto in an attempt to distance the government 

from the encroaching influence of the Nara 

temples. Heian Buddhism arose in a sense as a reaction 

to Nara Buddhism, and also as a continuing expansion 

of Buddhism from the Asian continent. The 

Heian founders, SAICHO (767–822) of Tendai and 

KU KAI (774–835) of Shingon, studied Buddhism in 

China and introduced into Japan trends they encountered 

there, along with adaptations of their own. Each 

considered his own form of Buddhism superior to 


411

K AMAKURA 


those preserved in the Nara temples. The Tendai tradition 

that Saicho established claimed the LOTUS SU- 

TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) as its core text; 

propounded the doctrines of emptiness, provisional 

reality, and the middle way; and developed a complex 

monastic program of meditative training and rituals, 

influenced in part by Kukai’s esoteric teachings. Saicho 

also sought to make his monastic community, located 

on Mount Hiei northeast of Kyoto, independent 

of the Nara Buddhist organization by developing his 

own procedures for ordaining clerics based on MA- 

HAYANA precepts. 

Kukai, for his part, advanced the Shingon idea of 

the all-pervasive presence of Dainichi (Mahavairocana) 

Buddha and the actualization of buddhahood 

through physical, verbal, and mental acts of ritual. Instead 

of distancing himself from Nara Buddhism, 

Kukai introduced Shingon esoteric ritual into Todaiji 

and other temples, and at the same time developed his 

own Shingon institutions at Toji in Kyoto and on 

Mount Koya near Osaka. Tendai and Shingon Buddhism 

thus took their place alongside Nara Buddhism 

as the religious establishment of Japan, and in many 

ways superseded it. Both operated in partnership with 

the ruling powers, creating a religious and ideological 

foundation for governance. Materially, they benefited 

from the burgeoning estate system in the Japanese medieval 

economy, which richly endowed their temples 

and monasteries and allowed them to develop elaborate 

traditions of religious training, ritual, doctrine, 

and iconography. Their beliefs, practices, and institutions, 

especially those found on Mount Hiei, were the 

matrix from which Kamakura Buddhism arose. 

The Great Buddha of Kamakura, Japan. (Japanese, bronze, 

1252.) © Edifice/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

The emergence of Kamakura Buddhism 

Kamakura Buddhism is commonly presented as a reaction 

to Heian Buddhism, just as Heian is considered 

a reaction to Nara Buddhism. By the twelfth century 

the burgeoning Tendai and Shingon institutions, 

combined with the Nara temples, formed the prevailing 

religious order of Japan, frequently referred to as 

the eight schools (hasshu ). The fledgling movements 

that eventually grew into the Kamakura schools 

emerged out of this milieu and to a certain extent reacted 

against it. Their teachings and practices were inspired 

by the existing traditions, and their founders 

received training at established monasteries and temples, 

particularly on Mount Hiei. But they approached 

mainstream Buddhism selectively, embracing some 

teachings and rejecting others. All three forms of Kamakura 

Buddhism—Pure Land, Zen, and Nichiren— 

thus developed different orientations from Tendai, 

Shingon, and Nara Buddhism, and quickly diverged 

from their norm. 

PURE LAND BUDDHISM was perhaps the largest and 

most pervasive segment of Kamakura Buddhism. The 

specific Japanese schools commonly classified in the 

Pure Land category are the Jodoshu school founded by 

HO NEN (1133–1212), the Jodo Shinshu school founded 

by SHINRAN (1173–1263), and the Jishu school founded 

by IPPEN CHISHIN (1239–1289). All three lived during 

the Kamakura period, and emphasized devotion to 

AMITABHA Buddha and rebirth in his Pure Land paradise. 

Pure Land beliefs and practices had already 

emerged as prominent elements in Japanese Buddhism, 

particularly on Mount Hiei and in aristocratic society. 

But the Kamakura founders stressed them even more, 

often to the exclusion of other forms of Buddhism. 

Honen, who was the most prominent Pure Land master 

of his time, advocated exclusive practice of the nenbutsu, 

invoking or chanting the name of the Buddha 

Amitabha in the form Namu Amida Butsu. Shinran, 


K AMAKURA 


who was his disciple, believed that it is Amitabha’s 

power that leads people to enlightenment in the Pure 

Land and that infuses them with nenbutsu practice and 

FAITH (shinjin). Ippen, an itinerant Pure Land holy 

man, considered the nenbutsu an act wherein the Buddha 

and the believer merge, and he spread the nenbutsu 

widely through distribution of amulets inscribed with 

it. Honen’s initiatives inspired an independent Pure 

Land movement, but also provoked a harsh reaction 

from established temples and monasteries, resulting in 

his banishment from Kyoto for four years. Shinran’s 

following, which grew to be a mass movement two centuries 

later, was distinctive in that its clergy, in accord 

with his example, forsook Buddhism’s clerical celibacy, 

and married and begot families. And Ippen’s activities 

led to an extensive network of do jo (congregational 

meeting places) of nenbutsu practitioners. 

Zen, the second form of Kamakura Buddhism, consists 

of the Rinzai school, founded by Eisai (or Yosai, 

1141–1215) and others, and the Soto school, begun by 

DO GEN (1200–1253). Both were monks on Mount 

Hiei, and both traveled to China for further training 

in monasteries. Each emphasized Zen meditation as a 

crucial religious practice, though for somewhat different 

reasons. Eisai considered Tendai Buddhism on 

Mount Hiei to be in decline, and he sought to revitalize 

it by introducing China’s method of Zen training 

(and also by emphasizing clerical precepts anew). But 

Mount Hiei rejected his initiatives. Eisai, nonetheless, 

found an ally in the recently established warrior government, 

which first supported him as a Zen master 

in the city of Kamakura and later sponsored his new 

Zen monastery, Kenninji, in Kyoto. These institutions, 

along with others established by subsequent Chinese 

and Japanese masters, became the basis for the Rinzai 

branch of Zen. Dogen, for his part, also trained on 

Mount Hiei and then at Kenninji before traveling to 

China. He regarded the Zen method he learned there 

as Buddhism’s most authentic form, and upon returning 

to Japan he quickly built a following around 

it, separate from his previous affiliations. Eventually he 

received patronage from a regional lord who enabled 

him to establish a monastery, Eiheiji, in the remote 

province of Echizen. The monastic rules and routines 

that Dogen formulated there became the starting point 

of Soto Zen in Japan. At the heart of his teaching and 

monastic community was Zen MEDITATION, which he 

considered the very practice of enlightenment. 

Nichiren Buddhism, known widely in medieval 

times as the Hokkeshu, or Lotus school, comprises the 

third tradition of Kamakura Buddhism, which is 

named after its founder NICHIREN (1222–1282). Nichiren 

was active somewhat later than the other Kamakura 

founders, but like most of them he was trained 

for a period in Tendai Buddhism on Mount Hiei. Early 

in his career he was exposed to various forms of Buddhism 

including Pure Land, Zen, and Shingon, but on 

Mount Hiei he fixed upon the Lotus Su tra, Tendai’s 

central scripture, as the highest teaching. While utilizing 

Tendai terminology and doctrine to articulate his 

ideas, over time Nichiren came to emphasize singleminded 

and exclusive devotion to the Lotus, and he 

promoted the practice of the DAIMOKU, chanting the title 

of the sutra in the form Namu Myo ho -renge-kyo as 

the quintessential expression of the Lotus Su tra’s truth 

and power. This practice existed in certain Tendai circles 

prior to Nichiren’s time, but he championed it 

with a fervor surpassing all previous proponents. At 

the same time, Nichiren began to criticize other forms 

of Buddhism—specifically, Pure Land, Zen, Shingon, 

and Ritsu. This action earned him the enmity of the 

warrior government in Kamakura, which patronized 

them. On two occasions the government banished 

Nichiren to remote parts of Japan as punishment. 

These events marginalized Nichiren and his following, 

even as he continued to attract believers, including a 

significant number of women, to his Lotus teachings. 

Kamakura Buddhism as a scholarly category 

The classification of the Pure Land, Zen, and Nichiren 

movements as Kamakura Buddhism occurred largely 

in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. 

Scholars then began to identify Kamakura times as a 

period of significant and lasting change in Japanese religion. 

To highlight this change they coined the terms 

New Buddhism, to refer to the six schools traceable to 

the Kamakura period, and Old Buddhism, to indicate 

the eight schools originating in Nara and Heian times. 

Scholars further attributed distinct characteristics and 

orientations to New Buddhism that set it apart from 

the earlier forms. Specifically, New Buddhism tended 

to reduce religious practice to a single simple activity 

that could be performed by most people, such as the 

nenbutsu, Zen meditation, or the daimoku. New Buddhism 

was oriented more to the salvation of regular 

people than to the lofty goals and arduous lifestyle of 

monastic elites. Such practices were not predicated on 

a mastery of complex doctrine, but usually involved a 

simple religious stance of faith, sincerity, and devotion. 

Also, such practices did not require the intercession of 

priests, but could be performed on an individual basis. 

This focus on specific uncomplicated religious 


413

K AMAKURA 


practices made New Buddhism more exclusivistic, distilling 

religion to the bare essentials, in contrast to Old 

Buddhism, which was more inclusivitic, integrating a 

vast array of practices, beliefs, texts, deities, rituals, and 

ecclesiastical ranks into a multifaceted religious culture. 

In the process, New Buddhism set aside many of 

the magical and apotropaic concerns of Old Buddhism 

in order to concentrate on personal salvation. Overall, 

the new Kamakura movements are portrayed as the 

democratization of Japanese Buddhism—that is, the 

extension of Buddhism beyond a predominantly 

upper-class, male, clerical elite to include lowly, female, 

and lay adherents. This view of Japan’s religious 

development has dominated scholarship for the last 

century, though it has been subject to a variety of refinements 

and critiques. 

A by-product of this characterization of Kamakura 

Buddhism has been the tendency to compare it to the 

Protestant Reformation in Europe. In fact, the example 

of the Reformation may have influenced the way 

scholars conceived of Kamakura Buddhism and the 

features they highlighted. The parallels most often 

cited between the two are an emphasis on faith, the 

emergence of a married clergy, the decentralization of 

religious authority, and the diminished role of clerical 

intercessors. Among the various forms of Kamakura 

Buddhism, Shinran’s school, the Jodo Shinshu, has attracted 

the greatest attention. Shinran himself is frequently 

compared to Martin Luther. Were it not for 

Shinran and his school, however, it is questionable how 

germane the Reformation model would be for analyzing 

Japanese Buddhism. The tendency to equate Kamakura 

Buddhism to the Protestant Reformation has 

declined in recent decades, especially as scholars examine 

Japanese Buddhism in greater depth and identify 

dissimilarities. Nonetheless, the terminology of 

reform has persisted, even though Kamakura is now 

treated as its own distinct example of reform. 

One difficulty in attributing special characteristics 

to this New Buddhism is that many of the reforms 

identified in it also occurred in Old Buddhism. Hence, 

one of the refinements to the category of Kamakura 

Buddhism has been to extend its boundaries to include 

various movements and new developments in the 

Heian and Nara schools too. It is well known, for instance, 

that various eminent priests of Tendai, Shingon, 

and the Nara temples were drawn to the nenbutsu 

as a religious practice, and some to Zen meditation 

also. In addition, various clerics from Nara, such as 

Jokei (1155–1213) and Myoe KO BEN (1173–1232), 

promoted popular and easily practiced devotions to 

Buddhist deities, including Śakyamuni Buddha, the future 

Buddha MAITREYA, and the Bodhisattva Mañjuśr. 

Though not as widespread as Pure Land devotions to 

Amitabha, these practices were often conducted in a 

similar manner—for instance, chanting the name of 

the buddha or bodhisattva before an enshrined image 

or sacred object. Another initiative in Old Buddhism 

was to revive the Buddhist PRECEPTS, just as Eisai 

sought to do alongside Zen meditation in his monastery. 

Ostensibly, this was done to revitalize the Buddhist 

order, which was considered lax and in decline. 

But administering the Buddhist precepts was not limited 

to clerics. Nara proponents such as Eison (1209– 

1290) developed mass ceremonies for administering 

lay precepts to ordinary people as well. Thus, Old Buddhism 

responded to their needs and religious proclivities 

as much as New Buddhism did. This wave of 

popular practice, however, did not displace traditional 

rituals and doctrine in the established temples, but 

emerged alongside them. In fact, some learned priests 

such as GYO NEN (1240–1321) and Kakuzen (b. 1143) 

compiled systematic accounts of doctrine, compendiums 

of beliefs and practices, and historiographies of 

Buddhism as another way of revitalizing their schools. 

Hence, Old Buddhism was equally caught up in the religious 

ferment of the Kamakura period, even while 

maintaining its traditions of the past. 

The most important critique of Kamakura Buddhism 

as a scholarly concept is found in the alternative 

theory of medieval Japanese religion proposed by 

the historian Kuroda Toshio (1926–1993). This theory 

centers on the idea that the dominant form of religion 

in medieval times was Kenmitsu, or exoteric-esoteric, 

Buddhism. Specifically, this refers to an array of practices 

and assumptions found widely in the temples, 

monasteries, and organizations of Tendai, Shingon, 

and Nara Buddhism, rather than in the new Pure Land, 

Zen, and Nichiren movements. Kenmitsu Buddhism 

was, in short, Japan’s medieval orthodoxy, binding together 

the mainstream institutions through commonly 

recognized esoteric rituals, even while they diverged on 

exoteric doctrine. Esoteric ritual was considered efficacious 

in achieving both spiritual and worldly goals, 

so the ruling powers of Japan looked to Kenmitsu Buddhism 

for support and, in turn, patronized and promoted 

it. Inherent in this depiction of religion is the 

supposition that the new Kamakura movements were, 

at best, minor participants in medieval culture and, at 

worst, heretical fringe groups. The upshot of this view 

is that Nara and Heian Buddhism are recognized as 

greater and longer influences on Japan’s history than 


K ARMA 

( ACTION) 

is commonly acknowledged. The Kamakura Buddhism 

model thus reflects a projection back onto medieval 

times of the early modern and modern religious order, 

since most of its institutions gained prominence only 

around the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, toward 

the end of the medieval period. 

The Kenmitsu theory offers a critique of the presumption 

that Kamakura Buddhism was the focal 

point and the most representative expression of medieval 

Japanese religion. This critique is built on an astute 

analysis of medieval religious institutional culture, 

and it provides an important correction to the tendency 

to inflate the significance of the new Pure Land, 

Zen, and Nichiren movements in medieval Japan. But 

whether the Kenmitsu theory can actually lay to rest 

the Kamakura Buddhism model is another question. 

For all its shortcomings, the model underscores the 

point that over time Japan underwent notable changes 

in its religious outlook and practice, which are embedded 

in the dominant forms of Japanese Buddhism 

today, and that those changes had their inception, if 

not their heyday, in the Kamakura period. This assumption 

is so pervasive in the study of Japanese Buddhism 

that the Kamakura model is likely to continue 

as an important category in explaining the development 

of Buddhism in Japan. 

See also: Chan School; Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu) 

Buddhism in Japan; Japan; Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; 

Korean, Yŏmbul); Nichiren School; Shingon 

Buddhism, Japan; Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Bellah, Robert N. “The Contemporary Meaning of Kamakura 

Buddhism.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 42, 

no. 1 (1974): 3–17. 

Dobbins, James C., ed. The Legacy of Kuroda Toshio. Special issue. 

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, nos. 3–4 (Fall 

1996). 




Foard, James H. “In Search of a Lost Reformation: A Reconsideration 

of Kamakura Buddhism.” Japanese Journal of Religious 

Studies 7, no. 4 (1980): 261–291. 

Ienaga Saburo. Chu sei Bukkyo shiso shi kenkyu (A Study of the 

Intellectual History of Medieval Buddhism), revised edition. 

Kyoto: Hozokan, 1955. 

Kuroda Toshio. “Bukkyo kakushin undo no rekishi teki 

seikaku” (The Historical Character of Buddhism’s Reform 

Movement). In Nihon chu sei no shakai to shu kyo (Society 

and Religion in Medieval Japan). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 

1990. 

Matsunaga, Daigan, and Matsunaga, Alicia. Foundation of 

Japanese Buddhism, Vol. 2: The Mass Movement: Kamakura 

and Muromachi Periods. Los Angeles and Tokyo: Buddhist 

Books International, 1976. 

Morrell, Robert E. Early Kamakura Buddhism: A Minority Report. 

Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1987. 

Payne, Richard K., ed. Re-Visioning “Kamakura” Buddhism. 


O sumi Kazuo. “Buddhism in the Kamakura Period.” In The 

Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 3: Medieval Japan, ed. Kozo 

Yamamura. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1990. 




Weinstein, Stanley. “The Concept of Reformation in Japanese 

Buddhism.” In Studies in Japanese Culture, Vol. 2, ed. Saburo 

O ta. Tokyo: Japan Pen Club, 1973. 

KARMA (ACTION) 


The term karma, which literally means “action,” is frequently 

used in the context of what can be called the 

doctrine of karma: the belief that acts bring about their 

retribution, usually in a subsequent existence. This belief 

is nowadays shared by many Hindus, Buddhists, 

Jainas, and others, but the details can vary considerably 

between different believers. In order to understand 

the doctrine of karma in Indian Buddhism it will 

be necessary briefly to explore its historical background. 

Buddhism was originally one of the religious currents 

that made up the so-called Śramana (mendicant) 

movement. Other religious currents belonging to the 

same movement were Jainism and A jvikism; there 

were no doubt more such currents, but no details 

about them have survived. All these currents shared 

the conviction that acts will bring about their retribution. 

Moreover, they all seem to have shared the aspiration 

to end the endless cycle of rebirths that results 

from acts and their consequences. Buddhism, too, was 

based on these convictions, and it, too, was driven by 

the aspiration to free its practitioners from the results 

of their acts, that is, from REBIRTH. 


415

K ARMA 

( ACTION) 

The surviving sources indicate that, outside Buddhism, 

especially two methods believed to lead to the 

desired goal had found acceptance among practitioners. 

On the one hand there were those who drew the 

conclusion that, if acts are responsible for the consequences 

that one tries to avoid, the solution can only 

lie in the practice of complete motionlessness of body 

and mind. This form of asceticism, preferably performed 

until death, found followers among the Jainas, 

the A jivikas, and elsewhere. There were, however, others 

who preferred a second method. This method is, 

in its conception, as simple as it is elegant. If acts lead 

to undesired consequences, it is sufficient to realize 

that one has never committed those acts to begin with. 

And indeed, one has never committed those acts, because 

that which one really is, one’s true self (atman), 

does not act by its very nature. This second method, 

in which transcendental insight plays a central role, 

found entrance into the Vedic Upanisads and is almost 

omnipresent in later Hindu religious literature. 

Both of these methods are based on a simple and 

straightforward notion as to what are acts; clearly all 

forms of bodily and mental motion, and only bodily 

and mental motion, are involved here. Complete physical 

and mental immobility would obviously be a poor, 

or exaggerated, response if only certain acts (such as, 

for example, only morally relevant acts) have karmic 

consequences. 

Early Buddhism did not accept these two methods 

because it did not share with the other religious currents 

of that period this specific notion of karma. Early 

Buddhism does not identify bodily and mental motion, 

but DESIRE (or thirst, trsna), as the cause of karmic 

consequences. Neither physical and mental immobility 

nor insight into the true nature of a presumed self will 

have any effect on the presence of desire, which means 

that Buddhism had to find a different method. This is 

what the Buddha is reported to have done; his method 

is psychological, and it is said to destroy desire. 

It should be clear from the above that the Buddhist 

understanding of the doctrine of karma and the Buddhist 

PATH to liberation are intricately linked. Both the 

rejection of extreme ASCETIC PRACTICES and the doctrine 

of no-self (though variously interpreted, even by 

the later Buddhists themselves) owe their origin to the 

specifically Buddhist understanding of the doctrine of 

karma. 

The authentic Buddhist path to liberation, however, 

is difficult to understand and difficult to practice. 

Moreover, it appears that the canonical passages that 

describe it were not sufficiently clear even to many 

early Buddhist converts. This would explain why Buddhism 

in India, from its early days onward, time and 

again reintroduced, in various shapes, the methods 

that had been rejected by its founder. In particular, already 

in canonical times, ascetic practices that were 

centered on the suppression of mental activity made 

their way into Buddhism. More recent texts speak of 

the suppression of all activity, both mental and physical, 

as a desirable aim. An idea that is structurally similar 

to the non-Buddhist atman doctrine found its way 

into the Buddhist canon in the form of the Buddhist 

anatman (no-self) doctrine; in both cases the doctrine 

implies the realization that one does not really act. 

More recent developments in Indian Buddhism introduce 

notions, such as that of the TATHAGATAGARBHA, 

that are even more similar to the initially rejected atman 

doctrine. 

The causal process leading to karmic retribution is 

described, from canonical times onward, in terms of 

the causal chain of items called PRATITYASAMUTPADA 

(DEPENDENT ORIGINATION). This causal chain has been 

variously interpreted and elaborated in the Buddhist 

scholastic tradition. 

However, problems linked to karmic retribution remained. 

How, indeed, should one imagine that a bad 

deed committed in one life will give rise to punishment 

in another one without the intervention of a conscious 

and all-powerful agent who keeps account of all the 

acts carried out by all living beings? The problem of 

karmic retribution presented itself to various non- 

Buddhists in India as well, who often solved it precisely 

by postulating the existence of a creator God who was 

in charge of it. Buddhism, on the other hand, had no 

place for a creator God. The workings of karmic retribution, 

though essential to Indian Buddhists, remained 

therefore a mystery to many of them. 

A daring attempt to solve this mystery finds expression 

in the YOGACARA SCHOOL of Buddhist thought, 

and most clearly in the writings of VASUBANDHU (ca. 

fourth century C.E.), who presumably converted to Yogacara 

later in life. It starts from the question of what 

exactly links an act with its (often much later) retribution. 

In his early work, the ABHIDHARMAKOŚA- 

BHASYA, Vasubandhu stated already that this link is 

constituted by a series of mental events. Furthermore, 

he conceived of the initial intentional act, too, as a 

mind-event. Its fruition, however, is not normally a 

mind-event, but an event in the world. How is this to 

be explained? Vasubandhu does not attempt to answer 


K ARMA 

PA 

this question in his Abhidharmakośabhasya. In his later 

Vim śika (Twenty Verses) he does. In this work, he offers 

the solution that the fruition of an act, like the act 

itself and the intermediate sequence, must be a mindevent. 

That is to say, acts and their consequences, and 

therefore the whole world, are nothing but mindevents. 

Vasubandhu opts here for idealism in order 

to solve a problem that resulted from the doctrine 

of karma. 

The Buddhist doctrine of karma, then, is intimately 

linked to the specific ways to liberation accepted by 

Indian Buddhists in the course of time, but also to certain 

doctrinal developments. 

See also: Anatman/Atman (No-Self/Self); Critical Buddhism 

(Hihan Bukkyo); Hinduism and Buddhism; India; 


Bibliography 

Bronkhorst, Johannes. “The Buddha and the Jainas Reconsidered.” 

Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 49, no. 2 (1995): 

333–350. 

Bronkhorst, Johannes. Karma and Teleology: A Problem and Its 

Solutions in Indian Philosophy. Tokyo: International Institute 


Cox, Collett. “Dependent Origination: Its Elaboration in Early 

Sarvastivadin Abhidharma Texts.” In Researches in Indian 

and Buddhist Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Professor Alex 

Wayman, ed. Ram Karan Sharma. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1993. 

La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu: 

Traduction et Annotations (1923). Brussels: Institut Belge des 

Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1980. 


Buddhist Philosophy from 100 to 350 A.D. Delhi: Motilal 


Schmithausen, Lambert. “Zur zwölfgliedrigen Formel des 

Entstehens in Abhängigkeit.” Ho rin: Vergleichende Studien 

zur japanischen Kultur 7 (2000): 41–76. 

Willemen, Charles; Dessein, Bart; and Cox, Collett. Sarvastivada 

Buddhist Scholasticism. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1998. 

KARMA PA 


Karma pa is an appellation given to the spiritual head 

of the Karma BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU), a major branch 

of the larger Bka’ brgyud sect of Tibetan Buddhism. 

The term Karma pa is commonly etymologized as 

“Man of (Enlightened) Action (karma).” The Karma 

pas are considered to form the first institutionalized 

succession of reincarnated masters (sprul sku, pronounced 

tulku) in Tibet, a process whereby a young 

child is recognized as the reembodiment of a recently 

deceased master and raised to continue the latter’s religious 

and political activities. In a tradition perhaps 

unique to the Karma pas, prior to his death each hierarch 

is said to compose a letter predicting the date and 

location of his future rebirth. Entrusted to a close disciple, 

this prediction letter then forms the basis for 

seeking out the prelate’s next incarnation. 

The Karma pas are traditionally believed to be the 

custodians of a black crown fashioned from the hair 

of 100,000 DA KINI goddesses, invisible to all save those 

of great spiritual merit. In the early fifteenth century, 

the Ming emperor Yongle offered the fifth Karma pa 

a physical replica, which has since become one of the 

lineage’s most sacred relics, believed to confer liberation 

upon those who merely see it. For this reason, the 

Karma pas are sometimes called the Black Crowned 

(zhwa nag) and have somewhat unwittingly received 

the title Black Hat Lama in the West. While they have 

occasionally been the target—and the source—of 

polemical sectarian attack, the Karma pas (like the 

Dalai Lamas) are traditionally understood by Tibetans 

to be emanations of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, 

Avalokiteśvara. They rank among Tibet’s greatest religious 

figures, revered for their learning and exposition 

as well as their mastery of yogic and meditative disciplines, 

and at times they have wielded tremendous secular 

influence and political power. 

The line of Karma pas originated during the twelfth 

century with the first Karma pa, Dus gsum mkhyen pa 

(Dusum Khyenpa, 1110–1193), a close disciple of 

Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen (Gampopa Sönam 

Rinchen, 1079–1153), who had studied under the famous 

yogin MI LARASPA(MILAREPA, 1028/40–1111/ 

23). Dus gsum mkhyen pa established several important 

monasteries, including Karma Dgon (Karma Gön) 

in eastern Tibet and, in 1187, Stod lung Mtshur phu 

(Tölung Tshurphu), northwest of Lhasa. The latter was 

expanded during subsequent generations, becoming 

one of the region’s leading institutions and serving as 

the main seat of the Karma pas and the Karma Bka’ 

brgyud. Dus gsum mkhyen pa’s successor, the second 

Karma pa, Karma Pakshi (1204–1283), is remembered 

especially for his prowess in meditation and the 

performance of magical feats. Patronized for a time by 

the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan (r. 1260–1294), he 


417

K ARMA 

PA 

The seventeenth Karma pa, O rgyan ’phrin las rdo rje (Orgyan 

Trinle Dorje), in Dharamsala, India, in 2000. AP/Wide World 

Photos. Reproduced by permission. 

established ties with the Yuan court in China. The 

third Karma pa, Rang ’byung rdo rje (Rangjung Dorje, 

1284–1339), advanced his predecessor’s affiliation 

with the Mongol court by supervising Emperor Toghun 

Temur’s (r. 1333–1368) ascension to the throne. 

He was also influenced, like his predecessor, by the 

RNYING MA (NYINGMA) sect’s teachings on the Great 

Perfection (rdzogs chen), and he authored several important 

treatises on tantric theory and practice. 

The fourth Karma pa, Rol pa’i rdo rje (Rolpe Dorje, 

1340–1383), and the fifth Karma pa, De bzhin gshegs 

pa (Dezhin Shekpa, 1384–1415), continued to develop 

ties with the Chinese court—the former with Toghun 

Temur and the latter serving as guru to the Ming dynasty 

emperor Yongle (r. 1402–1424), a position of 

great influence. While the sixth Karma pa, Mthong ba 

don ldan (Thongwa Dondan, 1416–1453), did not actively 

pursue the political connections established by 

his predecessors, he is known for reinvigorating the ritual 

practice of the Karma Bka’ brgyud, authoring numerous 

meditation and liturgical manuals. The 

seventh Karma pa, Chos grags rgya mtsho (Chödrak 

Gyatso, 1454–1506), is remembered primarily for his 

philosophical writings on logic and epistemology. His 

voluminous work on the topic of pramana is still used 

as a principal textbook in many Bka’ brgyud monasteries. 

The eighth Karma pa, Mi bskyod rdo rje (Mikyö 

Dorje, 1507–1554), was likewise a prolific scholar 

whose writings encompassed Sanskrit linguistics, poetry, 

and art, as well as MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL philosophy 

and TANTRA. Several of his works sparked a 

heated debate with DGE LUGS (GELUK) scholars by criticizing 

the views of their founder, TSONG KHA PA 

(1357–1419), and his Thun bzhi bla ma’i rnal ‘byor 

(Four Session Guru Yoga) remains an important, widely 

practiced meditation text. The ninth Karma pa, Dbang 

phyug rdo rje (Wangchuk Dorje, 1604–1674), is 

revered for his seminal writings on the theory and 

practice of MAHAMUDRA. However, with the ascendance 

of the Mongol backed Dge lugs hierarchs, he also 

witnessed the decline of his sect’s political influence in 

central Tibetan politics. His successor, the tenth Karma 

pa, Chos kyi dbang phyug (Chökyi Wangchuk, 

1604–1674), was thus forced into virtual exile near the 

Sino-Tibetan border in the east. As the civil war in 

Tibet waned, Chos kyi dbang phyug returned to Lhasa 

where he forged ties with Tibet’s new religious and 

political leader, the fifth DALAI LAMA Ngag dbang 

blo bzang rgya mtsho (Ngawang Lozang Gyatso, 

1617–1682). 

The eleventh Karma pa, Ye shes rdo rje (Yeshe 

Dorje, 1676–1702), and twelfth Karma pa, Byang chub 

rdo rje (Changchub Dorje, 1703–1732), both lived relatively 

short lives, although the latter made an important 

journey through Nepal together with his disciple, 

the brilliant scholar and Sanskritist Situ Chos kyi 

’byung gnas (Chökyi Jungne, 1700–1774). The life of 

thirteenth Karma pa, Bdud ’dul rdo rje (Dudul Dorje, 

1733–1797), was, for the most part, lived outside the 

sphere of politics. He is especially remembered for his 

love of birds and animals, to whom he is said to have 

taught the dharma. Together with his predecessor, the 

fourteenth Karma pa, Theg mchog rdo rje (Thekchok 

Dorje, 1798–1868), witnessed a revival of Bka’ brgyud 

doctrine in the eastern Tibetan province of Khams, as 

part of the so-called Eclectic (ris med) Movement of 

which his disciple Kongs sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas 

(Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye, 1813–1899) was a leading 

voice. The fifteenth Karma pa, Mkha’ khyab rdo rje 

(Khakhyab Dorje, 1871–1922), the latter’s principal 

disciple, continued to support this movement and left 

an ample body of collected writings. The sixteenth 

Karma pa, Rang ’byung rig pa’i rdo rje (Rangjung 

Rigpe Dorje, 1924–1981), faced the Communist Chinese 

occupation of Tibet; he fled to India in 1959 and 

established an exile seat at Rumtek Monastery in 


K ARUN A (COMPASSION) 

Sikkim. He traveled widely throughout Europe and 

North America prior to his death in a Chicago hospital, 

establishing numerous Tibetan Buddhist centers 

and attracting a large following of Western devotees. 

The seventeenth Karma pa, O rgyan ’phrin las rdo rje 

(Orgyan Trinle Dorje, b. 1985), was enthroned at 

Mtshur phu Monastery in Tibet on September 27, 

1992. In late December 2000 he escaped into exile, establishing 

a temporary residence in Dharamsala, India, 

where he continued to reside as of 2003. Although 

his identification as the Karma pa has been disputed 

by a small number of followers, O rgyan ’phrin las rdo 

rje maintains the support of the majority of the Tibetan 

and Western Buddhist community, including 

the Dalai Lama. 

Bibliography 

Douglas, Nik, and White, Meryl. Karmapa: The Black Hat Lama 

of Tibet. London: Luzac, 1978. 

Hilton, Isabel. “Flight of the Lama.” New York Times Magazine 

(March 12, 2000): 50–55. 

Karma Thinley. The History of the Sixteen Karmapas. Boulder, 

CO: Prajña Press, 1978. 

Martin, Michele. Music in the Sky: The Life, Art, and Teaching 

of the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinle Dorje. Ithaca, NY: Snow 

Lion, 2003. 

Richardson, Hugh. “The Karma-pa Sect: A Historical Note.” 

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1958): 139–164, and 

(1959): 1–18. Reprinted in High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected 

Writings on Tibetan History and Culture, ed. Michael Aris. 


Richardson, Hugh. “Chos-dbyings rdo-rje, the Tenth Black Hat 

Karma-pa.” Bulletin of Tibetology, new series 1 (1987): 

25–42. Reprinted in High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings 

on Tibetan History and Culture, ed. Michael Aris. London: 


Sperling, Elliot. “The 5th Karma-pa and Some Aspects of the 


Studies in Honor of Hugh Richardson, ed. Michael Aris and 

Aung San Suu Kyi. New Delhi: Vikas, 1980. 

Williams, Paul M. “A Note on Some Aspects of Mi Bskyod Rdo 

Rje’s Critique of Dge Lugs Pa Madhyamaka.” Journal of Indian 

Philosophy 11 (1983): 125–145. 

KARUN A (COMPASSION) 


Karuna (compassion), along with PRAJN A (WISDOM), is 

one of the two virtues universally affirmed by Buddhists. 

Basically, karuna is defined as the wish that others 

be free of suffering, in contradistinction to maitrl 

(love; Pali, metta), which is the wish that others be 

happy. Compassion is a quality that a buddha is believed 

to possess to the greatest possible degree, and 

that Buddhists still on the path strive to cultivate. 

The texts of the THERAVADA and other MAINSTREAM 

BUDDHIST SCHOOLS make it clear that the Buddha 

Śakyamuni was deeply motivated by compassion. The 

JATAKA stories describe how, in his previous lives as a 

BODHISATTVA, the Buddha sometimes sacrificed his life 

to relieve the suffering of another, as when he fed his 

body to a hungry tigress unable to feed her cubs. In his 

final life, after his awakening under the bodhi tree, he 

decided to teach, rather than enter final NIRVAN A, out 

of compassion for those few who might understand his 

message. He also sent forth his monks to preach the 

dharma “for the benefit of the many, for the welfare 

of the many.” Among the rules established by the Buddha 

for lay and monastic followers are numerous prohibitions 

against harming others, motivated at least in 

part by a desire to avoid causing unnecessary suffering; 

indeed, nonharming (ahim sa) often has been defined 

as essential to practicing the dharma. The 

Buddha also encouraged his followers, in their meditative 

life, to immerse themselves in the four immeasurable 

states (brahmavihara): love, compassion, 

sympathetic joy, and equanimity, which are extended 

to all beings throughout the cosmos. 

With the emergence of the MAHAYANA some four 

centuries after the Buddha’s death, compassion took 

on added significance. Such texts as the Prajñaparamita 

(Perfection of Wisdom) sutras, the LOTUS-SU TRA (SAD- 

DHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), and the Gandavyu hasu 

tra, as well as countless treatises and commentaries, 

articulated a new vision of the Buddha, bodhisattva, 

and ordinary practitioner. The Buddha now was seen 

as eternal, omniscient, and infinitely compassionate. 

To act compassionately, the Buddha was capable of 

myriad metamorphoses and manifestations, including 

the creation of PURE LANDS (or buddha-fields) in which 

suffering beings might have their troubles eased and 

their progress toward awakening hastened. 

The bodhisattva became a normative ideal for Mahayana 

practitioners, penetrating to the emptiness at 

the core of all persons and phenomena, yet driven by 

compassion so great that he or she not only wished all 

beings freed from suffering, but resolved to effect that 

freedom personally, regardless of the hardships involved. 

In some Mahayana texts, the bodhisattva’s 


419

K ARUN A (COMPASSION) 

compassion is such that he or she vows to postpone 

awakening until others are freed. In other texts, compassion 

drives the bodhisattva to try to become a buddha 

as swiftly as possible so he or she can maximally 

benefit others. In either case, the bodhisattva sought 

to develop bodhicitta, the dedication to enlightenment 

for the sake of others, and UPAYA, the skill-in-means, 

guided by wisdom, that enables one to act in the world 

effectively—and sometimes unconventionally—for 

the benefit of suffering beings. In general, compassion 

was seen as indispensable to the attainment of buddhahood, 

as one of the two “wings” (the other being 

wisdom) without which one could not ascend to awakening. 

Perfected, it would issue in the “Form Body,” 

through which a buddha assists others, as perfected 

wisdom would become the transcendent, gnostic 

“Dharma Body.” 

Mahayana philosophers celebrated and analyzed 

compassion. CANDRAKIRTI (ca. 600–650 C.E.) praised 

compassion as the original seed of the buddhas. Dharmakrti 

(ca. 600–660 C.E.) framed logical arguments to 

prove that compassion could be developed infinitely. 

ŚANTIDEVA (ca. 685–763 C.E.), in his Bodhicaryavatara 

(Entry to Enlightened Conduct), attempted to demonstrate 

on rational grounds why one should be compassionate, 

to articulate why compassion should 

extend even to one’s enemies, and to provide meditative 

methods through which one might develop compassion, 

including the “great mystery” of imaginatively 

exchanging oneself with others. Other Mahayana 

methods for developing compassion included thinking 

of all sentient beings as one’s mother (which, according 

to Buddhist metaphysics, they have been), and then 

directing the same compassionate thoughts toward 

them as one would to one’s own mother. Another 

method was the visualization practice of “giving and 

taking,” in which one inhales the sufferings of others 

as smoke, then exhales to them one’s own virtues in 

the form of light. The tantric traditions that grew out 

of the Mahayana milieu also emphasized compassion 

as a crucial prerequisite for their complex and sometimes 

dangerous meditations. Indeed, because of the 

power evoked by tantric practitioners, compassion 

was, if anything, even more important for them, 

though its expression, in images sometimes filled with 

sexuality and wrath, could seem shocking. 

Mahayana compassion also was personified, most 

notably in the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, who looks 

down compassionately on the world and responds to 

its cries of anguish. An important focus of worship for 

Indian Mahayana Buddhists, Avalokiteśvara assumed 

over a hundred forms, including the four-armed 

holder of the mantra OM MANI PADME HU M , a 

thousand-armed and eleven-headed version, and 

wrathful tantric manifestations. If anything, Avalokiteśvara 

grew in stature as Buddhism spread beyond 

India. Among many transformations, he became the 

female bodhisattva Guanyin in China, the Dalai 

Lamas in Tibet, and the dhamma-protecting bodhisattva 

Natha in Sri Lanka. Similarly, various meditative 

and ritual expressions of compassion evolved in 

various Asian cultures. These include Sri Lankan attempts 

to transfer merit to deities who have gathered 

in a sacred bodhi tree; the Chan Buddhist promise to 

save all beings, numberless though they be; the widespread 

practice of purchasing animals, then setting 

them free; and funeral and memorial rites throughout 

Buddhist Asia. 

Over the centuries, Buddhists reflecting on compassion 

have faced numerous dilemmas. They have 

had to balance analytical deconstruction of the “person” 

with the person-oriented sentiment involved in 

concern for others. Buddhists have tried to understand 

the degree to which compassion that is developed in 

meditation can or should be translated into concrete 

action in the world. They have also wrestled with establishing 

criteria for determining which sort of action 

is truly compassionate, and which is selfish and destructive. 

These issues have become especially pressing 

in the modern era as Buddhist traditions have interacted 

with those of the West, and with those of emerging 

nations in Asia. Buddhists have pondered seriously 

whether the imperative to compassion countenances 

unconventional behavior by spiritual teachers, active 

resistance to social and political oppression, or acquiescence 

to war and other forms of violence, including 

simple anger. Many modern Buddhist thinkers, including 

the fourteenth DALAI LAMA (1935– ) and 

THICH NHAT HANH (1926– ), have wrestled with these 

issues and have found no easy answers. Nevertheless, 

Buddhist leaders have insisted that compassion remains 

absolutely integral to the practice of Buddhism, 

and must be developed to the greatest possible degree, 

now as in the time of the Buddha. 

See also: Bodhicitta (Thought of Awakening); Engaged 


Bibliography 

Aronson, Harvey B. Love and Sympathy in Theravada Buddhism. 



K HMER, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

Dalai Lama XIV. Ethics for the New Millennium. New York: 

Riverhead Books, 1999. 

Dayal, Har. The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature. 

Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1975. 

Newland, Guy. Compassion, a Tibetan Analysis: A Buddhist 

Monastic Textbook. Boston: Wisdom, 1985. 




Śantideva. The Bodhicaryavatara, tr. Kate Crosby and Andrew 

Skilton. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 

1996. 

Watson, Burton, trans. The Lotus Sutra. New York: Columbia 


Williams, Paul. Altruism and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy 

of the Bodhicaryavatara. Richmond, UK: Curzon, 1998. 

KEGON SCHOOL. See Huayan School 

KHMER, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN 


Until the twentieth century, most vernacular literature 

composed or known in Cambodia, including literature 

intended primarily for entertainment, articulated Buddhist 

themes concerning COSMOLOGY and HISTORY, 

moral and ethical values, RITUAL, and the biography of 

the Buddha. Thus, to a large extent, it is possible to 

argue that the history and development of Khmer literature 

in Cambodia is at once the history and development 

of its vernacular religious literature. Khmer 

literature is generally divided into the following periods: 

pre-Angkorian (seventh to ninth centuries); 

Angkorian (ninth to fifteenth centuries); middle or 

post-Angkorian (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries); 

French protectorate or early modern (mid-nineteenth 

to early twentieth centuries); and contemporary or 

modern (mid-twentieth century to the present). 

The Khmer language belongs to the subgroup of the 

Austro-Asiatic language family that includes Mon and 

Khmer. Khmer writing, derived from Sanskrit, developed 

after the second century C.E. when Indian traders 

and migrants to the region began to introduce Sanskrit 

writing and literature, and Indian art forms, religious 

ideas, and ideologies of KINGSHIP and government. The 

first dated inscription in Khmer appeared in 612 C.E., 

roughly concurrent with several dated Cambodian inscriptions 

in Sanskrit. The dual use of both vernacular 

and Sanskrit inscriptions continued throughout the 

following centuries with the emergence of the Khmer 

kingdom of Angkor, which dominated the region between 

the ninth through thirteenth centuries. Pali became 

important as a scriptural and literary language 

after THERAVADA Buddhism rose to prominence in the 

thirteenth century. 

The processes of both Indianization and vernacularization 

in Southeast Asia, including the Khmer regions, 

have received a great deal of scholarly attention. 

Colonial era scholarship tended to view Southeast Asia 

as an empty but fertile ground in which a “superior” 

Indian culture was implanted and took root, giving rise 

to a whole new Indianized civilization. More recently, 

scholars have suggested that the absorption of Indian 

cultural motifs and ideas was possible because they 

were similar or complementary to existing indigenous 

cultural forms. Thus the process was perhaps not a 

wholesale Indianization, but rather a selective process 

of cultural borrowing and adaptation, with influences 

moving in both directions. Among the most important 

borrowings from India for the Khmer was the introduction 

of Sanskrit writing and literature. Archaeological 

evidence from pre-Angkorian and Angkorian 

periods shows that the Khmer utilized both Sanskrit 

and Khmer for inscribing their religious, literary, and 

political lives. The clear division of labor between the 

two languages has been much commented on by scholars: 

Sanskrit was nearly always the medium for expressive 

literary purposes such as extolling the virtues 

of the gods, while Khmer was employed for more documentary 

purposes such as listing donations of slaves 

to temples. Sheldon Pollock has theorized that the attraction 

of Sanskrit as a cosmopolitan language was 

aesthetic; it provided a powerful medium for imagining 

the world in a larger, more complex way. Vernacularization, 

the turn away from Sanskrit to the use of 

localized languages such as Khmer for literary production, 

began to occur in Cambodia after the fifteenth 

century. By this time, Sanskrit and Pali loan 

words had been absorbed into Khmer and the Khmer 

had developed a literary idiom of their own for expressing 

cosmopolitan ideas, evident in the Khmer 

classical literature composed during the middle or 

post-Angkorian period. 

The most profound example of the ways in which 

aspects of the Indian literary imagination were absorbed 

and adapted by the Khmer is that of the Ramayana, 

known in Khmer as the Ramakerti (pronounced 


421

K HMER, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

“Ream-ker”), the Glory of Ram. The outlines of the 

story, widely known among the Khmer population 

since at least the time of Angkor, maintain some of the 

main elements of the Indian Ramayana while at the 

same time adapting them in critical ways. Known in 

Khmer as Ram, the hero of the epic is rendered as a 

BODHISATTVA, thus transforming the story into the favorite 

theme of Khmer literature: the biography of the 

Buddha. The Ramakerti appears as one of the most 

ubiquitous subjects of Khmer art; it is painted as temple 

murals, carved into bas-reliefs on the galleries of 

Angkorian buildings, reenacted in elaborate traditional 

dance forms, composed in literary versions, and retold 

in many oral versions, including shadow puppet plays 

known as spaek dham . At least one version of the text 

has also been used as a manual for the practice of 

tantric forms of Buddhist meditation in which the 

Buddhist adept follows the journey of Ram in his quest 

to retrieve his wife Sta as a form of esoteric spiritual 

instruction. 

While the Khmer Ramakerti is generally considered 

to be the greatest work of Khmer literature, it is not 

the only one that is celebrated and influential. Equally 

beloved by Khmer have been versions of the Buddhist 

JATAKA depicting the moral development of the Bodhisattva 

in his many lives as he moves toward buddhahood. 

The best known and revered of the Buddha’s 

life stories, at least since the eighteenth century, are 

his last ten lives, appearing in Cambodia in a single 

compilation known as the Dasajataka. The narrative 

of the Bodhisattva’s penultimate life, the Mahavessantara-jataka 

(also called the Mahajat), is the most 

popular of these jataka, redacted in many different 

manuscript and later print versions. Jataka stories 

were also rendered into satra lpaeṅ, a genre of narrative 

poetry intended for entertainment which often 

contained long descriptions of magical battles and 

other feats performed by the Bodhisattva. This genre 

appears to have developed beginning in the sixteenth 

century as part of the process of vernacularization. 

Cpap or “codes of conduct” constituted another 

prominent genre of vernacular literature in Cambodia 

known since at least the seventeenth century. Didactic 

poetry intended to transmit religious values and 

practical advice for living, the cpap were composed in 

stylized meters (to aid memorization) and sung by 

parents or teachers to children. 

By the latter half of the nineteenth century, prominent 

vernacular texts used in Buddhist education (but 

also known more widely through artistic representations, 

sermons, and stories) included not only the 

texts already mentioned, but also several works of 

Siamese composition that had been translated into 

Khmer versions: the Trai Bhu m (a cosmological text), 

the Maṅgalatthadlpanl (a narrative commentary on 

the Maṅgala-sutta), and the Pathamsombodhi (a biography 

of the Buddha). Also in evidence in monastic 

collections during the period were manuals (kpuon 

or tamra) on ritual, medicine, and astrology. Buddh 

Dam nay texts, prophesies of the Buddha concerning 

the arrival of the Buddhist dhammik, or righteous 

king, circulated in written and oral forms. Folk stories 

loosely based on Buddhist themes were transmitted 

orally until the early part of the twentieth century 

when Buddhist writers such as Ukña Suttantaprja 

Ind, author of the ethics manual Gatilok (1921), began 

to collect and record Khmer oral stories. While 

French colonial scholars during the protectorate period 

were often critical of the “fanciful” nature of 

Khmer vernacular works, their objections have been 

countered by Khmer scholars. Keng Vansak, a Khmer 

literary scholar, has argued that Khmer writers have 

been concerned not with literal representations of reality, 

but rather with representing the moral experience 

of social life, which often presents human beings 

with “insolvable contradictions” between their aspirations 

for moral perfection and their situatedness in 

a world of social and political bonds. 

Along with the works already described, Khmer 

Buddhists used vernacular versions of canonical texts. 

By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (and likely 

earlier), many texts based on Pali canonical sources 

such as the jataka and the DHAMMAPADA were translated 

into a genre of texts known as samray, consisting 

of interwoven Pali verses and their Khmer translations, 

followed by commentary in Khmer. Most of the samray 

that survive in existing collections of Khmer manuscripts 

date from no earlier than the nineteenth 

century, when monastic libraries were reconstituted 

following a long period of warfare in Cambodia. During 

the twentieth century, many Khmer samray originally 

composed on palm leaf were republished as print 

texts with little or no change from the originals. Although 

traditionalist members of the Khmer saṅgha 

initially resisted the use of print for religious texts, by 

the 1920s monks and scholars turned to the use of print 

rather than palm leaf (slik rit) or accordion-folded 

mulberry bark paper (kram ṅ) for disseminating their 

works. Among the earliest vernacular texts published 

in print in the 1920s were segments of the VINAYA and 

the Siṅgalovada-sutta. A full edition of the Pali Tipitaka, 

with Khmer translation, was finally issued in 1969 


K IHWA 

by the Buddhist Institute, although many Pali texts had 

already been translated and published in single editions 

from the 1920s on. Although print is the principal 

medium for religious texts in Cambodia today, both 

palm leaf and kram ṅ manuscripts continue to be used 

and venerated, though rarely produced. Scholars estimate 

that 98 percent of Cambodia’s rich collection of 

manuscripts was lost or destroyed during the Khmer 

Rouge period (1975–1979). 

See also: Cambodia; Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Bizot, François. Ramaker ou l’amour symbolique de Ram et Sita. 

Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1989. 

Bizot, François. Le Chemin de Lanka. Paris: École Française 

d’Extrême-Orient, 1992. 

Guesdon, Joseph. “La Littérature khmère et le Buddhisme.” Anthropos 

1 (1906): 91–109. 

Iyengar, K. R. Srinivasa, ed. Asian Variations in Ramayana. New 

Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1983. 

Jacob, Judith. Cambodian Linguistics, Literature, and History: 

Collected Articles, ed. David A. Smyth. London: School of 

Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1993. 

Jacob, Judith. The Traditional Literature of Cambodia: A Preliminary 

Guide. London: Oxford University Press, 1996. 

Keng Vansak. “Réflexions sur la littérature khmère.” Revue 

française 206 (1968): 31–34. 

Khing Hoc Dy. Contribution à l’histoire de la littérature khmère: 

littérature de l’époque “classique” (XVème–XIXème siècles). 

Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1991. 

Khing Hoc Dy. Ecrivains et expressions littéraires du Cambodge 

au XXème siècle, Vol. 2. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1993. 

Khing Hoc Dy, and Mak Phoeun. “Cambodia.” In South-east 

Asia: Languages and Literatures, ed. Patricia Herbert and Anthony 

Milner. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. 

L Dham Teṅ. Aksarsastr Khmaer (Khmer Literature). Phnom 

Penh, Cambodia: Seô óuon Huot, 1961. 

Nepote, Jacques, and Khing Hoc Dy. “Literature and Society in 

Modern Cambodia.” In Essays on Literature and Society in 

Southeast Asia, ed. Tham Seong Chee. Singapore: Singapore 


Pollock, Sheldon. “The Cosmopolitan Vernacular.” Journal of 

Asian Studies 57, no. 1 (1998): 6–37. 

Pou, Saveros. Etudes sur le Ramakerti: XVI–XVII siècles. Paris: 

École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1977. 

Pou, Saveros. Ramakerti: XVI–XVII siècles. Paris: École Française 


Pou, Saveros. “Khmer Epigraphy.” In Sculpture of Angkor and 

Ancient Cambodia: Millennium of Glory, ed. Helen Ibbitson 

Jessup and Thierry Zephir. Washington, DC: National 

Gallery of Art, 1997. 

Thierry, Solange. Le Cambodge des contes. Paris: Editions 

L’Harmattan, 1985. 

KIHWA 

ANNE HANSEN 

Kihwa (1376–1433) was a Korean monk of the late 

Koryŏ/early Chosŏn periods. He was also known by the 

monastic name Hamhŏ Tukt’ong. Kihwa was typical of 

the Sŏn (Chan) school masters of his time; he taught 

his followers the Imje (Linji) oriented kong’an (KO AN) 

method, along with other standard aspects of Sŏn practice. 

At the same time, he was one of the most focused 

and energetic advocates of the intrinsic resonance between 

meditation practice and scriptural study. 

Kihwa is considered by many scholars of Korean 

Buddhism to be one of the best writers of the Korean 

tradition. He wrote important commentaries on the 

Yuanjue jing (Perfect Enlightenment Su tra), the Jin’gang 

jing (DIAMOND SU TRA), and the Chan Yongjia ji (Collection 

of Yongjia of the Chan School). Kihwa was distinguished 

by his mastery of Chinese philosophy, but 

he eventually set aside his Confucian studies in favor 

of Buddhism. This philosophical background, coupled 

with his literary talents, served him well when he defended 

the Buddhist establishment against a rising 

neo-Confucian ideological movement. The treatise 

that Kihwa wrote in defense of Buddhism on this occasion, 

the Hyŏnjŏng non (Articulating the Correct), is 

considered one of the great works in Korean intellectual 

history. In this work, Kihwa argued that the three 

traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism 

are in basic agreement at a fundamental philosophical 

level. Kihwa passed away while residing at Chŏngsusa, 

located at the southern tip of Kanghwa Island, where 

his tomb can still be visited. 

See also: Confucianism and Buddhism; Korea 

Bibliography 


The Synthetic Vision of Sŏsan Hyŭjŏng.” In Culture 

and the State in the Late Chosŏn Korea, ed. JaHyun Kim 

Haboush and Martina Deuchler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 

University Asia Center, 1999. 


423

K INGSHIP 

Muller, A. Charles. The Su tra of Perfect Enlightenment: Korean 

Buddhism’s Guide to Meditation, with Commentary by the Sŏn 

Monk Kihwa. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

1999. 

KINGSHIP 


Throughout Asia, rulers channeled the rich resources 

of Buddhist symbolism to reinforce their authority and 

to authenticate their political imagination. Close linkages 

between Buddhism and kingship are evident even 

during the time of the Śakyamuni Buddha. When the 

Buddha reached Rajagrha, capital of the kingdom of 

Magadha, King Ajataśatru came out with his retinue 

to welcome him. Later Ajataśatru was involved in the 

first of the Buddhist councils, held at Rajagrha. King 

Prasenjit of Kośala also sought to identify himself with 

the Buddha. He is quoted in the Majjhimanikaya as 

saying, “The Lord is a Kośalan and so am I.” 

It is apparent from the Pali texts that Buddhism formulated 

its theoretical position on the subject early in 

its history in recognition of the significance of kingship 

to the religion. B. G. Gokhale discerned three such 

ideological strands. First was the theory of mahasammatta 

(the great elect), anchored in the Buddha’s nostalgia 

for tribal republicanism; second was the theory 

of mutually exclusive spheres of dhamma (Sanskrit, 

dharma) and ana (politics), an expression of monastic 

skepticism about the increasingly militant Indian 

monarchies; and third was the theory of an invincible 

dhamma, that is, dhamma as a cosmocratic principle 

underpinning the political philosophy of a cakravartin 

(wheel-turning king). The second theory, however, 

seems to be either a variation or extension of the doctrine 

of mahasammata, premised as it is on the superiority 

of the tribal republican model, under increasing 

pressure from the emergent centralized states. Indeed, 

only the doctrines of mahasammata and cakravartin 

formed the kernel of the Buddhist concept of kingship 

and were invoked by rulers as sacred symbols of power. 

The theory of mahasammata depicts the gradual 

degeneration of humankind from the primeval stage 

of perfect purity and the consequent need for the reorganization 

of society. According to this theory, the 

people assembled and chose by common consent the 

strongest and the finest person among them as their 

leader. They asked him to perform judicial tasks on 

their behalf and agreed to pay part of their produce 

in return for his services. He was called raja (king) 

because he brought happiness to the people, and 

ksatriya (warrior) because he protected their fields. 

The Buddha’s sympathy for this tribal-republican 

model of the political process is evident in the constitution 

of the SAṄGHA and the Buddha’s denunciation 

of kings as poisonous snakes or robbers violating 

people’s property. 

However, with the increasing growth of centralized 

monarchical power, Buddhism had to grudgingly accept 

the “necessary evil” of monarchy. It revised its 

initial principle of “tribal-republicanism” and adopted 

the ideal of cakravartin, encapsulating a normative 

kingship known as dhammiko dhammaraja, the king 

as an upholder of the dhamma. Evidently Buddhism 

sought to inject into the institution of kingship its own 

conceptions and worldview. A cakravartin king was 

said to possess seven JEWELS, including a wheel of divine 

attributes that rolls unhindered and unchallenged 

over the earth. The wheel’s ever-onward movement 

symbolizes the ceremonial conquests of its possessor 

(the cakravartin) over all the lands where it goes. The 

cakravartin king of the Pali canons is paired with the 

Buddha as his secular counterpart and conqueror of 

the universe not by arms, but by force of righteousness. 

He is described as generously endowed with the 

ten rajadharmas of liberality, good conduct, nonattachment, 

straightforwardness, mildness, austerity, 

nonanger, noninjury, patience, and forbearance. The 

cakravartin of the Pali texts is clearly shown to possess 

divine attributes, but in China, where translators rendered 

the term as a divine emperor with flying wheels 

or a flying emperor (feixing huangdi), the supranormal 

aspect of the concept became additionally clear. In 

subsequent centuries Buddhism further revised its 

ideas of cakravartin in ways that suggest its acknowledgment 

of the centrality of force to the institution of 

kingship. According to the new definition found in the 

ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHASYA of VASUBANDHU (ca. fourth 

century C.E.), there are four kinds of cakravartin: goldwheel, 

silver-wheel, bronze-wheel and iron-wheel, the 

last one taking recourse to violence and yet entitled to 

the glory of ideal Buddhist kingship. 

King AŚOKA (ca. 300–232 B.C.E.) was elevated in 

Buddhist historiography as an archetypal exemplar of 

Buddhist kingship because his conquests, stretching 

from the Himalayas to the ocean, realized the imperial 

ideals of ancient India, and his espousal of the 

dharma and support of the saṅgha were singular 

achievements in the history of Buddhism. Several eminent 

historians of early India, notably A. L. Basham 


K LONG CHEN PA (LONGCHENPA) 

and Romila Thapar, have persuasively argued that 

Buddhism developed its concept of cakravartin in the 

post-Aśokan era on the basic model provided by 

Aśoka’s political career and philosophy. They have 

pointed out that at the time of Aśoka the Buddhist ideal 

of cakravartin was not yet systematized, otherwise 

Aśoka would have demonstrated his affiliation with it 

in his inscriptions. V. S. Agrawala also subscribes to 

this view, noting in his work The Wheel Flag of India 

(1964), that Aśoka’s appellation Priyadarśi and the 

name Sudassana, a cakravartin king figuring in the 

Mahasudassana-su tta, have the identical meaning of 

“good in appearance.” It is also noteworthy that the 

career of a cakravartin king in the Buddhist texts 

closely parallels the career of Aśoka. Like Aśoka, the 

mythical cakravartin kings heed counsel from both 

Brahmins and mendicants, work for the happiness of 

their subjects, propagate and patronize Buddhism, and 

protect the dharma. 

Several centuries later, with the rise of powerful 

Kushan states whose rulers styled themselves as devaputra 

(son of heaven), and the attendant influence of 

foreign ideas and institutions, the Buddhist recognition 

of the king’s status as god-incarnate became less ambiguous, 

as is testified by the SUVARN APRABHA SOTTAMA- 

SU TRA, which describes kings as “son of gods” and “born 

in the mortal world by the authority of the great gods.” 

Several rulers of Southeast Asia invoked and sought 

to trace their ancestry to mahasammata, which represented 

to them the first Buddhist ruler in history. 

Devanampiyatissa (247–207 B.C.E.) of Sri Lanka was 

the first known foreign ruler in history to connect himself 

to Aśoka and to extend patronage to Buddhism. 

Soon thereafter, Dutthagaman (107–77 B.C.E.) placed 

a relic of the Buddha on his spear to sacralize his war 

against the Tamil invaders. In subsequent centuries 

rulers both in the THERAVADA and MAHAYANA traditions 

employed the versatile symbolism held out by 

Buddhism—rulers as cakravartin and as BODHISATTVAs. 

The influential Chinese monk Faguo declared, “Emperor 

Taizu is an enlightened ruler and fond of Buddha. 

He is the Tathagata of today.” Liang Wudi and 

Sui Wendi of sixth-century China, King Chinhŭng (r. 

540–576) of Silla, Prince SHO TOKU (574–622) of Japan, 

Jayavarman II (r. 802–c. 834) of Angkor, and King 

Chakkraphat (r. 1548–1569) of Thailand are some 

other famous examples of the close interface between 

Buddhism and kingship. 

See also: Politics and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Agrawala, Vasudeva Sharana. The Wheel Flag of India: Chakra- 

Dhvaja, Being a History and Exposition of the Meaning of the 

Dharma-Chakra and the Sarnath Lion Capital. Varanasi, India: 

Prithivi Prakashan, 1964. 

Basham, A. L. The Wonder That Was India: A Study of the Culture 

of the Indian Subcontinent before the Coming of the Muslims. 

London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1954. 


Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. 

Gokhale, B. G. “Early Buddhist Kingship.” Journal of Asian Studies 

26, no. 11 (1966–1967): 15–22. 

Gokhale, B. G. “The Early Buddhist View of the State.” Journal 

of the America Oriental Society 89, no. 4 (1969): 731–738. 



Press, 1983. 

Tambiah, Stanley J. World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A 



Press, 1976. 

Tambiah, Stanley J. The Buddhist Conception of Universal King 

and Its Manifestations in South and Southeast Asia. Kuala 

Lumpur, Malaysia: University of Malaya, 1987. 

Thapar, Romila. Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 2nd edition. 

Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1973. 

PANKAJ N. MOHAN 

KIZIL. See Cave Sanctuaries; Central Asia, Buddhist 

Art in 

KLONG CHEN PA (LONGCHENPA) 

Klong chen pa (Longchenpa, 1308–1363) is widely acknowledged 

as the greatest writer on the Rdzogs chen 

(Great Perfection) teachings of the RNYING MA (NY- 

INGMA) school of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born in 

the Grwa valley in the G.yu ru region of central Tibet. 

At the age of twelve he took ordination and was given 

the name Tshul khrims blos gros. In this monastic setting, 

he received a thorough Buddhist training, exhibiting 

a particular talent for composing poetry, a skill 

that would continue to shape his later writings. 

Klong chen pa had an immeasurable impact on 

the development of Rdzogs chen. From the eleventh 

through the fourteenth centuries, the snying thig 


425

K O AN 

(seminal heart) traditions had produced some of the 

most creative innovations ever seen in Tibetan Buddhism. 

But only with Klong chen pa were these 

scattered and often contradictory developments systematized. 

Drawing upon his extensive studies of these 

earlier writings, Klong chen pa detailed a cohesive set 

of contemplative practices that culminate in patterns 

of light and emptiness flowing effortlessly from within 

the body. He presented these visions within the context 

of wider snying thig theories on topics including 

how the buddhas emanate into the world, how the universe 

came into existence, and how mind emerges from 

sleep into dreaming or from the moment of DEATH into 

the INTERMEDIATE STATE (bar do). 

In his mid-twenties, Klong chen pa gave up the 

monastery to live as an itinerant ascetic in the Tibetan 

wilderness. It was during these years, probably around 

1336, that he first met his main teacher, Kumararaja 

(1266–1343). From this master, he received the Great 

Perfection teachings according to the Vima snying thig 

(Seminal Heart of Vimalamitra) tradition. This meeting 

engendered a major shift in Klong chen pa’s 

thought; for the rest of his life, his attentions would 

focus on the snying thig. On the basis of Kumararaja’s 

teachings, Klong chen pa composed his Bla ma yang 

thig (Seminal Quintessence of the Lama), a commentary 

to the Vima snying thig. 

To further consolidate his command of the snying 

thig, Klong chen pa next turned to the more recently 

revealed gter ma (treasure) teachings of the Mkha’ ’gro 

snying thig (Seminal Heart of the D akinls). His authority 

over this system was secured when a disciple, while 

channeling a series of female D AKINI, recognized Klong 

chen pa as the reincarnation of the Mkha’ ’gro snying 

thig’s discoverer, Tshul khrims rdo rje (1291–1315/17). 

Thus inspired, Klong chen pa composed his commentary 

on the system, his Mkha’ ’gro yang thig (Seminal 

Quintessence of the D akinls). Later still, he synthesized 

the two systems of the Vima snying thig and the Mkha’ 

’gro snying thig in his masterful Zab mo yang thig (Seminal 

Quintessence of the Profound). 

The fourteenth century was a critical time in Tibetan 

history, when the SA SKYA (SAKYA) sect’s hegemony 

(1260–1358) was toppled in a civil war. As these 

events took shape, Klong chen pa came to be regarded 

as an ally of the ’Bri gung sgom chen, Kun dga’ rin 

chen, a major rival to the ultimately victorious new Tibetan 

leader, Tai Situ Byang chub rgyal mtshan 

(1302–1364). Klong chen pa was exiled to Bhutan, 

where he lived for a number of years at a monastery 

he founded called Thar pa gling, near Bum thang. 

While there, he fathered a daughter and a son. The latter, 

Sprul sku grags pa ’od zer, would become a significant 

snying thig teacher in his own right. Eventually, 

with the help of his lay patrons, Klong chen pa reconciled 

with the new Tibetan king and was allowed to return 

to Tibet around 1360. 

Klong chen pa composed many of his most famous 

works while living at his hermitage atop Gang ri thod 

dkar, in central Tibet. He was a prolific writer, known 

for his ability to synthesize a rich array of materials and 

literary styles. His foremost writings were gathered into 

several collections: The Mdzod bdun (Seven Treasuries) 

are his most famous works, presenting the whole of 

Buddhist thought from a snying thig viewpoint; the 

Ngal gso skor gsum (Resting at Ease Trilogy) and the 

Rang grol skor gsum (Natural Freedom Trilogy) provide 

in-depth introductions to Rdzogs chen; the Mun sel skor 

gsum (Dispelling the Darkness Trilogy) are three commentaries 

on the Guhyagarbha Tantra; and the Snying 

thig ya bzhi (Seminal Quintessence in Four Parts) is a 

redaction of his three snying thig commentaries together 

with their predecessors, the Vima snying thig 

and the Mkha’ ’gro snying thig. 


Bibliography 

Germano, David, and Gyatso, Janet. “Lonchenpa and the Possession 

of the D akins.” In Tantra in Practice, ed. David Gordon 

White. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. 

Guenther, Herbert V., trans. and ed. Kindly Bent to Ease Us: 

From the Trilogy of Finding Comfort and Ease, Ngal-gso skorgsum, 

3 vols. Berkeley, CA: Dharma, 1975. 

Rinpoche, Dudjom. The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: 

Its Fundamentals and History, 2 vols., tr. Gyurme Dorje and 

Matthew Kapstein. Boston: Wisdom, 1991. 

Thondup, Tulku. Buddha Mind: An Anthology of Longchen Rabjam’s 

Writings on Dzogpa Chenpo. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 

1989. 

KO AN 


Ko an (Chinese, gong’an; Korean, kongan; “case for 

judgment” or “public case”) is an administrative and 

legal term that was first adopted by the Chan (Korean, 

Sŏn; Japanese, Zen) school in Song-dynasty China 


K O AN 

(960–1279). The Japanese pronunciation of the term, 

ko an, has become standard in English usage. The term 

mainly refers to the usually enigmatic, frequently 

startling, and sometimes shocking stories about legendary 

Chan masters’ encounters with disciples and 

other interlocutors. The koan may be the most distinctive 

feature of Chan Buddhism, where it is 

understood as an unmediated articulation of enlightenment 

(Chinese, wu; Japanese, satori; awakening). 

Since the tenth century, Chan students throughout 

East Asia have studied and pondered koans in order 

to gain a sudden breakthrough of insight into the 

minds of the ancient Chan masters and into their own 

primordial buddha-minds. 

The best-known koan is probably the one about the 

Tang-dynasty (618–907) Chan master Zhaozhou 

Congshen (778–897), who reportedly was asked: 

“Does a dog have the buddha-nature or not?,” to 

which he replied “It doesn’t” (Chinese, wu; Japanese, 

mu; Korean, mu), or simply “no.” Zhaozhou’s answer 

poses an impossible and confusing contradiction of 

the MAHAYANA Buddhist notion, central to all of 

Chan, that every sentient being is endowed with the 

buddha-nature or TATHAGATAGARBHA. Another famous 

koan is the one about the master Nanquan 

Puyuan (748–835), who is said to have challenged two 

monks who were fighting over the ownership of a cat 

to demonstrate their enlightened minds to him on the 

spot. When neither could do so, Nanquan Puyuan 

hacked the cat in two, in gross violation of the Buddhist 

precept against killing. Other koan stories about 

Tang Chan masters describe shouting, hitting, and 

other erratic behavior, although some koan stories 

seem utterly mundane, such as when Zhaozhou is said 

to have told a student who asked for instruction to go 

wash his breakfast bowls. 

Koans are understood to embody the enlightened 

minds of the ancient Chan masters and to communicate 

a truth that cannot be expressed in ordinary discourse. 

Many koans, like “Zhouzhou’s dog” and 

“Nanquan’s cat,” can be interpreted as being about 

transcending habitual dichotomies like subject and object, 

and recognizing the oneness of everything in the 

universe, but such rational analysis is considered foolish 

and futile. Truly comprehending a koan is thought 

to entail a sudden and direct nondualistic experience 

of an ultimate reality, which fundamentally differs 

from any intellectual understanding. 

Since the tenth century, koan commentary has been 

a favorite means of instruction in all the East Asian 

Chan schools, and later koans also came to be used as 

objects for meditation. Although initially only stories 

that were held up for special comment by a later Chan 

master were considered koans, eventually virtually any 

story about a Chan master could be called a koan. The 

term also came to refer to any phrase or saying that 

was used to challenge students of Chan, such as “Why 

did Bodhidharma come to the West?” or “What is the 

sound of one hand clapping?” 

Ko an literature 

It is uncertain when exactly koans first began to be produced. 

Early Chan materials from the sixth and seventh 

centuries show that koans were not a feature of 

early Chan, although the later tradition created many 

koan stories about the early masters. 

It is the Chinese Chan masters of the eighth to midtenth 

centuries who most often are the protagonists of 

koan stories, but few facts about this so-called golden 

age of Chan exist and no sources that contain koans 

can be reliably dated to that period. The earliest datable 

source for koans is the groundbreaking genealogical 

Chan history, the Zutang ji (Korean, Chodang chip; 

Collection from the Hall of the Patriarchs) from 952. 

Later genealogical Chan histories are also important 

sources for koans, but the most influential was the 

Jingde chuandeng lu (Records of the Transmission of the 

Lamplight [of enlightenment compiled during the] Jingde 

Era) from 1004, and many of the most commonly used 

koans come from this work. Koans can also be found 

in collections focusing on individual Chan masters. 

Such collections, which are known as “recorded sayings” 

or “discourse records” (Chinese, yulu), were first 

published during the Song dynasty. 

Early in the Song it became common for Chan masters 

to sermonize on select koans and offer their own 

comments (usually just as enigmatic as the original stories), 

often with verses expressing their understanding. 

This gave rise to a number of published collections of 

koans with appended commentary by a specific master. 

These collections themselves sometimes became 

the object of several levels of commentary by still other 

Chan masters, creating complex and multilayered 

works of literature. The most famous of these compilations 

is Yuanwu Keqin’s (1063–1135) Biyan lu 

(Japanese, Hekigan roku; Blue Cliff Record), which itself 

has become a common subject of commentary by 

modern Japanese and Western Zen masters. 

Koan commentary and other types of koan literature 

are best understood as literary genres created by 


427

K O AN 

a Song-dynasty Chan school that was looking back to 

an age of semimythical ancestors. Song Chan masters 

themselves are almost never the subject of koan stories. 

An important audience for this literature has always 

been the secular educated elite, whose support 

has been crucial to the fortunes of all the East Asian 

Chan schools. 

Kanhua Chan 

In the eleventh century, some Chinese Chan masters 

began to assign particular koans to individual students 

to ponder; in several accounts such mulling over a 

koan is reported to have led to an enlightenment experience 

for the student. Initially, this seems to have 

been a general contemplation of the koan that was not 

specifically associated with formal meditation. 

However, in the twelfth century a new meditative 

technique developed in which the koan became the 

subject of intense reflection. This form of meditation, 

which had no counterpart in traditional Indian meditation 

practice, became known as kanhua Chan (Korean, 

kanhwa Sŏn; Japanese, kanna Zen; “Chan of 

observing the key phrase” or “koan introspection 

Chan”) and was first formulated by Dahui ZONGGAO 

(1089–1163) of the Linji Chan tradition. Dahui directed 

his students to meditate on the crucial part of a 

koan, the huatou (Korean, hwadu; Japanese, wato ; critical 

phrase, keyword, or punchline). In Dahui’s favorite 

koan, “Zhaozhou’s dog,” the word wu (no) is 

the huatou. According to Dahui, prolonged and intense 

attention to the huatou, maintained not only in 

sitting meditation but in all activities, will cause a huge 

“ball of DOUBT” to form, which will eventually burst 

into an enlightenment experience. 

Scholars have commonly accepted the Chan school’s 

own view of the development of kanhua Chan as a 

response to a “spiritual decline” in the Song and an 

effort to preserve the wisdom and insights of the 

great Tang Chan masters. However, in “The ‘Shortcut’ 

Approach of K’an-Hua Meditation” (1987) Robert 

Buswell argues that kanhua Chan can be better understood 

as a culmination of internal developments in 

Chan “whereby its subitist rhetoric came to be extended 

to pedagogy and finally to practice.” In “Silent 

Illumination, Kung-an Introspection, and the Competition 

for Lay Patronage in Sung-Dynasty Ch’an” 

(1999) Morten Schlütter suggests that Dahui championed 

kanhua Chan, in large part, as a corrective to the 

MOZHAO CHAN (Japanese, mokusho ; silent illumination) 

meditation that was taught in the rival Caodong 

tradition of Chan, which Dahui condemned as quietistic 

and not leading to enlightenment. Dahui seems 

especially concerned that Caodong masters were teaching 

silent illumination to members of the secular educated 

elite, and competition for patronage was clearly 

an element in the dispute. 

Ko an use after Dahui 

Dahui’s development of kanhua Chan exerted an enormous 

influence on koan use and Chan meditation in 

all of East Asia. However, it is important to be aware 

that the older practices of koan study and koan commentary 

were never abandoned and continued to exist 

alongside the practice of kanhua Chan. 

In Japan, kanhua Chan was taken up in the Rinzai 

(Chinese, Linji) sect of Zen, where koans were eventually 

systematized by the reformer HAKUIN EKAKU 

(1686–1768) and his disciples into a curriculum of 

five main levels. Students meditate on the huatou 

(Japanese, wato ) of a series of koans and have to pass 

each koan in meetings with the Zen master (known as 

sanzen or dokusan) by giving the answers considered 

correct in their Zen master’s particular lineage. The 

answers, and answers to related follow-up questions, 

are supposed to be kept secret, but, in fact, crib-sheets 

exist. However, Zen masters are thought to be able to 

distinguish an answer that demonstrates true insight 

(Japanese, kensho ) from one that has simply been 

memorized. Finishing the entire koan curriculum to 

the satisfaction of the Zen master ends the training of 

a student, who is now ready to function as a Zen master. 

However, completing the curriculum takes many 

years, and most students leave long before completion 

to take over their family temples. 

The founder of the Japanese Soto (Chinese, 

Caodong) sect of Zen, DO GEN (1200–1253), who became 

heir to the Caodong tradition of Chan, did not 

advocate kanhua Chan meditation, and it has never 

been employed in the Soto sect. However, Dogen often 

commented on koans as a means of instruction, 

and medieval Soto students were formally trained in 

koan commentary. After reforms in the eighteenth 

century the Soto sect sought to differentiate itself from 

the Rinzai sect and koan use became rare in Soto. 

In Korea, Dahui’s kanhua Chan quickly took root, 

mainly through the efforts of the great Sŏn master 

CHINUL (1158–1210) and his disciple HYESIM 

(1178–1234), and kanhua Chan eventually came to 

dominate Korean Buddhist meditation practice. In 

Korean Sŏn, a student will usually only contemplate a 


K ONJAKU 

MONOGATARI 

few koans over a lifetime, based on the notion that 

resolving one koan is resolving them all. 

In China, kanhua Chan became a standard for Chan 

meditation soon after Dahui, even in the Caodong tradition 

that Dahui had criticized. Kanhua Chan continues 

to be important in Chinese Chan through the 

twentieth century, although earlier types of meditation, 

similar to silent illumination, are also considered 

legitimate. 

See also: Chan School; China; Japan; Korea; Meditation 

Bibliography 

Bodiford, William M. So to Zen in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: 


Buswell, Robert E., Jr. “The ‘Short-Cut’ Approach of K’an-Hua 





Cleary, J. C., and Cleary, Thomas, trans. and eds. The Blue Cliff 

Record. Boston: Shambhala, 1977. 

Foulk, T. Griffith. “The Form and Function of Koan Literature: 

A Historical Overview.” In The Ko an: Texts and Contexts in 

Zen Buddhism, ed. Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright. New 


Hoffmann, Yoel, trans. and ed. The Sound of the One Hand: 281 

Zen Ko ans with Answers. New York: Basic Books, 1975. 

Hori, G. Victor Sogen. “Teaching and Learning in the Rinzai 

Zen Monastery.” Journal of Japanese Studies 20, no. 1 (1994): 

5–35. 

Hsieh, Ding-hwa Evelyn. “Yüan-Wu K’o-Ch’in’s (1063–1135) 

Teaching of Ch’an Kung-an Practice: A Transition from Literary 

Study of Ch’an Kung-an to the Practical K’an-Hua 

Ch’an.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist 

Studies 17, no. 1 (1994): 66–95. 

Schlütter, Morten. “Silent Illumination, Kung-an Introspection, 

and the Competition for Lay Patronage in Sung-Dynasty 

Ch’an.” In Buddhism in the Sung, ed. Peter N. Gregory and 

Daniel Getz. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. 

MORTEN SCHLÜTTER 

of all practices except for the recitation of the name 

of AMITABHA Buddha. Orphaned at the age of eight, 

Koben was raised by his uncle, a Buddhist priest, and 

lived a life of study and practice in monasteries. In 1204 

he was granted his own monastery, Kozanji, in the outskirts 

of Kyoto, and he spent the rest of his life there 

and at his hometown in Wakayama prefecture, studying, 

meditating, and writing. 

Trained primarily as a Shingon monk, Koben revived 

ritual practices and devised new ones for the purpose 

of transforming doctrinal teachings into actual 

experience and vision. He popularized Esoteric Buddhist 

practices, such as the MANTRA of Radiance 

(komyo shingon), which is still chanted widely today. 

He was also a prolific poet and kept a diary of his meditative 

dreams over a period of forty years. Using poetry 

and meditation, Koben transfigured the world 

around him into the idealized realm of his dreams, and 

he even cut off his right ear to prove to himself that he 

was not attached to this world. 

His active imagination, however, did not prevent 

him from exercising his critical faculties. Koben wrote 

a lengthy, scathing attack to show that Honen’s exclusive 

practice of recitation not only rejected traditional 

Buddhism but also misrepresented the Pure Land tradition. 

Koben is therefore remembered primarily as a 

defender and reviver of traditional Buddhism and the 

practice of RITUAL and MEDITATION. 

See also: Japan; Pure Land Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Brock, Karen L. “My Reflection Should Be Your Keepsake: 

Myoe’s Vision of the Kasuga Deity.” In Living Images: Japanese 

Buddhist Icons in Context, ed. Robert E. Sharf and Elizabeth 

Horton Sharf. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 

2001. 

Morrell, Robert E. Early Kamakura Buddhism: A Minority Report. 






KO BEN 

Koben (Myoe; 1173–1232), a Japanese Shingon-Kegon 

monk, embraced traditional Buddhist practices in reaction 

to reformers like HO NEN (1133–1212), who 

founded the Pure Land school based on the rejection 

KONJAKU MONOGATARI 

Konjaku monogatari (or Konjaku monogatarishu , Collection 

of Tales Now Past) is a monumental collection 

of popular stories (setsuwa), mostly emphasizing 


429

K OREA 

Buddhist themes, compiled during the twelfth century. 

The portion still extant today consists of twentynine 

books containing more than one thousand 

stories grouped into three geographic categories: tales 

of India, tales of China, and tales of Japan. The tales 

of India consist of the biography of Śakyamuni Buddha, 

as well as stories of his disciples and his previous 

lives (JATAKA). The tales of China concern the introduction 

and propagation of Buddhism, as well as miracles, 

both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. The tales of 

Japan are divided into Buddhist themes and secular 

themes, which tell of famous warriors, ghosts, strange 

animals, and humorous events. Konjaku monogatari is 

an indispensable work for understanding the role of 

Buddhism in Japanese culture. Its stories have served 

as the basis for countless subsequent retellings in the 

form of dramas, short stories, novels, and screenplays. 

See also: Japanese, Buddhist Influences on Vernacular 

Literature in 

KOREA 


Korean Buddhism must be considered within the larger 

context of the East Asian MAHAYANA tradition. Broadly 

speaking, the creative period of Chinese Buddhism was 

over by the end of the twelfth century, after which Chinese 

Buddhism ceased to have a significant impact on 

Korean Buddhism. Furthermore, no indigenous developments 

within Korean Buddhism radically altered its 

character after the twelfth century; by and large, the basic 

identity of Korean Buddhism was formed by this 

time, in clear contrast with Japanese Buddhism, which 

began to develop its highly idiosyncratic forms after the 

thirteenth century. This does not mean that Korean 

Buddhism ceased to develop, but that its fundamental 

character was established long ago. 

After the thirteenth century, denominational differences 

within Korean Buddhism became less significant 

until the entire Korean SAṄGHA eventually 

became a single order. This process, which took more 

than six hundred years, culminated in the establishment 

of the Chogyejong (CHOGYE SCHOOL or order) 

in 1941. The Chogye order, which practically represents 

the entirety of modern Korean Buddhism, considers 

itself a scion of the CHAN SCHOOL (Korean, Sŏn; 

Japanese, Zen), but it actually embraces many of the 

diverse forms of East Asian Buddhist thought and 

practice that had flowed into Korea beginning in the 

fourth century C.E. This feature of Korean Buddhism 

has led scholars to characterize it as t’ongbulgyo, a 

“holistic Buddhism” that is free from sectarian differences 

and doctrinal conflicts. 

Introduction of Buddhism into the 

Three Kingdoms 

When Buddhism came to Korea in the latter half of 

the fourth century, the peninsula was divided into 

three kingdoms, each ruled by an ancient tribal confederation 

trying to expand its territory at the expense 

of the others. The religious beliefs and practices of the 

people were predominantly animistic; they believed in 

deities that resided in nature, and they worshipped the 

ancestral spirits of tribal leaders. With the establishment 

of monarchies, however, Korean society moved 

beyond its tribal stage and was ready to entertain a new 

religion with a universalistic ethos. 

Among the three kingdoms, Koguryŏ (37 B.C.E.–618 

C.E.) in the north was the earliest to form a centralized 

state and was by far the most powerful. Although some 

evidence suggests that Buddhism had been known earlier, 

it was in 372 C.E., during the reign of King Sosurim 

(r. 371–384), that Buddhism was officially 

introduced into Koguryŏ. Sosurim maintained a tributary 

relationship with the Former Qin (351–394) in 

northern China, and its king, Fujian (r. 357–385), an 

ardent supporter of Buddhism, sent a monk-envoy 

named Sundo (d.u.), with Buddhist images and scriptures, 

to Koguryŏ. Significantly, in that same year Sosurim 

also established the T’aehak, an academy for 

Confucian learning. The following year he promulgated 

legal codes, laying the foundation for a centralized 

bureaucratic state. 

Around the time Buddhism came to Koguryŏ, the 

Paekche kingdom (18 B.C.E.–660 C.E.), which occupied 

the southwestern part of the peninsula, was introduced 

to Buddhism by the Eastern Jin in southern China, 

with which Paekche had a close diplomatic relationship. 

As with Koguryŏ, the new religion came to 

Paekche at the time the kingdom, in particular King 

Kŭn Ch’ogo (346–375), was consolidating royal control 

over tribal powers. 

The kingdom of Silla (57 B.C.E.–935 C.E.), which 

held the southeastern corner of the peninsula, was the 

last of three kingdoms to be introduced to Buddhism. 

When Buddhism first came to Silla during the reign of 

King Nulchi (417–447), it met strong resistance from 

ruling aristocratic families that were deeply rooted in 


K OREA 

tribal religious practices. The martyrdom of Ich’adon, 

a loyal minister, provoked King Pŏphŭng (r. 514–540) 

to finally recognize the new religion in 527 C.E. 

Pŏphŭng had promulgated legal codes for the kingdom 

in 520, and he prohibited killing throughout the 

land two years after recognizing Buddhism. 

Buddhism introduced a number of new religious 

practices and ideas to Korea: Buddhist MONKS were 

clearly set apart from the rest of the society; images of 

BUDDHAS and BODHISATTVAS offered a clear focus for 

devotion; and Buddhist scriptures contained soaring 

philosophical ideas with an expansive COSMOLOGY and 

advanced moral teaching. In addition, a host of new 

cultural phenomena accompanied Buddhism, including 

architecture, craftsmanship, a writing system, calendrics, 

and medicine. Buddhist monks were not 

simply religious figures, they were magicians, doctors, 

writers, calligraphers, architects, painters, and even 

diplomats and political advisers. Although many years 

passed before Korean Buddhists had a solid understanding 

of the philosophical subtleties of Buddhist 

teachings, its material culture alone was sufficient to 

win the hearts of the kings and nobles, as well as the 

common people. 

Expansion of Buddhist influence 

It was Silla, the least developed of the three kingdoms, 

that benefited most from Buddhism after Silla leaders 

turned Buddhism into a powerful ideology of the state. 

As a source of religious patriotism, Buddhism played 

an important role in Silla’s unification of the divided 

peninsula. King Chinhŭng (r. 540–576), the successor 

of Pŏphŭng, was the first Silla monarch who allowed 

his subjects to become monks. Pŏphŭng himself became 

a monk at the end of his life, taking the Buddhist 

name Pŏbun (Dharma Cloud), an act that demonstrated 

the unity of the state and the saṅgha. Beginning 

with Pŏphŭng, many Silla rulers adopted Buddhist 

names, including Śuddhodana, Maya, and Śrmala, for 

themselves and their families. Buddhism had clearly 

become a force for legitimizing royal authority. 

Eminent monks, such as Wŏn’gwang (d. 630) and 

Chajang (ca. seventh century), became spiritual leaders 

of both the saṅgha and the state. Wŏn’gwang is 

best known for his sesok ogye (five precepts for laypeople), 

which he presented at the request of two patriotic 

youths. The precepts stipulated that one must 

serve the sovereign with loyalty, serve parents with filial 

piety, treat friends with sincerity, never retreat from 

the battlefield, and not kill living beings indiscriminately. 

Instead of offering the traditional five precepts, 

Wŏn’gwang adapted Buddhist ethics to the pressing 

needs of the Silla kingdom during a crucial period of 

its history. 

Chajang, a Silla nobleman, traveled to Tang China 

in 636 and spent seven years studying Buddhism. Upon 

his return, he was given the title of taegukt’ong (Grand 

National Overseer), one who supervises the entire 

saṅgha. Chajang established the ordination platform 

for monks at T’ongdo Monastery and strictly enforced 

the Buddhist VINAYA throughout the saṅgha. He is also 

credited with building a magnificent nine-story pagoda 

in the compound of Hwangnyong Monastery, the national 

shrine of Silla. 

Although the rulers and aristocratic families were 

attracted to Buddhism mainly for its material benefits, 

such as the protection of the state and the welfare of 

the family, many monks avidly studied and lectured 

on important Chinese Buddhist texts. Almost all the 

major Mahayana texts, which had played an important 

role in the formative period of Chinese Buddhism, 

were introduced into Korea. Buddhist monks from 

Koguryŏ and especially Paekche subsequently played 

seminal roles in the transmission of Buddhism and 

Sinitic culture to Japan. 

Buddhist thought flourished in Korea once the Silla 

rulers unified the three kingdoms in 680. The contributions 

of the eminent monks ŬISANG (625–702) and 

WŎNHYO (617–686) were particularly important. 

Ŭisang had traveled to China and studied under Zhiyan 

(602–668), the second patriarch of the HUAYAN 

SCHOOL. Upon his return to Silla, he became the 

founder of the Korean Hwaŏm (Huayan) school, the 

most influential doctrinal school in Korean Buddhism. 

The founding of many famous monasteries in Korea, 

such as Hwaŏmsa, Pusŏksa, and Pŏmŏsa, are attributed 

to Ŭisang, and his Hwaŏm ilsŭng pŏpgye to (Chart 

of the One-Vehicle Dharma-Realm of Huayan) sets forth 

the gist of Hwaŏm philosophy in the form of 210 Chinese 

characters arranged in a square diagram. 

Wŏnhyo, commonly regarded as the greatest 

thinker in Korean Buddhism, was a prolific writer who 

produced no less than eighty-six works, of which 

twenty-three are extant either completely or partially. 

By his time, most of the important sutras and treatises 

had flowed into Korea from China, and they were 

causing a great deal of confusion for Silla Buddhists, 

as they had for the Chinese. It was Wŏnhyo’s genius 

to interpret all of the texts known to him in a way that 

would reveal their underlying unity of truth without 

sacrificing the distinctive message of each text. He 


431

K OREA 

found his hermeneutical key in the famous Mahayana 

text, the AWAKENING OF FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN LUN). 

Wŏnhyo’s commentaries on this text influenced 

FAZANG (643–712), the great systematizer of Huayan 

thought. 

But Wŏnhyo was more than a scholar-monk. He 

tried to embody in his own life the ideal of a 

bodhisattva who works for the well-being of all SEN- 

TIENT BEINGS. Transcending the distinction of the sacred 

and the secular, he married a widowed princess, 

visited villages and towns, and taught people with songs 

and dances. Silla Buddhism fully matured during 

Wŏnhyo’s time, not only in terms of its doctrinal depth 

but also its ability to engage the common people. 

Beginning in the late eighth century, the unified Silla 

dynasty began to show signs of disintegration due to 

conflicts within the ruling class and the rise of local 

warlords. During this period of political turmoil the 

Sŏn or Chan school of Buddhism was introduced into 

Korea from Tang China. Numerous Sŏn centers were 

soon established, mostly in provinces far away from 

the Silla capital of Kyŏngju and under the patronage 

of local warlords and magnates. Most of the founders 

of the NINE MOUNTAINS SCHOOL OF SŎN (Kusan 

Sŏnmun) received transmission in China from members 

of the dharma-lineage of the famous Mazu DAOYI 

(709–788). Their new approach to Buddhism soon created 

conflict with the older schools of doctrinal Buddhism 

(Kyo), bifurcating the Korean saṅgha. 

Buddhism in the Koryŏ˘ dynasty 

The long political turmoil of the late Silla period ended 

with the redivision of the Korean peninsula into three 

kingdoms and the rise of Wang Kŏn (r. 918–943), a 

local warlord who founded a new dynasty, the Koryŏ 

(918–1392). Although the political climate had 

changed, the intimate relationship between Buddhism 

and the state did not. Buddhism became even more 

firmly established as the state religion. Wang Kŏn was 

a pious Buddhist and attributed his political success 

to the protective power of the buddhas. He was also 

a firm believer in geomancy, and he constructed numerous 

Buddhist monasteries according to geomantic 

principles with a view to curbing evil forces 

emanating from unfavorable places. Following his example, 

the succeeding Koryŏ monarchs became ardent 

supporters of Buddhism. During the reign of 

King Kwangjong (949–975), the state established a 

monks’ examination system that was modeled on the 

civil service examination. Titles were conferred upon 

the monks who passed the examination, according to 

their ranks. The highest honor belonged to the royal 

preceptor (wangsa) and the posthumous national preceptor 

(kuksa). In short, the Buddhist saṅgha became 

part and parcel of the state bureaucracy, and the idea 

of hoguk pulgyo (state-protection Buddhism) became 

firmly entrenched during the Koryŏ dynasty. 

In the latter half of the eleventh century, a new 

school arose and changed the denominational dynamics 

of the Koryŏ saṅgha. ŬICH’ŎN (1055–1101), the 

fourth son of King Munjong, became a Hwaŏm monk 

at the age of eleven. At thirty-one he traveled to Song 

China, where he met many illustrious Chinese masters, 

who inspired him to establish a new order, the 

Ch’ŏnt’aejong (TIANTAI SCHOOL) in Koryŏ, a decision 

rooted in his determination to resolve the severe conflict 

between Sŏn and Kyo (doctrinal Buddhism) in the 

Koryŏ saṅgha. Ŭich’ŏn was critical of Sŏn’s iconoclastic 

rhetoric, which he believed ignored scriptural learning. 

He wanted his new school to balance doctrinal 

study (kyo) and MEDITATION (kwan). Ŭich’ŏn’s leadership 

and royal background soon made Ch’ŏnt’ae a 

flourishing order, but the conflict continued to intensify. 

Not long after Ŭich’ŏn, the Nine Mountains 

school of Sŏn began to consolidate under a new name, 

the Chogyejong. 

A century later, a Sŏn monk named CHINUL (1158– 

1210) led a quiet monastic reform movement in order 

to purify the Koryŏ saṅgha, which he believed was in 

a state of serious moral and spiritual decay. Convinced 

through his encounter with the writings of the Hwaŏm 

exegete Li Tongxuan (635–730) that Sŏn’s “sudden enlightenment” 

(tono) approach could also be found in 

Hwaŏm teaching, Chinul concluded that there was no 

discrepancy between Sŏn and Kyo. Chinul established 

a comprehensive approach to Sŏn that balanced “sudden 

enlightenment” with “gradual cultivation,” and he 

permitted both a Hwaŏm method of “sudden enlightenment” 

and the “extraordinary” (kyŏgoe) method of 

hwadu (KO AN) meditation. Chinul’s Sŏn teaching, set 

forth in many of his writings, became the foundation 

for the thought and practice of Korean Sŏn Buddhism 

to the present day. 

Koryŏ Buddhism is also noted for its monumental 

woodblock editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon, 

the first of which is said to have been commissioned 

by King Hyŏnjong (1009–1031) in the hope of protecting 

the country from invading Liao forces. This edition 

was burned by Mongols in 1232. King Kojong 

(1213–1259) commissioned another edition of the 

canon on Kanghwa Island, where he had fled after the 

Mongol invasion. This edition, which consisted of 


K OREA 

more than eighty thousand woodblocks, took sixteen 

years to complete (1236–1251); it is still preserved in 

the Tripitaka Hall of Haein Monastery near Taegu. 

Buddhism during the Chosŏ˘n dynasty 

Supported by the court and the nobles, the Koryŏ 

saṅgha enjoyed considerable economic prosperity. 

Large monasteries became major landowners after the 

donation of land and serfs by the kings and influential 

families, and many monasteries developed into financial 

powers by pursuing various commercial 

enterprises. The saṅgha’s economic power became so 

immense that it generated much complaint and criticism 

toward the end of the dynasty. Lesser bureaucrats 

were especially strong critics, influenced by 

neo-Confucianism, a new ideology introduced from 

Song China in the late thirteenth century. 

With the collapse of the Koryŏ regime, Buddhism 

came under further attack. The new Chosŏn dynasty 

(1392–1910), which was built upon neo-Confucian 

ideology, severed its official relationship with Buddhism. 

Land holdings were confiscated and hundreds 

of monasteries were disbanded. As anti-Buddhist measures 

grew more severe, people were prohibited from 

ordaining, monks were not allowed to enter the capital 

city, the monks’ examination system was abolished, 

and the various Buddhist denominations were forced 

to consolidate. Only two denominations, Sŏnjong and 

Kyojong, were left, all others being absorbed into them. 

In short, Buddhism was forced out of mainstream society, 

and monks were downgraded to the lowest social 

stratum. 

It was during this period of PERSECUTION that the 

denominational identities of the traditional Buddhist 

schools disappeared and the ascendancy of Sŏn began. 

Less dependent, perhaps, upon institutional and doctrinal 

structures, Sŏn withstood the persecution better 

than Kyo and managed to maintain its tradition deep 

in the mountain areas. 

Buddhism experienced a short revival during the 

sixteenth century when HYUJŎNG (1520–1604) became 

the most important leader of the Chosŏn saṅgha, both 

Sŏn and Kyo. Although a Sŏn master, Hyujŏng demonstrated 

an accommodating attitude toward doctrinal 

studies. He argued that Kyo is the word of the Buddha, 

whereas Sŏn is his mind. Although he believed in their 

essential unity, Hyujŏng taught that a monk’s training 

should begin with Kyo, but eventually the trainee must 

move on to Sŏn in order to attain perfection. Hyujŏng 

thus established the principle of “relinquishing Kyo 

and entering into Sŏn” (sagyo ipsŏn), which is still followed 

among Korean monks today. 

Hyujŏng and his followers, especially YUJŎNG 

(1544–1610) and Yŏnggwan (1485–1571), also played 

an important role in mobilizing the monks’ militia 

against Japanese forces during the Hideyoshi invasion 

(1592–1599). Although Buddhist monks were held in 

contempt in the strongly anti-Buddhist Confucian society, 

they were ironically the salvation of the state during 

this national crisis. Many monks were subsequently 

given high honorific military titles, and their improved 

status continued for a while after the war. 

On the whole, during the Chosŏn period, Buddhism 

fell from the place of high respect and honor that it 

had enjoyed during the Silla and Koryŏ periods, and 

it remained largely confined to the countryside, isolated 

from mainstream intellectual and cultural life. 

Nevertheless, monks of high learning and character 

continued to flow into the saṅgha, providing leadership 

during a difficult period. 

Modern period 

During the Japanese colonization of Korea (1910– 

1945), Korean Buddhism faced new challenges. The 

Japanese policy toward Buddhism was inconsistent. 

Although the Japanese government lifted the ban on 

monks’ entry into metropolitan areas and allowed 

most religious activities, the government-general also 

tried to control the Korean saṅgha and to force its 

merger with one or another Japanese sect of Buddhism. 

The sach’allyŏng (Monastery Act) placed the Korean 

saṅgha under political surveillance by imposing a hierarchical 

organization on the monasteries and by requiring 

state approval for the appointment of the 

abbots. An important development in Korean Buddhism 

under colonial rule was the emergence of married 

priests (taech’ŏsŭng), an influence of Japanese 

Buddhism, which eventually became a major source of 

conflict in the saṅgha after Korean independence. 

Government persecution during the Chosŏn period 

had forced the amalgamation of schools and sects, and 

the denominational identities of Korean Buddhism 

were essentially obliterated, with the exception of the 

distinction between Sŏn and Kyo, although even this 

distinction became practically meaningless after the ascendance 

of Sŏn. Efforts were made during the Japanese 

colonial period to define the character of Korean 

Buddhism by giving it a denominational name. In view 

of its predominantly Sŏn character, it adopted in 1941 

the name Chogyejong, after the old Koryŏ Sŏn order. 


433

K OREA 

Lanterns on the river during the Buddha’s birthday celebrations, Seoul, South Korea, 1990. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. 


After independence, a struggle broke out between 

celibate monks (pigusŭng) and married clergy over 

control of the monasteries, resulting in the schism of 

the saṅgha in 1962 into two denominations: the celibate 

Chogye order and the much smaller T’aego order 

for married priests. Although new sects such as 

Ch’ŏnt’aejong and Chin’gakchong arose during the 

1960s, the Chogye order represents virtually all of Korean 

Buddhism today. It is administered by its national 

office (ch’ongmuwŏn) based at the Chogye monastery 

in Seoul. A comprehensive program of ordination and 

training of monks is provided by four main Chogye 

monasteries: Haeinsa, Songgwangsa, T’ongdosa, and 

Sudŏksa. Having separate quarters and facilities for 

Sŏn meditation, doctrinal studies, vinaya studies, and 

Pure Land recitation, these comprehensive monasteries 

are called ch’ongnim (“grove of trees,” referring to 

the large body of monks residing there), and they are 

distinguished from other large and small monasteries. 

In modern times, the Chogye order is organized on 

the basis of three important levels of distinction. These 

distinctions are by no means rigid, but they reveal the 

nature and spirit of contemporary Korean Buddhism. 

First, monastic communities of celibate monks and 

nuns are distinguished from lay Buddhists, a distinction 

familiar throughout the Buddhist world. In Korea, 

a further distinction exists between the monks who 

are engaged in chŏngjin (meditation practice) or 

kongbu (doctrinal study) and those who provide woeho 

(external support) for them. The first group is devoted 

to some form of spiritual cultivation, while the other 

is responsible for the maintenance of the monastery, 

food preparation, financial management, construction 

and repair of buildings, ritual services for lay Buddhists, 

and other works. This distinction, which dates 

back to the Chosŏn period when Buddhism was persecuted 

by the state, is more than a division of labor; 

it constitutes a nearly polar division within the 

Korean saṅgha, especially in large well-established 

monasteries. 

Monks devoted to study are further distinguished 

in that some practice Sŏn in the meditation hall under 

the guidance of Sŏn masters, while others study scriptures 

and doctrines in the lecture hall. These two 

groups do not have equal status because scriptural 

study, which is expected of every monk, is regarded as 


K OREA, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

a preparatory step toward meditation, and the authority 

of the Sŏn master is incomparably higher than 

that of the lecturer. This distinction reflects the primarily 

Sŏn orientation of Korean Buddhism, with doctrinal 

or scriptural study occupying a subordinate or 

subsidiary position. 

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is estimated 

that more than ten million Buddhists live in 

Korea, mainly in the South. (Although some Buddhist 

monasteries exist in North Korea, the number of practicing 

Buddhists is negligible, if they do indeed exist.) 

Buddhism strengthened its urban presence considerably 

during the 1980s and 1990s in response to increased 

activity by Christian churches in South Korea. 

Many urban centers of Buddhism were established by 

the traditional influential monasteries, and some independent 

Buddhist centers have arisen, drawing large 

numbers of middle- and upper-class Koreans. Meanwhile, 

many monks with keen social consciences are 

leading movements dedicated to various social, political, 

and environmental causes, including the reconciliation 

of North and South Korea. 

Buddhism has left an indelible mark upon the Korean 

people and their culture. The vast majority of Korean 

cultural monuments and treasures derive from 

Buddhism, and many names of towns and mountains 

are of Buddhist origin. Stories and legends with Buddhist 

motifs abound, as do novels and films based on 

Buddhist themes. For centuries Buddhism has provided 

Koreans with a way to cope with major misfortunes 

or crises in life. The belief in the law of karma 

and the cycle of birth-and-death has become a part of 

the Korean psyche, and the Buddhist teaching that life 

is impermanent and full of suffering has been fundamental 

to the Korean worldview ever since the arrival 

of Buddhism in the fourth century. 

See also: Korea, Buddhist Art in; Korean, Buddhist Influences 

on Vernacular Literature in; Printing Technologies 

Bibliography 



Press, 1983. 


and Korea: The Vajrasamadhi-Su tra, A Buddhist Apocryphon. 


Buswell, Robert E., Jr. Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul’s Korean 

Way of Zen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991. 




Buswell, Robert E., Jr., ed. Currents and Countercurrents: Korean 

Influences on the Buddhist Traditions of East Asia. Honolulu: 


Keel, Hee-Sung. Chinul: The Founder of the Korean Sŏn Tradition. 

Berkeley, CA: Institute of South and Southeast Asian 


Keel, Hee-Sung. “Word and Wordlessness: The Spirit of Korean 

Buddhism.” In The Buddhist Heritage, ed. Tadeusz Skorupski. 

Tring, UK: Institute of Buddhist Studies, 1989. 

Lancaster, Lewis R., ed. Religion and Society in Contemporary 

Korea. Berkeley, CA: Institute for East Asian Studies, 

1992. 

Lancaster, Lewis R., and Yu, Chai-shin, eds. Introduction of Buddhism 

to Korea: New Cultural Patterns. Berkeley, CA: Asian 

Humanities Press, 1989. 

Lee, Peter H., trans. Lives of Eminent Korean Monks: The Haedong 

Kosŭng Chŏn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 1969. 

Lee, Peter H., ed. Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, 2 vols. New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1993/1996. 

Lee, Young Ho, trans. “The Ideal Mirror of the Three Religions 

(Samga Kwigam) of Ch’ŏnghŏ Hyujŏng.” Buddhist-Christian 

Studies 15 (1995): 139–187. 

Muller, A. Charles, trans. The Su tra of Perfect Enlightenment: 

Korean Buddhism’s Guide to Meditation. Albany: State University 


Park, Sung Bae. Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment. Albany: 


KOREA, BUDDHIST ART IN 

HEE-SUNG KEEL 

Buddhism, over the one and a half millennia since its 

introduction to Korea in the fourth century, has inspired 

the creation of uniquely Korean traditions in 

Buddhist art. Korean monarchs and members of the 

ruling class from the sixth to the fourteenth centuries 

were patrons of the Buddhist religion and supported 

the creation of artistic and ceremonial objects and the 

construction of the most famous Buddhist monasteries 

and pagodas in Korea. Buddhism lost these influential 

patrons during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392– 

1910), but thereafter gradually permeated among ordinary 

folk, a change that is reflected in the country’s 

Buddhist art. 


435


Buddhist monastery architecture 

Korea’s Three Kingdoms—Koguryŏ (37 B.C.E.–668 

C.E.), Paekche (18 B.C.E.–660 C.E.), and Silla (57 B.C.E.– 

935 C.E.)—built great monasteries in their capitals or 

nearby, judging by the historical records and the architectural 

remnants. The latter include Kŭmgangsa 

near P’yŏngyang (probably from the early sixth century); 

Hwangnyongsa (founded in 553) with its legendary 

nine-story wooden pagoda (destroyed in 1234 

by the Mongols, except for the foundation stones, now 

visible after excavation) and Punhwangsa (built in 634, 

only three stories survive of the original nine-story 

pagoda built of brick imitating stone), both in the Silla 

capital of Kyŏngju; and Mirŭksa (built by King Mu of 

Paekche in the early seventh century) in Iksan. 

Korean Buddhist monasteries feature architectural 

elements similar or identical to those of secular buildings 

introduced from China. In general, there is little 

difference in architectural style between sacred and 

secular buildings in East Asia. The monasteries of the 

Three Kingdoms consisted of a lecture hall, a main hall 

with Buddhist images (also known as kŭmdang, or 

Golden Hall, the focus of worship), a pagoda, and a 

temple gate arranged along a north-south axis. Later, 

many more image halls (pŏptang) were added to the 

complex according to the scale of the monastery. These 

ceremonial halls are dedicated to a specific buddha or 

bodhisattva and other Buddhist deities—thus Piro 

chŏn for Vairocana; Taeung chŏn (Hall of the Great 

Hero) and Yŏngsan chŏn (Hall of Vulture Peak), both 

for Śakyamuni Buddha; Muryangsu chŏn (Hall of Infinite 

Life) and Kŭngnak chŏn (Hall of Utmost Bliss), 

both for AMITABHA Buddha; Yaksa chŏn for the Medicine 

Buddha, Bhaisajyaguru (Yaksa Yŏrae); Mirŭk 

chŏn for MAITREYA; Kwanŭm chŏn for Avalokiteśvara; 

Chijang chŏn for Ksitigarbha; Sipwang chŏn for the 

Ten Kings; Nahan chŏn for ARHATS; and Chosa dang 

for a monastery’s founding teachers. Sometimes three 

buddhas, who embody past, present, and future, are 

enshrined in one hall. Besides the bell and drum pavilions, 

there were additional buildings for the storage of 

Buddhist scriptures, lecture and meditation halls, 

monks’ living quarters, and kitchens. 

Pagodas and reliquaries 

Multistoried pagodas (t’ap), built in the center of the 

monastery’s courtyard for daily circumambulation, 

were originally reliquaries of the historical Buddha 

Śakyamuni, but increasingly came to serve as commemorative 

monuments. Simple, monumental granite 

stone pagodas were built with minimal adornment. 

The finial was designed in the form of an ancient Indian 

stupa. The relic chamber in wooden pagodas was 

located in the foundations beneath the central pole, 

while in stone pagodas it was located above ground just 

below the central mast. From the late seventh century 

“twin pagodas,” a Chinese innovation introduced for 

the sake of symmetry, began to appear. King Sinmun 

built Kamŭnsa (twin pagodas) in 682 in memory of 

his father King Munmu, who unified the Three Kingdoms 

under the rule of Silla. STU PAS (pudo), mostly 

octagonal single-story stone monuments, served to enshrine 

the relics of eminent monks. 

RELIQUARY containers were exquisitely crafted in ceramic, 

gilt bronze, silver, gold, and glass. The outer 

container is usually a square or rectangular box. The 

innermost reliquary, which contains the relic of the 

true body of the Buddha (the remains after cremation), 

is a tiny crystal or glass bottle with an exquisite gold 

or openwork stopper. Gilt-bronze images and written 

Buddhist sutras, both representing the dharma body, 

were also deposited in reliquaries. In the five-story 

granite stone pagoda in Iksan Wanggung-ni was found 

a copy of the DIAMOND SU TRA in seventeen gold 

sheets, on which is embossed the entire text in majestic 

regular script style, the only known example in 

East Asia. Reliquaries from the unified Silla period 

(668–935) were often in the shape of a miniature 

pagoda or palanquin with a bejeweled canopy and 

musicians or guardian kings at the corners. Stupas of 

eminent monks from the Chosŏn period (fourteenth 

to seventeenth centuries) yielded white ceramic and 

brass reliquaries in the form of simple covered bowls. 

Buddhist paraphernalia 

Bronze bells, censers, incense boxes, kundika (water 

bottles), and flower vases can all be categorized as Buddhist 

RITUAL OBJECTS and ceremonial paraphernalia; 

such objects were executed with considerable craftsmanship 

since the Three Kingdom period. A Paekche 

gilt-bronze censer from the late sixth century, excavated 

in Nŭngsan-ri site in Puyŏ, shows a superb combination 

of traditional ideas in its dragon support and 

its lotus bowl and cover in the shape of the legendary 

Penglai paradise mountain surmounted by a phoenix. 

During the Unified Silla period, magnificent bells were 

cast in bronze as seen in the huge Pongdŏksa bell. The 

refinement of design with floral bands and elegant airy 

apsaras kneeling on clouds, as well as the profound 

sound and superb casting technique, is unmatched in 

East Asia. In the Koryŏ period (918–1392) incense containers 

and bottles for private use and for altars were 



made of lacquer or bronze. They were often decorated 

with tiny and elegant inlaid designs executed with 

mother-of-pearl on lacquer vessels or with silver on 

bronze vessels. 

Buddhist sculpture and painting 

Buddhist images of Śakyamuni, Amitabha, the Medicine 

Buddha Bhaisajyaguru, and the Universal Buddha 

Vairocana, who were enshrined in the kŭmdang, are 

the focus of worship. No large bronze images, prior to 

the ninth century, have survived, but small votive giltbronze 

images (ten to thirty centimeters in height and 

dated between the seventh and ninth centuries) have 

been excavated from temples, residential sites, and 

pagodas. These images were for personal altars or for 

ritual offering. From the earliest period (sixth century) 

Buddha images portrayed characteristically Korean 

broad faces with high cheekbones, while the drapery 

styles, which show influence from the Six Dynasties in 

China, are characterized by the symmetrical arrangement 

of garments and an emphasis on frontality. 

Maitreya Bodhisattva (Mirŭk posal), the Future Buddha, 

was worshiped in royal and aristocratic circles in 

the early seventh century in all of the Three Kingdoms. 

Some of the finest images demonstrate Korean 

mastery of the lost-wax bronze-casting technique and 

refinement in every detail. Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva 

(Kwanseŭm posal) was one of the most popular images 

throughout history in Korea. The Avalokiteśvara 

image excavated from Sŏnsan, a small bronze masterpiece, 

effortlessly conveys a gentleness in facial expression, 

a gracefully raised right hand with lotus bud, 

and the fluent style of sashes and skirt. 

Maitreya Bodhisattva. (Korean, gilt bronze, Paekche, seventh century.) 

National Museum of Korea. Reproduced by permission. 

A new style of thin monastic garment worn with the 

left shoulder bare appears in most eighth- and ninthcentury 

Buddha images in Korea, after Korean monks 

began traveling to Tang China, Central Asia, and as far 

as India. Monumental granite stone images (all their 

original coloring is now lost) were carved from the seventh 

century and enshrined in cave temples (e.g., the 

Amitabha Buddha triad in Kunwi in North Kyŏngsang 

province); during the seventh to ninth centuries they 

were also placed in natural environments, such as 

Namsan, the sacred Buddhist mountain in Kyŏngju. 

The SŎKKURAM Buddha image from the mid-eighth 

century is unquestionably one of the great masterpieces 

of the world in its outstanding concept and execution 

in rough textured granite. In the Koryŏ and 

Chosŏn dynasties, Buddhist images wearing heavy garments 

covering both shoulders were made in all kinds 

of materials, in particular bronze, clay, and wood. Especially 

in the Chosŏn period, large carved wooden altarpieces 

depicting the pantheon of buddhas, bodhisattvas, 

arhats, and guardian kings in high relief were 

frequently placed behind three-dimensional main 

buddhas in the worshiping halls. 

The paintings of sacred images on the walls of 

monastery must have been practiced in Korea at the 

same time the sculptured images were executed, but 

despite written records in the SAMGUK YUSA (MEMO- 

RABILIA OF THE THREE KINGDOMS), no visual material 

has survived. 

Sagyŏng (handwritten and hand-painted Buddhist 

scriptures) flourished during the Koryŏ dynasty. The 

most frequently copied sutras of the Koryŏ dynasty 

were the HUAYAN JING (Korean, Hwaŏmgyŏng), 

Amitabha Su tra (Korean, Amit’agyŏng), and LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA; Korean, 

Pŏphwagyŏng). Sagyŏng took the form of precious 


437


green, and lead white. These principal colors, finely 

ground and prepared with a binder, were first applied 

on the back of the silk, then on the front, in order to 

ensure the durability of the colors and to intensify the 

hue. Gold for exposed parts of the Buddha’s body and 

decorative motifs were applied on top of this. Facial 

details were drawn and the image would be completed 

during an eye-dotting ceremony. In the Chosŏn dynasty 

Buddhist paintings of large figural groups were 

often executed on hemp. Mineral pigments on such 

paintings were applied only to the front surface. As a 

consequence, some colors, especially red and green, 

have been lost from paintings dating from the sixteenth 

and seventeenth centuries. A new type of painting, 

in which Buddhist images were mixed with native 

Korean spirits and deities, began to emerge in the second 

half of the Chosŏn dynasty. 

See also: Chan Art; China, Buddhist Art in; Huayan 

Art; Monastic Architecture; Portraiture; Pure Land 

Art 

Bibliography 

The Art of Śarlra Reliquary. Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 

1991. 

Best, Jonathan W. “Early Korean Buddhist Bronzes and Sui Regional 

Substyles: A Contextual Study of Stylistic Influence in 

the Early Seventh Century.” In Sambul Kim Won-yong kyosu 

chŏngnyŏn t’oeim kinyŏm nonch’ong. Seoul: Ilchisa, 1987. 

Fontein, Jan. “Masterpieces of Lacquer and Metalwork.” Apollo 

(August 1968): 114–119. 

Amitabha Buddha. (Korean, Koryŏ, gold, colors on silk, 1306.) 

Nezu Institute of Fine Arts. Reproduced by permission. 

illuminated manuscripts in which the title, the exquisite 

miniature paintings of the dazzling frontispiece, 

and the text were decorated and written in 

gold or silver on dark indigo-dyed paper made from 

the inner bark of the mulberry. During the thirteenth 

and fourteenth centuries, Koryŏ became the center of 

illuminated manuscript production in East Asia. 

In the Koryŏ period, when Buddhism prospered 

under royal and aristocratic patronage, Pure Land 

Buddhist paintings of Amitabha, Water Moon 

Avalokiteśvara, and Ksitigarbha flourished. These 

paintings were rendered on hanging silk scrolls in various 

sizes, depending on their use; smaller scrolls were 

for private altars, and larger ones for temples. The images 

are outlined in red or black ink and painted with 

mineral colors, including cinnabar red, malachite 

Hwang, Su-young. Han’guk ŭi pulsang (Korean Buddhist Sculpture). 

Seoul, 1990. 

Kang, Woo-bang. Pulsari Changŏm (The Art of Śarra Reliquary). 

Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 1991. 

Kim, Hongnam. The Story of a Painting: A Korean Buddhist 

Treasure from the Mary Jackson Burke Foundation. New York: 

Asia Society Galleries, 1991. 

Kim, Lena. “Buddhist Sculpture.” In Korean Art Treasures, ed. 

Youngsook Pak and Roderick Whitfield. Seoul: Ye-gyŏng, 

1986. 

Kim, Lena. “Tradition and Transformation in Korean Buddhist 

Sculpture.” In Arts of Korea, ed. Judith Smith. New York: 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998. 

Lee, Junghee. “Sixth Century Buddhist Sculpture.” Korean Culture 

2, no. 2 (1981): 28–35. 

McCallum, Donald F. “Korean Influence on Early Japanese 

Buddhist Sculpture.” Korean Culture 3, no. 1 (1982): 22–29. 

Mun, Myong-dae. Han’guk chogaksa (History of Korean Buddhist 

Sculpture). Seoul: Yorhwadang, 1984. 


K OREAN, BUDDHIST I NFLUENCES ON V ERNACULAR L ITERATURE IN 

Pak, Youngsook. “The Korean Art Collection in the Metropolitan 

Museum of Art.” In Arts of Korea, ed. Judith Smith. New 

York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998. 

Pak, Youngsook. “Grundzüge der koreanischen Architektur.” 

In Korea: Die Alten Königreiche. Munich, Germany: Hirmer 

Verlag, 1999. 

Pak, Youngsook, and Whitfield, Roderick. Handbook of Korean 

Art: Buddhist Sculpture. Seoul: Yekyong, 2002. 

Sørensen, Hendrik Hjort. The Iconography of Korean Buddhist 

Painting. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1989. 

YOUNGSOOK PAK 

KOREAN, BUDDHIST INFLUENCES ON 

VERNACULAR LITERATURE IN 

Buddhism had an enormous impact on the development 

of Korean vernacular literature, primarily in premodern 

Korea. Buddhism’s influences on the Korean 

language and vocabulary are also noteworthy, a legacy 

still apparent in contemporary Korea. Buddhist literature 

constituted the mainstream of Korean literature 

before the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) and a substantial 

part of Korean literature during and after that 

period. The development of the Korean script, Korean 

verse and prose forms, and the Korean language were 

all closely associated with Buddhism. 

Yongbi ŏch’ŏn’ga (The Songs of the Flying Dragons 

According to Heaven, 1445), a eulogy of the founding 

of the Chosŏn dynasty, was the first literary work composed 

in the indigenous Korean script. This phonetic 

script was originally promulgated in the edict Hunmin 

chŏngŭm (Correct Sounds to Instruct the People) and it 

came to be known as Han’gŭl (one and great letters) 

during the twentieth century. Heavily influenced by 

Buddhism, the Songs of Flying Dragons became a model 

for epic poems in vernacular Korean. Buddhism also 

had an impact on writing style. The interpretive text 

outlining the Han’gŭl writing system, Hunmin 

chŏngŭm, was published around 1446 and was modeled 

after Buddhist canonical scriptures in its use of 

prose narration followed by reiteration in verse. Numerous 

Buddhist texts were translated into Han’gŭl, 

including Buddhist miracle tales and classical Chinese 

and Sanskrit MANTRAS. In addition, a number of 

narrative songs (kasa) and short lyric poems (sijo), 

novels, Confucian edification works, and textbooks 

were composed in vernacular Korean under Buddhist 

influence. 

Examples of Buddhist vernacular literature 

in Han’gŭ˘l 

The promulgation of Han’gŭl in 1446 signaled the 

blossoming of Korean vernacular literature. Prior to 

devising its own writing system, Korea had used Chinese 

characters for transcription, even though they 

were not always appropriate to a Korean setting. A 

Korean alphabet was thus devised under the leadership 

of King Sejong (1418–1450). However, Confucian 

scholar-officials of the Chosŏn government, led by 

Ch’oe Malli (ca. mid-fifteenth century), strongly opposed 

the use of Korea’s own script on the grounds 

that it would violate the policy of respecting the senior 

state, China. They even labeled the Korean alphabet a 

“debased” writing system that was inferior to that of 

China, calling it ŏnmun (vulgar language) or amk’ŭl 

(language for women), a tradition that continued into 

the twentieth century. As a result, the Korean alphabet 

became marginalized and for many years it was 

primarily used by women and commoners who could 

not read classical Chinese. 

The translation of important Mahayana Buddhist 

texts, such as the LOTUS SUTRA (SADDHARMAPUN DARIKA- 

SU TRA), marked the first major use of Han’gŭl. A wide 

range of Buddhist texts were rendered into vernacular 

Korean in order to propagate Buddhist teachings 

while, at the same time, diffusing the newly invented 

Han’gŭl. Translated works included Sŏkpo sangjŏl (A 

Detailed Biography of the Buddha Śakyamuni, 1447); 

Wŏrin ch’ŏn’gangjigok (The Songs of the Moon’s Reflection 

on a Thousand Rivers, 1449); Wŏrin sŏkpo (The 

Moon’s Reflection on the Buddha’s Lineage, 1459); and 

Pumo ŭnjung kyŏng (The Su tra of Parental Gratitude, 

1563). A Detailed Biography of the Buddha Śakyamuni 

depicted the eight principal stages in the Buddha’s life, 

and it catalyzed the development of vernacular Korean 

literature from the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries. 

The earliest Buddhist poem written in vernacular Korean, 

The Songs of the Moon’s Reflection on a Thousand 

Rivers, is comparable to one of the masterpieces of Indian 

literature, BUDDHACARITA (Acts of the Buddha), a 

narrative of the life of Śakyamuni. The Moon’s Reflection 

on the Buddha’s Lineage is a combined publication 

of the aforementioned two works. A Chinese Buddhist 

apocryphal work, The Su tra of Parental Gratitude was 

translated to promote the pan-Asian ideal of filial 

piety. Han’gŭl was also used to transliterate anthologies 

of Sanskrit mantras, including Odae chinŏn (The 

Five Great Mantras, 1485). 

Another important area of Korean Buddhist literature 

in Han’gŭl is vernacular novels. Ku unmong (The 


439

K OREAN, BUDDHIST I NFLUENCES ON V ERNACULAR L ITERATURE IN 

Cloud Dream of the Nine, 1687–1688) by Kim Manjung 

(1637–1692) is a typical Buddhist novel that portrays 

all the fame and glory of the human world as a 

dream, making the Buddhist notion of ŚU NYATA 

(EMPTINESS) its primary theme. Sassi namjŏng ki (The 

Story of Lady Sa, ca. 1689–1692) serves as a prototype 

for later novels, taking the promotion of virtue and reproval 

of vice as its main theme. Onggojip chŏn (The 

Tale of a Stubborn Person Ong), Sim Ch’ŏng chŏn (The 

Tale of Sim Ch’ong), and Hŭngbu chŏn (The Tale of 

Hŭngbu), all composed in the late Chosŏn period, 

adopted the Buddhist motifs of karmic fruition and 

promotion of virtue. Korean vernacular literature 

gained wider readership in the mid-nineteenth century, 

about the time that the classical Confucian novel 

in Chinese entered its period of decline. 

Koreans composed literature in classical Chinese 

before the invention of the Korean alphabet. Unlike 

China and Japan, however, Korea did not have a strong 

tradition of fictional prose narratives before the seventeenth 

century. The promulgation of the Korean 

script brought popular literary forms, including fiction, 

to prominence. In particular, political, social, and 

economic diversification resulting from the invasions 

of Japan and Qing China from the end of the sixteenth 

century to the mid-seventeenth century was matched 

by cultural diversification, and the vernacular novel 

was a product of this milieu. Han’gŭl versions of the 

novel came to be particularly popular among women 

and lay readers, who were unfamiliar with Chinese 

writing, and vernacular novels gained a wide readership. 

Buddhist vernacular literature did not appeal to 

the literati, however, due in part to the dominance of 

Confucianism during the Chosŏn period. 

Buddhist influences on Korean language 

and vocabulary 

Buddhism also exerted considerable influence on the 

Korean language and vocabulary. Contemporary 

scholars have argued that Han’gŭl originated from 

symbol letters (puhoja), a kind of signifier used in Buddhist 

literature in classical Chinese during the Koryŏ 

dynasty (918–1392). Some Korean and Japanese scholars 

have begun studying puhoja as the possible origin 

of the Korean alphabet and they have noted its use in 

Buddhist canonical texts during the Koryŏ period. An 

ardent debate in Korean academe rages over this issue. 

Many Korean geographical names are associated 

with Buddhism. For instance, Mount Sŏrak (Snowy 

Peak), one of the most beautiful mountains in Korea, 

is considered the Korean counterpart of the Himalayas, 

the birthplace of the Buddha. Much of Korean 

cultural language involves Buddhist words or is 

associated with Buddhism. A representative example 

is the word ip’an sap’an, which originally referred to 

practicing monks who studied both doctrine and 

meditation (ip’an) and to administrative monks 

(sap’an). In addition, there are some difference in the 

way similar terms are used in China and Korea. For 

example, the terms pigu (Chinese, biqiu; monk) and 

piguni (Chinese, biqiuni; nun) are still used in Korea, 

but they are no longer recognized in China. Moreover, 

the meaning of some Buddhist terminology has 

changed. For instance, the meditative term musim (no 

mind, or no false mind) today means “heartlessness.” 

The original meaning of ŏp (karma) referred to both 

good and bad actions; now it signifies only evil actions. 

Furthermore, the Buddhist terms that entered 

everyday parlance often had derogatory meanings, a 

product of the Confucian dominance of premodern 

Korea. Since the Chosŏn period, in particular, the 

meaning of certain Buddhist terms has become 

derogatory; thus, ip’an sap’an came to signify “a 

brawling situation.” Originally the term yadan pŏpsŏk 

referred to “an outdoor sermon”; it is now used in a 

negative sense to mean “an extremely noisy situation.” 

Historically, Buddhist literature played a leading 

role in the formation of vernacular Korean literature. 

By the late nineteenth century, the importation of 

Western civilization and culture caused traditional 

verse and prose forms to give way to new forms. Although 

the Nim ŭi ch’immuk (Silence of Love, 1926) 

by monk HAN YONGUN (1879–1944) is considered 

one of the masterpieces of modern Korean poetry, 

vernacular Buddhist literature in Han’gŭl was not 

generally perceived as literary. It is only in recent years 

that Buddhist literature has regained a growing readership 

in Korea. 


Literature in; Korea; Languages; Poetry and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Bantly, Francisca Cho. Embracing Illusion: Truth and Fiction in 

The Dream of the Nine Clouds. Albany: State University of 


Lee, Peter H. Korean Literature: Topics and Themes. Tucson: 

University of Arizona Press, 1966. 

Rutt, Richard, trans. A Nine Cloud Dream. In Virtuous Women: 

Three Classic Korean Novels, ed. Richard Rutt and Kim 

chong-un. Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, 1974. 


K U KAI 

Sa, Chaedong. A Study of the History of Korean Narrative Literature 

(Han’guk sŏsa munhak ŭi yŏn’gu), 5 vols. Taejon, Korea: 

Chungang munhwasa, 1995. 

Shim, Jae-ryong. Korean Buddhism: Tradition and Transformation. 

Seoul: Jimmundang, 1999. 

A Study of Korean Buddhist Literature (Han’guk Pulgyo munhak 

yŏn’gu), 2 vols. Seoul: Han’guk Munhak Yŏn’guso, Dongguk 


Yi, Sŭngjae. “The Philological Meaning of Symbol Letters” 

(Puhoja ŭi munjaron chŏk ŭiŭi). In Studies of the Korean 

Language (Kugŏhak) 38 (2001): 89–116. 

KUIJI 

JONGMYUNG KIM 

Kuiji (Dasheng Ji, Ci’en Dashi; 632–682) was the 

dharma-name of a prominent Tang dynasty (618–907) 

scholar and monk. Scion of a family of politically powerful 

generals, Kuiji was orphaned as a young child and 

ordained in his teens. Assigned to the imperially sponsored 

translation team of the renown pilgrim-monk 

XUANZANG (ca. 600–664), Kuiji soon established himself 

as one of Xuanzang’s most capable protégés. After 

Xuanzang’s death, Kuiji went on to write a series of 

voluminous commentaries and doctrinal essays based 

on his understanding of the Dharmapala lineage of 

Indian vijñaptimatra-yogacara philosophy. He was 

posthumously designated the first patriarch of what 

was eventually styled the FAXIANG SCHOOL of Chinese 

Buddhism, which represented the second main transmission 

of the YOGACARA SCHOOL into East Asia. 

Kuiji’s presentation of vijñaptimatra-yogacara 

thought was based principally on the Cheng weishi 

lun, a translation of VASUBANDHU’s fourth-century 

Trim śika (Thirty Verses), substantially supplemented 

with a selective synopsis of ten Indian commentaries. 

This work was officially a product of Xuanzang’s translation 

project, although its preface indicates the key 

role Kuiji played in selecting and adjudicating the various 

doctrinal controversies excerpted from the divergent 

Indian commentarial traditions. The result was a 

highly technical and doctrinally conservative presentation 

of Yogacara thought, one very different from, and 

in conflict with, the PARAMARTHA school of Yogacara 

thought already popular in China. This, coupled with 

the fickleness of imperial patronage after Xuanzang’s 

death, led to the eventual decline of Kuiji’s influence, 

a fate already evident during the latter part of his life 

as his main rival FAZANG (643–712) rose in prominence 

under the sponsorship of the royal consort, who 

was eventually to declare herself the Empress Wu. 

Bibliography 

Sponberg, Alan. “Meditation in Fa-hsiang Buddhism.” In Traditions 

of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. Gregory. 


KU KAI 

ALAN SPONBERG 

Kukai (774–835) was a ninth-century Japanese figure 

renowned for his introduction of esoteric Buddhism 

into early Heian society. In his youth Kukai studied 

Confucianism and Chinese literature at Daigaku, the 

state college. But he soon dropped out of Daigaku and 

joined a throng of privately ordained priests and nuns 

(shido so ), and he avidly trained in Buddhism. In 804, 

at age thirty-one, Kukai hastily received official 

ORDINATION and was chosen to be part of the Japanese 

diplomatic mission to Tang China. Under the 

guidance of Master Huikou (746–805) of Qinglongsi 

in the capital city of Chang’an, Kukai studied a 

system of esoteric Buddhism grounded in the 

Mahavairocana-su tra (Japanese, Dainichikyo ) and the 

Tattvasam graha or Vajraśekhara-su tra (or Tantra; 

Japanese, Kongo cho kyo ). Shortly after Huikou’s death, 

Kukai returned to Japan, carrying with him over 210 

new Buddhist scriptures. 

Kukai was the first to invent a paradigm for separating 

esoteric and exoteric Buddhism (Ben kenmitsu 

nikyo ron) and then to understand their complementary 

relationship (Hannya shingyo hiken, Himitsu mandara 

ju ju shinron). Kukai’s creation of a theory of ritual 

language (Sho ji jisso gi, Unjigi) enabled the early Heian 

clergy to achieve integration between their textual 

studies and ritual practices, and accelerated their adoption 

of esoteric Buddhism. Kukai also founded the Latter 

Seven-Day rite (Goshichinichi mishiho ), the New 

Year esoteric Buddhist ceremony at the palace, and the 

ritual service aimed at legitimating the Japanese ruler 

as a cakravartin (wheel-turning monarch). Kukai’s ritual 

initiated the rapid integration of esoteric Buddhist 

rites into the ceremonies of the royal court, a process 

that led to the rise of Buddhism as the dominant ideology 

of the state. In medieval Japan, Kukai became 

one of the most popular Buddhist saints; he was worshiped 

as a savior who lived on in his seat of endless 

meditation on Mount Koya. 


441

K UMA RAJI VA 

See also: Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu) Buddhism in 

Japan; Shingon Buddhism, Japan 

Bibliography 

Abé, Ryuichi. “Saicho and Kukai: Conflict of Interpretations.” 

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22 (1995): 1–2. 

Abé, Ryuichi. The Weaving of Mantra. New York: Columbia 


Groner, Paul. Saicho : The Establishment of Japanese Tendai 

School. Berkeley: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 

University of California at Berkeley, 1984. 

Hakeda, Yoshito. Ku kai: Major Works. New York: Columbia 


KUMA RAJIVA 

RYU ICHI ABÉ 

Kumarajva (350–409 or 413), the most important 

translator in East Asian Buddhist history, was born to 

a noble family in Kucha, a center of largely MAIN- 

STREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS on the northern branch 

of the SILK ROAD. His native language, now known as 

Tokharian B, belonged to the Indo-European family. 

Under the guidance of his mother, Kumarajva became 

a monk while still a boy, then traveled with her 

to Kashmir to study Buddhist philosophy of the Sarvastivada 

school. While continuing his studies in 

Kashgar (roughly between Kucha and Kashmir), 

Kumarajva was converted to the MAHAYANA by a 

monk who was a former prince of Yarkand, in the 

Khotan area, along the southern SILK ROAD. Eventually, 

Kumarajva converted his earlier Indian teacher 

to the Mahayana. 

In 383 a Chinese army occupied Kucha and took 

Kumarajva away as a captive. He was held for some 

two decades in Liangzhou near DUNHUANG in the 

Gansu corridor, where he presumably learned to speak 

and read Chinese. When the Later Qin regime conquered 

Liangzhou in 401, Kumarajva was taken to the 

Chinese capital of Chang’an, where he was immediately 

put at the head of a large translation staff. 

Although a brilliant scholar, Kumarajva was painfully 

aware of his own failings as a monk. While in 

Chang’an he was forced by the ruler to sire numerous 

children, in the hopes of producing offspring as gifted 

as their father. Nothing is known of them. 

There are four aspects to Kumarajva’s greatness. 

First and most important is the volume, variety, and 

richness of his translations. Kumarajva and his staff 

translated seventy-four works in 384 fascicles, including 

the Amitabha-su tra (402), about the Pure 

Land paradise in the west; a new and more readable 

Pañcavim śatisahasrikaprajñaparamita-su tra (Perfection 

of Wisdom in 25,000 Lines, 404), a basic prajñaparamita 

text; the Dazhidu lun (Great Perfection of Wisdom 

Treatise, 405), a massive commentary attributed to 

Madhyamaka philosopher NAGARJUNA (ca. second 

century C.E.), but edited and probably compiled by 

Kumarajva; the LOTUS SUTRA (SADDHARMAPUN DARIKA- 

SU TRA, 406), the single most important Mahayana 

scripture in all of East Asian Buddhism; the 

Vimalaklrtinirdeśa-su tra (406), a very readable 

scripture about a wise lay bodhisattva; and the 

Zhonglun (Treatise on the Middle, 409?), Nagarjuna’s 

Madhyamakakarika (Verses on Madhyamaka) and 

commentary. The translations produced by 

Kumarajva’s team borrowed significantly from predecessors 

such as Zhi Qian (fl. mid-third century) and 

are known for their fluent and readable style. In cases 

where multiple Chinese translations exist, it is always 

Kumarajva’s version that is used. 

The second aspect of Kumarajva’s greatness is that 

individual translations or groups of texts became the 

bases for distinctive exegetical traditions, especially the 

Tattvasiddhi-śastra (Chinese, Chengshi lun; Completion 

of Truth) and the “Three Treatises” or Sanlun of the 

MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL. Third, Kumarajva’s texts 

contained much more than doctrine; they also included 

various types of songs and poetry, legends and 

stories, literary styles and motifs, and a vast repertoire 

of religious images. Fourth, and certainly not 

least, is that Kumarajva taught a group of gifted 

students who wrote texts that formed the foundation 

of East Asian Buddhism, including SENGZHAO 

(374–414), DAOSHENG (ca. 355–434), Sengrui (also 

Huirui; 352–436), and others. 

See also: Paramartha; Śiksananda 

Bibliography 

Ch’en, Kenneth Kuan Sheng. Buddhism in China: A Historical 

Survey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964. 

Liu Mau-Tsai. Kutscha und seine Beziehungen zu China vom 2. 

Jh. v. bis zum 6. Jh. n. Chr., 2 vols. Wiesbaden, Germany: 


Robinson, Richard H. Early Madhyamika in India and China. 

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967. 


K YŎNGHŎ 

Tsukamoto Zenryu. A History of Early Chinese Buddhism: From 

Its Introduction to the Death of Hui-yüan, tr. Leon Hurvitz. 

Tokyo and New York: Kodansha, 1985. 



Netherlands: Brill, 1959 (1972). 

KYŎNGHŎ 

JOHN R. MCRAE 

Kyŏnghŏ Sŏngu (1849–1912) was among the few 

important Sŏn (CHAN SCHOOL) Buddhist leaders in 

nineteenth-century Korea. His rise to eminence took 

place at a time when Buddhist institutions were in cultural 

and political decline after almost six hundred 

years of Confucian domination. 

In 1879, after secluding himself in a hut for several 

months in order to practice intense kongan (KO AN) 

meditation, Kyŏnghŏ became enlightened. Subsequently 

his fame spread far and wide and hundreds of 

followers gathered to receive his instructions. In the 

following decades he revived Sŏn practice greatly and 

set up different monasteries as training centers. 

Kyŏnghŏ also contributed to the renaissance of Korean 

Buddhism by organizing Buddhist societies on behalf 

of the laity. 

Kyŏnghŏ passed away in his hermitage on Kapsan 

in 1912. His lineage of Sŏn was continued by several 

important disciples, all of whom have left their imprint 

on contemporary Buddhism in Korea. 

Kyŏnghŏ did not write any major works, but he left 

behind a large number of instructions for meditation, 

exhortations to practice, and occasional pieces, as well 

as many songs and poems in praise of Sŏn in particular 

and Buddhism in general. Among these his Odo ka 

(Song of Enlightenment) is the most important. Much 

of this material was compiled posthumously by his disciples 

and subsequently published. Kyŏnghŏ also compiled 

a manual for Sŏn practitioners entitled Sŏnmun 

ch’waryo (Important Points of Sŏn Buddhism), which is 

still in use today. 

See also: Chan School; Korea 

Bibliography 

Kyŏnghŏ chip (Collected Works of Kyŏnghŏ), ed. Han Yongun. 

Seoul: Poryon’gak, 1979. Reprint of Chungang Sŏnwŏn 

Chang edition, 1942. 

Kyŏnghŏ pŏbŏ (The Dharma Talks of Kyŏnghŏ), ed. Kyŏnghŏ 

Songu Sŏnsa Pŏbŏ Chip Kanhaeng Hoe. Seoul: Inmul 

Yŏn’gu, 1981. 

Sŏnmun ch’waryo (Important Points of Sŏn Buddhism), ed. 

Kyŏnghŏ Sŏngu. Seoul: Poryŏn’gak, 1982. 

Sørensen, Henrik H. “The Life and Times of the Korean Sŏn 

Master Kyŏnghŏ.” Korean Studies 7 (1983): 7–33. 



443


L 

LAITY 

The laity in Buddhism makes up two of the four constituent 

parts of the SAṄGHA (monks, nuns, laymen, 

and laywomen) and the great majority of Buddhists. 

The ordained differ from the laity by virtue of their renunciation 

of the householder’s life and observance of 

a strict code of behavior, which make them worthy and 

deserving, a pure and holy “field of merit.” Laypeople 

acquire merit through giving food, clothing, shelter, 

and other material support to the ordained, and meritmaking 

by laity to the ordained has been a central aspect 

of lay life in all Buddhist societies. Prohibitions 

on the ordained acquiring individual wealth, as well as 

prohibitions on sexual activity, make the ordained dependent 

upon laity for their living and the perpetuation 

of a religious order. 

The textual legacy 

Laity in early Buddhist texts are referred to as upasaka 

(laymen) and upasika (laywomen), devoted followers 

of Buddhist teaching, and they are distinguished from 

ordinary householders. Lay followers should take 

proper care of the monks during the retreats, hear the 

dharma expounded at that time and on the monthly 

Posadha (Pali, Uposatha) days, take the three refuges, 

follow the first five śllas or moral rules (refraining 

from taking life, stealing, unchastity, lying, and taking 

intoxicants), offer robes to the monks at the end 

of the rainy season, undertake PILGRIMAGE, and venerate 

STU PAS containing relics of the Buddha. The 

Sigalovada-sutta (Discourse to Sigala) urges laity to revere 

their parents, spouses and children, friends and 

companions, and religious teachers. Instructions 

specifically for women direct them in various texts to 

be capable in work, to manage servants well, to be 

physically attractive to their husbands, and to manage 

his fortune well. 

THERAVA DA Buddhism has traditionally emphasized 

a strong distinction between the ordained and 

the laity. The nikayas show that laity can reach the first 

three stages of sanctity (sotapanna, sakadagami, and 

anagami), but they cannot become arhats. Instead, 

they aim for a better rebirth. Recent studies suggest, 

nevertheless, that the Sutta Pitaka also contains a second, 

contrasting view on the laity, holding that laity 

can attain enlightenment. The Mahavagge Mandapeyyakatha 

depicts the Buddha teaching the FOUR NOBLE 

TRUTHS and the eightfold path to the laity, and the 

Nakulapita-sutta (Discourse to Nakulapita) has the 

Buddha teaching a layman about the five aggregates 

and the error of confusing these with the self. 

With the appearance of early MAHA YA NA in the first 

century, new concepts and practices developed, widening 

the laity’s scope. The cardinal idea of emptiness 

undermined all conceptual oppositions, including that 

between monastics and laity. The idea of the BOD- 

HISATTVA who purposefully remains in the world to 

save others further undermined the dichotomy separating 

the ordained and laity, and the idea of the lay 

bodhisattva emerged. 

The quintessential example of the lay bodhisattva 

is the layman VIMALAKIRTI, in the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa 

(The Teaching of Viamalaklrti), composed between 

the first century B.C.E. and first century C.E. Vimalakrti 

expounds on the nature of emptiness, exhibiting his 

wisdom to an immense assembly of holy men and 

bodhisattvas. He ridicules their doctrinal abstractions 

and pretensions to a higher status than the 

445

L AITY 

Laypersons dip lotus flowers in holy water and sprinkle it on themselves at Phra Kaew Monastery, Bangkok, Thailand, 1991. © Don 

Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

laity. Other sutras continue the themes of this work, 

sometimes introducing laywomen as the protagonists. 

Two such examples are Vimalakrti’s daughter in the 

Candrottaradarikavyakarana-su tra (Discourse on the 

Prediction Made about the Girl Candrottara) and 

Queen Śrimala in the Śrimaladevlsim hanada-su tra 

(Lion’s Roar of Queen Śrimala). 

Other Mahayana texts present filial piety as a kind 

of Buddhist morality, in a concession to the prominence 

of this principle especially among the laity in 

East Asia. The central role of the priesthood in funerary 

and ancestral rites in East Asian Buddhism stems 

from the elevation of filial piety as an ethical ideal in 

such works as the Ullambana-su tra. 

Laity in Therava da countries 

Lay life in Theravada countries is greatly influenced by 

the custom of men entering a Buddhist monastery for 

a period of time, later returning to lay life. Nearly all 

Burmese men and about half the men in Thailand, 

Laos, and Cambodia have spent at least one rainsretreat, 

and often much longer, as an ordained monk. 

This means that the laity of several Theravada countries 

has significant personal experience of monastic 

life, unparalleled by any comparable custom in countries 

where Mahayana predominates. This custom creates 

close ties between laity and the ordained and 

expands the range of religious experience for lay men. 

Women are excluded because the tradition of valid OR- 

DINATION for NUNS is believed to have died out. 

Lay practice revolves around the precepts and 

merit-making activities. Laypeople observe the five basic 

precepts already discussed, and on holy days they 

may take a further five: refraining from sex, eating after 

noon, perfumes and adornments, seeing public entertainments, 

and the use of grand beds. Giving food 

to monks on a daily basis is a widespread practice, as 

is contributing to such ceremonies as a man’s ordination, 

New Year’s, an abbot’s promotion, meals for 

monks, presentation of robes, cremations, and to general 

monastery fund-raising or repairs. Donations may 

take the form of money, items involved in a particular 

ceremony, or they may be things monks are allowed 

to own, such as bedding, a razor, an umbrella, or a nee- 


L AITY 

dle and thread. Founding and supporting schools and 

hospitals is also religiously meritorious. The performance 

of meritorious giving thus creates and strengthens 

the connections between monastic and lay society. 

Laity in Maha ya na countries 

In East Asia ritual merit transfer is the basic motif 

structuring the relation between laity and the ordained. 

In essence, descendants make gifts to monastics, who 

transfer the merit to descendants’ ancestors in order 

to ensure them a better REBIRTH or a more comfortable 

existence in the other world. Merit transfer has 

also become institutionalized in the mid-summer 

GHOST FESTIVAL, based on the Ullambana-su tra. 

A wide variety of devotional practices are performed 

by lay Buddhists in China, Korea, and Japan, including 

veneration of such sacred objects as Buddhist images, 

relics, and stupas; copying and reciting sutras, 

prayers, and formulas; use of Buddhist rosaries, AMU- 

LETS AND TALISMANS; pilgrimage; and participation in 

cults and rites for particular buddhas and bodhisattvas, 

including Śakyamuni, MAITREYA, AMITABHA, Avalokiteśvara, 

Ksitigharba, Bhaisajyaguru, Samantabhadra, 

Acala, and others. 

Chinese laity formed societies for reciting the Buddha’s 

name, for study, and for publication as early as 

the Six Dynasties (222–589). The tradition of the 

learned layman in China had a prototype in Pang Yun 

(born ca. 740), “Layman P’ang,” whose Chan sayings 

were later collected as Pang jushi yulu (The Recorded 

Sayings of Layman Pang). He gave away his house and 

sank his possessions in a boat, taking up a wandering 

life and studying under several Chan masters, though 

not becoming a monk. 

A Buddhist revival in the late Ming dynasty 

(1368–1644) grew out of a lay movement of provincial 

gentry, who underwrote the founding of monasteries, 

sponsored the clergy, and enthusiastically 

practiced Buddhist devotions. Gentry went on pilgrimage 

to Buddhist monasteries, composed poems 

about them, and restored them. They corresponded 

with monks, attended lectures, chanted Buddhist texts 

and the Buddha’s name, and burned incense. They organized 

lay associations with names like Lotus Society 

for pure land devotions, or associations for 

liberating captive animals. They participated in public 

rites called “Bathing the Buddha” for the Buddha’s 

birthday and the Ghost Festival. 

During the late Qing dynasty (1644–1911) and the 

Republican period (1911–1920), the number of Buddhist 

lay societies grew rapidly, attracting literati and 

bourgeoisie adherents. Merit clubs operated vegetarian 

restaurants in the cities, and study groups met to 

discuss sacred texts or to hear lectures by visiting 

monks. Recitation clubs gathered to recite the Buddha’s 

name in the hope of being reborn in the Western 

Pure Land. Founded by a Hangzhou businessman 

in 1920, the Right Faith Society operated a clinic and 

a boys’ primary school, also providing soup kitchens, 

free coffins for the poor, and a widows’ home. The 

Buddhist Pure Karma Society, founded in Shanghai in 

1925, ran an orphanage and a clinic dispensing free 

medicine; it also broadcast a nightly radio program. 

In ancient Korea, lay practice centered on worship 

of both Maitreya and Amitabha. Chanting Amitabha’s 

name was a central lay practice. Pure land faith was 

propagated through Buddhist folk tales from the unified 

Silla dynasty (668–935) that were later incorporated 

into a history, SAMGUK YUSA (MEMORABILIA OF 

THE THREE KINGDOMS, 1285). This work reflects strong 

lay participation in Buddhism and also shows that lay 

associations were formed around pure land practice. 

Ancient and medieval Japan exhibited a rich variety 

of lay Buddhist practices, including pilgrimage to 

famous monasteries and sacred mountains or around 

circuit routes devoted to Avalokiteśvara or the historical 

Buddhist figure KU KAI (774–835); sponsoring 

Buddhist art works and ceremonies; and building or 

repairing temples. The Great Buddha statue of Todaiji 

in Nara was completed in 752, in part by lay contributions 

organized by the lay Buddhist En no Ubasoku 

(from Sanskrit upasaka). 

Classical literature is replete with images of laity. In 

984 a lay noble, Minamoto Tamenori, completed the 

Sanbo e (Illustrations of the Three Jewels), an illustrated 

collection of Buddhist tales in three volumes, as a guide 

to Buddhism for an imperial princess. It included tales 

of Japanese Buddhists, the miracles achieved through 

their devotions, and stories of meritorious people 

whose good deeds produced rewards in this life and 

the next. 

Especially after periods of warfare, many widows 

adopted a semimonastic style of life, taking the tonsure 

though not necessarily living in a monastery, 

forming societies to commission or repair statues, and 

devoting themselves to prayers for the souls of the 

dead. Sometimes such women congregated near a 

monastery and performed tasks like laundry and food 

provisioning for the monks. 


447

L AITY 

to reciting Amitabha’s name, and strong conviction of 

the certain rebirth in the Western Pure Land. 

Monks receive alms from lay Buddhists at Phra Dhammakaya 

Monastery near Bangkok, Thailand, 1991. © Don Farber 2003. 

All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

During the Edo period (1600–1868), the entire population 

was legally required to affiliate with a Buddhist 

monastery. These inalterable, exclusive affiliations 

were established by family units and passed down 

through generations. In return for supporting the 

monasteries and their priests, the priests performed the 

family’s funerals and periodic ancestral rites. Although 

the legal obligation of monastery affiliation dissolved 

in the 1870s, the fact of family graves and records being 

kept by the monasteries means that these affiliations 

have largely been preserved. 

Laity established associations for pilgrimage and for 

the recitation of Amitabha’s name or the title of the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). Stories 

of the ideal layperson, based on historical individuals, 

were published by the True Pure Land sect during the 

Edo period in collections called o jo den (tales of rebirth 

[in the pure land]). These tales vividly illustrated valued 

traits: filial piety, honesty, compassion, devotion 

Laity and modernization 

The modernization of Buddhist societies has brought 

sweeping changes. The extension of the franchise and 

expanded political participation in secular life colored 

religious life, creating the expectation that laity should 

be able to influence the character of Buddhist institutions. 

The spread of literacy has enabled laity to read 

and interpret sacred scripture with increasing independence 

from the ordained. Higher education hones 

a critical spirit and encourages skepticism regarding 

clergy’s preeminence over the laity and their monopoly 

over funerals and other rituals. The prestige of science 

and rationality in modernizing societies further 

nurtures a critical view of traditional religious beliefs, 

practices, and institutions. 

The encounter with Christian missionaries and 

Western imperialism was an important catalyst to Buddhist 

revival movements, and laymen have frequently 

played significant roles. The lay branch of the Buddhist 

Theosophical Society, founded in Sri Lanka in 1880, 

created a press, the Buddhist English School (later 

Ananda College), and a newspaper, The Buddhist. 

Prominent laity like ANAGARIKA DHARMAPALA (born 

David Hewavitarne, 1864–1933) acquired their first experience 

of activism in the Buddhist Theosophical Society 

and in the Young Men’s Buddhist Association 

(later renamed the All-Ceylon Buddhist Congress), 

founded in Colombo in 1898 by C. S. Dissanayake. 

Dharmapala founded the first international Buddhist 

organization, Mahabodhi Society, in Colombo in 

1891, later starting a revival of Buddhism in India, beginning 

with a project to restore BODH GAYA. Dharmapala 

linked his support for Buddhism to the struggle 

for Indian independence, so that Buddhist advocacy 

was inseparable from the call for political independence. 

The Indian Buddhist revival did not become a 

mass movement, however, until the leadership of 

Bhimrao Ramji AMBEDKAR (1891–1956), an attorney 

trained in the United States and Britain who worked 

for the legal emancipation of the Untouchables. Despairing 

of integrating the Untouchables into Hindu 

caste society, he converted to Buddhism in 1950. When 

he called on all Untouchables to convert, mass conversions 

followed in several Indian states. 

In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century 

Japan, Buddhist reform movements arose, frequently 


L AITY 

led by groups of priests and laymen, calling for free 

inquiry into traditional beliefs and practices, rejecting 

superstition, and striving to articulate a modern 

Buddhist ethic. One such association, Bukkyo Seito 

Doshikai, published a widely circulated journal called 

Buddhism (Bukkyo ), sought inspiration from Unitarianism, 

embraced skepticism, and even questioned 

whether Mahayana is true Buddhism. Other reformers 

admired socialism, affirmed equality, and called for 

reform of authoritarian sectarian organizations. Still 

others aligned Buddhism with nationalism, such as 

Nation’s Pillar Society (Kokuchukai), founded in 1914 

by a Nichiren priest who later disrobed and wrote in 

defense of marriage, Tanaka Chigaku (1861–1939). 

Buddhist new religious movements in Japan 

The formalism inherent in the historical origins of 

Japanese temple affiliations has made the country a fertile 

area for the founding of new religious movements 

expanding the scope of lay Buddhism. In the early 

twentieth century Buddhist new religions emerged, 

based on the belief that the laity possess all necessary 

qualifications to perform funerals and ancestral rites 

without clerical mediation. Reiyukai Kyodan, founded 

in 1930, and its offshoot Rissho Koseikai, founded in 

1938, are two such examples. Both derive from 

Nichiren Buddhism and emphasize ancestor worship 

through the Lotus Su tra. 

After World War II, many more Buddhist new religions 

emerged. The largest is SO KA GAKKAI, which 

was founded in 1930 but which did not become a mass 

movement until after 1945. Its main religious practices 

are chanting the title of the Lotus Su tra and studying 

its doctrines. It founded a political party in 1964. Soka 

Gakkai was originally affiliated with a branch of the 

NICHIREN SCHOOL, Nichiren Shoshu, but this connection 

was abolished in 1991. Soka Gakkai maintains an 

extensive program of peace work and branches 

throughout the world. With membership estimated at 

seventeen million, it is one of the largest—if not the 

largest—Buddhist lay associations in history. 

In recent years Buddhist new religions deriving 

from Shingon Buddhism, such as Agon-shu, Shinnyoen, 

and Gedatsukai, have been founded. In 1995 the 

Buddhist new religion Aum Shinrikyo, founded in 

1986, carried out an attack on the Tokyo subway system 

that killed twelve people and required some five 

thousand to be hospitalized. The founder, Asahara 

Shoko, hoped to cause Armageddon to fulfill his 

prophecy of the millennium. This group had no affiliation 

with any branch of Japanese Buddhism; it drew 

its main doctrines from Tibetan Buddhism mixed with 

the founder’s eclectic readings in Christianity and 

Western millenarianism. 

See also: Merit and Merit-making; Monasticism 

Bibliography 

Barua, Dipak Kumar. An Analytical Study of Four Nikayas. Calcutta: 

Ribindra Bharati University, 1971. 

Beyer, Stephan. The Cult of Tara: Magic and Ritual in Tibet. 


Brook, Timothy. Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation 

of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China. Cambridge, MA: 


Bunnag, Jane. Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman: A Study of Urban 

Monastic Organization in Central Thailand. Cambridge, 


Dutt, Nalinaksha. “Place of Laity in Early Buddhism.” Indian 

Historical Quarterly 21 (1945): 163–183. 

Fuller, Ruth Sasaki; Iriya Yoshitake; and Fraser, Dana R.; trans. 

The Recorded Sayings of Layman P’ang: A Ninth-Century Zen 

Classic. New York: Weatherhill, 1971. 

Gombrich, Richard, and Bechert, Heinz, eds. The World of Buddhism: 



Hirakawa, Akira. A History of Indian Buddhism: From Sakyamuni 

to Early Mahayana, tr. Paul Groner. Honolulu: University 


Lancaster, Lewis, and Yu, C. S., eds. Assimilation of Buddhism 

in Korea: Religious Maturity and Innovation in the Silla Dynasty. 


Malalgoda, Kitsiri. Buddhism in Sinhalese Society 1750–1900: A 

Study of Religious Revival and Change. Berkeley and Los Angeles: 


Samuels, Jeffrey. “Views of Householders and Lay Disciples in 

the Sutta Pitaka: A Reconsideration of the Lay/Monastic Opposition.” 

Religion 29 (1999): 235–238. 

Tambiah, Stanley J. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults of North-East 


1970. 



Welch, Holmes. The Buddhist Revival in China. Cambridge, MA: 


HELEN HARDACRE 


449

L ALITAVISTARA 

LALITAVISTARA 

The Lalitavistara, of late but uncertain date (ca. fourth 

century C.E.), is an important Sanskrit biography that 

recounts in both prose and verse the life of the Buddha 

from his preexistence in Tusita heaven to his first 

sermon at Sarnath. Originally written in Sanskrit, it is 

Mahayanist in its view of Śakyamuni, embellishing his 

life story with accounts of miracles and evidence of his 

supernatural nature. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the; Sanskrit, Buddhist Literature 

in 

Bibliography 

Bays, Gwendolyn, trans. The Voice of the Buddha: The Beauty of 

Compassion, 2 vols. Berkeley, CA: Dharma, 1983. 

LAMA 


A lama is a Tibetan Buddhist teacher. In the most narrow 

sense, the term bla ma (pronounced “lama”) refers 

to a lay or ordained religious instructor. It is also commonly 

used by Tibetans as a title for tulku (sprul sku), 

a reincarnated teacher. The prominent position of the 

lama in Tibetan Buddhism gave rise, first in China and 

then in the West, to the misnomer Lamaism to refer 

to Tibetan religion. 

The term bla ma was one of countless neologisms 

invented by early Buddhist translators active in seventh- 

and eighth-century Tibet. It was coined to render 

the Sanskrit term guru, commonly glossed in India 

as “heavy,” in apparent reference to the great burden 

of good qualities and responsibilities the religious 

guide carries. The Tibetan word bla was already endowed 

with considerable religious weight, referring to 

the life-force or spirit of an individual or corporate entity, 

such as a family or a community. The bla is mobile, 

able to establish residence in numerous external 

places or objects called bla gnas, or “bla support.” 

Damage to the bla gnas is harmful, even fatal, to the 

person to whom it belongs. More perilous still is the 

ever-present danger that the bla might wander away or 

be stolen by demons, to the detriment of the person 

or group. Rituals are commonly performed to prevent 

the loss of the bla and call it back when it has departed. 

Bla also caries the senses of “high,” “appropriate,” 

and “lord,” and was used to translate the Sanskrit terms 

pati (lord) and u rdhvam (elevated). The second part 

of the word, ma, can be read as either a substantive 

marker, a negative particle, or “mother.” The multivalence 

of both syllables has led to near-countless etymologies 

of the term by Tibetan and Western exegetes 

alike, among them “highest” (literally, “none above”) 

and “exalted mother.” 

The lama, incarnate or otherwise, occupies a central 

role in Tibetan Buddhism. This status can in part 

be attributed to the influence of tantric Buddhism. The 

tantric guru serves as the conduit for the teachings, 

transmitting secret instruction and rites though a series 

of initiations. The tantric practitioner is enjoined 

to view his or her guru as a buddha, more precious 

than any other BUDDHAS or BODHISATTVAS. Because of 

this the lama is considered in Tibet to be the fourth 

jewel, equal if not superior to the buddha, dharma, and 

SAṄGHA. 

This exalted status is perhaps a reason for the invention 

of Lamaism, a term that has its roots in 

eighteenth-century China. Since the thirteenth century, 

powerful Tibetan lamas interacted with Mongol 

and Chinese imperial rulers, who referred to the lamas 

as seng, the term for Chinese monks. In the eighteenth 

century, however, the category of the Tibetan Buddhist 

master was differentiated from seng and transliterated 

as lama. This gave rise to the term lama jiao, the religion 

of bla ma, whence came the English Lamaism. The 

term was adopted by Western travelers and scholars of 

Tibet who routinely viewed Tibetan religion as a debased 

mingling of indigenous Tibetan animism with 

“pure” Indian Buddhism, and hence literally unworthy 

of being called Buddhism. Though usage persists, 

the term Lamaism is considered offensive by Tibetans 

and is by and large dropping out of circulation. 

Bibliography 

Lessing, Ferdinand. “Calling the Soul: A Lamaist Ritual.” Semitic 

Philology 11 (1951): 263–284. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism 

and the West. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. 

Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Réne de. Oracles and Demons: The Cult 

and Iconography of the Tibetan Protective Deities. Kathmandu, 

Nepal: Book Faith India, 1993. 

Sperling, Elliot. “The Fifth Karma-pa and Some Aspects of the 


Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson: Proceedings of the In- 


L ANGUAGE, BUDDHIST P HILOSOPHY OF 

ternational Seminar on Tibetan Studies, ed. Michael Aris and 

Aung San Suu Kyi. Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips, 1980. 

Tseten Zhabdrung. “Research on the Nomenclature of the Buddhist 

Schools in Tibet,” tr. Tenzin Dorjee. Tibet Journal 11, 

no. 3 (1986): 40–50. 

ALEXANDER GARDNER 

LANGUAGE, BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY OF 

The earliest Buddhist discussions of language are 

found in the canonical literature, where the principal 

focus is on the correct use of speech. In Majjhimanikaya 

(Middle Length Discourses) 58, for example, the 

Buddha advises his followers to consider before they 

speak whether what they are about to say is factual, 

true, beneficial, endearing, and agreeable to others. If 

what one was thinking of saying is false or harmful, 

then one should not say it at all. If it is true and beneficial 

but is likely to be unpleasant to the hearer, then 

one should wait for a suitable occasion to say it. Even 

if what one has an urge to say meets all those criteria, 

one should still wait for the correct time to say it. Being 

mindful of one’s speech is said in that canonical 

text to be a natural manifestation of kindness and sympathy 

for others. 

As Buddhist scholasticism developed in India, 

scholastics became increasingly occupied with criticizing 

non-Buddhist schools and defending Buddhism 

against criticisms made by non-Buddhists. Among the 

many topics that were debated by scholastics, one of 

the most important was the issue of the authority of 

scriptures. It was in the context of discussing this issue 

that most of the Buddhist reflections on the nature 

of language occurred. 

In such Pali canonical sources as the Suttanipata, 

the Buddha is portrayed as telling his followers that the 

Vedas had been composed by unscrupulous Brahman 

priests who were intent on duping people into hiring 

them to perform expensive religious rituals. In defending 

the authority of the Vedas against Buddhists 

and other critics, scholastics within the Brahmanical 

tradition devised two different and mutually incompatible 

strategies. The first strategy consisted in attributing 

the Vedic texts to God. The argument was 

that God, being omniscient and benevolent, could neither 

deceive nor be deceived, and therefore every text 

composed by him is necessarily reliable. The second 

strategy consisted in claiming that the Vedic texts had 

never been composed by anyone and were therefore 

eternal. The argument here was that errors occur in 

texts only because of the limited knowledge and integrity 

of imperfect authors. But if a text has no author 

at all, then it has no author whose limitations are 

liable to introduce errors into the text. An authorless 

text is therefore error-free and hence perfectly reliable. 

Both of these Brahmanical strategies involved 

claiming that the language of the Vedic texts was different 

from any ordinary human language. Various 

features of the Vedic form of Sanskrit were adduced 

as evidence that Vedic Sanskrit was eternal and unevolving 

and that it was the ultimate source of all human 

languages, which could therefore all be seen as 

corrupted versions of the pristine Sanskrit language. 

Moreover, it was claimed that the relationship between 

a Sanskrit word and the object that it denotes 

is eternally fixed. The Sanskrit name for any object is 

the object’s true name; its name in any other language 

was merely a matter of human convention and convenience. 

The Brahmanical writer Bhartrhari (fifth 

century), against whose views several Buddhist 

scholastics articulated their views on language, argued 

that knowledge from the Veda surpassed both personal 

experience and reasoning, since both empirical 

investigation and logic are limited to the particular 

limitations of the individual, while the Veda has none 

of these human limitations. 

Disagreeing with the Brahmanical view that Sanskrit 

has a privileged place among all languages and is the 

only legitimate language for rituals, the Buddha 

strongly advised that dharma teachers should communicate 

in the vernacular language of their audience. 

No language is intrinsically more pure or expressive 

than any other; a language is expressive only if it is understood 

by both the speaker and the hearer. 

Among the first of the Buddhist scholastics to 

argue extensively against the Brahmanical tradition 

on issues of language was DIGNAGA (fl. ca. 500 C.E.). 

Dignaga’s principal claim was that all language is 

nothing more than a system of signs governed by 

conventional rules that are established by the consensus 

of the language-using community. Since language 

consists of signs, the interpretation of language 

is nothing but a special application of inference. In 

much the same way that the observation of a column 

of smoke could be taken as a sign that fire is burning 

somewhere, the spoken or written word fire can 

be seen as a sign that the person who uses it is thinking 

something about fire. 


451

L ANGUAGES 

Two important claims about language follow from 

the claim that linguistic interpretation is a species of 

inference. First, it follows that since all inference is fallible, 

any knowledge communicated through any language 

is also fallible. Second, it follows that since the 

knowledge gained through inference is much more 

vague and imprecise than knowledge gained through 

direct experience, linguistically communicated knowledge 

is much less precise and of lower practical value 

than knowledge gained through direct experience. This 

means that any body of scripture, whether the Veda or 

the canonical literature of Buddhism, is of limited 

value. Only personal experience can be fully trusted. 

DHARMAKIRTI (ca. 600–ca. 660) and other Buddhists 

who followed Dignaga argued that what made Buddhist 

canonical literature valuable was that it contained 

advice that, when followed properly, would help people 

reduce the amount of suffering that they experience 

in the world. Buddhist canonical sources, in other 

words, were seen as valuable not because they tell the 

truth, as the Brahmans claimed the Vedas do, but because 

they suggest methods by which people may discover 

the truth for themselves. 

Although Indian Buddhist apologists were critical 

of many Brahmanical views concerning language, one 

belief that was never questioned was that MANTRAS had 

the power to heal and achieve various other results in 

the physical world. The Buddha forbade monks uttering 

mantras for material gain, but he also forbade 

monks the practice of MEDICINE for profit. The warning 

against mantras was therefore only against the 

Brahmanical practice of reciting them for material reward. 

Philosophers such as Dharmakrti and his followers, 

while being opposed to the recitation of 

mantras for personal rewards, expressed their conviction 

that mantras have the power to alter conditions 

in the material world and thus must be used with discretion 

and compassion. 

See also: Buddhavacana (Word of the Buddha); 

Dharanl; Languages; Logic 

Bibliography 

Ganeri, Jonardon. Philosophy in Classical India. London: Routledge, 

2001. 

Hayes, Richard P. Dignaga on the Interpretation of Signs. Boston 

and Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 1988. 

Tillemans, Tom J. F. Scripture, Logic, and Language: Essays on 

Dharmaklrti and His Tibetan Successors. Boston: Wisdom, 

1999. 

RICHARD P. HAYES 

LANGUAGES 

As it spread throughout Asia, Buddhism succeeded in 

crossing a remarkable number of linguistic boundaries, 

in some cases being transposed into languages 

very different from those spoken in India. Its doctrines 

came to be presented orally in numerous languages 

and dialects, and its canonical literature, once written 

down, was translated into over a dozen languages even 

in premodern times. Since the historical sources do 

not permit scholars to identify all the languages used 

for oral presentations of the teaching, the following 

entry will focus on written expressions, considering 

oral transmission during only the early period of Indian 


Whether any words of the Buddha are preserved in 

his own tongue is a matter of dispute. The THERAVADA 

claims that Pali, the Middle Indian language used by 

that school for its scriptures, was the language of the 

Buddha. Modern research, however, has convincingly 

shown Pali to be a western, or rather a west-central, 

dialect of Middle Indian, while the Buddha himself 

must have spoken an eastern dialect, most probably 

Old Magadh, the local language of the area in which 

he wandered, or perhaps some form of “Gangetic 

koine.” Not a single utterance of the Buddha is preserved 

in that language, but certain words and forms 

in the Pali canon reveal traces of a transposition from 

the eastern into the western dialect. Therefore it is 

safe to assume that during the early phases of its 

transmission, the word of the Buddha was transposed 

into local dialects wherever Buddhist monks traveled 

and taught. 

The Buddha himself is said to have regulated the 

use of languages or dialects for the spread of his teaching. 

According to a difficult passage preserved in various 

vinayas, two monks, both former brahmins, asked 

the Buddha for permission to redact the teaching in a 

form corresponding to (Vedic) Sanskrit in order to 

avoid corruptions. The Buddha, however, declined the 

request and apparently ordered that everybody should 

transmit his teaching in their own (spoken) language. 

This passage is generally understood as permitting the 

use of the various vernaculars for the spread of the doctrine; 

it is consistent with the exoteric nature of Buddhism 

and its basic intention of making its doctrines 

accessible to everybody, in deliberate contrast to brahminical 

restrictions. 

It is questionable whether any kind of Urkanon took 

shape during the lifetime of the Buddha or soon after. 


L ANGUAGES 

Initially, preservation of the teachings with their wording 

unaltered was not considered a necessary criterion 

of authenticity, and this contributed greatly to fostering 

linguistic diversity and spreading the teaching as 

Buddhism left its homeland in the Ganges plain. The 

texts that had hitherto been transmitted orally were 

then transposed into other more or less supraregional 

Middle Indian dialects to facilitate understanding and 

wider dissemination. At present we know of only two, 

Pali and Gandhar, Pali being a western dialect, 

whereas Gandhar was widely used in the northwestern 

part of the subcontinent and, with the growth of 

the Kushan empire, in Bactria and Central Asia. Pali 

became the canonical language of the Theravada 

school, and Gandhar that of the DHARMAGUPTAKA. 

Considerably later sources mention other Prakrits used 

by various schools, namely Paiśac, Apabhram śa, and 

Maddhyoddeśika. Apabhram śa is assigned to the 

Sam matyas or to the Sthaviras, and Maddhyoddeśika 

to either the Sthaviras or the MAHASAM GHIKA SCHOOL. 

All schools must at first have transmitted their 

canonical texts in Prakrit. Some of them, like the Theravada, 

retained their Middle Indian language, while 

others participated in the so-called Sanskrit renaissance 

and started to Sanskritize their received literature. 

Sanskritization was apparently a gradual process 

permitting schools that were spread over a vast area to 

undergo different regional developments. The literature 

of the (Mula-)Sarvastivada is preserved only in 

Buddhist Sanskrit, but its older layers reveal many 

traces of the underlying Prakrit. Surviving fragments 

suggest that the Dharmaguptakas also took part in the 

process of Sanskritization, at least in Central Asia. The 

growing number of fragments found in Afghanistan 

since 1994 supports the view that the Mahasam ghikas, 

and especially the Lokottaravada, used a specific mixture 

of Prakrit and Sanskrit that may be termed Buddhist 

Hybrid Sanskrit in the true sense, and which was 

probably referred to as Maddhyoddeśika (intermediate 

recitation), a term not yet fully understood. 

Retention or translation 

When Buddhism began to spread beyond the Indian 

subcontinent, missionaries and local followers were 

confronted with the problem of how to communicate 

the teaching, the rituals, and the literature in a totally 

different linguistic environment. Basically, two possibilities 

offered themselves: to preserve the Indian language 

used so far, or to translate into the local 

language. Preserving the Indian original offered practitioners 

several advantages, among them a sense of 

the sacredness of oral and written texts derived from 

their use of the holy language supposedly spoken in 

the homeland of the Buddha or even by the Buddha 

himself; continuing access to other Indian sources; 

and, very importantly, unambiguousness in terminological 

matters. It also provided a useful common currency 

in a multiethnic and multilingual environment, 

no small issue when a Buddhist missionary movement 

came to be supported by the ruling powers for its unifying 

potential. On the other hand, Indian languages 

would have been incomprehensible to most followers 

outside India and a deterrent to prospective converts, 

especially in areas where non-Indo-European languages 

were spoken. This unintelligibility would have 

facilitated their readiness to exchange the Indian original 

for a more suitable vernacular, even if it necessitated 

the gargantuan task of finding at least 

approximate equivalents in the target language for difficult 

Indian Buddhist terminology. Discussions preserved 

in several Chinese and Tibetan treatises clearly 

show that some translators were well aware of the 

methodological, philological, and cultural problems 

involved in the translation process; their reflections on 

these problems resulted in attempts to establish guidelines 

for bridging the linguistic and cultural divide. 

In the course of history both these possibilities— 

retention of the Indian original and translation into 

the vernacular—were employed, sometimes side by 

side. Several times the vernacular chosen for translation 

became itself a transregional “church” language 

(i.e., the idiom used for canonical scriptures and liturgical 

purposes) when its specific form of Buddhism 

crossed further linguistic borders, as in the case of Chinese 

and Tibetan. Although no Buddhist tradition developed 

prescriptions for or against the use of a specific 

language, in most cases one observes a slowly but 

steadily increasing tendency to regard the language of 

the written canonical texts as sacred, and this greatly 

reduced the original openness to linguistic changes 

characteristic of the early period of oral transmission 

in India. Wherever the language of the canonical literature 

was not identical with the vernacular, sooner or 

later the vernacular came to be used for the production 

of a sometimes very rich noncanonical Buddhist 

literature consisting of commentaries, story collections, 

manuals, poetry, devotional texts, and the like, 

and sometimes this led to the development of a new 

literary language in its own right. Examples are the use 

of Newari, Tamil, and Old Javanese alongside Sanskrit, 

and Thai, Japanese, and Mongolian alongside Pali, 

Chinese, and Tibetan, respectively. 


453

L ANGUAGES 

Central Asia. A most interesting case exemplifying the 

various possibilities is Central Asia, where various 

forms of Buddhism coexisted during the second half 

of the first millennium. First, there were some ethnic 

groups, notably speakers of the two dialects of Tocharian 

(the easternmost form of western Indo-European), 

of the two Saka dialects, Tumshuq and Khotanese 

(Middle Iranian), and of Uigur (a Turkish language), 

who continued to use Sanskrit as their “church” language, 

but also translated scriptures into their vernacular 

and composed their own Buddhists texts. That 

these ethnic groups transmitted scriptures in Sanskrit 

is proven by the existence of a considerable number of 

bilingual manuscripts and texts, manuscripts where 

glosses in one of the local languages are added to a Sanskrit 

text between the lines, as well as texts, at least in 

the case of the Tocharians and Uigurs, where the Sanskrit 

original and the vernacular translation alternate 

word by word or sentence by sentence in the same line. 

Second, there were the Chinese and the Tibetans, both 

of whom translated Buddhist literature into their own 

languages from the very beginning of missionary activity 

in their countries. Finally, there is the specific 

case of the Sogdians, speakers of another Middle Iranian 

language, whose merchants must have been instrumental 

in spreading Indian Buddhism and its 

literature from the Kushan empire to China. When 

they started in the second half of the first millennium 

to translate Buddhist texts into Sogdian, they did so 

from Chinese translations of Indian originals. All this 

can be gleaned from Central Asian manuscript finds, 

and specifically from the walled-up library in DUN- 

HUANG, where texts in all these different languages 

were found side by side. 

According to Jan Nattier no translation of an Indian 

Buddhist text into a vernacular is found west of Kashgar, 

the westernmost town in the Tarim basin. So far, 

recent manuscript finds in Afghanistan confirm her 

view, since nearly all the texts are written in Indian languages. 

There is only one exception—a Buddhist text in 

Bactrian, yet another Middle Iranian language, but at 

present it is not clear whether it is a translation or a ritual 

text written in the vernacular for a specific purpose. 

China and East Asia. As soon as Buddhism reached 

China it proved necessary to translate its texts into Chinese. 

One reason for this must have been the extreme 

grammatical and phonetic differences between Indian 

languages and Chinese; another reason was the sheer 

foreignness of Buddhism to the Chinese, whose highly 

sophisticated and literary culture was distinguished by 

rather different value systems and aesthetic perceptions. 

Translation techniques went through various 

models and periods, starting with the second-century 

translator AN SHIGAO, who made extensive use of the 

vocabulary and other features of the spoken language. 

This tendency to incorporate vernacular elements was 

followed by a period that was characterized by an attempt 

to employ Daoist vocabulary to express Buddhist 

terms and ideas, and to write in a more literary 

mode. A new standard was set during the fifth century 

when the famous translator KUMARAJIVA (350–409/ 

413) introduced the translation bureau, a team of Chinese 

and foreign specialists who, usually under state 

patronage, jointly took care of the various steps involved 

in the translation process. Similar institutions 

were set up several times in the history of Central and 

East Asian Buddhism—for example, in Tibet during 

its imperial age, and later in Central Asia and China 

for the translations of the Tangut, Mongol, and 

Manchu versions of the tripitaka. 

As Chinese culture became paradigmatic throughout 

East Asia, Buddhism went along with it. In its 

Sinitic form, Buddhism spread to Korea, Japan, and 

Vietnam, and literary Chinese became the “church” 

language of Buddhist literature throughout East Asia. 

In Central Asia, as mentioned above, Chinese translations 

served as the basis for all the translations into 

Sogdian, but also for many into Uigur and some into 

Tibetan. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, 

a considerable number of translations—first of 

Chinese, then also of Tibetan translations of Buddhist 

texts—were further translated into Tangut or Xixia, 

another Sino-Tibetan language used in the Tangut 

empire northwest of China, before its destruction by 

Genghis Khan. 

Tibet and Mongolia. Buddhism reached Tibet 

around the seventh century. From the very beginning, 

apparently, texts were translated into the vernacular, 

but they did not encounter an existing literary heritage 

as they had in China; indeed the traditional sources inform 

us that the Tibetan script was created specifically 

to translate Buddhist materials. A few of the early 

translations are preserved. Their grammar is often 

awkward, if not contrary to Tibetan usage, because of 

their attempt to reproduce the word order of the Indian 

original, and different Tibetan words are employed 

to express the same Buddhist term. Another 

difference from the situation in China concerned the 

role of Buddhism in Tibet: It appears that from the beginning 

Buddhism served domestic political purposes 


L ANGUAGES 

and received considerable support from the royal 

court. This close relationship with royal power led at 

the beginning of the ninth century to a singular event 

in the translation history of Buddhist literature. With 

a view to setting general standards for translation 

methods and producing renditions intelligible to 

everybody, the king issued a decree laying down compulsory 

rules for translators. To implement the decree, 

a royal translation bureau published a list of about 

ninety-five hundred Sanskrit technical terms and their 

standard Tibetan equivalents, together with a treatise 

explaining the translation of some four hundred Buddhist 

terms. After that, fresh translations were made 

and the older ones revised according to these new rules, 

which continued to be observed after the fall of the 

royal dynasty in the mid-ninth century until the end 

of the translation period in the fifteenth century. This 

led to a unique phenomenon in the Buddhist world: 

The language of nearly all Tibetan translations is extremely 

standardized and, usually without violating the 

rules of Tibetan grammar, faithful to the Sanskrit originals 

to a degree never again reached in any other language 

used for translating Buddhist texts. 

Like Buddhist Chinese for East Asia, Classical Tibetan 

became the “church” language for much of Central 

Asia. In the final period of their Buddhist tradition, 

the Uigurs translated several works from Tibetan. After 

the Mongols arrived in the domain of Tibetan Buddhism 

in the sixteenth century, Tibetan texts were 

continuously translated into Mongolian. During the 

eighteenth century Chinese emperors even supported 

complete Mongolian translations of the Bka’ ’gyur 

(Kanjur) and Bstan ’gyur (Tanjur), the two collections 

of canonical translations in Tibetan. Mongolian lamas 

wrote works in Mongolian, but Mongolian never succeeded 

in replacing Tibetan as the prime language for 

ritual and literature. From Inner Mongolia in the east 

to Buryatia and the Kalmyk steppe in the west, Mongols 

continued to study Buddhism in Tibetan. As in 

the case of the Mongolians, in the eighteenth century 

the Chinese Qianlong emperor, whose dynasty was of 

Manchu origin, sponsored the translation of canonical 

texts into Manchu. Although these translations 

were made from Chinese recensions, the collection was 

then styled Bka’ ’gyur after the Tibetan model. However, 

this enormous effort was primarily a political gesture 

and, unlike the Mongolian case, did not lead to 

Buddhist literary activity in Manchu. 

South and Southeast Asia. Wherever Buddhism 

spread in South and Southeast Asia, its canonical literature 

was not transposed into the many vernaculars, 

but remained Indian. Depending on the background 

of the missionaries involved, it continued to be transmitted 

in either Pali or Sanskrit. Although the canon 

of the Theravada came to be written in many different 

scripts, such as Sinhalese, Burmese, Thai, and Khmer, 

its language until modern times was always Pali, and 

Pali remained the medium of Buddhist ritual and 

scholarship in Sri Lanka and in all the Theravada countries 

of Southeast Asia. Individual texts of the canon, 

however, were translated into various vernaculars 

(Burmese, Khmer, Lanna Thai, Mon, Thai) from the 

eleventh century onward, and in these and several 

other vernaculars (Arakanese, Lao, Shan, Tai Khun, 

Tai Lue), rich indigenous Buddhist literatures were 

created. Sanskrit was used by other traditions of Buddhism, 

most of them following MAHAYANA or even 

Tantrayana doctrines, in Burma, Laos, and Cambodia 

before the arrival of Theravada, and in Java and Bali. 

Modern vernaculars 

All this has changed dramatically during the last 150 

years. In the West, scholarly studies of Buddhism began 

around the middle of the nineteenth century, 

when the first canonical texts were translated into 

Western languages. Somewhat later, scholars in countries 

throughout Asia started systematically to translate 

texts from their “church” languages into the 

modern vernaculars, especially when this entailed a 

shift between two different language families. As a result, 

one can hardly find a literary language in today’s 

world, with the possible exception of Africa, that has 

not been used for translating Buddhist texts, and it 

would also be fair to say that English has now overtaken 

Chinese as the most frequently used medium 

for the spread of Buddhist ideas and literature. 

See also: Buddhist Studies; Canon; Chinese, Buddhist 

Influences on Vernacular Literature in; Gandharl, 

Buddhist Literature in; Language, Buddhist Philosophy 

of; Newari, Buddhist Literature in; Pali, Buddhist 

Literature in; Sanskrit, Buddhist Literature in; Sinhala, 


Bibliography 

Bechert, Heinz, ed. The Language of the Earliest Buddhist Tradition. 

Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 

1980. 

Grönbold, Günter. Der buddhistische Kanon: Eine Bibliographie. 



455

L A ṄKA VATA RA- SU TRA 

Hinüber, Oskar von. “Origin and Varieties of Buddhist Sanskrit.” 

In Dialectes dans les littératures Indo-Aryennes, ed. Colette 

Caillat. Paris: Collège de France, 1989. 

Jong, J. W. de. “Buddha’s Word in China.” East Asian History 

11 (1996): 45–58. 

Link, Arthur E. “The Earliest Chinese Account of the Compilation 

of the Tripitaka.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 

81 (1961): 87–103, 281–299 (esp. 283–292). 

McDaniel, Justin. “The Curricular Canon in Northern Thailand 

and Laos.” Manusya: Journal of Humanities 4 (2002): 20–59. 

Meier, F. J. “Probleme der chinesischen Übersetzer des buddhistischen 

Kanons.” Oriens Extremus 19 (1972): 41–46. 


Central Asian Buddhism.” Numen 37 (1990): 195–219. 

Norman, K. R. “The Languages of Early Buddhism.” In Premier 

Colloque Étienne Lamotte: Bruxelles et Liège 24–27 septembre 

1989. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Université catholique de 

Louvain, Institut orientaliste, 1993. 

Röhrborn, Klaus, and Veenker, Wolfgang, eds. Sprachen des 

Buddhismus in Zentralasien: Vorträge des Hamburger Symposions 

vom 2. Juli bis 5. Juli 1981. Wiesbaden, Germany: 


Ruegg, David Seyfort. “On Translating the Buddhist Canon.” 

Studies in Indo-Asian Art and Culture, ed. Perala Ratnam. 

New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1974. 

storehouse consciousness (ALAYAVIJN ANA), the womb 

of the tathagata (TATHAGATAGARBHA), and mind-only 

(cittamatra). However, the Laṅkavatara-su tra is not 

mentioned in the works of Yogacara “founders” 

ASAṄGA (ca. 320–ca. 390) or VASUBANDHU (fourth 

century C.E.). It was far more influential in East Asia, 

and it played a prominent role in the development 

of the Chan tradition. Its importance in East Asia is 

attested by the fact that there are fifteen Chinese 

commentaries on it, the most important of which is 

by FAZANG (643–712). It is also one of the nine core 

Mahayana texts (Navagrantha) of Newari Buddhism 

in Nepal. 

See also: Chan School; Yogacara School 

Bibliography 

Sutton, Florin G. Existence and Enlightenment in the Laṅkavatarasu 

tra: A Study in the Ontology and Epistemology of the Yogacara 

School of Mahayana Buddhism. Albany: State University of 


Suzuki, Daisetz T., trans. The Laṅkavatara-su tra (1932). Reprint, 

Boulder, CO: Prajña Press, 1978. 

JOHN POWERS 

JENS-UWE HARTMANN 

LAOS 

LAṄKA VATA RA-SU TRA 

The Laṅkavatara-su tra (Discourse on the Descent into 

Laṅka) is a text in the MAHAYANA tradition, probably 

composed sometime around the fourth century C.E., 

that purports to be a teaching given by the Buddha on 

the island of Sri Lanka. The sutra discusses a number 

of important Mahayana doctrines, including the nondifference 

of identity between SAM SARA (or the cycle of 

REBIRTH) and NIRVAN A, and includes an entire chapter 

devoted to a denunciation of meat-eating. Its organization 

and presentation are haphazard, which has led 

a number of scholars to conclude that it is a compendium 

of heterogeneous materials that saw significant 

later interpolation. There are three extant Chinese 

(Lengqie abadolo bao jing) and two Tibetan (Lang Kar 

gShegs pa’i mdo) translations of the text, and one Sanskrit 

manuscript from Nepal, which was used by Bunyu 

Nanjio in 1923 to construct a critical edition. 

The Laṅkavatara-su tra is often associated with the 

Indian Yogacara tradition because it discusses a number 

of basic doctrines associated with it, such as the 

The primary sources for the history of Buddhism in 

Laos are texts, such as palm leaf and mulberry leaf 

manuscripts, stone and metal inscriptions, traveler’s 

reports, and printed materials. These sources, which 

are held in monastic, governmental, and royal archives, 

provide information on Lao Buddhism from only the 

fourteenth century and after, and many have yet to receive 

scholarly scrutiny. A survey of the information 

gleaned from these sources reveals the story of Buddhism 

in Laos to be a fragmented and contested history 

of royal patronage and governmental reform, as 

well as a creative engagement between local, indigenous 

beliefs and a translocal religion. As the various 

kingdoms of what became Laos emerged as regional 

centers of power and wealth, Buddhism helped construct 

Lao identity. In turn, royal reform, rituals, 

beliefs, aspirations, and vehicles of expression reconstituted 

Lao Buddhism. 

Texts and inscriptions reflect the fragmented and, 

for lack of a better word, syncretic, nature of the early 

history of Lao Buddhism. Generally, the most common 

texts found in Laos before the twentieth century 


L AOS 

are nithans (folktales such as Thao Hung Thao Chuang, 

Sin Xai, Om Lom Dang Kieo), anisam sas (blessings 

used in Buddhist ritual and magical ceremonies), 

parittas (incantations for protection), xalongs (ceremonial 

instructions for both lay and religious ceremonies), 

aprocryphal JATAKA (noncanonical birth 

stories of the Buddha), nissayas (creative glosses and 

commentaries of Pali texts), and tamnans (relic, image, 

and monastery histories). Xalongs, anisam sas, and 

parittas are used in everyday house, buffalo, monastery, 

and bodily blessings; they are also used when 

making love potions and protective tattoos. The tamnans 

show the heavy Buddhist influence in the governmental, 

economic, and military history of Laos. 

Nithans and apocryphal jatakas are intricate and entertaining 

stories of heroism, romance, and adventure 

that were (and are) often narrated at religious events 

or life-cycle rituals, such as funerals, and at the end of 

the rains retreat. Nithans and apocryphal jatakas were 

also the basis for monastic education and public sermons. 

What should be emphasized is that Pali canonical 

texts are often in the minority in these collections. 

Translocal Buddhist narratives and philosophical texts 

have been commented on and adapted by local Lao 

teachers, and these commentaries and adaptations are 

much more popular in Laos than their source texts 

from India and Sri Lanka. 

Although they have yet to be fully surveyed, read, 

and catalogued, Lao Buddhist inscriptions, particularly 

votive inscriptions, generally provide evidence of 

royal or wealthy lay patronage of certain monasteries. 

They also reflect the great influence that Northern 

Thailand and, after 1560, Burma (Myanmar) had on 

the practice of Buddhism in Laos. One inscription 

from Dansai (formerly part of the Lao Kingdom of Lan 

Xang, but part of Thailand since the mid-nineteenth 

century) tells of Buddhist monks accompanying the 

king to a political meeting with the king of AYUTTHAYA. 

Another inscription from Wiengjan (the present capital 

of Laos) suggests that there were many monks from 

Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) in the region, which 

would account for similarities in Lao and Northern 

Thai Buddhist and secular literature composed between 

1480 to 1620. 

King Phothisalarat (r. 1520–1547) was probably the 

most active patron of Buddhism and Buddhist literature 

in Laos. It is Phothisalarat and his son Xetthathirat 

(r. 1548–1571) who were responsible for the 

creation of most of the extant sources of Lao Buddhist 

history. Phothisalarat actively tried to “purify” Lao 

Buddhism by banning magical practices and the worshipping 

of phl (ghosts) and phrabhu m (local deities 

of trees, rocks, waterfalls, etc.). However, modern rituals 

like the riek kwan, phu k heuan, and bun bang fai 

in various parts of Laos show the limited success of 

his reforms; all of these rituals combine the worship 

and propitiation of phl and phrabhu m by Buddhist 

monks with the chanting of Buddhist MANTRAs. The 

practice of drawing magical diagrams (yantras) by 

monks and lay experts has also been popular since at 

least the fifteenth century and involves the mixing of 

Buddhist prayers with aspirations to be lucky in love, 

finance, and the avoidance of attacks by knives, guns, 

and poison. 

Laos did not have a printing press until the French 

colonial period (ca. 1893–1954) and only recently has 

there been a regular printing of religious books in Lao. 

These books cover a wide range of subjects, but generally 

resemble their palm and mulberry leaf manuscript 

predecessors. Still, whether it be printed books, 

inscriptions, or manuscripts, the textual sources resist 

easy classification and cannot be used to provide a 

clear, linear history of Buddhism in Laos. However, 

this should not suggest that Lao scholars from the fourteenth 

century to the present did not attempt to write 

(or perhaps preserve orally) historical chronicles. 

There are several extant royal and religious chronicles, 

the most famous being the Nithan Khun Borom (The 

Story of Khun Borom). These chronicles tell of the introduction 

of Buddhism into Laos under King Fa 

Ngum (r. 1353–1374) in the mid-fourteenth century; 

the growth and reform of Buddhism under King 

Xetthathirat in the late sixteenth century; the movement 

of monks, scribes, artisans, and so on from Chiang 

Mai to Laos after the Burmese invasion of the 

former in the 1560s; the patronage and building of numerous 

monasteries under King Surinyavong (r. 

1638–1695); the burning of the Sisaket Monastery and 

the theft of the Emerald Buddha by the Siamese (Thai) 

in the late eighteenth century; the building of numerous 

monasteries and the reunification of the three 

kingdoms of Laos (Luang Pabang, Wiengjan, and 

Champasak) by King A nuwong (r. 1804–1828) and the 

subsequent burning of the Wiengjan by the forces of 

Siam in 1827. Still, these chronicles, like Western and 

local modern historical reconstructions written in the 

twentieth century, generally sacrifice accuracy to clarity, 

covering over the variety of Buddhist beliefs and 

practices with a sheen of unity and linearity. 

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, travelers’ 

reports provide information about the history of 

Buddhist practice among the general population, 


457

L AOS 

After almost a century of war and foreign occupation, 

the independent People’s Democratic Republic 

of Laos emerged in 1975. Its Marxist government has 

allowed the practice of Buddhism to flourish and has 

even enlisted Buddhist monks to serve as political advocates 

who hold up the communist ideals of generosity, 

community cooperation, and equality among 

the classes. The Lao government has encouraged 

greater involvement of monks in community development 

and secular education by sponsoring the 

Union of Lao Buddhists and other Buddhist/Communist 

organizations, while discouraging monks’ 

practice of traditional healing rituals, exorcism, and 

prophecy, and discouraging them from using the 

monkhood to avoid military and government service. 

The Lao government has also attempted to limit lay 

donations (in order to gain merit for a favorable rebirth) 

to monasteries, even though this practice has 

been the foundation of lay/monk interaction for the 

entire history of Lao Buddhism. Still, like the efforts 

of King Phothisalarat and King A nuvong to reform 

Buddhism, these government policies have mostly 

been quietly ignored, and although monks have played 

a greater role in secular education since 1975, the 

unique and syncretic practices of Lao Buddhists that 

the sources evince persist and even flourish among 

both the urban and rural populations. 

See also: Folk Religion, Southeast Asia; Southeast Asia, 


Monks circumambulate the Phra That Luang stupa during an annual 

ceremony in Vientiane, Laos. © Nik Wheeler/Corbis. Reproduced 


information that is lacking in royal chronicles, protective 

chants, and relic and monastery histories. 

Travelers’ reports confirm the validity of some of the 

rituals described in folktales and epic poems. The 

multivolume collection by members of the Mission 

Pavie (1879–1895) and the work of Karl Izikowitz in 

the 1930s discuss how local animistic practices of the 

Hmong, Sedang, Moi, and other Lao hill tribes became 

mixed with Buddhist practices. These sources 

also describe how monks took on the roles of magicians, 

appeasers of local deities, doctors, and secular 

and religious teachers in Lao villages. Still, aside from 

these reports and many others, a comprehensive 

study of how Buddhism and indigenous Lao religions 

have interacted remains a desideratum. 

Bibliography 

Archaimbault, Charles. “Religious Structures in Laos.” Journal 

of the Siam Society 52, no. 1 (1964): 57–74. 

Archaimbault, Charles. Structures religieuses Lao (Rites et 

Mythes). Vientiane, Laos: Vithagna, 1973. 

de Berval, René, ed. Kingdom of Laos: The Land of the Million 

Elephants and of the White Parasol, tr. Teissier du Cros and 

others. Saigon, Vietnam: France-Asie, 1959. 

Bizot, François. La pureté par les mots. Paris: École Française 


Coedes, George. “Documents sur l’histoire politique et religieuse 

du Laos occidental.” Bulletin de l’École Français 

d’Extrême-Orient 25, nos. 1–2 (1925): 1–202. 

Finot, Louis. “Recherches sur la littérature Laotienne.” Bulletin 

de l’École Français d’Extrême-Orient 17, no. 5 (1917): 1–218. 

Lévy, Paul. “Les traces de l’introduction de Bouddhisme à 

Louang Prabang.” Bulletin de l’École Français d’Extrême- 

Orient 40 (1940): 411–424. 

Ngaosrivathana, Mayoury, and Breazeale, Kennon, eds. Breaking 

New Ground in Lao History: Essays on the Seventh to 

Twentieth Centuries. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm, 2002. 

Nhouy, Abhay. Aspects du Pays Lao. Vientiane, Laos: Editions 

comite litteraire lao, 1956. 


L AW AND B UDDHISM 

Pavie, Auguste. Recherches sur l’histoire de Cambodge, du Laos, 

et du Siam. Paris: E. Leroux, 1898. 

Peltier, Anatole-Roge. “Les littératures Lao du Lan Na, du Lan 

Xang, de Keng Tung et Sip Song Panna.” Peninsule 21 (1990): 

29–44. 

Reynolds, Frank. “Ritual and Social Hierarchy: An Aspect of 

Traditional Religion in Buddhist Laos.” History of Religions 

9 (1969): 78–89. 

Saddhatissa, H. “Pali Literature from Laos.” In Studies in Pali 

and Buddhism: A Memorial Volume in Honor of Bhikkhu 

Jagdish Kashyap, ed. A. K. Narain and Leonard Zwilling. 

Delhi: B. R. Pub. Corp., 1979. 

Stuart-Fox, Martin. A History of Laos. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


Stuart-Fox, Martin. The Lao Kingdom of Lan Xang: Rise and Decline. 

Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus Press, 1998. 

JUSTIN MCDANIEL 

LAOS, BUDDHIST ART IN. See Southeast Asia, 


LAW AND BUDDHISM 

Comparative jurisprudence divides legal systems into 

families or types based on cultural and historical origins. 

Buddhist law is the most recent entrant into the 

category of religious legal systems, a category that includes 

Islamic law, biblical law, Hindu law, and Talmudic 

law. The development of Buddhist law as a 

disciplinary subject has been slow because of the lack 

of a single unifying religious language or script and 

Buddhism’s wide cultural dispersal throughout Asia. 

Scholars have also presumed that Buddhism did not 

have an obvious relationship to secular legal systems 

because of its distinction between lay and monastic 

populations and its tolerant, as opposed to mutually 

exclusive, approach to local religions and politics. 

More recent studies, however, have demonstrated that 

the influence of Buddhism on law and political systems 

has been profound. 

There are at least four ways in which Buddhism interacts 

with law. First, Buddhism itself incorporates a 

monastic law code, the VINAYA, and special disciplinary 

procedures for the monastic population. This 

code has been analyzed extensively and functions as a 

template for secular rules. Second, some regions have 

created Buddhist states following the example of 

AŚOKA, an early Buddhist political leader. Sri Lanka, 

Bhutan, and Thailand are current examples. Third, 

Buddhism has been a significant social force in shaping 

the cultural attitudes toward law and the legal system 

in many Asian countries that are not Buddhist 

states. The time period and the local context from 

which Buddhism was exported to the country, as well 

as the local context into which it has been adopted, are 

all important factors. Fourth, when the local population 

reasons through the lens of Buddhism, the legal 

system can be significantly affected. The form of reasoning 

and the backdrop of the vinaya rules, as well as 

the foundational principles of Buddhism, such as 

KARMA (ACTION), ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE), causation, 

factoral reasoning, and right action, can all strongly affect 

a legal system. 

The origins of internal Buddhist monastic law are 

clear. After his enlightenment, Śakyamuni Buddha began 

to collect a group of disciples who followed his 

teachings. As part of the process of institutional definition, 

he made hundreds of casuistic determinations 

about the proper behavior, clothing, and speech of individuals, 

and he shaped the collective rituals of the 

SAṄGHA. The Suttavihaṅga section of the vinaya describes 

these early legal decisions. There are no similar 

legal decisions for the LAITY. In the vinaya, the most 

serious offenses (parajika) for a monk—killing, stealing, 

having sex, or misrepresenting one’s meditative 

powers—result in expulsion from the order. Nuns 

have an additional four parajika. The PRATIMOKSA, a 

list of over two hundred PRECEPTS for monks, and over 

three hundred for nuns, is recited twice a month by the 

members of every saṅgha to remind them of the guidelines 

for their society. The procedures and rules of the 

internal legal systems of monasteries and nunneries are 

based on the vinaya, with a formal meeting of the full 

saṅgha serving the authoritative decision-making body. 

Legal positivists argue that a religious entity is not a 

state authority and that ostracism from a group is not 

a true legal sanction, so the vinaya system cannot be 

considered a legal system. But this analysis is based on 

the misconception that law operates only in nationstate 

command systems and that the authority function 

in Buddhism is fulfilled by a divinity rather than the 

Buddha’s designated successor, the saṅgha. 

Several regions have followed the path of the thirdcentury 

B.C.E. Magadhan emperor Aśoka by establishing 

Buddhist states based on received scripts, 

Buddhist scriptures, and the idea of the compassionate 

cakravartin (wheel-turning king). Such Buddhistinspired 

law codes and jurisprudential cultures evolved 


459

L AW AND B UDDHISM 

in Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), and Tibet. In Sri 

Lanka, for example, the arrival in the third century 

B.C.E. of Indian monks brought the oral tradition of 

the Pali canon to the island. Combining the ideologies 

of race, religion, and region, Buddhist states governed 

much of the island until 1818, when the Kandyan 

monarchy was finally overthrown by the British. 

Although Buddhism may have entered Southeast 

Asia as early as the time of Aśoka, King Anawrata was 

the first to unify Burma into a Buddhist state in the 

eleventh century. The king and monks of the capital 

city of Pagan combined the Pali Vinaya with Hindu 

law and Buddhist treatises to create the dhammasat 

and rajasat secular law codes, which spread in the ensuing 

centuries across what is now Burma, Thailand, 

Cambodia, and Laos. In Tibet, the first king to be influenced 

by Buddhism was Srong bstan sgam po, who, 

in the seventh century C.E., sent his minister to Gandhara 

to develop a written script and bring back Buddhist 

texts. Buddhism became the state religion in 

Tibet in the eight century and strongly influenced the 

local legal rules already in place from the period of the 

earliest kings. For example, the Ganden Phodrang law 

code of the Dalai Lamas, written in the seventeenth 

century, is a secular law code of customary practices 

filled with Buddhist reasoning, such as factoral analysis, 

consensus, uniqueness of cases, motivation, and 

veracity tests. 

Buddhism has been a significant factor, although 

not usually the sole or even the central influence, in 

the legal structure of many Asian countries. Buddhism 

entered these regions at different historical points and 

through various sources. For example, Japan first received 

Buddhist monks, texts, and images from Korea, 

and although Prince SHO TOKU promoted Buddhism as 

the state religion at the end of the sixth century, the 

Confucian and Daoist traditions of East Asia always 

accompanied and, some would argue, superseded, 

Buddhism’s effect on the legal system of Japan. At the 

end of the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), Buddhism 

in Japan was also overshadowed by the indigenous 

Shinto religion and worship of the emperor. In Mongolia, 

Buddhism was adopted in the thirteenth century 

into a country that already had a strong legal administrative 

system based on the Zasag law code of Genghis 

Khan. Vietnam had state patronage of several different 

forms of MAHAYANA and THERAVADA Buddhism 

competing with Hinduism from the tenth century, but 

after the fifteenth century, the state ideology of Confucianism 

led to a decline in Buddhism’s influence on 

the legal system. The transplantation, waxing, and 

waning of Buddhist influence on law is a large area for 

further study. 

Basic Buddhist principles, reasoning processes, and 

rules may influence law because they are employed by 

the population that use the legal system. Thus, a country 

may impose a strong socialist law code, such as the 

Russian-imported Mongolian codes in force between 

1924 and 1992, upon a population whose culture reasons 

through Buddhist principles. This is true of the 

Tibetan population today, which, although it has been 

incorporated into the Chinese state, continues to employ 

Buddhist reasoning and principles in most of its 

decision making. 

As Buddhism spread from India to China and 

Japan, Pagan, and Sumatra, it had extensive influence 

on secular legal systems. Modern scholars have begun 

to look more seriously at this influence, as well as the 

operation of legal procedures within Buddhist monasteries 

and nunneries. Scholars have also begun to study 

the overlay of exogenous legal systems and the transplantation 

of law codes from other countries onto 

Buddhist legal systems. Local-level influence of Buddhism 

is another interesting area of research. For example, 

in a 1970s study of litigation in Chiangmai, 

Thailand, interviews with litigants showed that the 

number of injury claims had steadily decreased over a 

ten-year period due to a stronger emphasis in the local 

community on reasoning through karmic causes 

and their consequences. Combining both BUDDHIST 

STUDIES and comparative law, Buddhist law is an 

emerging new disciplinary area. 

Bibliography 

Dutt, Sukumar. Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India: Their 

History and Their Contribution to Indian Culture. London: 


French, Rebecca R. The Golden Yoke: The Legal Cosmology of 

Buddhist Tibet. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995. 

Hinüber, Oskar von. “Buddhist Law According to the Theravada 

Vinaya: A Survey of Theory and Practice.” Journal of 

the International Association of Buddhist Studies 18 (1995): 

7–45. 

Holt, John C. Discipline: The Canonical Buddhism of the 

Vinayapitaka. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981. 

Horner, I. B., trans. The Book of the Discipline (Vinaya-pitaka), 

Vol. 1: Suttavibhaṅga. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

1938. Reprint, 1996. 

Huxley, Andrew. “The Reception of Buddhist Law in Southeast 

Asia, 200 B.C.E.–1860 C.E.” In La réception des systèmes juridiques: 

implantation et destin, ed. Michel Douchet and 

Jacques Vanderlinden. Brussels: Bruylant, 1994. 


L INEAGE 

Tambiah, H. W. Principles of Ceylon Law. Colombo, Sri Lanka: 

H. W. Cave, 1972. 

REBECCA FRENCH 

LIBERATION. See Bodhi (Awakening); Nirvana; Path 

LINEAGE 

Lineage formation permeates religious traditions. Lineages 

are commonly found outside of religious traditions 

as well, to note the roles played in the origin and 

development of various kinds of institutions. In Buddhism, 

lineage serves as an important organizational 

framework for connecting members of specific schools, 

factions, or institutions. It is the natural outcome of 

the recognition of authority, especially given the development 

of sectarian differences. In Buddhism, when 

individual sectarian groups compiled lineages, they did 

so retroactively in an attempt to shape past history in 

ways that would enhance group status. The most common 

practice was to link their teachings to past authorities 

and ultimately to the founder of Buddhism, 

Śakyamuni himself, thus legitimizing their own principles 

and practices and shielding them from accusations 

of unorthodoxy. In this way, lineage in the 

Buddhist context was associated with such notions as 

identity, legitimacy, and orthodoxy. As a result, the 

formation and promotion of sectarian lineages must 

be interpreted in accordance with the contemporary 

aims of the sponsoring groups; lineage formation was 

a means to sanction their cause, and not a literal account 

of the actual historical record. 

Concern for lineage emerged early in Buddhism. 

According to Étienne Lamotte, the formation of Buddhist 

schools in India was due mainly to the geographical 

extension of the community over the entire 

Indian territory (History of Indian Buddhism, p. 519). 

Given this geographical dispersion, individual Buddhist 

communities developed unique interests and 

were confronted by particular problems. One of the 

results of geographical fragmentation was the rise of 

sectarian leaders representing the interests of particular 

communities. The authority of the sect was usually 

based on a professed doctrine linked to a 

well-known, but often fictitious, founder, whose doctrines 

were in turn traced to immediate DISCIPLES OF 

THE BUDDHA. In this way, the Sthavras traced themselves 

to MAHAKAŚYAPA, and the MAHASAM GHIKAS 

traced themselves to Baspa. The Sarvastivadins 

(Kaśyapa, A NANDA, Madhyantika, Śanavasin, UP- 

AGUPTA, Purna, Mecaka, Katyayanputra) and Vatsputryas 

(ŚARIPUTRA, RAHULA, Vatsputra) also developed 

lineages based on this premise (Lamotte, p. 521). As a 

result, lineage formation may be deemed a feature of 

Buddhist sectarianism from its outset in India, where it 

was a function of sectarian quests for authority and 

legitimacy. 

Lineage was particularly important in East Asian 

Buddhism, where it served as the primary means of 

ascribing identity by linking and grouping individuals 

on the basis of their affiliations, whether as masterdisciple, 

as patriarchs of a particular school, or as a 

succession of monastery abbots. As a mechanism for 

conferring legitimacy, lineages were frequently constructed 

to assert the claims of contemporary practitioners 

by assuming the authority or antiquity of 

presumed ANCESTORS. This practice had broad resonance 

throughout East Asian cultures, predicated on 

domestic reverence for ancestors and biological lineages. 

The formation of Buddhist sectarian-based 

dharma genealogies has structural parallels with this 

propensity for honoring ancestors and maintaining 

clan solidarity. 

Lineage and ancestor veneration 

The genesis of East Asian reverence for ancestors is revealed 

in the Chinese term zong, which informs the esteem 

placed on clan and lineage in both the broader 

cultural and specifically Buddhist contexts. The term 

zong is difficult to translate because it allows for a variety 

of connotations and nuances, depending on the 

context. Encyclopedic dictionaries of the Chinese language, 

such as the Ci yuan (The Roots of Words), provide 

several meanings for zong, including “ancestral 

hall” (zu miao), “ancestor” (zuxian, literally “patriarchpredecessor”), 

“clan” (zongzu), “origin” (benyuan), and 

“honor” or “respect” (zunchong). The character zong 

originally depicted an ancestral hall, where a clan’s ancestor 

or ancestors were honored. The character is 

composed of two parts: The upper part depicts a roof, 

and the lower part depicts “a tablet for the deceased,” 

indicating the term’s original meaning of a hall where 

the tablets of ancestors are kept. 

The term zong appears frequently in posthumous titles 

for Chinese emperors, as in Gaozong (High Ancestor) 

or Taizong (Great Ancestor), and one of the 

term’s primary meanings in ancient China was as the 

progenitor of a specific clan. Zong eventually took on 


461

L INEAGE 

a concrete meaning as clan guardian or protector, a 

figure who was the object of ritual veneration by clan 

descendants. The living clan head was responsible for 

decisions affecting clan welfare and prosperity, for the 

preservation of clan identity, and for the perpetuation 

of its legacy. The authority of the clan head was symbolically 

linked to the clan progenitor. Chinese emperors 

naturally seized upon this symbolism, promoting 

themselves, as well as their own deceased ancestors, as 

protectors of the Chinese people, responsible for the 

welfare and prosperity of the country as a whole. In 

this sense, the imperial family represented the “grand 

clan” of the Chinese people, the focal point of collective 

as opposed to individual clan identity. 

Following the Chinese predilection to ascribe individual 

identity on the basis of clan affiliation, Buddhists 

in China were officially removed from their natal 

clan and adopted into the “Buddhist” one using the 

clan name Shi. Shi is an abbreviation of the name Shijiamouni, 

the Chinese pronunciation of Śakyamuni, 

which is derived from the Buddha’s clan name, Śakya, 

in India. Buddhist monks in China regarded their 

teachers as they would a father, and began to take great 

interest in genealogy. As in India, genealogy served as 

a means of validating claims, and lineage became the 

contested terrain of sectarian disputations. In the early 

fifth century, the Indian monk Buddhabhadra translated 

the Damoduoluo chanjing (Dharmatrata’s Meditation 

Scripture), with prefaces by HUIYUAN and 

Huiguan. The scripture highlights Buddhabhadra’s 

Sarvastivadin lineage in an attempt to establish that the 

meditation teaching contained in the scripture was 

guaranteed by direct lineal succession from the Buddha. 

In addition, a vinaya work translated by Buddhabhadra 

and FAXIAN in 416 to 418 C.E. provided a 

similar lineage of succession from the Buddha to Buddhabhadra’s 

teacher for a supposed vinaya lineage. Another 

indigenous Chinese work, the Fu fazang yinyuan 

zhuan (Biographies of the Circumstances of Transmission 

of the Dharma Repository), dated 472 C.E., provided 

a list of lineal heirs from the Buddha to Sim ha 

bhiksu. 

Lineage in Chinese Buddhism 

The lineages of succession in these texts provided the 

bases for sectarian legitimation claims of leading Chinese 

Buddhist traditions, such as the TIANTAI SCHOOL 

and CHAN SCHOOL. Based on the Fu fazang yinyuan 

zhuan, the Tiantai school created a list of twenty-three 

patriarchs of the “sutra-transmission,” to which they 

added a series of three Tiantai meditation masters— 

Huiwen, Huisi, and ZHIYI (538–597)—to claim legitimate 

succession from the Buddha (see Table 1). According 

to Zhiyi’s disciple Guanding (561–632), who 

created the lineage, Tiantai masters were connected because 

Huiwen adopted the meditation promoted in the 

Da zhidu lun (Great Perfection of Wisdom Treatise) attributed 

to the famed scholastic NAGARJUNA (ca. second 

century C.E.), the thirteenth patriarch in the Fu 

fazang yinyuan zhuan list. 

The notion of zong as clan ancestor connected to lineal 

descendants played a particularly important role in 

shaping identity in the Chan school. In Buddhist mythology, 

Śakyamuni Buddha was not the only Buddha, but 

the last in a line of seven BUDDHAS of antiquity— 

Vipaśyin, Śikhin, Viśvabhu, Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, 

Kaśyapa, and Śakyamuni. According to Chan 

school traditions, the seven buddhas are believed to 

have transmitted a uniform dharma, or teaching, between 

them. This teaching is summarized in the four 

line refrain: “Shunning all evil; performing every good; 

purifying one’s mind—this is the teaching of all buddhas.” 

As the source of all Buddhist teaching, the various 

tenets of Buddhism are said to spring from these 

verses. In this way, Śakyamuni’s message was conceived 

as a universal teaching transmitted to him 

through a line of predecessors, and handed down to 

his immediate disciples. Early Chan relied on the lineage 

supplied with Buddhabhadra’s translations, eventually 

fusing it with Tiantai assertions based on the Fu 

fazang yinyuan zhuan, and supplanting it with their 

own innovations. Like the Tiantai list of lineage succession, 

the Chan list was composed of two parts: a list 

of Indian patriarchal transmission, coupled with a 

TABLE 1 

Tiantai lineage based on the Fu fazang yinyuan zhuan 

(Biographies of the Circumstances of Transmission of 

the Dharma Repository) 

ÁSakyamuni 

SOURCE: Author. 

1. Mahakasyapa á 

2. Ananda 

3. ÁSanavasa 

4. Upagupta 

5. Dhrtaka 

6. Miccaka 

7. Buddhanandin 

8. Buddhamitra 

9. Parsva á 

10. Punyayasas á 

11. Asvaghosa á 

12. Kapimala 

13. Nagarjuna 

i 

i 

14. Kanadeva 

15. Rahulata 

16. Sanghanandin i 

17. Gayasata á 

18. Kumarata 

19. Jayata 

20. Vasubandhu 

21. Manorhita 

22. Haklenayasas á 

23. Simha bhiksu 

24. Huiwen 

25. Huisi 

26. Zhiyi 

i 

i i 

i 

i 


L INEAGE 

TABLE 2 

Chan lineage based on the Baolin chuan (Transmission 

of the Treasure Grove) 

ÁSakyamuni 

1. Mahakasyapa á 

2. Ananda 

3. ÁSanavasa 

4. Upagupta 

5. Dhrtaka 

6. Miccaka 

7. Vasumitra 

8. Buddhanandin 

9. Buddhamitra 

10. Parsva á 

11. Punyayasas á 

12. Asvaghosa á 

13. Kapimala 

14. Nagarjuna 


i 

i 

i 

i 

15. Kanadeva 

16. Rahulata 

17. Sanghanandin i 

18. Gayasata á 

19. Kumarata 

20. Jayata 

21. Vasubandhu 

22. Manorhita 

23. Haklenayasas á 

24. Simha bhiksu 

25. Basiasita 

26. Punyamitra 

27. Prajñatara 

28. Bodhidharma 

transmission among native Chinese masters. The Chan 

list of Indian patriarchs was conventionally fixed at 

twenty-eight in the Baolin chuan (Transmission of the 

Treasure Grove), completed in 801 (see Table 2). 

Only two points separate Chan’s assertion of lineage 

succession from the earlier Tiantai one. Vasumitra is 

inserted as seventh in the line of patriarchal succession, 

a claim based on the appearance of his name in the 

Chanjing, mentioned above. The addition of Vasumitra 

effectively expands the Tiantai list from twentythree 

to twenty-four. More significantly, the Chan list 

maintains that the transmission was suspended with 

Sim ha bhiksu, as the Tiantai list had supposed, but 

continued on and was eventually brought physically to 

China in the person of BODHIDHARMA (ca. early fifth 

century). This assertion was made to lend credence to 

the claim that Chan represented the unbroken succession 

of Buddhist teaching from Śakyamuni to a series 

of Chinese patriarchs, including the undisputed list of 

six masters from Bodhidharma to HUINENG (638–713) 

(see Table 3). 

The assertion of a Chinese patriarchal tradition provoked 

a well-known dispute over correct lineal succession 

among rival Chan factions. The dispute began 

in 732 when a hitherto obscure monk named Shenhui 

(684–758) attacked the legitimacy of the imperially acknowledged 

representatives of Chan. In 701 or 702, an 

illustrious disciple of Hongren, Shenxiu (ca. 606–706), 

had been invited to court by Empress Wu, where he 

was received with great acclaim. Following Shenxiu’s 

death, his disciples Puji (d. 739) and Yifu (d. 736) became 

the standard bearers of Chan at the imperial 

court. Until the arrival of Shenhui, Shenxiu was the 

i 

i 

i 

i 

undisputed sixth patriarch of Chan. Shenhui challenged 

that the true heir of Hongren’s dharma had 

been his own master, Huineng, and that he himself was 

Huineng’s heir. To substantiate his claim, Shenhui insisted 

Bodhidharma’s robe, the symbol of legitimate 

transmission, had been passed by Hongren to 

Huineng, not Shenxiu. Shenhui branded Shenxiu’s illegitimate 

Chan the “Northern school,” in contrast to 

the legitimate “Southern school” teaching of his own 

master, Huineng. Over time, Shenhui’s arguments 

gained favor and Huineng was officially accepted as the 

sixth patriarch in 816. All subsequent Chan factions 

traced their lineage through Huineng. 

Chan and Tiantai lineage formation culminated in 

the Song dynasty (960–1279). While early Chan insisted 

on a single line of orthodox transmission 

through the sixth patriarch and accepted collateral lineages 

only with reluctance, the later tradition recognized 

multilineal branches. Fueled by the geographical 

spread of Chan throughout China, numerous groups 

sought legitimacy by tracing their lineage of patriarchs 

through Huineng. After Huineng, the principal or 

“trunk” lineage of Chan was presumed to bifurcate, 

and several branch lineages flourished. The bifurcation 

posited that all later Chan lineages were descended 

through two of Huineng’s disciples, Nanyue Huairang 

(677–744) and Qingyuan Xingsi (d. 740). Huairang 

linked the flourishing movement of Mazu DAOYI 

(709–788) and his followers in the late eighth and early 

ninth centuries to the Chan tradition of Huineng, and 

it is clear that Huairang’s record was tailored to legitimize 

these motivations. Xingsi’s record was conceived 

TABLE 3 

Lineage of early Chinese Chan patriarchs and their 

connection to the "Five Houses" 

7. Huairang 

8. Mazu 

I. Linji II. Weiyang 


1. Bodhidharma 

2. Huike 

3. Sengcan 

4. Daoxin 

5. Hongren 

6. Huineng 

7. Xingsi 

8. Shitou 

III. Yunmen IV. Caodong V. Fayan 


463

L INEAGE 

with similar aims, to legitimize the assertions of later 

lineages descended through Xingsi and Shitou Xiqian 

(700–790). 

By acknowledging several branches, Chan was able 

to capitalize on its clan identity as an extended family. 

This framework served as the organizing principle for 

the classic works of Chan lineage formation compiled 

in the Song, the transmission histories, or lamp records 

(denglu): the Zutang ji (Patriarch’s Hall Anthology, 

compiled 952); the Jingde chuandeng lu (Jingde-Era 

Transmission of the Lamp Record, compiled 1004); the 

Tiansheng guangdeng lu (Tiansheng-Era Record of the 

Propagation of the Lamp, compiled 1036); the Jianzhong 

jingguo xudeng lu (Jianzhong jingguo-Era Supplementary 

Lamp Record, compiled 1101); the Zongmen liandeng 

huiyao (Combined Lamp Record of the Chan Lineage, 

compiled 1183); the Jiatai pudeng lu (Jiatai-Era Universal 

Lamp Record, compiled 1202); and the Wudeng 

huiyuan (Concise Compendium of the Five Lamp [Histories], 

compiled 1252). The common metaphor employed 

throughout these works is the notion of 

transmitting the lamp or flame (chuandeng or zhuandeng), 

with the lamp representing the light of enlightenment 

or the teachings of Buddhism. In the Chan 

context, dharma transmission represents not just a particular 

teaching or principle, but the secret essence of 

the Buddha’s awakening, referred to variously as “perfect 

wisdom,” the “dharma-eye,” the “mind-teaching,” 

or the “mind-essence.” The transmission of the dharma 

is likened to the passing of a flame from one lamp to 

another, representing the transmission of Buddha’s enlightenment 

from one generation to the next. 

As an organizing principle, these works share the belief 

in a common lineage of Chan ancestors, or patriarchs, 

extending from Śakyamuni and MAHAKAŚYA PA 

through the series of Indian patriarchs culminating 

with Bodhidharma, who brought the transmission to 

China, initiating the series of Chinese Chan patriarchs. 

These transmission records are principally concerned 

with documenting the profusion of Chan masters following 

the sixth patriarch, and organizing them according 

to lineage. The genesis of the so-called five 

houses or five clans (Weiyang, Linji, Caodong, Yunmen, 

and Fayan) of Chan Buddhism is found in these 

records. Organized in this fashion, the master–disciple 

relation serves as a surrogate father–son relationship, 

linking practitioners to the larger tradition of Chan ancestors 

and providing identity based on specific lineages. 

In this way Chan came to mirror the Chinese 

clan system, organized around common ancestors, patrilineal 

style relationships, factional branch lineages, 

and so on. The Chan clan came to represent a set of 

familial style relationships. Individual monks belonging 

to a lineage were related vertically as spiritual fathers, 

sons, grandfathers, grandsons, and so on. They 

were related to other Chan branch lineages horizontally 

as would be siblings, cousins, uncles, and nephews. 

The last decades of the Song dynasty witnessed the 

production of two works, the Shimen zhengtong (Orthodox 

Lineage of the Buddhist Tradition, compiled in 

1237) and the Fozu tongji (Comprehensive History of 

the Buddhas and Patriarchs, compiled between 1258 

and 1269), which presented the universal history of 

Buddhism from the Tiantai perspective. These works 

held that the essence of Buddhism was embodied in 

Tiantai teaching and practice, which had been faithfully 

transmitted from Śakyamuni through the Indian 

patriarchs, to the Tiantai patriarchs in China. Like their 

Chan counterparts, the Tiantai records were structured 

around the principle of patriarchal succession. However, 

unlike Chan, they proposed that Tiantai patriarchs 

and their descendants occupied the central and 

dominant position of Buddhism in China. As in the 

case of Chan lineages, the essentially congruent Tiantai 

lineages presented in these works cannot be accepted 

uncritically, but should be regarded as products of a 

process aimed at securing prestige, patronage, and special 

privilege for Tiantai during the Song period (Shinohara, 

pp. 524–525). 

By the Song dynasty, Dharma-transmission was 

formalized through the granting of a dharma-scroll 

conferred by a master on deserving disciples. The 

“dharma-scroll” contained a list of names through 

whom the transmission had passed, from Śakyamuni 

down through the current master. In effect, it constituted 

the dharma-lineage of the particular sect in question, 

and authorized the recipient to teach. According 

to Holmes Welch (The Practice of Chinese Buddhism: 

1900–1950, p. 157), this system was still practiced in 

China in the twentieth century. In addition to dharmalineages, 

individual monastery lineages listed the 

names of abbots who served at them. 

The notion of lineage framed in the Chinese context 

had great impact on the development of Buddhism 

throughout East Asia. Lineage as a basis for sectarian 

identity was promoted in Japan and Korea, where native 

versions of Chinese Buddhist schools prospered, 

and native lineages were grafted onto their Chinese 

predecessors. Contemporary Zen priests in Japan continue 

to receive dharma-scrolls or dharma-certificates 

as authentication of their status in a Zen lineage. Men- 


L OCAL D IVINITIES AND B UDDHISM 

tion should also be made of the use of lineage in Tibetan 

Buddhism, where incarnate lamas, leaders of the 

Buddhist community, are assumed to be successive 

embodiments of leading buddhas and bodhisattvas, 

following a notion introduced with the first KARMA 

PA Lama, Dus gsum mkhyen pa (Düsum Khyenpa; 

1110–1193). This is the most distinctive of Tibetan 

hierarchical institutions, which identifies a future lama 

as the rebirth of his deceased predecessor. The most 

famous example of this is the DALAI LAMA, considered 

to be an incarnation of Tibet’s patron bodhisattva, 

Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. 

Bibliography 

Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial 

China: A Social History of Writing about Rites. Princeton, 


Faure, Bernard. The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of 

Northern Chan Buddhism, tr. Phyllis Brooks. Stanford, CA: 


Foulk, T. Griffith. “Myth, Ritual, and Monastic Practice in Sung 

Ch’an Buddhism.” In Religion and Society in T’ang and Sung 

China, ed. Peter N. Gregory and Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 


Foulk, T. Griffith. “Sung Controversies Concerning the ‘Separate 

Transmission’ of Ch’an.” In Buddhism in the Sung, ed. 

Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz, Jr. Honolulu: University 


Foulk, T. Griffith, and Sharf, Robert H. “On the Ritual Use of 

Ch’an Portraiture in Medieval China.” Cahiers d’ Extrême 

Asie 7 (1993–1994): 149–219. 

Jan, Yün-hua. “Tsung-mi: His Analysis of Ch’an Buddhism.” 

T’oung Pao 58 (1972): 1–54. 

Jorgensen, John. “The ‘Imperial’ Lineage of Ch’an Buddhism: 

The Role of Confucian Ritual and Ancestor Worship in 

Ch’an’s Search for Legitimation in the Mid-T’ang Dynasty.” 

Papers on Far Eastern History 35 (1987): 89–133. 


to the Śaka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin and Jean Dantinne. Louvain, 

Belgium: Université Catholique de Louvain Institute 

Orientaliste; Peters Press, 1988. 

Shinohara, Koichi. “From Local History to Universal History: 

The Construction of the Sung T’ien-t’ai Lineage.” In Buddhism 

in the Sung, ed. Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz, 


Welch, Holmes. “Dharma-Scrolls and the Succession of Abbots 

in Chinese Monasteries.” T’oung Pao 50 (1963): 93–149. 



Welter, Albert. “Mahakaśyapa’s Smile: Silent Transmission and 

the Kung-an (Ko an) Tradition.” In The Ko an: Texts and Contexts 

in Zen Buddhism, ed. Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright. 


Yampolsky, Philip B. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. 

New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967. 

LINJI SCHOOL. See Chan School; Yixuan 

LITURGY. See Chanting and Liturgy 

LOCAL DIVINITIES AND BUDDHISM 

ALBERT WELTER 

There is no single Buddhist term that covers the same 

semantic area as the English word DIVINITIES or its 

equivalents, such as deities, gods, and supernatural beings. 

In fact, Buddhist COSMOLOGY recognizes several 

kinds of divine or semidivine beings, all endowed with 

superhuman faculties: BUDDHAS and BODHISATTVAS; 

former disciples of the Buddha (śravakas); saints of 

various kinds (arhats in particular); angelic figures 

(gandharva, kim nara); “gods” proper (Sanskrit devas; 

Japanese kami; Burmese nats); anti-gods (asura); various 

kinds of ghosts; demonic and monsterlike figures 

(preta, yaksa, raksasa); mythological animals (naga, 

garura, mahoraga); and devils and other denizens of 

hell. Each of these classes has its own place in cosmology 

and its role in SOTERIOLOGY. 

Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and Buddhist saints are not 

gods, but they are often worshiped as such. A major 

doctrinal distinction separates buddhas, bodhisattvas, 

and other saintly figures from all other superhuman 

entities in that the former are situated outside of the 

realm of transmigration. Gods, spirits, ghosts, and the 

like, in contrast, are still prisoners of the law of KARMA 

and will accordingly be reborn in the future in different 

shapes until they attain the supreme liberation. 

Even though Buddhist cosmology attributes a clear 

preeminence to the Buddha and other enlightened beings, 

local deities still play an important role in the life 

and the liturgy of Buddhists in many parts of the world. 

Buddhism and local deities: 

approaches and problems 

The role and status of divinities within the Buddhist 

tradition is complicated. Deities are often seen as 


465


something essentially different from “true” Buddhism 

(however defined). Negative views consider the worship 

of local gods as a deluded, superstitious practice. 

In general, however, divinities are treated as skillful 

means (UPAYA), as a concession to popular beliefs that 

can be useful to guide the unenlightened toward salvation. 

Only in some cases are there specific attempts 

to give doctrinal legitimacy to local deities as fullfledged 

components of the Buddhist universe. 

Despite the ambiguous doctrinal position of deities 

in the Buddhist system, it is important to emphasize 

that interaction with local divinities was a key factor 

in the diffusion of Buddhism, both inside and outside 

of India. Unfortunately, little information is available 

on the relationship between Buddhism and local 

deities in premodern times. Wherever Buddhism is the 

dominant or state religion, folkloric practices and traditions 

concerning local deities have often been downplayed 

as mere “superstition.” Nativist movements in 

East Asia, in contrast, have tended to reduce the role 

of Buddhism in their countries and to emphasize instead 

the autochthonous tradition, with the result of 

often rendering invisible the connections between 

Buddhism and local divinities. 

The difficulty of describing the relationship between 

Buddhism and local deities has also affected scholars. 

Buddhologists, on the one hand, tend to focus more 

on the translocal (orthodox doctrines and rituals), 

rather than on the local (actual Buddhism as it is practiced 

in specific historical and cultural contexts); as a 

consequence, they have paid little attention to local 

deities. Anthropologists, on the other hand, focus on 

contemporary cultural situations, without much emphasis 

on the history of the relationship between Buddhism 

and local cultures. Furthermore, the dominant 

tendency for many years among scholars of religious 

phenomena was that of privileging separate traditions, 

based on an emphasis on textualized doctrines and 

“faith,” rather than on living religiosity, which often 

cannot be reduced to canonical, doctrinal scriptures. 

Buddhist appropriation of local deities: 

motifs and models 

From the beginning, Buddhism appears to have dealt 

with Indian deities in positive terms by incorporating 

them within its own system, rather than by ignoring 

or persecuting them. In fact, according to the Buddhist 

interpretation, the Indian gods need the appearance of 

a buddha among the humans before they can be taught 

the way to attain salvation; in this way, the Buddhists 

made deities into subordinates of the Buddha and, by 

extension, his emissaries. 

Many stories about the establishment and the diffusion 

of Buddhism involve the conversion, subjugation, 

or control of local deities. Discreet but crucial 

interventions by the Indian gods accompany the spiritual 

career of Śakyamuni Buddha as told in classical 

narratives such as the BUDDHACARITA (Acts of the Buddha) 

or the JATAKA tales. The scriptures often present 

the Buddha as the teacher of gods. One of the earliest 

sutras, the Ekottaragama (Numerically Ordered Collection) 

describes a famous scene in which Buddha 

ascends to heaven and preaches to INDRA and the other 

gods of the classical Indian pantheon, who were gathered 

together with the Buddha’s mother, Queen Maya. 

In some cases, gods were reluctant to convert, which 

made recourse to violent methods necessary. Particularly 

famous is the subjugation of Maheśvara (Śiva), in 

which a bodhisattva entered the samadhi of adamantine 

anger and killed Maheśvara; the latter was then resuscitated 

as a buddha in a distant world system. On 

special occasions, the Buddha did not object to transforming 

himself into a frightening and powerful demon 

in order to subjugate other demons. Stories also 

recount the conversion of hostile local deities, which 

then turned into protectors of the dharma and its 

adepts. Early tales of interaction with divinities have 

set the standard for subsequent strategies employed by 

Buddhists to spread their teachings in foreign lands. 

Buddhism was often propagated by monks traveling 

with traders. These monks addressed the political 

and economic elites of the new lands they visited. Their 

goal was to replace (or, at least, restructure) the preexisting 

cosmology and its related pantheon with the 

Buddhist worldview, with the Buddha on top. However, 

the spread of Buddhism among the commoners 

was to a large extent the work of saintlike figures who 

went around subjugating territorial guardian spirits, 

while at the same time establishing monasteries, 

schools, and other infrastructures, and preaching the 

Buddhadharma. 

In an important sense, then, the diffusion of Buddhism 

in a country often began with the taming of 

local deities, usually described as hostile, violent, and 

dangerous. This practice started in India and was based 

on scriptural precedents. A number of local deities and 

spirits were thus included in the Buddhist pantheon as 

protectors of the dharma. The naga (serpents/dragons), 

symbols of water and fertility, were worshiped by the 

original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent prior 

to the A ryan invasions. Particularly well known are the 



conversion of the naga Apalala in northwestern India 

and the subjugation of the nagas by MAHAMAUDGALY- 

AYANA. The naga cult also spread in Southeast and East 

Asia. YAKSA and yaksinl, evil spirits (ogres) of forests 

and uncultivated plains, were subjugated by the Buddha 

in Sri Lanka in order to spread the dharma there. 

Asura (anti-gods) are often a model for local deities, 

such as the nats in Myanmar and deified warriors in 

Japan. Garuda, mythical birds who were the enemies 

of the nagas, turned into the flying vehicle of VISN U 

before they were included in the Buddhist pantheon. 

Raksasa, cannibalistic evil spirits, became protectors 

of the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). 

Some of these deities, in spite of their intrinsic violent 

character, even became important foci of devotion, 

such as Mahakala, the yaksinl Hart, Kubera, and 

Hayagrva. Still other divine beings became guardians 

of local images, stupas, and monasteries. 

In general, there were a few common strategies for 

the Buddhist conversion of local deities throughout 

Asia. Deities were first converted, sometimes violently 

(subjugation), either following their own request or after 

a confrontation. This step signaled the supremacy 

of Buddhism over local deities. Even when local spirits 

were not directly incorporated but marginalized (as 

happened in Tibet, where indigenous deities were subdued 

by erecting monasteries on specific parts of their 

bodies), there was still the need for propitiation, thus 

further emphasizing the fundamental evil nature of 

preexisting local deities and the importance of Buddhism 

to control them. 

On a second stage, converted deities became protectors 

of the dharma, its adepts, and its facilities. In 

this way, deities were able to perform their usual, pre- 

Buddhist tutelary functions, but within a larger, 

translocal cosmology, and in a different soteriological 

framework. Later, we sometimes observe the formation 

of new, post-Buddhist local deities, distinct from 

but related to Buddhist divinities. Examples include 

HACHIMAN and Inari in Japan, BON deities in Tibet, 

and certain kinds of spirits in Thailand, such as the 

winjan. In some cases, local deities came to be envisioned 

as manifestations (avatara) of translocal, usually 

Indian, gods. For example, the supreme nat spirit 

in Myanmar, Thagya Min nat, is identified with Inda 

(Indra). Japanese Shinto kami were also considered 

manifestations of Indian deities. In China certain local 

gods of a strong Daoist flavor are closely related to, if 

not completely identified with, Buddhist figures; such 

is the case of the goddess Mazu and her close relationship 

with the bodhisattva Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara). 

By presenting local deities—and the social organization 

and power relations that support them—as 

manifestations of chaos and violence, these narratives 

emphasize the civilizing, ordering, and beneficial nature 

of Buddhism, its institutions, and its representatives. 

Even though the initial disruption was actually 

caused by Buddhist monks who questioned, altered, or 

destroyed local cultural practices represented by local 

deities, such an emphasis on order and peace was not 

simply groundless propaganda. In many cases, Buddhist 

missionaries came from more advanced cultures 

and brought with them new technologies, ideas, and 

representations that were structured in a translocal and 

more encompassing worldview. The inclusiveness of 

Buddhism, its capacity to integrate different and contrasting 

elements inside its own superior system was represented 

by the inclusion of previously anti-Buddhist 

forces and mutual enemies, such as Maheśvara and the 

asuras, or on a different level, nagas and garudas. 

Buddhism and local cults 

Local deities in countries where Buddhism spread are 

usually regarded as manifestations of an animistic 

worldview. The term animism, however, cannot effectively 

represent the variety and complexity of cultures 

in which Buddhism penetrated. Local deities range 

from souls of individuals, spirits of the dead, ghosts, 

and other postmortem demonic entities, to local and 

tutelary deities of various kinds. These entities are envisioned 

as forces concerned with health, fertility, and 

prosperity (or lack thereof). The Buddhist intervention 

restructured all these multifarious forms into a system, 

more or less coherent, that was based (at least, to an 

extent) on Buddhist doctrines. For example, in presentday 

Myanmar a combination of Pali Buddhism, naga 

cults, and nat animism has been attested in the Pagan 

area since the tenth to eleventh centuries; analogous 

situations exist in Thailand and Laos. In premodern 

Japan, local deities were incorporated into the Buddhist 

cosmology and liturgy as manifestations of buddhas, 

bodhisattvas, and classical Indian gods. In other 

areas, such as China and Tibet, a division of labor arises 

between the Buddhist clergy and ritualists of other traditions 

(e.g., Daoists or Bon adepts, and traditional 

specialists). 

While not directly related to the quest for ultimate 

liberation (be it configured as NIRVA N A or the attainment 

of Buddhahood), local divinities played an important 

role in merit-making and in securing protection, 

two areas, distinct but closely interrelated, that roughly 

correspond to karmic and apotropaic Buddhism as 


467


defined by Melford Spiro. Merit, often expressed as 

concrete, material benefits rather than in purely spiritual 

terms, could be conceived of as a form of protection 

from illness, evil spirits, and natural calamities 

often caused by supernatural entities. On the other 

hand, invoking protection from local divinities could 

result in benefits that were not much different in practice 

from those resulting from the performance of 

purely “orthodox” Buddhist devotions. 

Buddhism dealt with local spirits in numerous ways, 

ranging from discursive structuring (definition of their 

status and attribution of a specific place within the 

Buddhist cosmology and soteriology), to ritual interaction, 

to mere noninterference. Discursive structuring 

seems to operate in general only on the main principles, 

but it does not work in detail. For example, in the 

case of Thai “village cosmology” the relationship is unclear 

between thewada (from the Sanskrit devata), gods 

that are considered to be situated outside the cycle of 

rebirth (in itself a heterodox idea), and local spirits 

known as phl. Ritual interaction takes many forms, 

from the reading of Buddhist scriptures that took place 

in front of the Japanese kami until the anti-Buddhist 

persecutions of 1868, to the celebrations of festivals for 

the protectors of Thai monasteries (Chao Phau). In the 

case of noninterference, Buddhists leave certain issues 

concerning local spirits to traditional figures such as 

shamans, storytellers, diviners, and so forth. In fact, in 

most Buddhist cultures a number of such traditional 

specialists deal with local deities, spirits, and ghosts. In 

some cases, they form distinct and independent professional 

and social groups, such as kami priests in 

premodern Japan, Bon priests in Tibet, and certain 

shamanlike specialists in China and Southeast Asia. 

Most of the time, however, traditional specialists of 

local sacred affairs are not religious professionals, but 

perform their services as a side business in addition to 

their ordinary, secular professions. 

Buddhist cosmology and popular religious 

practices concerning the afterlife 

An area of religious life in which the interaction of 

Buddhism with local divinities is particularly intense 

is the one that deals with DEATH and the afterlife (funeral 

ceremonies, ancestor cults, and neutralization of 

evil ghosts). In particular, the Buddhist cosmology of 

HEAVENS and HELLS, together with its multiple PURE 

LANDS (Sukhavat, Potalaka, etc.) always involves theses 

kinds of issues. To most Buddhists, nirvana is not 

an immediate goal; what matters most is REBIRTH into 

a higher state of being, from which the dead can bestow 

blessings onto the living who honor and worship 

them. This is the starting point of ancestor cults, which 

are associated with the idea that lack of proper ritual 

action toward the deceased will cause misfortune and 

disaster. In this way, memorialization brings together 

merit-making in the form of ritual exchanges with AN- 

CESTORS and apotropaic beliefs and practices promising 

protection against evil ghosts. Memorialization 

also fuses Buddhist classic cosmology and local divinities 

(in the form of ancestors, tutelary deities, and spirits 

of various kinds). It is not by chance, then, that in 

most of Asia, Buddhist monks are directly involved in 

funerals, memorialization of the dead (who are turned 

into ancestors), and control of ghosts, often associated 

with evil deities of classical cosmology such as yaksa 

and asura, the nats in Myanmar, and the phl in Thailand 

and Laos. Particularly interesting in this respect 

are East Asian Buddhist funerary practices and their 

underlying cosmology of hells. Chinese Buddhists applied 

the bureaucratic structure of their state to the 

afterlife, developing the cult of the Ten Kings of hell— 

judges who decide the destiny of the defunct in the 

afterlife. This cult combines Buddhist conceptions of 

hell, popular Indian ideas of rebirth, Indian gods such 

as Yama, Daoist deities, and Chinese popular beliefs 

and practices (including Confucian bureaucracy). Another 

cult (known as shi eguei gongyang in China and 

se gaki kuyo in Japan) that developed in China dealt 

with the so-called hungry ghosts, an East Asian version 

of the Indian preta, which shows concerns and fear 

about the spirits of those who died a “bad” death or 

who were not properly memorialized by their families. 

These funerary cults spread all over the Sinicized world 

in East Asia and still constitute one of the most important 

and enduring contributions of Buddhism to 

East Asian cultures. 

The problem of syncretism 

The term syncretism has had a long history of negative 

connotations as indicating a random mixture of 

various religious elements dictated by ignorance, superstition, 

or even diabolic influences. The term presupposes 

the existence of a “pure” form of a given 

religious tradition, uncorrupted by blending with 

other religions. For these reasons, it is difficult to use 

syncretism as a neutral, descriptive term. The word was 

redefined, however, in The Encyclopedia of Religion 

(1987) as referring to “connections of a special kind 

between languages, cultures, or religions” (vol. 14, p. 

218). In this form, however, it is too vague to be useful 

for analysis of specific cases of religious interac- 


L OGIC 

tions. The essential problem is that religious and cultural 

interactions in general are not mere juxtapositions 

of distinct and independent elements. The case 

of the Buddhist impact on local divinities is particularly 

revealing. Certainly, some deities were abandoned 

and forgotten, and new ones were added. But 

what matters more is the systematic and pervasive restructuring 

of the cultural field of the sacred that the 

interaction with Buddhism generated. Local deities 

were given features of Indian gods and vice versa, thus 

generating new entities; but new deities were also 

created to deal with the new conceptual and ritual situation 

that had developed. Interestingly, some Buddhist 

deities (or some of their features) were rendered 

native by the phenomena of relocalization, a process 

that at times even obliterated their Buddhist origin. 

This is the case with kami such as Hachiman and Inari 

in contemporary Japan, of deities incorporated into 

the folk religions of China and Korea, and of the Bon 

tradition in Tibet (an independent establishment still 

clearly indebted to Buddhism). All these cases cannot 

simply be reduced to modes of juxtaposition, combination, 

or even connection. Various conceptual categories 

should be mobilized instead to describe the 

multifarious forms of Buddhist interaction with local 

divinities in shifting historical, cultural, social, and 

ideological contexts. In other words, rather than taking 

as a starting point an abstract and reified idea of 

Buddhism and analyzing how it deals with local 

deities, it appears to be more appropriate and fruitful 

to investigate the various roles that certain DIVINITIES 

play within specific Buddhist contexts. As examples, 

we can think of processes of state formation (with divinities 

protecting newly formed states and their regional 

divisions), social control (the symbolic order 

of families, clans, and local communities as represented 

by specific divinities and ritual interactions 

with them), labor and economic concerns, and semiotic 

practices guiding the combination of various 

deities (as based on formal, functional, structural, and 

semantic features). 

See also: Folk Religion: An Overview; Ghosts and 

Spirits; Kukai; Merit and Merit-Making; Shinto 

(Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism; Syncretic Sects: 

Three Teachings 

Bibliography 

Bechert, Heinz, ed. Buddhism in Ceylon and Studies in Religious 

Syncretism in Buddhist Countries. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck 

and Ruprecht, 1978. 

Colpe, Carsten. “Syncretism,” tr. Matthew J. O’Connell. In The 

Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 14, ed. Mircea Eliade. New 

York: Macmillan, 1987. 

Gellner, David N. “For Syncretism: The Position of Buddhism 

in Nepal and Japan Compared.” Social Anthropology 5, no. 

3 (1997): 277–291. 


Cult in Japanese History. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and 

London: University of California Press, 1992. 

Iyanaga Nobumi. Daikokuten henso (Bukkyo shinwagaku 1). 


Kamstra, Jacques H. Encounter or Syncretism: The Initial Growth 

of Japanese Buddhism. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1967. 

Kitagawa, Joseph M. Religion in Japanese History. New York: 


Kvaerne, Per. The Bön Religion of Tibet: The Iconography of a 

Living Tradition. Boston and London: Shambhala, 1995. 

Matsunaga, Alicia. The Buddhist Philosophy of Assimilation: The 

Historical Development of the Honji-Suijaku Theory. Rutland, 

VT, and Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1969. 

Murayama Shuichi. Honji suijaku. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 

1974. 

Sarkisyanz, Manuel (Emanuel). Buddhist Backgrounds of the 

Burmese Revolution. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1965. 


Its Burmese Vicissitudes. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: 


Strong, John S. The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and Interpretations. 

Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995. 



1970. 



and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. 



Tucci, Giuseppe. The Religions of Tibet, tr. Geoffrey Samuel. 

Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California 

Press, 1980. 

LOGIC 


Indian thinkers of many traditions, including Buddhism, 

often maintain that reliable knowledge is the 

key to spiritual liberation. By the fourth century C.E., 


469

L OGIC 

many such thinkers were engrossed in an ongoing conversation 

focused on two interrelated questions: What 

constitutes reliable knowledge? And what types of 

reliable knowledge are there? The answers to these 

questions led to intricate debates on the nature of perception, 

reason, and language. Buddhists participated 

prominently in this conversation, but their contribution 

does not constitute a separate “school” of 

thought. It is, instead, a style of Buddhist philosophy 

that eventually gained much sway among Buddhist 

thinkers in India; Tibetan traditions continue to employ 

it vigorously to this day. Since Buddhists have no 

indigenous term for this philosophical style, Western 

scholars invented the term Buddhist logic to describe 

especially the formulations initially presented by DIG- 

NAGA (ca. 480–540 C.E.) and refined by DHARMAKIRTI 

(ca. 600–670 C.E.). 

Dignaga gave the first systematic presentation of 

Buddhist logic, but Dharmakrti and his followers provided 

the form that became widespread in India and 

Tibet. Concerning the types of reliable knowledge, 

Buddhist logic holds that there are just two kinds, each 

with a corresponding type of object: (1) perception, 

which cognizes particulars, and (2) inference, which 

cognizes universals. A particular is a completely 

unique, causally efficacious entity that exists for only 

a moment. We know that particulars are real because 

they are causally linked, directly or indirectly, to our 

cognitions of them. Universals, the objects of inference, 

are concepts that are meant to apply to many 

particulars. They are causally inert; hence, although we 

imagine them to be real, they cannot in fact be the 

causes of any cognition. For this reason, Buddhist logicians 

maintain that only particulars are truly real; 

universals may seem real, but they are actually mental 

fictions that we create through a process of excluding 

everything that is irrelevant to the context at hand. 

To understand the difference between particulars 

and universals, suppose that this dot ● is a unique particular. 

It may seem to be the same as this other dot 

●, but that sameness is created by associating two 

unique sensory experiences with a single universal, the 

concept dot. Each specific instance may also seem to 

last over time, but the apparent stability of particulars 

over time is also an illusion created by associating them 

with a single universal. Moreover, only the actual dot 

on the page can cause a cognition; the universal dot 

cannot do so (we can see ●; we cannot see our concept 

of it). 

Buddhist logicians further argue that an instance of 

reliable knowledge must be an efficacious cognition— 

efficacious because it enables one to achieve one’s goal. 

Strictly speaking, then, reliable knowledge can be partially 

defective. For example, a cognition might falsely 

attribute qualities to a thing but still remain effective: 

While correctly identifying something as fire, one 

might incorrectly believe that the observed fire is exactly 

identical to all other fires. Nevertheless, that cognition 

is still efficacious because those false attributions 

do not obstruct one from attaining one’s goal: If you 

seek to warm your hands, then it does not matter 

whether you falsely believe that the fire in front of you 

is identical to all others. 

Buddhist logicians must allow that reliable knowledge 

may be partially defective because they must make 

use of language without accepting some characteristics 

implied by universals. The concept dot, for example, 

makes us falsely believe that all dots are one; nevertheless, 

we can successfully use this concept to speak 

of the (actually unique) dots on this page. Likewise, 

the concept person falsely makes me believe that I am 

identical to the infant that I was; nevertheless, we can 

use person to speak of one who suffers and seeks 

liberation. 

This critical approach to universals creates problems 

when Buddhist logicians present their theory of 

logic, which is in fact a detailed theory of inference. 

Here, the form of an inference is “S is P because E,” 

where the terms are a subject (S), a predicate (P), and 

the evidence (E). An example would be, “Joe is mortal 

because of being human.” An inference is well 

formed if three relations hold: the evidence entails the 

predicate (a human must be mortal); the negation of 

the predicate entails the negation of the evidence (a 

nonmortal must be nonhuman); and the evidence is a 

quality of the subject (Joe is indeed human). For Buddhists 

who employ this theory of inference, two notable 

problems persist. First, the inference’s terms 

must be universals, and since universals are strictly 

speaking unreal, how does one account for relations 

among them? And second, if one uses an inference to 

prove that a purely imaginary entity does not exist, 

how can that purely imaginary entity be the subject of 

that inference? That is, if one wishes to prove that “an 

absolute Self is nonexistent,” how can an imaginary 

entity (the absolute Self) bear any predicate? This latter 

question is particularly acute for Madhyamaka 

thinkers who employ the Buddhist logicians’ theory of 

inference. 

See also: Madhyamaka School; Yogacara School 


L OTUS S U TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARI KA- SU TRA) 

Bibliography 

Dreyfus, Georges B. Recognizing Reality: Dharmaklrti’s Philosophy 



Stcherbatsky, Th. Buddhist Logic, 2 vols. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1992. Reprint of 1930–1932 edition. 



LONGMEN 

JOHN DUNNE 

The Longmen cave complex is located twelve kilometers 

south of Luoyang, Henan province, in China. 

From the end of the fifth century through the middle 

of the eighth century, CAVE SANCTUARIES were excavated 

out of the limestone hills on two sides of the Yi 

River. They were sponsored by Buddhist devotees from 

all sectors of the society—aristocrats and commoners, 

ethnic nomads and Chinese alike, attesting to the widespread 

support of Buddhism. The late Northern Wei 

and High Tang periods represent two periods of great 

activity, during which imperial patronage also played 

an important role. The central Binyang cave, begun 

in 505 and sponsored by the Northern Wei emperor 

Xuanwudi (r. 449–515), ushered in a new phase of Chinese 

Buddhist art that synthesized foreign and native 

Chinese art styles, combining a three-dimensional approach 

to form with minute attention to surface details 

and patterns. Fengxian Monastery, completed in 

675, epitomized the imperial patronage of Emperor 

Gaozong (r. 649–683) and Empress Wu (r. 684–705) 

of the Tang dynasty. The colossal statue of Vairocana 

Buddha, accompanied by disciples, bodhisattvas, and 

guardian deities, is a powerful statement of the omniscience 

of the Buddha as the lord of the universe and 

as a protector of the state. 

See also: China, Buddhist Art in; Monastic Architecture 

Bibliography 

Gong Dazhong. Longmen shiku yishu (The Art of the Longmen 

Cave-Temples). Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1981. 

Longmen Cultural Relics Conservation Institute and the Archaeological 

Institute of Beijing University. Longmen shiku 

(Longmen Cave-Temples). 2 vols. Beijing: Wenwu Press, 

1991. 

Mizuno Seiichi, Nagahiro Toshio, et al. Ryu mon sekkutsu no 

kenkyu (A Study of the Longmen Cave-Temples). Tokyo: Zayu 

ho kanko kai, 1941. 

LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) 

DOROTHY WONG 

The Lotus Su tra (Sanskrit, Saddharmapundarlka-su tra) 

numbers among the most popular of MAHAYANA scriptures. 

It is celebrated for its reconciliation of diverse 

teachings in the “one Buddha vehicle” (ekayana) and 

for its promise that buddhahood can be achieved by 

all. Although it has not figured prominently in the Mahayana 

traditions of India or Tibet, the Lotus Su tra has 

for centuries profoundly influenced Buddhist thought, 

art, and literature throughout East Asia. Its ideas have 

served as the basis for philosophical systems and meditative 

and ritual practice, while its parables and mythic 

imagery have inspired paintings, drama, and poetry. 

Since the late nineteenth century, the Lotus has also 

been read as supporting various forms of Buddhist social 

engagement. 

Texts and translations 

As with most Mahayana sutras, little is known of the 

circumstances surrounding the composition of the Lotus 

Su tra. There is only one extant full-length commentary 

that appears likely to have been composed in 

India: the Fahua lun (Treatise on the Lotus), attributed 

to VASUBANDHU (ca. fourth century C.E.), which exists 

in Chinese translation. Scholars date the sutra’s compilation 

to roughly around the first two centuries of 

the common era. Six Chinese translations were made, 

of which three survive: Zhengfa hua jing, translated by 

DHARMARAKSA in 286; Miaofa lianhua jing, translated 

by KUMARAJIVA in 406; and Tianben miaofa lianhua 

jing, translated by Jn anagupta and Dharmagupta in 

601 (this last is a revision of Kumarajva’s translation). 

Kumarajva’s translation has twenty-eight chapters; the 

material comprising its twelfth, “DEVADATTA,” chapter 

is included at the end of chapter eleven in the other 

two translations, which have only twenty-seven chapters 

(subsequent chapter references in this entry are to 

Kumarajva’s twenty-eight chapter version). Whether 

Kumarajva’s translation originally contained the Devadatta 

chapter, or whether it was added later, has been 

a matter of some debate. 

Of the three Chinese versions of the Lotus Su tra, Kumarajva’s 

proved by far the most popular. A Tibetan 


471


translation, Dam pa’i chos pad ma dkar po zhes bya ba 

theg pa chen po’i mdo, was also made in the early ninth 

century by Surendrabodhi and Sna nam Ye shes sde. 

Since the nineteenth century, Sanskrit manuscripts 

and manuscript fragments of the Lotus have been discovered 

in Nepal, Kashmir, Tibet, and other parts of 

Central Asia. Critical comparison of these various versions 

has advanced scholarly understanding of the 

process of the sutra’s composition. As of the beginning 

of the twenty-first century, eight English translations 

have been published (all but one based on Kumarajva’s 

Chinese), along with translations into other 

modern languages. 

Though the exact dating of individual chapters 

probably varies considerably, modern textual study 

suggests that the Lotus Su tra may have been compiled, 

broadly speaking, in three stages. The first nine chapters, 

which focus on the themes of the “one vehicle” 

and “skillful means,” represent an initial stage. Chapters 

ten through twenty-two, emphasizing BOD- 

HISATTVA conduct and the importance of revering, 

preaching, and transmitting the sutra, constitute a second 

stage. This second stage corresponds, roughly, to 

that portion of the sutra called the “assembly in open 

space,” in which the jeweled STU PA of the Buddha 

Prabhutaratna appears from beneath the earth to testify 

to the Lotus Su tra’s truth, and Śakyamuni Buddha, 

accepting Prabhutaratna’s offer of a seat beside 

him in the stupa, uses his supramundane powers to 

lift the entire assembly into midair on a level with the 

two buddhas. The final chapters, dealing with devotion 

to specific bodhisattvas, appear to have been 

added still later. Traditionally, however, exegetes have 

divided the sutra not by stages in its compilation but 

by interpretation of its content. ZHIYI (538–597), de 

facto founder of the TIANTAI SCHOOL, termed the first 

fourteen chapters the “trace teaching” (Chinese, jimen; 

Japanese, shakumon), preached by Śakyamuni in 

a provisionally manifested form as the historical Buddha, 

and the second fourteen chapters, the “origin 

teaching” (benmen, honmon), revealing Śakyamuni to 

be the original or primordial Buddha, awakened since 

the inconceivably distant past. This division of the 

sutra into “trace” and “origin” sections formed the basis 

for numerous subsequent interpretations, especially 

in the Tiantai/Tendai and NICHIREN SCHOOLS. 

In China, a practice began of grouping apparently 

related sutras into threes. The “threefold Lotus Su tra” 

consists of Kumarajva’s Su tra of the Lotus Blossom of 

the Wonderful Dharma (Chinese, Miaofa lianhua jing; 

Japanese, Myo ho rengekyo ) as the main sutra; the 

Su tra of Immeasurable Meanings (Wuliang yi jing, 

Muryo gikyo ) as the introductory sutra; and the Su tra 

on the Method of Contemplating Bodhisattva Samantabhadra 

(Guan Puxian pusa xingfa jing, Kan Fugen 

bosatsu gyo ho kyo ) as the concluding sutra. No Sanskrit 

version is extant for either the introductory or 

the concluding sutra, and the circumstances of their 

compilation remain unclear. According to the first 

chapter of the Lotus Su tra, just before expounding the 

Lotus itself, the Buddha preached “a Mahayana sutra 

called Immeasurable Meanings”; the Su tra of Immeasurable 

Meanings was assumed to be that very sutra. 

It also contains the statement: “In these forty years 

and more, I [Śakyamuni] have not yet revealed the 

truth.” The “truth” here was taken to mean the Lotus 

Su tra, and this passage was used as a proof text to support 

arguments according the Lotus a supreme position 

among the Buddha’s lifetime teachings. The 

Samantabhadra Su tra was clearly composed with reference 

to chapter twenty-eight of the Lotus Su tra, 

which is also about Samantabhadra, and sets forth a 

detailed meditation on this bodhisattva that includes 

repentance for sins committed with the six sense faculties. 

Zhiyi incorporated this ritual of repentance 

into the Lotus samadhi, the third of the “four kinds 

of samadhi” taught in the Tiantai meditative system. 

Central themes of the Lotus Su tra 

The one vehicle and skillful means. Mahayana 

polemics extol the ideal of the bodhisattva who strives 

for the liberation of all, over and against the goal of 

personal NIRVAN A sought by the Buddha’s disciples 

(śravakas) and the privately enlightened (PRATYEKA- 

BUDDHAs), followers of the two so-called HINAYANA 

vehicles. Some Mahayana sutras, such as the 

Vimalaklrtinirdeśa, condemn the way of the two vehicles 

as a spiritual dead end. The Lotus Su tra, however, 

attempts to reconcile them with the Mahayana by asserting 

that the threefold division in the Buddha’s 

teaching, into separate vehicles for śravakas, pratyekabuddhas, 

and bodhisattvas, is a skillful means (UPAYA); 

in reality, there is only one buddha vehicle. That is, the 

Buddha taught these three separate vehicles as a pedagogical 

device, in accordance with his auditors’ varying 

capacity for practice and understanding, but they 

are all designed to lead ultimately to the one buddha 

vehicle and thus spring from a unitary intent. These 

intertwined themes—the Buddha’s teaching through 

skill in means and the ultimate resolution of the three 

disparate vehicles in the one vehicle—are presented 

discursively in chapter two and then illustrated in sub- 



sequent chapters through analogies and parables, such 

as the three carts and the burning house, the rich man 

and his poor son, medicinal herbs, the magically conjured 

city, the gem concealed in a robe, and so forth. 

While the Lotus Su tra repeatedly asserts the supremacy 

of the one vehicle, it never actually explains 

what it is. This has opened the way for diametrically 

opposed readings of the sutra. One controversy among 

Chinese exegetes centered on whether the one vehicle 

is the same as, or different from, the bodhisattva vehicle 

(the so called “three carts or four” controversy). At 

stake was the question: Is the Mahayana the true, final 

teaching, and only the two vehicles provisional? Or is 

the Mahayana itself, like the two Hnayana vehicles, 

also ultimately a skillful means, leading to but transcended 

by a truth beyond expression? A related point 

of disagreement in the history of Lotus interpretation 

concerns whether the one vehicle should be read inclusively 

or exclusively. From an inclusive standpoint, 

since the one vehicle is all-encompassing, all practices 

and doctrinal formulations can be seen as provisional 

skillful means, which, while different in themselves, 

nonetheless all point toward the same realization. 

From an exclusive or hierarchical viewpoint, however, 

the one vehicle is equated with one specific teaching, 

the Lotus, which is thereby invested with absolute status, 

over and against all other teachings, which are then 

relegated to the lesser category of “provisional.” 

Universal buddhahood. A corollary to its claim that 

there is only one vehicle is the Lotus Su tra’s assertion 

that buddhahood is the final goal of all. In the sutra’s 

words, “Among those who hear this dharma, there is 

not one who shall not attain buddhahood.” This is illustrated 

by predictions of future buddhahood bestowed 

upon the Buddha’s śravaka disciples, as they 

come to understand that the goal of personal NIRVAN A 

they had pursued was a skillful expedient, not a final 

destination in itself. The twelfth, Devadatta, chapter 

was widely interpreted as extending the promise of 

buddhahood to persons seen as having particular obstacles 

to liberation. The prediction of eventual buddhahood 

for Devadatta, the Buddha’s wicked cousin, 

was read as illustrating the potential for enlightenment 

even in evil persons, and the instantaneous realization 

of buddhahood by the dragon king’s daughter, described 

in the same chapter, as a promise of enlightenment 

for WOMEN. In keeping with traditional views 

that buddhahood must be achieved in a male body, the 

dragon princess changes into a male in the moment 

before her enlightenment. Modern readers seeking 

support in the Mahayana for a position of gender 

equality find this element in the narrative troubling. 

Historically, however, exegetes and devotees have not 

necessarily adhered to a literal reading, and the Lotus 

was in fact thought to hold particular relevance for 

women’s attainment of buddhahood. 

The primordial Buddha. The latter part of the Lotus 

Su tra, especially the “origin teaching,” presents a radically 

revised depiction of Śakyamuni, not as the historical 

Buddha who lived and taught in India, but as 

the original or primordial Buddha. In chapter eleven, 

before he opens the jeweled stupa of Prabhutaratna, 

Śakyamuni “recalls his emanations,” and the buddhas 

who then gather from throughout the ten directions 

are shown to be his manifestations. Particularly in 

chapter sixteen, Śakyamuni reveals that he first 

achieved enlightenment, not under the bodhi tree in 

this lifetime as people think, but billions of kalpas ago, 

in the inconceivably remote past. Ever since then, he 

has been here in this world and also in others, preaching 

the dharma and converting living beings. Thus his 

birth, renunciation, practice, awakening, and entry 

into nirvana are all revealed to be the skillful means by 

which he constantly teaches and liberates others. 

The Buddha of the origin teaching is often spoken 

of as the “eternal Buddha,” a term that, though easy to 

understand, flattens out a long and complex history of 

interpretation. Early Chinese exegetes disagreed over 

whether this Buddha’s life span was finite or infinite, 

or whether he was a Buddha in the dharma-body 

(dharmakaya), the recompense-body (sambhogakaya), 

or the manifested-body (nirmanakaya) aspect. 

In a dynamic synthesis, Zhiyi interpreted the original 

Buddha of the Lotus Su tra as embodying all three bodies 

in one: The dharma body is the truth that is realized; 

the recompense body is the wisdom that realizes 

it; and the manifested body, a compassionate expression 

of that wisdom as the human Buddha who appeared 

and taught in this world. In the Japanese Tendai 

tantric tradition (Taimitsu), the primordial Buddha of 

the Lotus Su tra was identified with Vairocana or Mahavairocana, 

the cosmic Buddha pervading everywhere, 

whose form is all things, whose voice is all 

sounds, and whose mind is all thoughts. In Tendai 

ORIGINAL ENLIGHTENMENT (HONGAKU) doctrine, the 

primordial Buddha is said to be the “triple body that 

is unproduced” (musa sanjin), that is, innate originally. 

Here, the Buddha’s enlightenment in the remote past 

is taken as a metaphor for the original enlightenment 

that is the beginningless true aspect of all things. 


473


NICHIREN (1222–1282), founder of the school that 

would eventually bear his name, regarded the Buddha 

of the origin teaching as the only true Buddha, of 

whom all other buddhas are but manifestations. The 

practitioner is identified with this Buddha in the act of 

embracing faith in the Lotus Su tra and chanting its title 

or DAIMOKU, Namu Myo ho -renge-kyo . 

The Lotus Su tra and devotional practices 

Following its introduction to China, numerous commentaries 

were written on the Lotus Su tra by Buddhist 

scholars of many schools, stimulating doctrinal debate. 

The one vehicle doctrine played a key role in the Chinese 

scholastic project of establishing comprehensive 

classificatory systems (panjiao) that attempted to order 

the diverse Buddhist teachings transmitted from 

India and Central Asia into a coherent whole. Yet, 

while valued in elite circles, such doctrinal developments 

were probably less influential in the spread of 

faith in the Lotus Su tra than were a range of devotional 

practices performed by both clerics and laypeople 

across social levels. These forms of Lotus practice transcended 

distinctions of school or sect and exerted a 

profound impact on the Buddhist ritual and devotional 

culture of East Asia. 

Lotus Su tra devotion in its Indic context belonged 

to a distinctive Mahayana “cult of the book,” in which 

sutras were enshrined and revered in a manner analogous 

to the worship of Buddha relics enshrined in 

stupas. The sutra itself exhorts its devotees to textcentered 

acts of reverence, such as the “five practices” 

of receiving and keeping, reading, reciting from memory, 

teaching, and transcribing the Lotus Su tra. As with 

other Mahayana sutras, Lotus Su tra devotion in East 

Asia has often centered around copying, worshipping, 

and preaching the sutra. Such devotional acts might be 

sponsored officially, by the court, or undertaken privately. 

The merit thought to result was dedicated toward 

a number of aims, including realization of 

enlightenment; birth in a buddha’s pure land or other 

ideal realm; eradication of sins; the postmortem welfare 

of deceased relatives; and this-worldly benefits, including 

the peace and stability of the country, long life, 

recovery from illness, and prevention of calamity. Tales 

compiled in both China and Japan extol the wondrous 

blessings obtained by monks, nuns, ascetics, and ordinary 

lay people who carried out such practices. 

Copying the Lotus Su tra might be undertaken by an 

individual or by a religious association formed for the 

purpose, or a professional calligrapher might be commissioned. 

Sutra copying was seen as a virtuous deed 

whose merit might be dedicated toward one’s own salvation 

or that of deceased family members. In China, 

Lotus Su tra copying flourished particularly in the Sui 

(589–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties. In Japan, the 

Lotus was the sutra most frequently copied in the Heian 

period (794–1185). Some transcriptions commissioned 

by wealthy patrons were copied on dark blue 

paper using gold or silver ink. Especially striking are 

surviving copies in which each of the Lotus Su tra’s 

69,384 characters has been drawn seated on a lotus 

pedestal or surrounded by a stupa, thereby expressing 

the conviction that “each character of the Lotus is a living 

buddha.” The Lotus Su tra also numbered among 

those scriptures most often preserved in anticipation 

of the era of decline known as the Final Dharma age 

(Chinese, mofa; Japanese, mappo ). In China, it was 

sometimes inscribed on stone slabs on hillsides, or in 

Japan, copied and buried in bronze cylinders to await 

the advent of MAITREYA, the next buddha. Vernacular 

sermons on the Lotus, sometimes with accompanying 

illustrations, made its message broadly accessible, as 

did popular songs, poems, and artistic representations. 

One of the most widespread visual images of Lotus is 

that of the jeweled stupa, sometimes represented by the 

two buddhas, Śakyamuni and Prabhutaratna, seated 

together. This scene is depicted in cave paintings, on 

steles, in MAN D ALAs, and by small votive stupas. 

The Lotus has also been associated with devotion 

to, or emulation of, specific bodhisattvas described in 

its later chapters. Chapter twenty-three describes how 

a bodhisattva called “Beheld with Joy by all Living 

Beings” steeps his body in perfumed oils and then 

burns it in offering to the Buddha and the sutra. This 

would become the textual basis for SELF-IMMOLATION, 

one of many forms of “discarding the body” undertaken 

by Buddhist ascetics. This controversial practice 

has been carried out as an act of renunciation, as an 

offering to the dharma, to achieve birth in a pure land, 

and as a form of protest when Buddhism has faced 

persecution. A broader influence on East Asian Buddhism 

as a whole stems from chapter twenty-five, 

which describes how the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara 

(Guanyin, Kwan-ŭm, Kannon) will respond compassionately 

to those who call upon his aid. This chapter 

eventually circulated as an independent sutra and 

helped promote devotion to Avalokiteśvara, which 

flourishes to this day. Descriptions in this chapter of 

the bodhisattva rescuing devotees from fire, flood, 

bandits, and other dangers were frequent subjects of 

Lotus-related painting. 



An illuminated Lotus Su tra. (Japanese, Heian period, 794–1185.) © Christie’s Images/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

The Lotus Su tra and specific schools 

While reverence for the Lotus Su tra in East Asia has 

transcended all sectarian divisions, it has also come to 

be associated with two specific traditions: the Tiantai 

school, which spread in China, Korea, and Japan; and 

also the NICHIREN SCHOOL, which emerged in 

thirteenth-century Japan. The Lotus-related practices 

of these schools were influenced by, and in turn helped 

to shape, broader traditions of Lotus devotion. 

The Tiantai/Tendai tradition. Zhiyi, the Tiantai 

founder, produced extensive and influential commentaries 

on the Lotus: the Fahua xuanyi (profound meaning 

of the Lotus), elucidating what he saw as the sutra’s 

underlying principles, and the Fahua wenju (words and 

phrases of the Lotus), a line-by-line exegesis. The Lotus 

also provided him with a textual foundation for his 

conceptual innovations. A passage in Kumarajva’s 

translation of chapter two sets forth the “ten suchlikes” 

(shirushi; Japanese, ju nyoze) as the “true aspect 

of the dharmas” (zhufa shixiang; Japanese, shoho jisso ) 

that only buddhas can understand. By punctuating the 

passage in three different ways, Zhiyi derived the threefold 

truth of emptiness, conventional existence, and 

the middle, which informs the structure of his integrated 

system of doctrine and meditation. The same 

passage also provided him with a textual basis for “the 

single thought-moment being three thousand realms” 

(yinian sanqian, ichinen sanzen), his architectonic vision 

of the entire universe as an interpenetrating whole 

in which mind and concrete actualities are nondual 

and all dharmas are mutually inclusive. This is the 

“realm of the inconceivable,” the first of ten modes of 

meditation set forth in his treatise on meditation, 

MOHE ZHIGUAN (Great Calming and Contemplation). 

Though Zhiyi valued the Lotus as the “subtle” teaching 

that alone reveals the perfect interfusion of the 

three truths, he held that other sutras also contain 

“subtle” elements; their particular admixtures of partial 

or provisional teachings were necessary responses 

to differences in human capacity and did not, in his 

view, reflect a rigid hierarchy of sutras. However, the 

Tiantai systematizer and sixth patriarch ZHANRAN 

(711–782), who lived in a time of increased sectarian 

consciousness and rivalry with other schools, organized 

the sutras into a hierarchy of “five periods and 

eight teachings,” with the Lotus Su tra at the apex. 

Zhanran’s classification was instrumental in establishing 

the sutra’s reputation as supreme among the Buddha’s 

teachings. 

New approaches to the Lotus Su tra developed in 

Japanese Tendai, differentiating it from the Tiantai of 

the Asian mainland. Most notable was the flowering of 

a distinctive Tendai system of tantric Buddhism, or 

Taimitsu. Taimitsu theoreticians such as ENNIN 

(794–864), Enchin (814–891), and Annen (841–?) 

reinterpreted the Lotus Su tra as a tantric scripture and 


475


equated the Śakyamuni Buddha of the “origin teaching” 

with Vairocana or Mahavairocana, the cosmic 

Buddha of the tantric teachings who is without beginning 

or end and who pervades everywhere. The 

Lotus also served as a basis for Taimitsu ritual, for example, 

in the “Lotus rite” (Hokke ho ), performed to 

eradicate sin, build merit, and realize awakening. The 

MAN D ALA used in this rite depicts Śakyamuni and 

Prabhutaratna seated together in its central court, as 

they appeared in the jeweled stupa, and may have influenced 

the form of Nichiren’s mandala. SAICHO 

(767–822), founder of Japanese Tendai, had already 

identified the Lotus Su tra with the doctrine of “realizing 

buddhahood with this very body” (sokushin 

jo butsu). Taimitsu thought and practice further promoted 

understandings of the Lotus as enabling the direct 

realization of enlightenment. 

Another distinctive Lotus-based development of 

Japanese Tendai was the doctrine of original enlightenment, 

which dominated Tendai doctrinal studies 

from approximately the eleventh through seventeenth 

centuries. Though deeply colored by the assumptions 

of tantric Buddhism, original enlightenment doctrine 

was classified by its producers as “exoteric,” in contrast 

to esoteric transmissions of tantric ritual. Original 

enlightenment thought might be seen as an attempt 

to reinterpret traditional Tiantai/Tendai doctrines and 

texts—including the works of Zhiyi and Zhanran, standard 

debate topics, and even the Lotus Su tra itself— 

from the perspective that enlightenment is not 

“attained” but innate from the outset. 

Largely through the medium of the Tiantai/Tendai 

tradition, both on the continent and in Japan, the Lotus 

Su tra became associated with PURE LAND BUD- 

DHISM. Zhiyi had incorporated Pure Land elements 

into the constantly walking samadhi, the second of the 

“four kinds of samadhi” in his system of meditation. 

Here the practitioner circumambulates an altar to 

AMITABHA Buddha while at the same time visualizing 

Amitabha’s marks and qualities, eventually gaining 

insight into the nonduality of the visualized Buddha 

and the visualizing mind. During the Song dynasty 

(960–1279), Tiantai monks took the lead in promoting 

societies for Pure Land practice, including both 

monastics and LAITY. In Japan during the Heian period, 

an especially close connection existed between the 

Lotus Su tra and Pure Land Buddhism, exemplified on 

Mount Hiei, the great Tendai monastic center, where 

monks performed the Lotus samadhi in the morning 

and chanted the Amitabha Su tra in the evening. Mount 

Hiei was also the first site in Japan for practice of the 

“continuous nenbutsu,” said to have been introduced 

from Mount Wutai in China by Saicho’s disciple Ennin. 

This was a ritual form of contemplating Amitabha 

and intoning the Amitabha Su tra with the aim of eradicating 

sin and achieving birth in Amitabha’s Pure 

Land, which became incorporated into Tendai practices. 

Lotus-Pure Land associations flourished in the 

broader society as well, and many people recited and 

copied the Lotus Su tra with the aspiration of achieving 

birth in Amitabha’s paradise. Not until the Kamakura 

period (1185–1333), with the advent of teachers like 

HO NEN (1133–1212) and Nichiren, would strongly 

exclusivist forms of both Lotus and Pure Land devotion 

emerge. 

Nichiren and modern Lotus-based movements. 

Nichiren developed a strongly exclusivist reading of the 

Lotus as the only true teaching. He believed that the 

Buddha had intended this sutra specifically for the Final 

Dharma age, in which he and his contemporaries 

believed they were living. Other, provisional sutras, 

Nichiren insisted, could no longer lead to buddhahood 

in this benighted era. Accordingly, he stressed the practice 

of shakubuku, or teaching the dharma by directly 

rebuking attachment to provisional teachings. He saw 

his work of spreading faith in the Lotus as preparing 

the way for Bodhisattva Superior Conduct (Viśistacaritra; 

Japanese, Jo gyo ), the leader of the bodhisattvas who 

are Śakyamuni’s original disciples, taught by him since 

his enlightenment in the inconceivably distant past, as 

described in the origin teaching. In chapter fifteen, 

these bodhisattvas emerge from beneath the earth and 

vow to spread the Lotus after Śakyamuni’s nirvana. 

Much of the later Nichiren tradition would identify 

Nichiren as an actual manifestation of Bodhisattva Superior 

Conduct. 

The Lotus Su tra foretells grave trials that its devotees 

will face in upholding it in an evil age after the 

Buddha’s nirvana. Historically, these passages probably 

reflect opposition from the Buddhist establishment 

encountered by the particular Mahayana community 

that compiled the sutra. Nichiren, however, saw these 

predictions as being borne out in the trials and persecutions 

he himself faced, and he read the Lotus as a 

work of prophecy being fulfilled by himself and his disciples. 

He termed this “reading with the body” (shikidoku), 

meaning to practice the Lotus not only by 

verbally reciting it and mentally believing in its teachings, 

but also by gladly undergoing in one’s own person 

the harsh trials that the sutra says its devotees in 

the latter age must endure. 



By the spread of exclusive faith in the Lotus, 

Nichiren taught, the buddha land could be realized in 

this present world. Especially in the twentieth century, 

this goal inspired a number of modern and contemporary 

Lotus- or Nichiren-based movements, which 

have assimilated Nichiren’s vision of transforming this 

world into a buddha land to a range of political and 

humanitarian agendas. These groups include the small 

ascetic monastic order Nipponzan Myohoji, which is 

committed to the antinuclear movement and to absolute 

nonviolence, as well as the large lay movements 

Rissho Kosei Kai and SO KA GAKKAI, which engage in 

various local and international peace, educational, and 

relief projects. 

See also: Chanting and Liturgy; Folk Religion: An 

Overview; Gender; Scripture 

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477



BUDDHISM

EDITORIAL BOARD 

EDITOR IN CHIEF 


Professor of Buddhist Studies and Chair, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures 

Director, Center for Buddhist Studies 


BOARD MEMBERS 


Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies 


Donald S. Lopez, Jr. 

Carl W. Belser Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies 



Professor of Religion and Chair, Department of Philosophy and Religion 

Bates College 


Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture 

Harvard University


BUDDHISM 

Volume Two 

M-Z 

Appendix, Index 

Robert E. Buswell, Jr., Editor in Chief

Encyclopedia of Buddhism 

Robert E. Buswell, Jr., Editor in Chief 

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

M 

MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL 

The Madhyamaka school proclaims a middle way that 

rejects belief in the existence of an eternal self and inherently 

existent phenomena as well as the belief that 

such selves and phenomena do not exist at all. This 

school reinterprets the teaching of PRATITYASAMUT- 

PADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINATION) to mean that because 

various causes and conditions produce phenomena, 

all are empty of any inherent existence. ŚU NYATA 

(EMPTINESS) means that no phenomena and no persons 

are unoriginated and unrelated. Emptiness itself 

is empty. Since everything is empty, there is no real 

difference between good and bad, pure and impure, 

or SAM SARA and NIRVAN A. These distinctions exist on 

the level of conventional truth and serve to introduce 

people to the ultimate truth that transcends dualistic 

language and conceptual thought. The liberating experience 

of meditation uncovers ultimate truth and 

destroys all attachment to erroneous conceptions of 

the self and the world. 

The Madhyamaka school’s influential teaching of 

emptiness endures in Buddhist traditions as diverse as 

the Tibetan DGE LUGS (GELUK) school and the East 

Asian CHAN SCHOOL and it continues to inspire debate 

among Western scholars whose interpretations of 

Madhyamaka’s founder are equally diverse. 

Early history: Na ga rjuna and his 

disciple A ryadeva 

From the first century B.C.E. to the second century C.E., 

debate over the interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings 

contributed to the writing of sutras and scholastic 

ABHIDHARMA texts with new analyses of the 

Buddha’s teachings. The authors of abhidharma works 

believed that the world contains a finite number of 

mental and physical phenomena (dharma) that have 

an inherent existence of their own (svabhava) and that 

Buddhist saints (ARHATs) experience nirvana through 

their insight into the nature of these phenomena. The 

movement that came to be known as the MAHAYANA 

criticized the arhats’ PATH as narrowly focused on their 

self-centered pursuit of nirvana. BODHISATTVAS, who 

aspire to become buddhas, begin their path with the 

intention of working for the enlightenment of all beings. 

Mahayana supporters claim that the bodhisattva 

path is superior because it balances the individual pursuit 

of insight with great compassion for others. Although 

the origins of the Mahayana movement 

remain obscure, most scholars agree that it developed 

in monastic circles in India. No canon of Mahayana 

sutras existed, nor, if statements in early Mahayana 

sutras are to be taken at face value, would there have 

been interest in establishing one, since each sutra proclaimed 

its own unique authoritative status. 

Na ga rjuna and his major works. NAGARJUNA, who 

composed treatises that incorporated the teachings of 

these diverse sutras into a philosophical system, lived 

in a monastic community in southern India from 

about 150 to 250 C.E. The Madhyamaka (Middle Way) 

school of Buddhist philosophy takes its name from 

Nagarjuna’s belief that śunyata (emptiness) is the middle 

way between the extreme positions of nihilism and 

eternalism. Nihilism rejects belief in a transmigrating 

self that experiences the results of actions; eternalism 

believes in the eternal existence of such a self. Nagarjuna, 

in Ratnavall (Jewel Garland) 1:44–5, explains 

that the eternalist view, which motivates people to do 

good in hope of a heavenly reward, is better than the 

nihilist view, but better still is the liberating insight 

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into emptiness that repudiates both views. Nagarjuna 

and his disciple, A RYADEVA (ca. 170–270 C.E.), were 

convinced that they were preserving the true middle 

way of the Buddha’s teachings, while other Buddhists 

had strayed from it and adopted extreme positions. 

Nagarjuna’s writings encompass several genres: letters, 

philosophical works, and hymns. His Suhrllekha 

(Letter to a Friend), addressed to a South Indian 

Śatavahana dynasty king, advises the king that since the 

world from the highest heavens down to worst hells is 

impermanent and painful, he should follow the eightfold 

path. Nagarjuna encourages the king to develop 

insight into dependent origination and the FOUR NO- 

BLE TRUTHS and to pursue meritorious actions with the 

intention of attaining buddhahood and creating his 

own buddha field, just as AMITABHA Buddha had. In 

the Ratnavall, Nagarjuna discusses the bodhisattva’s 

path and the goal of buddhahood in more detail. 

Through the cultivation of compassion and the six perfections, 

a bodhisattva advances on the ten stages that 

culminate in the inconceivable state of buddhahood. 

Although some people ridicule Mahayana beliefs, intelligent 

people use reason to accept the teaching of 

emptiness and achieve perfect enlightenment (4.67:99). 

Nagarjuna uses reason to prove that phenomena are 

empty of any inherent existence of their own in his 

most important philosophical work, the Mu lamadhyamakakarika 

(Root Verses on the Middle Way). Emptiness 

(śunyata) means that nothing is created by itself 

or sustains itself without depending on various causes 

and conditions. Nagarjuna’s belief that all phenomena 

have arisen in dependence on causes and conditions is 

equivalent to saying that they are all empty of any inherent 

existence (24:18). He further explains this point 

of view in the Śu nyatasaptati (Seventy Verses on Emptiness). 

While knowledge of emptiness is the proper 

means for relinquishing all extreme views, Nagarjuna 

does not consider emptiness to be another view that 

somehow mediates between extreme positions. He 

refers to an early Mahayana scripture, the Kaśyapaparivarta 

(The Section on Kaśyapa), in which the Buddha 

asks whether a patient would be cured if the 

medicine a doctor uses to treat his symptoms remains 

in the body without being expelled (13:8). Kaśyapa 

replies that the patient’s problems would become 

worse. Like the Buddha, Nagarjuna regards emptiness 

as a therapeutic antidote to the ill effects of attachment 

to views and those who retain emptiness after it has 

achieved its purpose as incurable. He advocates insight 

into the emptiness of phenomena as a means for calming 

the mind and controlling its tendency to develop 

concepts (18:5). He describes (24:8–10) two types of 

truth—conventional and ultimate—and explains that 

without relying on conventional truth, which functions 

on the level of ordinary language and experience, 

the ultimate cannot be taught; and without understanding 

the ultimate, nirvana is not achieved. Nirvana 

and the cycle of death and rebirth (sam sara) 

cannot be differentiated (25:19–20) since emptiness 

characterizes both. 

While the language and logic that Nagarjuna uses 

in Vigrahavyavartanl (Warding off Arguments) to criticize 

his opponents’ views about the means of valid 

knowledge (pramana) are as empty of substantive 

meaning as theirs, that does not impair their usefulness 

in exposing contradictions in their positions. 

Nagarjuna has no thesis of his own to prove (vv. 29, 

59), and he condemns the destructive psychological effects 

of attachment to views in his Yuktisastika (Sixty 

Verses on Reasoning). He warns (vv. 47–52) that engaging 

in divisive debates produces the afflictions of desire 

and anger. Intelligent people who perceive phenomena 

to be like illusions and reflections, whose minds remain 

undisturbed, achieve nirvana (vv. 55–58). 

Nagarjuna’s collection of hymns praise the Buddha 

for his compassionate action and for his liberating 

knowledge of a world beyond conceptual discriminations. 

The Acintyastava (Praise for the Inconceivable 

Buddha) concludes (vv. 56–58) with the remarks that 

the Buddha’s gift of the dharma, the nectar of his teaching, 

is that phenomena are empty. In the Paramarthastava 

(Praise of the Ultimate) he praises the Buddha, 

whom he describes as incomparable and beyond all 

words and all duality, although in the concluding 

verses Nagarjuna asks how praise is possible when it 

and its object (like all phenomena) are empty. 

A ryadeva and his major work. Nagarjuna’s main 

disciple, A ryadeva, in his major work, the Catuhśataka 

(Four Hundred Verses), presents the path to the attainment 

of buddhahood, structured around the accumulation 

of the two requisites of merit and 

knowledge. The first eight chapters describe meritorious 

practices that gradually prepare the aspiring bodhisattva 

to receive knowledge about the empty and 

insubstantial nature of persons and phenomena, which 

the last eight chapters discuss in greater detail. 

A ryadeva utilizes the metaphor of illness and treatment 

in speaking about the actions of bodhisattvas and buddhas. 

They are skilled diagnosticians who provide the 

proper medication based upon a diagnosis of the illnesses 

that afflict SENTIENT BEINGS and remain patient 


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when ignorant people, afflicted by illness, reject their 

medicine (5.11–13, 8.20). Throughout their career, but 

especially on the first stage of the path, bodhisattvas 

are encouraged to perfect the virtue of DANA (GIVING). 

The merit of donating material goods, however, is far 

surpassed by the gift of instruction in the dharma (5.7). 

The bodhisattvas’ ability to discern the thoughts of 

others enables them to adapt the teaching to the capacities 

of each student. Only after the student is 

judged capable of understanding the most profound 

teachings, will these teachings be given (5.10). 

A ryadeva emphasizes that it is insight into the selfless 

and empty nature of all phenomena, rather than the 

performance of any meritorious action, that brings 

about the attainment of peace (8.11). The progressive 

method of instruction begins with the practices of generosity 

and moral conduct and culminates in peace 

(8.14). First, all demeritorious actions must be rejected, 

then the concept of a self, and finally all phenomena 

(8.l5). There is no difference between the cycle 

of existence and nirvana for a bodhisattva who has a 

powerful mind (8.22). The disciplined calming of the 

mind confers the power to realize nirvana in the present 

life (8.23). 

In the last eight chapters of the Catuhśataka, 

A ryadeva refutes belief in permanent phenomena 

(atoms, the soul, time) and criticizes various theories 

about sense perception and causality. People who 

doubt and fear the Buddha’s teachings on the selflessness 

of persons and phenomena cling to the less subtle 

views of Brahmin priests and naked ascetics 

(12.13–17, 19–22). The final chapter, a dialogue between 

teacher and student, considers the logical problems 

raised by the critics of emptiness. A ryadeva argues 

against the position that the negation of one thesis implies 

a commitment to the establishment of the opposite 

thesis (16.3–4, 7–8, 14). Statements about the 

existence of one thing and the nonexistence of another 

are unacceptable both on the conventional and ultimate 

level (16.16–18, 24). He concludes that no refutation 

can succeed against an opponent who refuses to 

hold any thesis (16.25). 

Madhyamaka in Central Asia and East Asia. Little 

is known about Rahulabhadra (ca. third century 

C.E.), a disciple of both Nagarjuna and A ryadeva. One 

of his hymns, the Prajñaparamitastotra (Praise of the 

Perfection of Wisdom) is included in the Chinese text 

Da zhidu lun (Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom). 

Because of the inclusion of this hymn, most 

scholars regard this text attributed to Nagarjuna as a 

compendium of Madhyamaka philosophy compiled 

by Central Asian scholars, including its translator, KU- 

MARAJIVA (350–409/413). Kumarajva also translated 

the three treatises (san lun), on which the Chinese 

branch of the Madhyamaka school was based: the 

Zhong lun (Middle Treatise), the Shi’er men lun (Twelve 

Gate Treatise), and the Bai lun (Hundred Verses Treatise), 

the first two attributed to Nagarjuna and the third 

to A ryadeva. Kumarajva’s disciple SENGZHAO (374– 

414) composed original works that explain how the 

sage’s calm and empty mind apprehends ultimate truth 

while still living in the world. The San Lun lineage 

ended in 623 with the death of Jizang (549–623), 

renowned for his commentaries on the three basic 

Madhyamaka treatises. A seventh-century Korean 

monk, Hyegwan, who studied with Jizang, brought 

these teachings to Japan, where they flourished briefly 

in the eighth century. Modern scholars appreciate the 

elegance of Kumarajva’s translations, although the 

academic schools founded in China and Japan to study 

them were not influential and did not survive after the 

eighth century. 

Development of divisions within the 

Madhyamaka school 

The distinction—Svatantrika versus Prasaṅgika— 

often used to describe the views of later Madhyamaka 

writers developed late in Buddhist textual history, 

perhaps not until the eleventh century. These two 

classifications refer to the Svatantrika school’s acceptance 

of independent (svatantra) inferences in philosophical 

debate and the Prasaṅgika school’s rejection 

of such inferences. The Prasaṅgika school favors a reductio 

ad absurdum method that uses the opponent’s 

own arguments to show the undesired consequences 

(prasaṅga) to which their opponents’ theses invariably 

lead and that does not require proof of a contrary 

thesis. The Svatantrika school and Prasaṅgika 

schools are associated with the works of BHAVAVIVEKA 

and CANDRAKIRTI, respectively. 

Bha vaviveka and his major works. Bhavaviveka 

(ca. 500–570) wrote a lengthy commentary on Nagarjuna’s 

verses, the Prajñapradlpa (Lamp of Insight), in 

which he criticized the prasaṅga method used in an 

earlier commentary, Mu lamadhyamakavrtti of Buddhapalita 

(ca. 470–540 C.E.). Bhavaviveka also wrote 

several original works, chief among them, the Madhyamakahrdayakarika 

(Verses on the Heart of the Middle 

Way) and his own commentary on this work, the 

Tarkajvala (Blaze of Reasoning). In Madhyamakahrdayakarika 

3:26 Bhavaviveka uses syllogistic LOGIC to 


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support the Madhyamaka position. He states that earth 

does not have any inherent existence from the perspective 

of ultimate reality (paramarthatah) because 

it is dependent on causes and conditions, like cognition. 

This syllogism has three parts—his thesis, the 

negative statement about inherent existence, and the 

reason—and an example. The thesis is a nonaffirming 

negation (prasajyapratisedha) and not an affirming 

negation (paryudasapratisedha) because it is 

concerned only with denying that the earth has inherent 

existence and not with affirming that it has 

some other characteristic. 

Bhavaviveka’s Tarkajvala provides valuable information 

on the development of both Buddhist and 

Brahmanical thought. He defends the Madhyamaka 

school against its detractors through the use of inferences 

and syllogisms developed by the YOGACARA 

SCHOOL logician DIGNAGA (ca. 480–540) and by the 

Brahmanical Nyaya logicians. In chapters four and 

five Bhavaviveka refutes the positions of his Buddhist 

opponents; in chapters six through nine, he refutes, 

respectively, the positions of the Brahmanical philosophical 

schools Sam khya, Nyaya-Vaiśesika, Vedanta, 

and Mmam sa. 

Candraklrti and his major works. Candrakrti (ca. 

600–650) studied the works of Nagarjuna and 

A ryadeva with students of Bhavaviveka and Buddhapalita, 

and he supported Buddhapalita’s position 

against Bhavaviveka’s criticism in his Prasannapada 

(Clear Words) commentary on the Mu lamadhyamakakarika. 

He also wrote commentaries on the 

Śu nyatasaptati, the Yuktisastika, and A ryadeva’s 

Catuhśataka. Candrakrti’s independent work, the 

Madhyamakavatara (Introduction to the Middle Way), 

presents a general introduction to the Madhyamaka 

school’s ideas on the nature of the bodhisattva path 

and its goal of buddhahood. Candrakrti is best known 

for his criticism of Bhavaviveka’s use of independent 

inferences in the Madhyamakavatara (6.12) and in the 

first chapter of the Prasannapada (Pr 14–39) and for 

his criticism of the Yogacara school’s epistemological 

and logical views in the Madhyamakavatara (6. 34–78; 

Pr 58–75). He rejects as illogical the Yogacara position 

that external objects are permutations of consciousness 

and that consciousness is reflexively aware of itself 

(svasam vedana). Candrakrti knows the criteria set 

down by Dignaga for judging the soundness of an argument 

and applies them to demonstrate the flaws in 

his opponents’ inferences and syllogisms. He is unwilling 

to support philosophical systems whose assertions 

are expressed positively or in the form of affirming 

negations. He rejects the distinctions Bhavaviveka 

makes between theses established either 

conventionally or ultimately (6.12). 

Candrakrti distinguishes between conventional 

and ultimate truth in Madhyamakavatara (6:25–26). 

What ordinary people perceive as the object of their 

undamaged sense faculties is true from the conventional 

point of view; everything else is false. Eyes damaged 

by disease may produce false sense impressions. 

Water, mirrors, and the sun’s rays may also produce 

false sense perceptions. These internal and external 

causes of false perception disturb the mental sense. 

Equally disturbing to the mental sense are non- 

Buddhist philosophers’ views, which are not even conventionally 

true because ordinary people do not hold 

them. He describes conventional truth as the means, 

and ultimate truth as the goal (6:80). Candrakrti concedes 

there are not really two truths but only one since 

the Buddha has said that nirvana, which is nondeceptive, 

is the unique ultimate truth. Because conventional 

truth is deceptive it is not ultimately true. 

Candrakrti organizes his commentary on the 

Catuhśataka around a debate between A ryadeva and 

various opponents. In the first half, he utilizes legal and 

political treatises, stories from the Hindu epics the 

Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and even secular love 

poetry in his demonstration of the superior merits of 

the Buddhist path. In the last half he critically examines 

the views of Buddhist and non-Buddhist opponents 

that lead people astray. These philosophers, he 

says in commenting on 12.4, talk about renunciation 

but they do not follow the right path and do not use 

the proper method. The proper method is the understanding 

of ultimate truth, namely, that all phenomena 

are empty of inherent existence. The cycle of death 

and rebirth ceases, he explains in his comments on 

14:25, when consciousness no longer superimposes inherent 

existence on phenomena. What does not cease 

is the awakening of mind (bodhicitta) and the actions 

of a bodhisattva, which culminate in the ultimate 

knowledge of a buddha. The most influential work on 

the awakening of mind and the bodhisattva path is by 

ŚANTIDEVA. 

Śa ntideva and his major works. Śantideva (ca. 

685–763 C.E.) composed the Śiksasamuccaya (Collection 

of Teachings), a lengthy collection of excerpts from 

nearly one hundred Mahayana sutras. His major work, 

the BODHICARYAVATARA (Introduction to the Conduct 

That Leads to Enlightenment) traces the path of the 


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bodhisattva from the initial resolution to become a 

buddha to the final dedication of merit after the completion 

of the six perfections. In the first chapter he 

distinguishes between the mind resolved upon awakening 

and the mind that proceeds toward awakening; 

the initial resolution creates merit but the merit of the 

bodhisattva actively proceeding toward awakening is 

unending (1:15–17). Chapter two and three describe 

the religious acts—offerings made to the Buddha, taking 

refuge in the Three Jewels, and the confession of 

faults—that the bodhisattva undertakes before setting 

out on the path. Chapter three describes the bodhisattva’s 

request for buddhas in all directions to illuminate 

the world with their teachings (3:4–5) and the 

bodhisattva vows undertaken on behalf of all sentient 

beings (3:7–23). The fourth chapter indicates the 

strength of the bodhisattva’s resolve to fulfill these 

vows. In chapter five Śantideva begins his discussion 

of the six PARAMITA (PERFECTIONS). Chapter six’s discussion 

of the perfection of patience concentrates on 

the avoidance of anger, the major impediment to the 

bodhisattva’s resolution. Chapter seven focuses on the 

cultivation of vigor and chapter eight on meditation. 

In chapter eight Śantideva explains how bodhisattvas 

meditate on the equality of self and others (8:89–119) 

and put themselves in the place of others by understanding 

that all suffering comes from selfish pleasures 

and all happiness from putting others’ happiness first 

(8:120–131). 

Śantideva, in the lengthy ninth chapter on the 

perfection of wisdom, defends Madhyamaka beliefs 

against a multitude of objections from Buddhist and 

non-Buddhist opponents and refutes them. Śantideva 

begins with a discussion of the two truths (9:2–8) and 

proceeds to refute the Yogacara view of consciousness 

(11–34), abhidharma misconceptions about liberation 

and emptiness (40–56), and various wrong views about 

the self (57–87) and how feelings (88–101) and cognitions 

(102–5) arise. A detailed refutation of causality 

(114–37) is followed by his explanation of the emptiness 

of all phenomena and how insight into this teaching 

provides relief from the cycle of birth and death 

(138–167). The final chapter describes the dedication 

of merit derived from the bodhisattva’s progress on the 

path to awakening. 

The Yoga ca ra-Madhyamaka synthesis of Śa n- 

taraksita and Kamalaślla. Śantideva and Candrakrti, 

both associated with the Prasaṅgika wing of 

the Madhyamaka school, vigorously criticize Yogacara 

beliefs. Two later Madhyamaka writers, Śantaraksita 

(ca. 725–790) and Kamalaśla (ca. 740–795), found 

ways to incorporate some of these beliefs into their 

own systems. These scholars followed an example set 

two centuries earlier by the Yogacara scholars Dharmapala 

(ca. 530–561) and Sthiramati (ca. 510–570), who 

wrote commentaries on the Madhyamaka works of 

Nagarjuna and A ryadeva. In the eighth-century 

monastic centers in eastern India, a synthesis of Yogacara 

and Madhyamaka ideas came into prominence. 

The main figure associated with this movement is 

Śantaraksita. Like Bhavaviveka, he uses logic to demonstrate 

the Madhyamaka position that phenomena lack 

inherent existence. Unlike Bhavaviveka and his followers, 

Śantaraksita and his circle rejected the idea that 

external objects can be known even on the level of 

conventional truth. Madhyamaka and Yogacara 

philosophers regard external objects as conceptual 

constructions. Śantaraksita (vv. 91–92 of Madhyamakalamkara, 

Eloquence of the Middle Way) considers 

both object and subject as having the nature of 

consciousness, which is self-reflexive but still lacking 

in inherent existence. Śantaraksita concludes (v. 93) 

that Madhyamaka and Yogacara taken together comprise 

the true Mahayana teachings. Śantaraksita’s 

comprehensive Tattvasam graha (Compendium of 

Truth) critically examines the beliefs of all schools of 

philosophy known to him: Nyaya, Mimam sa, 

Sam khya, Advaita Vedanta, Jain, materialist, as well 

as the views of a variety Buddhist schools. 

Kamalaśla was Śantaraksita’s disciple. In addition to 

his commentaries on Śantaraksita’s Madhyamakalam kara 

and Tattvasam graha, he wrote independent works, the 

Madhyamakaloka (Light of the Middle Way) and the 

Bhavanakrama (Stages of Meditation), a set of three 

works that concern the bodhisattva’s practice of meditation. 

In the first Bhavanakrama Kamalaśla explains 

how the bodhisattva meditates first on compassion for 

all beings since compassion is the basic motivation for 

pursuing the path to buddhahood. The bodhisattva’s 

practice encompasses both skillful means (the first five 

perfections) and wisdom, which is acquired through 

study, critical reflection, and meditative realization. 

The second and third Bhavanakrama explains how the 

bodhisattva combines the practice of calming meditation 

(śamatha), which concentrates the mind, with insight 

meditation or VIPASSANA (SANSKRIT, VIPAŚYANA), 

which examines the meditative object and realizes the 

nonduality of subject and object. Śantaraksita and Kamalaśla 

were major figures in the initial introduction 

of Buddhism into Tibet. 


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Madhyamaka in Tibet. Madhyamaka teachings were 

well established in central Tibet by the end of the eighth 

century. Śantaraksita first came to Tibet from Nepal 

around 763 and taught in Lhasa for four months until 

the hostility of the king’s ministers forced him back 

to Nepal. He returned in 775 and supervised the construction 

of the first Tibetan monastery, BSAM YAS 

(SAMYE), and served as its abbot until his death. Bsam 

yas, according to Tibetan historical texts, hosted the 

BSAM YAS DEBATE between Śantaraksita’s student 

Kamalaśla and the Chinese monk Heshang Moheyan 

over the issue of the bodhisattva’s pursuit of the gradual 

path toward awakening versus a sudden awakening. 

Moheyan prescribed meditation practices characteristic 

of the Chan school. 

At Bsam yas teams of Tibetan translators and Indian 

and Chinese collaborators continued to translate 

Buddhist texts. By the end of the ninth century, 

they had completed translations of the works of 

Nagarjuna and A ryadeva, as well as works of Buddhapalita, 

Bhavaviveka, Candrakrti, Śantideva, Śantaraksita, 

and Kamalaśla. These texts include several 

of the hymns attributed to Nagarjuna, his letters and 

several of his philosophical treatises, the Mu lamadhyamakakarika, 

the Vigrahavyavartanl, the Yuktisastika, 

and the Śu nyatasaptati, Buddhapalita’s and 

Bhavaviveka’s commentaries on the Mu lamadhyamakakarika, 

Candrakrti’s Yuktisastikavrtti and Śu n- 

yatasaptativrtti, Śantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara and 

Śiksasamuccaya, Śantaraksita’s Madhyamakalam kara, 

and Kamalaśla’s Madhyamakaloka and Bhavanakrama. 

During the first dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet 

the views of Śantaraksita and Kamalaśla’s syncretistic 

Yogacara-Madhyamaka school and the views 

of Bhavaviveka flourished. Candrakrti’s interpretation 

of Madhyamaka presented a significant challenge to 

Bhavaviveka’s interpretation during the second dissemination 

of Buddhism in the tenth and eleventh centuries. 

The Indian scholar ATISHA (982–1054) arrived 

in western Tibet in 1042; at Mtho ling Monastery, he 

wrote his best-known work, the Bodhipathapradlpa 

(Lamp for the Path to Awakening) and a commentary 

that describes the Madhyamaka school’s basic doctrines 

(vv. 47–51). He observes that people of slight 

abilities perform meritorious actions in hope of better 

rebirth, people of middling abilities seek nirvana, and 

people of the highest ability seek buddhahood and an 

end to the suffering of all beings. Atisha identifies himself 

as part of a Madhyamaka lineage that includes 

Nagarjuna, A ryadeva, Candrakrti, Bhavaviveka, and 

Śantideva. 

Although the study and teaching of Madhyamaka 

texts has a long history in Tibet, it is not until the late 

eleventh or early twelfth century that a clear distinction 

begins to develop between Svatantrika and 

Prasaṅgika Madhyamaka. Pa tshab Nyi ma grags (b. 

1055) translated three of Candrakrti’s major works: 

his early independent treatise on Madhyamaka, the 

Madhyamakavatara, and his commentaries on Nagarjuna’s 

and A ryadeva’s major works. According to the 

Tibetan historians ’Go lo tsa ba and Gser mdog Pan 

chen, Spa tshab Nyi ma grags made the Prasaṅgika 

viewpoint of Candrakrti the dominant interpretation 

of the classical works of Nagarjuna and A ryadeva from 

the twelfth century onward. Until Nyi ma grags 

translated Prasannapada and clearly differentiated 

Candrakrti’s interpretation of Madhyamaka from 

Bhavaviveka’s, there had been no solid foundation for 

distinguishing between the two interpretations. 

From the fourteenth through sixteen centuries 

scholars associated with all four of the major 

Tibetan schools—KLONG CHEN PA (LONGCHENPA) 

(1308–1363) of RNYING MA (NYINGMA) school; Red 

mda’ ba (1349–1412), Rong ston (1367–1449), and 

Go ram pa (1429–1489) of the SA SKYA (SAKYA) 

school; Mi bskyod rdo je (1507–1554) and Padma 

dkar po (1527–1592) of the BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU) 

school; TSONG KHA PA (1357–1419), Rgyal tshab, 

(1364–1432), and Mkhas grub (1385–1438) of the Dge 

lugs (Geluk) school—wrote works defining their positions 

on Madhyamaka philosophy. During this period, 

Dol po pa (1292–1361) of the Jo nang pa school developed 

his position on the teaching of emptiness, 

which incorporated insights from Yogacara texts, particularly 

those concerned with the teaching of innate 

Buddha nature. He differentiated between the negative 

descriptive of emptiness, self-emptiness (rang stong), 

which regards all phenomena as lacking inherent existence, 

and a more positive description of emptiness, 

other-emptiness (gzhan stong), which refers to a truly 

existent ultimate reality that is beyond the limits of ordinary 

conceptualization. These medieval debates over 

positive and negative descriptions of emptiness recur 

in the works of contemporary scholars who study 

Madhyamaka thought. 

The terse verses of Nagarjuna’s Mu lamadhyamakakarika, 

which led to divergent interpretations 

among the classical schools of Madhyamaka thought, 

have also produced a spate of modern books and 

articles proposing various interpretations of his philosophy. 

Andrew Tuck’s 1990 study, Comparative Philosophy 

and the Philosophy of Scholarship: On the 


M A GCIG LAB SGRON (MACHIG L ABDRÖN) 

Western Interpretation of Nagarjuna, associates the 

Western interpretation of Madhyamaka with whatever 

philosophical trends were current at the time. 

Nagarjuna’s nineteenth-century Western interpreters 

portrayed him as a nihilist. Twentieth-century interpretations, 

under the influence of modern analytical 

philosophy, focused on his use of logic and his skepticism 

about the use of language. Richard Hayes, in 

“Nagarjuna’s Appeal” (1994) concludes that twentiethcentury 

scholarship on Madhyamaka largely corresponds 

to two distinct but traditional approaches: 

exegesis and HERMENEUTICS. The exegetical approach 

primarily focuses on the accumulation of philological, 

historical, and textual data, while the hermeneutic approach 

attempts to make that data relevant to the concerns 

of a modern audience. 

Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 

2000. 

Sonam, Ruth. Yogic Deeds of Bodhisattvas: Gyel-tsap on 

A ryadeva’s Four Hundred. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1994. 

Sprung, Mervyn, trans. Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way: The 

Essential Chapters from the Prasannapada of Candraklrti. 

Boulder, CO: Prajña Press, 1979. 

Tillemans, Tom J. F. Materials for the Study of A ryadeva, 

Dharmapala and Candraklrti, 2 vols. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für 

Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universitat Wien, 

1990. 

Tuck, Andrew. Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of 

Scholarship: On the Western Interpretation of Nagarjuna. New 


KAREN LANG 

Bibliography 

Crosby, Kate, and Skilton, Andrew, trans. The Bodhicaryavatara. 


Garfield, Jay L. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: 

Nagarjuna’s Mu lamadhyamakakarika. New York: Oxford 


Hayes, Richard. “Nagarjuna’s Appeal.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 

22 (1994): 363–372. 

Hopkins, Jeffrey, trans. Buddhist Advice for Living and Liberation: 

Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 

1998. 

Huntington, C. W., Jr. The Emptiness of Emptiness: An Introduction 

to Early Madhyamika. Honolulu: University of 


Keenan, John P. Dharmapala’s Yogacara Critique of Bhavaviveka’s 

Madhyamika Explanation of Emptiness. Lewiston, 

NY: Mellen Press, 1997. 

Lang, Karen. A ryadeva’s Catuhśataka: On the Bodhisattva’s Cultivation 

of Merit and Knowledge. Copenhagen, Denmark: 


Lindtner, Christian, Nagarjuniana: Studies in the Writings 

and Philosophy of Nagarjuna. Copenhagen, Denmark: 


Ramanan, K. Venkata. Nagarjuna’s Philosophy as Presented in 

the Mahaprajñaparamitaśastra. Rutland, VT: Charles Tuttle, 

1966. 

Robinson, Richard. Early Madhyamika in India and China. 

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967. 

Ruegg, David Seyfort. The Literature of the Madhyamaka School 

of Philosophy in India. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 

1981. 

Ruegg, David Seyfort. Three Studies in the History of Indian and 

Tibetan Madhyamaka Philosophy. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für 

MA GCIG LAB SGRON 

(MACHIG LABDRÖN) 

Ma gcig lab sgron (pronounced Machig Labdrön; ca. 

1055–1149) was an eminent female Tibetan Buddhist 

teacher who codified and disseminated the ritual meditation 

system called severance (gcod, pronounced 

chö). Born in the southern Tibetan region of La phyi, 

Ma gcig lab sgron was recognized as a gifted individual 

even in her youth. According to her traditional 

biographies, she had a natural affinity for the prajñaparamita 

(perfection of wisdom) sutras, spending 

much of her youth reading and studying their numerous 

texts and commentaries. For several years, she continued 

her education under Grwa pa mngon shes and 

Skyo ston Bsod nams bla ma in a monastic setting 

where she was eventually employed to use her skills in 

ritual recitation and exegesis. She then took up the 

lifestyle of a tantric yogin, living as the consort of the 

Indian adept Thod pa Bhadra, eventually giving birth 

to several children, perhaps five in all. Vilified as a “nun 

who had repudiated her religious vows,” Ma gcig lab 

sgron left her family and eventually met the famed Indian 

yogin who became her primary guru, Pha Dam 

pa sangs rgyas (d. 1105/1117), a contemporary of the 

famous Tibetan poet-saint MI LA RAS PA(1028/40– 

1111/23). Dam pa sangs rgyas transmitted to Ma gcig 

lab sgron the instructions of pacification (zhi byed) and 

the MAHAMUDRA teachings. She combined these with 

her training in prajñaparamita and other indigenous 

practices, passing them on as the system of severance, 

principally to the Nepalese yogin Pham thing pa and 

her own son Thod smyon bsam grub. 


485

M AHA BODHI 

T EMPLE 

The tradition of severance, like that of pacification, 

is commonly classified among eight important tantric 

traditions and transmission lineages that spread 

throughout Tibet—the so-called eight great chariotlike 

lineages of achievement (sgrub brgyud shing rta 

chen po brgyad), a system that prefigures the development 

of a fourfold sectarian division often noted in 

writings on Tibetan Buddhism. Ma gcig lab sgron herself 

described severance as a practice that severs (gcod) 

attachment to one’s body, dualistic thinking, and conceptions 

of hope and fear. Although usually practiced 

by solitary yogins in isolated and frightening locations, 

severance liturgies are also performed by monastic assemblies, 

both accompanied by the ritual music of 

hand drum and human thigh-bone trumpet. The meditation, 

rooted in the theory of the prajñaparamita and 

mahamudra, also involves the visualized offering of the 

adept’s body—flesh, blood, bones, and organs—as 

food for a vast assembly of beings, including local spirits 

and demons. 

Ma gcig lab sgron is revered in Tibet as a D AKINI 

goddess, an emanation of the Great Mother (Yum chen 

mo) and the bodhisattva Tara. Her reincarnations have 

also been recognized in contemporary individuals, including 

the former abbess of the important Shug gseb 

Nunnery near Lhasa, Rje btsun Rig ’dzin chos nyid 

zang mo (1852–1953). Ma gcig lab sgron remains a primary 

Tibetan example of the ideal female practitioner 

and her tradition of severance continues to be widely 

employed among Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, both 

lay and monastic, of all sectarian affiliations. 

See also: Prajñaparamita Literature; Tibet; Women 

Bibliography 

Edou, Jérôme. Machig Labdrön and the Foundations of Chöd. 


Gyatso, Janet. “The Development of the Gcod Tradition.” In 

Soundings in Tibetan Civilization, ed. Barbara Nimri Aziz 

and Matthew Kapstein. Delhi: Manohar, 1985. 

Roerich, George N., trans. and ed. The Blue Annals, 2 vols. Calcutta: 

Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1949. Reprint, New 

Delhi: Motilal Benarsidass, 1989. 

MAHA BODHI TEMPLE 


The history of Mahabodhi, the temple located at the 

site of the Buddha’s enlightenment at BODH GAYA, is 

a contested one. According to the Chinese pilgrim 

XUANZANG (ca. 600–664 C.E.), the imposing structure 

visible during his lifetime was built over a smaller temple 

erected by King AŚOKA. A Bharhut medallion shows 

a circular open structure enclosing the diamond throne 

and the bodhi tree above it. While the Aśokan pillar 

beside it suggests that it may represent the original 

Aśokan shrine, archaeological evidence for the latter is 

inconclusive. The large stone slab resembling the diamond 

throne of the Bharhut relief recovered from the 

ruins might well be a conscious archaism. 

The structural temple Xuanzang describes probably 

dates from the third to fifth centuries C.E. (late Kushan 

and Gupta dynasties). Myriads of tiered niches housing 

golden figures covered its soaring 170-foot high 

tower of whitewashed brick. Stringed pearl and celestial 

sages decorated its walls. A three-storied jeweled 

pavilion with projecting eaves abutted the east wall. 

Niches with ten-foot high silver figures of the bodhisattvas 

MAITREYA and Avalokiteśvara flanked the 

outside gate, while a Buddha image twice that size occupied 

the sanctuary’s massive diamond throne. The 

Buddha’s earth-touching gesture (MUDRA) represented 

the moment when the Buddha called the earth to witness 

his eligibility for enlightenment and MARA was 

defeated. The new structure necessitated the removal 

of the bodhi tree from the sanctuary to a location outside 

the temple, which Gupta inscriptions called a mahagandhakutl, 

or the great fragrant chamber where the 

Buddha resides. Thus, in Bodh Gaya by the fifth century, 

the bodhi tree as the primary locus of the Buddha’s 

living presence was replaced by his residence, 

throne, and image. 

The present Mahabodhi temple is a late nineteenthcentury 

restoration of dubious authenticity. It has a tall 

central tower with a high arch over the entrance and 

identical smaller towers on each of its four corners. Evidence 

from India, Burma, and Thailand indicates that 

corner towers were present before the eleventh century. 

This evidence consists of a small eleventhcentury 

model of the Mahabodhi from eastern India 

and of its four Burmese and Thai re-creations beginning 

in the eleventh century. In referencing the directions 

and the four continents, the corner towers 

intensify the central tower’s kinship with Mount 

Sumeru, thereby reinforcing the seat of enlightenment’s 

increasing importance over the tree at Bodh 

Gaya. By contrast, in Sri Lanka the bodhi tree at 

Anuradhapura remains the prime relic of the enlightenment. 

No major enclosed structure has diminished 

or usurped its primacy as one of Sri Lanka’s two ma- 


M AHA MAUDGALYA YANA 

jor Buddha relic-shrines. Its preeminence probably derives 

from the belief that it is the sapling from the original 

bodhi tree that Aśoka’s missionary son brought to 

the island together with Buddhism. 

Bibliography 


World, Translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (A.D. 

629). London: Trubner, 1884. Reprint, Delhi: Oriental Books 

Reprint Corp., 1969. 

Bhattacharyya, Tarapada. The Bodhgaya Temple. Calcutta: 

Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyah, 1966. 

Cunningham, Alexander. Mahabodhi or the Great Buddhist 

Temple under the Bodhi Tree at Buddha-Gaya. London, 1892. 

Leoshko, Janice, ed. Bodh Gaya: The Site of Enlightenment. Bombay: 

Marg, 1988. 

Mitra, Rajendralala. Buddha-Gaya: The Great Buddhist Temple, 

the Hermitage of Sakya Muni. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat 

Press, 1878. Reprint, Delhi: Indological Book House, 1972. 

Myer, Prudence. “The Great Temple at Bodhgaya.” Art Bulletin 

40 (1958): 277–278. 

MAHA KA ŚYAPA 


Mahakaśyapa (Pali, Mahakassapa), a disciple of the 

Buddha, was of Brahmin descent. According to Buddhist 

legend, the Buddha was aware of a karmic connection 

between himself and Mahakaśyapa, and 

waited for him as his most distinguished disciple to 

accept him into the order. In the MAHAYANA sutras, 

Mahakaśyapa readily understands the deeper meaning 

of the Buddha’s teachings. Mahakaśyapa’s supernormal 

powers and talents of meditation indicate his 

ability to penetrate to a soteriological layer of the 

dharma that is not accessible to the normal “hearers” 

(śravaka) of the Buddha or even to Buddhist saints, 

the ARHATs. The CHAN SCHOOL symbolized this capacity 

by showing Mahakaśyapa holding a lotus flower 

in his hand, which represents his grasp on the Buddha’s 

teaching. Mahakaśyapa was made the first patriarch 

of the Chan school. 

Legend holds that Mahakaśyapa became the head 

of the Buddhist community after the Buddha’s parinirvana. 

Shortly after the death of the Buddha, 

Mahakaśyapa convened the first Buddhist council near 

Rajagrha, India, an event that is traditionally understood 

to have led to the codification of the Buddhist 

CANON (Tripitaka). Mahakaśyapa also functions as the 

transmitter of the dharma from the Buddha to the future 

Buddha MAITREYA. Buddhist tradition describes 

Mahakaśyapa as absorbed in the “attainment of cessation” 

(nirodhasamapatti) deep inside Cockfeet Mountain 

(Kukkutapadagiri), where he keeps the garment 

of the Buddha, which he received from the hand of the 

master and will transfer to Maitreya as a symbol of the 

latter’s legitimate succession. 


Bibliography 

Nyanaponika, Thera, and Hecker, Hellmuth. Great Disciples of 

the Buddha: Their Lives, Their Works, Their Legacy. Boston: 

Wisdom, 1997. 



1994. 

MAHA MAUDGALYA YANA 

MAX DEEG 

Mahamaudgalyayana (Pali, Mahamoggallana; Chinese, 

Mulian), a disciple of Śakyamuni Buddha, attained 

the enlightened status of an ARHAT, or saint. He is 

renowned for the magical powers he developed 

through MEDITATION. Mahamaudgalyayana uses his 

powers to travel to other realms of the universe where 

he witnesses the happiness and suffering that living beings 

experience as a result of their KARMA (ACTION). He 

also uses his magical powers to discipline monks, gods, 

nagas, and other beings. Mahamaudgalyayana converted 

to Buddhism and entered the monastic order together 

with his childhood friend ŚARIPUTRA. They 

became the Buddha’s two chief disciples in accordance 

with a prediction made to that effect many eons earlier 

by a previous buddha. Thus Mahamaudgalyayana 

and Śariputra are sometimes depicted flanking the 

Buddha in Buddhist art. Mahamaudgalyayana predeceased 

the Buddha after being beaten by heretics. His 

violent death is attributed to bad karma; in a previous 

life he had killed his own parents. 

Mahamaudgalyayana is most famous for liberating 

his mother from a bad rebirth as a hungry ghost. Beginning 

in the Tang period in China, this story became 

the basis for a popular annual Buddhist festival in East 

Asia called the GHOST FESTIVAL. During this festival, 

Buddhists make offerings to the monastic community, 


487

M AHA MUDRA 

dedicating their merit to deceased ancestors in the 

hopes that these attain a better rebirth or greater comfort 

in their current rebirth. Mahamaudgalyayana is 

venerated in East Asia for his filial piety and shamanic 

powers. Like other arhats, Mahamaudgalyayana was 

also the focus of worship already in ancient and medieval 

India. In Burma (Myanmar) he is one of a set of 

eight arhats propitiated in protective rituals and he is 

also believed to grant his worshippers magical powers. 


Bibliography 

Malalasekera, G. P. “Maha Moggallana Thera.” In Dictionary of 

Pali Proper Names (1937–1938), 2 vols. New Delhi: Munshiram 

Manoharlal, 1995. 

Strong, John S. The Legend and Cult of Upagupta. Princeton, NJ: 




MAHA MUDRA 

SUSANNE MROZIK 

The Sanskrit term mahamudra, which might be translated 

as “great seal,” refers to a Buddhist doctrine 

describing the underlying nature of reality, the consummate 

practices of meditation, and the crowning realization 

of buddhahood. Although important for all 

of the later Tibetan sects, including the SA SKYA 

(SAKYA) and DGE LUGS (GELUK), mahamudra became 

principally associated with the many branches of the 

BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU). The mahamudra tradition began 

with the Indian MAHASIDDHAs, or great adepts, including 

Tilopa (988–1069), NAROPA (1016–1100), and 

Maitrpa (ca. 1007–1085), and was disseminated in Tibet 

by such early Bka’ brgyud masters as MAR PA 

(MARPA, 1002/1012–1097), MI LA RAS PA (MILAREPA, 

1028/40–1111/23), and their followers. 

According to the sixteenth-century Bka’ brgyud 

exegete Bkra shis rnam rgyal (Tashi Namgyal, 

1512–1587), the doctrine is called great seal because, 

“Just as a seal leaves its impression on other objects, 

so mahamudra, the ultimate reality, leaves its imprint 

upon all realities of SAM SARA and NIRVAN A.” It is a seal 

because it refers to “the inherent character or abiding 

reality of all things” (Namgyal, p. 92). The term in Tibetan, 

phyag rgya chen po (pronounced chagya chenpo) 

literally translates the Sanskrit and is traditionally explained 

in numerous ways. According to the Phyag 

chen thig le (Sanskrit, Mahamudratilaka; The Seminal 

Point of Mahamudra), phyag symbolizes the wisdom of 

emptiness and rgya the freedom from things of 

sam sara. Chen po stands for their union. 

Mahamudra is commonly taught under the tripartite 

rubric of ground (in the sense of foundation), PATH, 

and fruition. This approach was summed up by the 

great nineteenth-century reformer Kong sprul Blo gros 

mtha’ yas (Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye, 1813–1899) in the 

following way: “Ground mahamudra is the view, understanding 

things as they are. / Path mahamudra is 

the experience of meditation. / Fruition mahamudra is 

the realization of one’s mind as buddha” (Nalanda 

Translation Committee, p. 83). Ground mahamudra 

expresses the primordially pure nature of the mind that 

normally goes unnoticed; it is likened to a jewel buried 

in the ground. Path mahamudra represents a wide variety 

of meditation practices. These can follow a systematic 

approach—as exemplified in numerous texts 

by the ninth Karma pa, Dbang phyug rdo rje (Wangchuk 

Dorje, 1604–1674)—incorporating preliminary 

practices (sngon’gro) with those of mahamudra serenity 

(śamatha) to still the mind, and mahamudra insight 

(vipaśyana) to recognize the mind’s nature. The practice 

of path mahamudra may also incorporate seemingly 

simple instructions such as resting free from 

exertion within naked awareness itself. Fruition mahamudra 

is the final result, the realization of phenomenal 

appearances and noumenal emptiness as nondual. 

This is not something newly produced, but rather the 

recognition of what is termed ordinary mind (tha mal 

gyi shes pa), the mind’s innate clarity, purity, and luminosity. 

Such recognition is often described in vivid 

terms as being indestructible, youthful, fresh, shining, 

and experienced as great bliss. 

Some Bka’ brgyud scholars have divided mahamudra 

literature into two streams: sutra mahamudra and 

TANTRA mahamudra. The former, based on Indian 

texts such as the Uttaratantra-śastra (Treatise on the 

Unexcelled Continuity), describes a system centered 

primarily upon the cultivation of the six PARAMITA 

(PERFECTIONS) without the need for specific tantric initiation 

or practice. This approach—exemplified in the 

Thar pa rin po che’i rgyan (Jewel Ornament of Liberation), 

a text composed by Mi la ras pa’s celebrated disciple 

Sgam po pa (Gampopa, 1079–1153)—was 


M AHA PRAJA PATI G AUTAMI 

strongly criticized by Tibetan writers such as the 

renowned scholar SA SKYA PAN DITA (SAKYA PAN D ITA, 

1182–1251). Tantra mahamudra is an approach in 

which the practices of anuttarayoga, or highest yoga 

tantra—such as those belonging to the system known 

as the Six Doctrines of Naropa (Na ro chos drug)—are 

used as a means for realization. 

See also: Tantra; Tibet 

Bibliography 

Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho (Dalai Lama XIV) and Berzin, Alexander. 

The Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra. Ithaca, NY: 


Dorje, Wangchug. The Mahamudra Illuminating the Darkness 

of Ignorance, tr. Alexander Berzin. Dharamsala, India: Library 

of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1978. 

Nalanda Translation Committee. The Rain of Wisdom. Boston: 


Namgyal, Takpo Tashi. Mahamudra: The Quintessence of Mind 

and Meditation, tr. Lobsang P. Lhalungpa. Boston: Shambhala, 

1986. 

Sgam po pa. The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, tr. Herbert V. 

Guenther. London: Rider, 1959. Reprint, Boston: Shambhala, 

1971. 

MAHA PARINIRVA N A-SU TRA 


The Mahaparinirvana-su tra (Pali, Mahaparinibbanasutta; 

Great Discourse on Extinction) recounts the final 

months of the Buddha’s life, his last acts and sermons 

to his disciples, his death, and the distribution of his 

relics. A canonical text, it was one of the early building 

blocks of the Buddha’s biography, and versions exist 

in Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese. It should 

not be confused with the later MAHAYANA sutra of the 

same name. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the; Nirvana Sutra 

Bibliography 

Walshe, Maurice, trans. “Mahaparinibbana Sutta: The Great 

Passing.” In Thus Have I Heard: The Long Discourses of the 

Buddha. London: Wisdom, 1987. 


MAHA PRAJA PATI GAUTAMI 

According to the Gotaml-apadana and the Therlgatha, 

Mahaprajapat Gautam (Pali, Mahapajapat Gotam) 

was Siddhartha Gautama’s maternal aunt and foster 

mother. When Mahaprajapat was born, an astrologer 

predicted her leadership qualities and she was named 

Prajapat (Pali, Pajapat), “leader of a large assembly.” 

She and her sister Maya were both married to Śuddhodana, 

the ruler of Kapilavastu. Maya gave birth to 

a son who was named Siddhartha and then died just 

seven days after his birth. After Maya’s death, Prajapat 

suckled the boy and raised him as her own child. Prajapat 

also gave birth to two children of her own, 

Nanda and Sundarnanda. 

Mahaprajapat is widely regarded as the first 

bhiksunl and progenitor of the Buddhist order of NUNS 

(Bhiksun SAṄGHA). After Siddhartha became “an 

awakened one” (a Buddha) and visited Kapilavastu, 

Mahaprajapat began to practice the dharma and 

achieved the stage of a stream enterer (śrotapanna). 

According to tradition, she thrice requested the Buddha’s 

permission to join the saṅgha, but was refused 

each time. Finally, she cut her hair, donned renunciant 

garb, and, accompanied by five hundred Śakyan 

noblewomen, walked to Vaiśal where she once again 

sought admission to the order. This time, when 

A NANDA interceded on Mahaprajapat’s behalf, the 

Buddha affirmed that women are indeed qualified to 

achieve the fruits of dharma (i.e., liberation), and 

granted her request. 

The Buddha is said to have stipulated eight special 

rules (gurudharma) as the condition for Mahaprajapat’s 

admission to the saṅgha. These rules, which later 

came to be applied to Buddhist nuns in general, make 

the Bhiksun Saṅgha dependent upon (and, to a certain 

extent, subordinate to) the Bhiksu Saṅgha (order 

of monks) with regard to ordination, exhortation, admonishment, 

and reinstatement, thereby delimiting 

the nuns’ independence. 

In addition to being the first Buddhist nun and the 

leader of the Bhiksun Saṅgha from its origins, Mahaprajapat 

achieved higher spiritual attainments, including 

the six higher knowledges and supernormal 

powers. She often served as a trusted intermediary in 

communications between the bhiksunls and the Buddha. 

In the later part of her life, she reached the state 

of an ARHAT, as evidenced in her own verse, recorded 

in the Therlgatha: “I have achieved the state where 


489

M AHA SA M GHIKA 

S CHOOL 

everything stops.” Within the patriarchal social context 

of her time, Mahaprajapatl became an exemplar 

of women’s potential for leadership and spiritual attainment, 

and her achievements have inspired Buddhist 

WOMEN ever since. 

Bibliography 



Curzon Press, 1998. 

Horner, Isaline Blew. Women under Primitive Buddhism: Laywomen 

and Almswomen. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975. 

Walters, Jonathan S. “The Buddha’s Mother’s Story.” History of 

Religions 33 (1994): 350–379. 

Walters, Jonathan S. “Gotam’s Story.” In Buddhism in Practice, 

ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1995. 

MAHA SA M GHIKA SCHOOL 

KARMA LEKSHE TSOMO 

The Mahasam ghika (or Mahasaṅghika) school is believed 

to have emerged from the first major schism in 

the Buddhist order, at a council held in the fourth century 

B.C.E., more than a century after Gautama’s death. 

The name, from mahasam gha, “great(er) community,” 

supposedly reflects the Mahasam ghikas’ superior 

numbers, the Sthaviras being the minority party to the 

dispute. The split may have been caused by disagreements 

over the VINAYA, or the famous five theses of 

Mahadeva concerning the ARHAT, or the introduction 

of MAHAYANA sutras into the canon. Traditional accounts 

of these issues are obscure and conflicting. 

What is certain is that the Mahasam ghikas and their 

many subschools (Lokottaravadins, Prajñaptivadins, 

Purvaśailas, Aparaśailas, etc.) followed a conservative 

form of the vinaya, yet were responsible for many doctrinal 

innovations, chief of which is the theory known 

as lokottaravada. This holds that the Buddha transcends 

all human limitations, and is thus above (uttara) 

the world (loka), his life as Gautama being a 

compassionate display. 

Some Mahasam ghika ideas later flowed into Mahayana 

Buddhism, which is, however, now thought to 

have drawn its inspiration from many schools. Once 

well represented throughout the subcontinent, especially 

in the northwest (including present-day Afghanistan) 

and the south, the Mahasam ghikas eventually 

disappeared as a living ordination tradition. Now only 

parts of their canon survive, including the distinctively 

structured vinaya and what may be their Ekottarikagama 

(both in Chinese translation). Sections of the 

Mahasam ghika-Lokottaravadin Vinaya also survive in 

Sanskrit (notably the Mahavastu), as do fragments of 

the literature of other subschools. 


Bibliography 

Bareau, André. Les sectes bouddhiques du petit véhicule. Saigon, 

Vietnam: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1955. 


to the Saka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: 

Université catholique de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste, 

1988. 

Nattier, Janice J., and Prebish, Charles S. “Mahasan ghika Origins: 

The Beginnings of Buddhist Sectarianism.” History of 

Religions 16 (1977): 237–272. 

MAHA SIDDHA 

PAUL HARRISON 

The Sanskrit term mahasiddha (“great master of spiritual 

accomplishment” or “great adept”) and the simpler, 

near synonymous form siddha (adept) refer to an 

individual who has achieved great success in tantric 

meditation. Buddhist traditions mainly associate siddhas 

with the transmission of tantric instructions 

throughout South, East, and, to some degree, Southeast 

Asia. They are especially important for the Buddhist 

schools of Nepal and Tibet, which commonly 

enumerate eighty-four mahasiddhas, many of whom 

are regarded as founders of tantric lineages still in existence 

today. 

Primarily active on the Indian subcontinent during 

the eighth to twelfth centuries, Buddhist siddhas are 

chiefly characterized by their possession of siddhi (success), 

yogic accomplishments of two types: the ordinary 

or mundane accomplishment of magical powers, 

and the supreme accomplishment of perfect enlightenment. 

Life stories of individual siddhas abound with 

examples of the first type of success: mastery over the 

physical elements and material world, superhuman 

cognition, even immortality. Siddhas are commonly 

associated with particular displays of accomplishment; 

for example, Virupa’s ability to stop the sun mid- 


M AHA VASTU 

course and Saraha’s immunity to the heat of molten 

metal. According to tradition, however, such powers 

are mere by-products of tantric meditation, not the 

goal itself. Siddhas or mahasiddhas qualified by the second 

type of accomplishment therefore stand as the 

VAJRAYANA enlightened ideal—a model for swiftly 

attaining realization and ultimate enlightenment 

through the practice of meditation and yoga. 

While many siddhas were probably historical figures, 

records of their lives and teachings vary in depth 

and detail. The majority of these accounts are known 

from the rich corpus of biographical literature preserved 

in Tibetan, often based on oral and literary traditions 

from India. Prominent among them is the 

twelfth-century author Abhayadatta’s Caturaśltisiddhapravrtti 

(Lives of the Eighty-Four Siddhas)—extant 

in Tibetan translation—which presents brief vitae for 

numerous important masters (Robinson, 1979). The 

Bka’ babs bdun ldan (Seven Instruction Lineages), written 

by the Tibetan historian Taranatha (1575–1634), 

records elements of siddhas’ lives as they pertain to 

the promulgation of important tantric lineages (Templeman). 

Several widely revered siddhas, such as the 

Bengali master NAROPA (1016–1100), have been the 

subject of comprehensive biographies (Guenther). 

Accounts of the mahasiddhas generally portray 

individuated personalities while following tropes 

common to much of Buddhist sacred BIOGRAPHY— 

discontent and renunciation, practice of austerities, the 

overcoming of difficulties, and eventual realization. 

Siddhas were both male and female and represented 

all strata of Indian society: Some were born into royal 

families, others to uneducated laborers. Many began 

their lives as monks or scholars in one of the great Indian 

Buddhist universities. Most were compelled at a 

certain point to abandon their ordinary life, the 

monastery, or the throne, in favor of mountain solitude 

and a life of meditation and yogic practice. Some 

studied under a living master (occasionally another 

siddha), others received teachings through direct visions 

of the Buddha. After attaining siddhi, they often 

led the life of a wandering ascetic, or appeared in the 

guise of a yogin-madman, intentionally transgressing 

the normal parameters of religious practice. Siddhas 

often instructed their disciples through songs of realization 

(doha ), but hundreds of works—including 

tantric commentaries, liturgies, and meditation 

manuals—attributed to Indian adepts are also preserved 

in the Tibetan canon. As objects of meditation, 

devotional prayer, and religious art, the figures 

of the siddhas themselves form an important locus of 

religious practice throughout the Himalayan Buddhist 

world. 

Well-known individuals among the traditional 

reckonings of eighty-four mahasiddhas include Saraha 

and Maitrpa, responsible for the spread of MAHAMU- 

DRA (great seal) instructions; Tilopa and Naropa, earliest 

founders of the Tibetan BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU) 

sect; and Virupa, source for the Tibetan doctrine of 

path and fruition (lam ’bras) of the SA SKYA (SAKYA) 

sect. 

See also: Tantra 

Bibliography 



Press, 2002. 

Guenther, Herbert V. The Life and Teaching of Naropa. Boston 

and London: Shambhala, 1986. 

Robinson, James B. Buddha’s Lions: Lives of the 84 Siddhas. 

Berkeley, CA: Dharma Publications, 1979. 

Robinson, James B. “The Lives of Indian Buddhist Saints: Biography, 

Hagiography and Myth.” In Tibetan Literature: 

Studies in Genre, ed. José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson. 


Templeman, David, trans. The Seven Instruction Lineages. 

Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 

1983. 

MAHA VASTU 


The Mahavastu (Great Story) recounts in both verse 

and prose the life of the Buddha from the perspective 

of the Lokottaravadins, a subgroup of the MAHASA M- 

GHIKA SCHOOL. Written between the second century 

B.C.E. and the fourth century C.E. in Buddhist Hybrid 

Sanskrit, it embellishes many episodes of Śakyamuni’s 

biography with jatakas, avadanas, and other legends, 

presenting him as a basically supernatural figure. 

See also: Avadana; Buddha, Life of the; Jataka 

Bibliography 


1949–1956. 



491

M AHA YA NA 

MAHA YA NA 

There are, it seems, very few things that can be said 

with certainty about Mahayana Buddhism. It is certain 

that the term Mahayana (which means “great or large 

vehicle”) was in origin a polemical label used by only 

one side—and perhaps the least significant side—of a 

protracted, if uneven, Indian debate about what the 

real teachings of the Buddha were, that might have begun 

just before, or just after, the beginning of the common 

era in India. It is, however, not clear how soon 

this label was actually used outside of texts to designate 

a self-conscious, independent religious movement. 

The term does not occur in Indian inscriptions, 

for example, until the fifth or sixth century. It is also 

certain that Buddhist groups and individuals in China, 

Korea, Tibet, and Japan have in the past, as in the very 

recent present, identified themselves as Mahayana 

Buddhists, even if the polemical or value claim embedded 

in that term was only dimly felt, if at all. 

But apart from the fact that it can be said with some 

certainty that the Buddhism embedded in China, Korea, 

Tibet, and Japan is Mahayana Buddhism, it is no 

longer clear what else can be said with certainty about 

Mahayana Buddhism itself, and especially about its 

earlier, and presumably formative, period in India. 

While it is true that scholars not so long ago made a 

series of confident claims about the Mahayana, it is 

equally clear that now almost every one of those claims 

is seriously contested, and probably no one now could, 

in good faith, confidently present a general characterization 

of it. In part, of course, this is because it has 

become increasingly clear that Mahayana Buddhism 

was never one thing, but rather, it seems, a loosely 

bound bundle of many, and—like Walt Whitman— 

was large and could contain, in both senses of the term, 

contradictions, or at least antipodal elements. But in 

part, too, the crumbling of old confidences is a direct 

result of the crumbling of old “historical” truisms 

about Buddhism in general, and about the Mahayana 

in particular. A few examples must suffice. 

The old linear model and the date of the “origin” 

of the Mahayana 

The historical development of Indian Buddhism used 

to be presented as simple, straightforward, and suspiciously 

linear. It started with the historical Buddha 

whose teaching was organized, transmitted, and more 

or less developed into what was referred to as early 

Buddhism. This Early Buddhism was identified as 

HINAYANA (the “small,” or even “inferior vehicle”), 

THERAVADA (the teaching of the elders), or simply 

“monastic Buddhism” (what to call it remains a problem). 

A little before or a little after the beginning of 

the common era this early Buddhism was, according 

to the model, followed by the Mahayana, which was 

seen as a major break or radical transformation. Both 

the linear model and the rhetoric used to construct it 

left the distinct impression that the appearance of the 

Mahayana meant as well the disappearance of Early 

Buddhism or Hlnayana, that, in effect, the former replaced 

the latter. If the development was in fact linear, 

it could, of course, not have been otherwise. Unfortunately, 

at least for the model, we now know that this 

was not true. The emergence of the Mahayana was a 

far more complicated affair than the linear model allowed, 

and “Early” Buddhism or Hlnayana or what 

some now call—perhaps correctly—mainstream Buddhism, 

not only persisted, but prospered, long after the 

beginning of the common era. 

The most important evidence—in fact the only 

evidence—for situating the emergence of the Mahayana 

around the beginning of the common era was 

not Indian evidence at all, but came from China. Already 

by the last quarter of the second century C.E. 

there was a small, seemingly idiosyncratic collection of 

substantial Mahayana sutras translated into what Erik 

Zürcher calls “broken Chinese” by an Indoscythian, 

whose Indian name has been reconstructed as 

Lokaksema. Although a recent scholar has suggested 

that these translations may not have been intended for 

a Chinese audience, but rather for a group of returning 

Kushan immigrants who were no longer able to 

read Indian languages, and although there is no Indian 

evidence that this assortment of texts ever formed a 

group there, still, the fact that they were available to 

some sort of Central Asian or Chinese readership by 

the end of the second century must indicate that they 

were composed sometime before that. The recent publication 

of, unfortunately, very small fragments of a 

Kushan manuscript of one of these texts—the 

Astasahasrika Prajñaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom in 

Eight Thousand Lines)—also points in the same direction. 

But the difficult question remains how long before 

they were translated into “broken Chinese” had 

these texts been composed, and here the only thing that 

can be said with some conviction is that, to judge by 

their contents, the texts known to Lokaksema cannot 

represent the earliest phase or form of Mahayana 

thought or literature. They seem to presuppose in fact 

a more or less long development of both style and doctrine, 

a development that could have easily taken a cen- 


M AHA YA NA 

tury or more and, therefore, would throw the earliest 

phase of this literature back to about the beginning of 

the common era. The emergence of the Mahayana 

has—mostly as a matter of convention—therefore 

been placed there. But even apart from the obvious 

weaknesses inherent in arguments of this kind there is 

here the tacit equation of a body of literature with a 

religious movement, an assumption that evidence for 

the presence of one proves the existence of the other, 

and this may be a serious misstep. 

The evidence for the Mahayana outside 

of texts 

Until fairly recently scholars were content to discuss 

the emergence of the Mahayana almost exclusively in 

terms of literary developments, and as long as they did 

not look outside of texts the emergence of a Mahayana 

could indeed be placed—at least conventionally— 

around the beginning of the common era. But when 

they began to look outside of texts, in art historical or 

inscriptional or historical sources, for evidence of the 

Mahayana as a religious movement, or for evidence of 

actual Mahayana groups or cults in India, this became 

much more difficult. A good illustration of the issues 

involved here might be seen in the Indian evidence for 

what became first in China, and then in Japan, a major 

form of Mahayana Buddhism. 

One of the Mahayana texts translated by Lokaksema 

is called in Sanskrit the Sukhavatlvyu ha-su tra, 

and a Chinese translation of it came to be a central 

text for East Asian PURE LAND BUDDHISM. According 

to the line of thought sketched above, since this text 

was translated already at the end of the second century 

it must have been composed in India sometime 

earlier and, by convention, around the beginning of 

the common era. Thus, if we limited ourselves to textual 

evidence, this form of Mahayana Buddhism must 

have emerged in India at that time. If, however, we 

look outside of texts there is simply no evidence for 

this. There is a large body of archaeological, art historical, 

and inscriptional evidence for Buddhist cult 

practice for this period, but absolutely nothing in it 

would suggest anything like East Asian Pure Land 

Buddhism, and no trace of the Buddha AMITABHA, the 

central figure and presumed object of devotion in this 

Buddhism. In the hundreds of Buddhist donative inscriptions 

that we have in India for the whole of the 

first five centuries of the common era, in fact, there is 

only a single certain, utterly isolated and atypical, reference 

to Amitabha, and it is as late as the second half 

of the second century. Among the hundreds of surviving 

images from the same period, images that testify 

to the overwhelming presence of the historical 

Buddha Śakyamuni as the focus of attention, there is 

again a single certain isolated image of Amitabha. 

There is a very small number of images or reliefs from 

Northwestern India (Gandhara) that some scholars 

have taken as representations of Amitabha and his 

Pure Land, but there is no agreement here, and the 

images or reliefs in question may date from as late as 

the fifth century. In other words, once nontextual evidence 

is taken into account the picture changes dramatically. 

Rather than being datable to the beginning 

of the common era, this strand of Mahayana Buddhism, 

at least, appeared to have no visible impact on 

Indian Buddhist cult practice until the second century, 

and even then what impact it had was extremely isolated 

and marginal, and had no lasting or long-term 

consequences—there were no further references to 

Amitabha in Indian image inscriptions. Almost exactly 

the same pattern occurs on an even broader scale when 

nontextual evidence is considered. 

The Mahayana and monastic Buddhism in the 

middle period 

Although the history of Buddhism in India is in general 

not well documented, still, for the period from 

the beginning of the common era to the fifth to sixth 

centuries—precisely the period that according to the 

old scheme should be the “period of the Mahayana”— 

we probably have better sources than for almost any 

other period. Certainly, we have for this period an extensive 

body of inscriptions from virtually all parts of 

India. These records document the religious aspirations 

and activities of Buddhist communities throughout 

the period at sites all across the Indian landscape, 

and they contain scores of references to named Buddhist 

groups and “schools.” But nowhere in this extensive 

body of material is there any reference, prior 

to the fifth century, to a named Mahayana. There are, 

on the other hand, scores of references to what used 

to be called Hnayana groups—the Sarvastivadins, 

Mahasaṁghikas, and so on. From this point of view, 

at least, this was not “the period of the Mahayana,” 

but “the period of the Hnayana.” Moreover, it is the 

religious aspirations and goals of the Hnayana that 

are expressed in these documents, not those of a Mahayana. 

There is, for example, a kind of general consensus 

that if there is a single defining characteristic of 

the Mahayana it is that for Mahayana the ultimate religious 

goal is no longer NIRVAN A, but rather the attainment 

of full awakening or buddhahood by all. This 


493

M AHA YA NA 

goal in one form or another and, however nuanced, 

attenuated, or temporally postponed, characterizes 

virtually every form of Mahayana Buddhism that we 

know. But, again, there is hardly a trace of this aspiration 

prior to the fifth century anywhere in the large 

body of Indian Buddhist inscriptions that have survived. 

Even more mediate goals associated with the 

Mahayana are nowhere represented. There is, for example, 

not a single instance anywhere in Indian inscriptions 

of a donor aspiring to REBIRTH in a Pure 

Land, and this is in startling contrast with what occurs 

in countries or communities—like LONGMEN in 

China—where Mahayana Buddhism was actually 

practiced and was important. 

What is particularly disconcerting here is the disconnect 

between expectation and reality: We know 

from Chinese translations that large numbers of Mahayana 

sutras were being composed in the period between 

the beginning of the common era and the fifth 

century. These texts were constructing, defining, and 

debating competing versions of a, or the, Mahayana, 

and articulating Mahayana religious ideas and aspirations. 

But outside of texts, at least in India, at exactly 

the same period, very different—in fact seemingly 

older—ideas and aspirations appear to be motivating 

actual behavior, and old and established Hnayana 

groups appear to be the only ones that are patronized 

and supported. In India at least, in an age when Mahayana 

Buddhas like Amitabha and AKSOBHYA might 

have been expected to dominate, it is, in fact, the old 

Buddha Śakyamuni who everywhere remains the focus 

of attention—it is his image, for example, that is easily 

and everywhere found. 

The Mahayana and the role of the laity 

What to make of this disconnect remains, of course, a 

major conundrum for any attempt to characterize the 

Mahayana or to track its history and development— 

much of which might, in fact, have taken place outside 

India. But this is by no means the only disconnect that 

is encountered in trying to get a handle on the Mahayana. 

One of the most frequent assertions about the 

Mahayana—to cite another example—is that it was a 

lay-influenced, or even lay-inspired and dominated, 

movement that arose in response to the increasingly 

closed, cold, and scholastic character of monastic Buddhism. 

This, however, now appears to be wrong on all 

counts. While it is true that as it developed outside of 

India Mahayana Buddhism appears to have taken on 

at least the appearance of a more lay-oriented movement, 

a good deal of this appearance may be based on 

a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the established 

monastic Buddhism it was supposed to be reacting 

to. It is, in fact, becoming increasingly clear that 

far from being closed or cut off from the lay world, 

monastic, Hnayana Buddhism—especially in its Indian, 

Sanskritic forms—was, very much like medieval 

Christian monasticism, deeply embedded in and concerned 

with the lay world, much of its program being 

in fact intended and designed to allow laymen and 

women and donors the opportunity and means to 

make religious merit. This in many ways remains the 

function of monastic Buddhism even today in modern 

Theravada countries. Ironically, then, if the Mahayana 

was reacting to monastic Buddhism at all, it was probably 

reacting to what it—or some of its proponents— 

took to be too great an accommodation to lay needs 

and values on the part of monastic Buddhism, too pronounced 

a preoccupation with providing an arena for 

lay religious practices and all that that involved— 

acquiring and maintaining property, constructing institutions 

that would survive over time, and so on. The 

Mahayana criticism of monastic Hnayana Buddhisms 

may have been, in effect, that they had moved too far 

away from the radically individualistic and ascetic 

ideals that the proponents of the Mahayana favored. 

This view is finding increasing support in Mahayana 

sutra literature itself. 

The old characterization of the Mahayana as a layinspired 

movement was based on a selective reading of 

a very tiny sample of extant Mahayana sutra literature, 

most of which was not particularly early. As scholars 

have moved away from this limited corpus, and have 

begun to explore a wider range of such sutras, they 

have stumbled on, and have started to open up, a 

literature that is often stridently ascetic and heavily engaged 

in reinventing the forest ideal, an individualistic, 

antisocial, ascetic ideal that is encapsulated in the 

apparently resurrected image of “wandering alone like 

a rhinoceros.” This, to be sure, is a very different Mahayana 

that is emerging. But its exploration is now still 

a work in progress. At this point we can only postulate 

that the Mahayana may have had a visible impact 

in India only when, in the fifth century, it had become 

what it had originally most strongly objected to: a fully 

landed, sedentary, lay-oriented monastic institution— 

the first mention of the Mahayana in an Indian inscription 

occurs, in fact, in the record of a large grant 

of land to a Mahayana monastery. In the meantime the 

Mahayana may well have been either a collection of 

marginalized ascetic groups living in the forest, or 

groups of cantankerous and malcontent conservatives 


M AHA YA NA 

embedded in mainstream, socially engaged monasteries, 

all of whom continued pouring out pamphlets espousing 

their views and values, pamphlets that we now 

know as Mahayana sutras. We simply do not know. 

The Mahayana and the misrepresentation of 

non-Mahayana literature 

If, then, the notion of the Mahayana as a lay-inspired 

or oriented movement now seems untenable, the notion 

that it was a reaction to a narrow scholasticism 

on the part of monastic, Hnayana, Buddhism should 

have seemed silly from the start. Such a view was only 

even possible by completely ignoring an enormous 

collection of what are almost certainly the most culturally 

vibrant and influential forms of Buddhist literature. 

The representation of Hnayana Buddhism as 

narrowly scholastic rests almost entirely on a completely 

disproportionate, and undeserved, emphasis 

on the ABHIDHARMA. The abhidharma was almost certainly 

important to a narrow circle of monks. But 

abhidharma texts were by no means the only things 

that Hnayana monks wrote or read. They also wrote 

—especially it seems in what should have been “the 

Mahayana period”—an enormous number of stories, 

and they continued writing them apparently long after 

the early Mahayana sutras were in production. 

Some of these stories are specifically called JATAKA and 

AVADANA and they have come down to us as separate 

collections—the Pali jatakas, for example, which in 

bulk alone equals the abhidhamma, and the Sanskrit 

AVADANAŚATAKA—or embedded in vinayas or monastic 

codes, as is the case particularly in the enormous 

MU LASARVASTIVADA-VINAYA where such monastic stories 

predominate. The amount of space given over to 

these stories in this vinaya alone makes the ABHI- 

DHARMAKOŚABHASYA look like a minor work. 

Given the great amount of monastic energy that 

went into the composition, redaction, and transmission 

of this literature, and given its great impact on 

Indian Buddhist art, especially in what should have 

been “the Mahayana period,” it is particularly surprising 

that the system or set of religious ideas that it articulates 

and develops has never really been taken 

seriously as representative of monastic Buddhism in 

India from the first to the fifth century. It contains— 

variously expressed and modulated—an uncomplicated, 

if not always consistent, doctrine of KARMA 

(ACTION) and merit that supports a wide range of religious 

activities easily available to both monks and laymen. 

It takes as a given the possibility of both monks 

and laymen interacting with and assisting the dead. It 

articulates in almost endless permutations what must 

have been a highly successful system of exchange and 

reciprocity between laymen and monks. It presents a 

very rich and textured conception of the Buddha in 

which he appears as almost everything from a powerful 

miracle worker to a compassionate nurse for the 

sick, but is also always the means to “salvation” or a 

better rebirth. The religious world of Buddhist story 

literature in addition offered to both monks and laymen 

easily available objects of worship—relics, stupas, 

and images—and, again contrary to the old model, a 

fully developed conception and cult of the Buddha-as- 

Bodhisattva. The fact that all of this, and a great deal 

more that is religiously significant, is delivered in a 

simple, straightforward story form that was easily accessible 

makes it abundantly clear that a very large part 

of Hnayana monastic literature is anything but narrowly 

scholastic and off-putting. Indeed, in comparison 

with most Mahayana sutra literature it appears to 

be positively welcoming, and it seems that the characterization 

“narrowly scholastic” fits far better with the 

Mahayana texts themselves. It is, for example, hard to 

imagine anyone but a confirmed scholastic reading the 

Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines for pleasure, 

and almost impossible to imagine anyone confusing 

it—or the vast majority of other Mahayana 

sutras—with real literature. And yet, already long ago 

the French scholar Sylvain Lévi was able to characterize 

the enormous repository of monastic tales that is 

the Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya as not only a “masterpiece” 

of Buddhist literature, but of Sanskrit literature 

as a whole. Many of the issues here, however, involve 

something more than just literary form or style. 

The scholasticism of the Mahayana 

Both the assertion of the lay orientation of the Mahayana 

and of an increasingly inaccessible, scholastic 

monastic Buddhism, for example, are clearly linked to 

another of the early and persistent characterizations of 

both: Monastic Hnayana Buddhism was from very 

early on said to have been uninvolved in—indeed opposed 

to—ritual and devotion and focused exclusively 

on meditative practice and doctrine. The Mahayana, 

on the other hand, was somehow supposed to be the 

opposite, and to have been particularly marked by devotion. 

But while it is true that certain strands of the 

Mahayana in their later and largely extra-Indian 

developments came to be cast in increasingly devotional 

forms, it is by no means clear that this was so 

from the beginning, and hard to see how it could ever 

have been maintained that the Mahayana in its earlier 


495

M AHA YA NA 

Indian forms was particularly devotional. Any such notion 

should have been easily dispelled by even a quick 

reading of the Mu lamadhyamakakarika of NAGARJUNA, 

the figure who has been taken—whatever his actual 

date—as the earliest individually named spokesman 

for the Mahayana in India. This is a work that is, in 

fact, decidedly scholastic, focused exclusively on a narrow 

band of doctrine, arcane, and very far from easily 

accessible: Even with long and laborious commentaries, 

both ancient and modern, much of it remains 

elusive. If it is, in fact, representative of the early forms 

of the Mahayana in India, then whatever that Mahayana 

was it could hardly have been a broad-based, 

easily accessible, lay-oriented, devotional movement. 

What seems to hold for Nagarjuna’s Karikas, moreover, 

would seem to hold for much of Mahayana 

sutra literature. Much of it also cannot be described as 

easily accessible, and most of it, perhaps, would only 

have been of interest to a certain type or types of 

monks. 

The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, 

for example, as well as its ever-lengthening companion 

pieces in 10,000, 18,000, 25,000, and 100,000 lines, 

sometimes seem to be little more than unrelenting repetitions 

of long lists of technical doctrinal categories— 

that would, presumably, have been known by or of 

interest to only very learned monks—which are, again 

unrelentingly, said to be “empty.” It is also not just the 

Perfection of Wisdom that can be so described. The 

Kaśyapaparivarta (Chapter of Kaśyapa), another Mahayana 

text that might be early, although it differs 

somewhat in format, is much the same in content: The 

whole first part of it consists of a long list of doctrinal 

items arranged in groups of fours. Some Mahayana 

sutras—the SAM DHINIRMOCANA-SU TRA (Su tra of the 

Explanation of Mysteries), for instance—can hardly be 

distinguished from technical treatise or śastras. There 

are, of course, exceptions. The Vimalaklrtinirdeśa 

(Teaching of Vimalaklrti), for example, is commonly 

cited as one, but even then its atypicality is always 

noted and the contrast with other Mahayana sutras 

emphasized. In contrast to the authors of other Mahayana 

sutras its author, says Étienne Lamotte, “does 

not lose himself in a desert of abstract and impersonal 

doctrine” (p. v). There are also occasional lively vignettes 

elsewhere—for instance, the scene in the 

Drumakinnararajapariprccha (Questions of the Spirit 

King Druma) where when the austere monk MAHAK- 

AŚYAPA is so charmed by some heavenly music he cannot 

help himself and jumps up and dances, or the 

stories in the Ratnakaranda-su tra (Su tra of the Basket 

of Jewels) where Mañjuśr makes MA RA carry his begging 

bowl, or spends the rains-retreat in the King’s 

harem—but these appear to be rare. What narrative or 

story elements occur in known Mahayana texts appear 

to be either polemics intended to make fun of other 

monks, as in the Questions of Druma, the Basket of Jewels, 

and in the Teaching of Vimalaklrti; or are simply 

unintegrated add-ons, like the story of Ever-Weeping 

in the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines; or 

wholesale borrowings, as in the first part of the Rastrapalapariprccha 

(Questions of Rastrapala). Even with 

these possible exceptions, and bearing in mind that 

only a limited corpus of Mahayana sutra literature has 

so far been studied, much of what has been studied 

seems positively dreary and is commonly said to be so 

in the scholarly backroom. Not only is there little narrative 

or story, there is also a very great deal of doctrinal, 

meditative and ascetic minutia—Lamotte’s 

“desert.” To learned monks—indeed very learned 

monks—this might have had great attraction, but how 

it would have struck anyone else remains imaginable, 

but unclear. What is clear, however, is that the scholasticism 

found from the beginning of Mahayana literature 

did not abate or go away, and already in India the 

Mahayana produced some very impressive, even 

mind-boggling, “philosophical” systems, like those 

lumped together under the heading Yogacara. Works 

ascribed to the monk ASAṄGA play a key role in the 

Yogacara, and a story preserved in BU STON’s History 

of Buddhism about the reaction of Asaṅga’s younger 

brother—himself a scholastic of the first order—might 

be instructive. He is supposed to have said: 

Alas, Asaṅga, residing in the forest, 

has practiced meditation for 12 years. 

Without having attained anything by this 

meditation, 

he has founded a system, so difficult and burdensome, 

that it can be carried only by an elephant. 

The Mahayana and the move away from devotion 

and cult 

None of this, of course, squares very well with the notion 

that the Mahayana was in India a popular devotional 

movement—if even learned monks found its 

scholasticism off-putting, any laity would almost certainly 

as well. But this is not the only thing that does 

not square. There is, for example, surprisingly little apparent 

interest in devotional or cult practice in the Ma- 


M AHA YA NA 

hayana sutras that can, at least provisionally, be placed 

in the early centuries of the common era, and in what 

little there is there is a curiously anticultic stand. 

One of the most visible characteristics of the Mahayana 

as it developed outside of India may well be an 

emphasis on a multiplicity of “present” Buddhas other 

than Śakyamuni, on the Buddhas Amitabha and 

Bhaisajyaguru in particular, less so on the Buddha 

AKSOBHYA. But while there are early Mahayana sutras 

devoted to the first and third of these that were composed, 

presumably, in India, these early texts contain 

really very little that would suggest any elaborate system 

of cult, WORSHIP, or RITUAL. It is, in fact, only in 

the sutra devoted to Bhaisajyaguru, which cannot be 

early, that we get clear references to the use of cult images 

and set, specific ritual forms. There is, moreover, 

as already mentioned, only the barest certain trace of 

any devotion to Amitabha in the Indian art historical 

or inscriptional record, and none at all—or only very 

late—for Bhaisajyaguru or Aksobhya. Unlike the great 

bodhisattvas, these buddhas seem never to have captured 

the Indian religious imagination in an immediate 

way. Rebirth in Amitabha’s Pure Land was, to be 

sure, in India—as later in Nepal and Tibet—a generalized 

religious goal, but as such probably differed very 

little from other generic positive rebirths. 

It is, however, not just in the early sutras dealing 

with the new buddhas that it is difficult to find references 

to cult practice, to images—once erroneously 

thought to have been a Mahayana innovation—or 

even to the stupa cult. They are surprisingly rare in all 

Mahayana sutras until the latter begin their elusive 

transformation into TANTRA, and this process must 

start around the fourth century. The comparative rarity 

of references in this literature to the stupa cult was 

particularly damaging to Akira Hirakawa’s theory that 

tied the origin of the Mahayana to this cult, but his 

theory has been largely set aside on other grounds as 

well (i.e., a serious underestimation of the role of established 

monastic Buddhism [Hnayana] in the construction 

and development of the cult). It is in the 

literature of the latter, in fact, particularly in its vinaya 

and avadana literatures, that the origin tales, the promotion, 

and the religious ideology of both the stupa 

cult and the cult of images occur, not in Mahayana 

sutras—if they refer to either it is at least clear that they 

take both as already established cult forms, and are in 

fact reacting to them, at first, at least, by attempting to 

deflect attention away from them and toward something 

very different. This attempt is most commonly 

articulated in passages that assert—to paraphrase— 

that it is good to fill the world with stupas made of 

precious substances, and to worship them with all sorts 

of perfumes, incenses, and so on, but it is far and away, 

in fact infinitely, better and more meritorious to take 

up even a four-line verse of the doctrine, preserve it, 

recite it, teach it and—eventually, it now seems—write 

or copy it. Virtually the same assertion, using virtually 

the same language, is made in regard to religious 

giving—it is good to fill the whole world with jewels 

and give it as a gift to the Buddha, but it is far and 

away superior to take up, study and instantiate even a 

small part of the doctrine, or some practice, or a text. 

This, for example, is a constant refrain in the DIAMOND 

SU TRA (Vajracchedika). 

Passages of this sort—and they are legion—are 

explicitly devaluing precisely what archaeological and 

inscriptional evidence indicates large numbers of 

Buddhist monks, nuns, and laypeople were doing 

everywhere in India in the early centuries of the common 

era: engaging in the stupa cult and making religious 

gifts. They also appear to be inflating the value 

of what large numbers of Buddhist monks, nuns, and 

laypeople might well have not been doing, but what 

the authors or compilers of Mahayana sutras wanted 

them to: seriously taking up or engaging with the doctrine. 

This looks very much like reformist rhetoric— 

conservative and the opposite of “popular”—and yet 

it, perhaps more than anything else, seems characteristic 

of a great deal and a wide range of Mahayana literature. 

Here too it is important to note that Gregory 

Schopen was almost certainly wrong—and his theory 

too must go the way of Hirakawa’s—in seeing in these 

passages only an attempt by the “new” movement to 

substitute one similar cult (the cult of the book) for 

another similar cult (the cult of relics). That such a 

substitution occurred—and perhaps rather quickly— 

is likely, but it now appears that it is very unlikely that 

this was the original or fundamental intention. That 

intention—however precarious, unpopular, or successful—was 

almost certainly to shift the religious focus 

from cult and giving to doctrine, to send monks, 

nuns, and even laymen quite literally back to their 

books. That in this attempt the book itself was—again, 

it seems, rather early—fetishized may only be a testament 

to the strong pressures toward cult and ritual that 

seem to have been in force in Indian Buddhism from 

the beginning. The success of this attempt might well 

account for the fact—otherwise so puzzling—that it is 

very difficult to find clear and uncontested Mahayana 

elements in the Indian art historical and inscriptional 


497

M AHA YA NA 

record: If adherents of the Mahayana had in fact 

heeded the injunctions in their own texts, and turned 

away from cult and giving, they would have left few 

if any traces outside their large “pamphlet” or “tract” 

literature. But any success within Mahayana groups 

would also have to be set alongside the apparent failure 

to affect the mainstream Indian Buddhist tradition 

for a very long time: That tradition not only 

continued, but increased its construction and promotion 

of monastic cult sites and objects of devotion, 

and became increasingly entangled in religious gifts— 

land, cash endowments, and business enterprises. All 

our sources for the first five centuries make this clear. 

So too, it seems, did the Mahayana: When in the late 

fifth and early sixth centuries we finally get the first 

references to the Mahayana by name, it is, again, in 

association with large grants of land. There are still 

other possible indications that the Mahayana “reform” 

was not entirely successful even among its 

own ranks: A Mahayana text like, for example, the 

Samadhiraja-su tra (King of Concentrations Su tra) is 

still spending a great deal of space asserting the primacy 

of practice over worship, of realization over religious 

giving, and still fulminating against the 

accumulation of donations—preaching to the supposedly 

converted is probably never a good sign. It is 

also important to note that such assertions are not 

necessarily unique to the Mahayana. They occur sporadically 

(already?) in some Hnayana sources, both 

sutra and vinaya, and are found even in works like 

A ryaśura’s JATAKAMALA. Such assertions may prove 

to be only an old Buddhist issue that the Mahayana 

revived. 

The Mahayana and the new bodhisattvas 

There is left, lastly, the one element that is associated 

with the Mahayana and that appears, perhaps more 

than anything else, to have had a major and lasting impact 

on Indian religious life and culture. It has already 

been noted that what evidence we have seems to suggest 

that the new Mahayana buddhas—Amitabha, and 

even less so Aksobhya and Bhaisajyaguru—may never 

have really taken root in India, and the same would 

seem to hold for an almost endless list of Mahayana 

bodhisattvas or “aspirants to awakening.” But two of 

these latter, starting from the fifth century, clearly 

caught on: the Bodhisattva Mañjuśr and the Bodhisattva 

Avalokiteśvara, especially the latter. The first 

of these, the Bodhisattva Mañjuśr, is certainly the earlier 

of the two. He, an exemplification of the new wisdom 

and emphasis on doctrine, occurs in some of the 

Mahayana sutras that can be dated early, but never really 

as anything other than a model or ideal, and certainly 

not as an object of cult or devotion. It is only 

much, much later, when his character has changed, 

that cult images of Mañjuśr occur, and even then— 

after the fifth century—they are not particularly 

numerous. It is quite otherwise with Avalokiteśvara. 

He comes later—perhaps considerably later—than 

Mañjuśr, but already in the earliest textual references 

to him of any detail (probably in a late chapter of the 

LOTUS SU TRA [SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA]), and 

the earliest undisputed art historical representations of 

him (probably some Gupta images from Sarnath and 

some reliefs from the western cave monasteries), he appears 

as a “savior” figure, and he continues in this role, 

sometimes jostling with Tara, a female competitor, until 

the “disappearance” of Buddhism from India. 

The bodhisattva concept reflected in the late forms 

of Mañjuśr and Avalokiteśvara is certainly important, 

but it remains unclear whether it is best seen as an organic 

development of specifically Mahayana ideas, or, 

rather, as a part of much larger developments that were 

occurring in Indian religion as a whole. What seems 

fairly sure, however, is that there was an earlier and 

much more prosaic—though none the less heroic— 

Mahayana conception of the bodhisattva as well. Simply 

put, this amounted to ordinary monks, nuns, and 

perhaps very committed laypersons taking a vow to 

replicate the career of Śakyamuni in all its immensity, 

committing themselves to, in effect, a long, if not endless, 

series of lifetimes spent in working for the benefit 

of others, of postponing their release and full 

enlightenment for the benefit of all. This ideal has had, 

of course, strong appeal in the modern West, but it 

also may account, at least in part, for the failure of the 

early Mahayana in India. At the least it asked too 

much—think what it would cost an individual just to 

become Saint Francis; at the worst such an ideal might 

well have appeared to religious women and men in India 

as counterintuitive, if not positively silly. What we 

know of such committed men and women would suggest 

that they were sternly conditioned to flee the very 

thing, the long cycle of rebirth, that they were being 

asked to embrace. In the end, however—and that is 

where we are—this may simply be yet another thing 

we do not really know about the Mahayana. 

See also: Madhyamaka School; Mainstream Buddhist 

Schools; Merit and Merit-Making; Prajñaparamita 

Literature; Relics and Relics Cults; Yogacara School 


M AHA YA NA P RECEPTS IN J APAN 

Bibliography 

Bechert, Heinz. “Notes on the Formation of Buddhist Sects and 

the Origins of Mahayana.” In German Scholars on India, Vol. 

1. Varanasi, India: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 

1973. 

Boucher, Daniel. “The Textual History of the Rastrapalapariprccha: 

Notes on Its Third-Century Chinese Translation.” 

In Annual Report of the International Research Institute 

for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University for the Academic 

Year 2000. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced 

Buddhology, Soka University, 2001. 

Conze, Edward. “Mahayana Buddhism.” In The Concise Encyclopaedia 

of Living Faiths, ed. R. C. Zaehner. London: 

Hutchinson, 1959. 

Deleanu, Florin. “A Preliminary Study on Meditation and the 

Beginnings of Mahayana Buddhism.” In Annual Report of 

the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology 

at Soka University for the Academic Year 1999. Tokyo: International 

Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka 


Dutt, Nalinaksha. Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and Its Relation 

to Hlnayana. London: Luzac, 1930. 

Harrison, Paul. “Searching for the Origins of the Mahayana.” 


Hirakawa, Akira. “The Rise of Mahayana Buddhism and Its Relationship 

to the Worship of Stupas.” Memoirs of the Research 

Department of the Toyo Bunko 22 (1963): 57–106. 

Lamotte, Étienne. “Sur la formation du Mahayana.” In Asiatica: 

Festschrift Friedrich Weller. Leipzig, Germay: Harrassowitz, 

1954. 

Nattier, Jan. A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path According 

to the Inquiry of Ugra (Ugrapariprccha). Honolulu: University 


Ray, Reginald A. Buddhist Saints in India: A Study of Buddhist 

Values and Orientations. New York and Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 1994. 

Sasaki, Shizuka. “A Study on the Origin of Mahayana Buddhism.” 


Schopen, Gregory. Figments and Fragments of a Mahayana Buddhism 

in India: More Collected Papers. Honolulu: University 


Shimoda, Masahiro. A Study of the Mahaparinirvanasu tra: With 

a Focus on the Methodology of the Study of Mahayanasu tras 

(In Japanese, with English summary). Tokyo: Shunjusha, 

1997. 

Silk, Jonathan A. “What, if Anything, Is Mahayana Buddhism? 

Problems of Definitions and Classifications.” Numen 49 

(2002): 76–109. 

Stcherbatsky, Th. The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana (1927). 

The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton, 1965. 

Williams, Paul. Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. 

London and New York: Routledge, 1989. 

Williams, Paul. Buddhist Thought: A Complete Introduction to 

the Indian Tradition. London and New York: Routledge, 

2000. 


Adaption of Buddhism in Early Medieval China. Leiden, 


MAHA YA NA PRECEPTS IN JAPAN 


The term Mahayana precepts is usually used to differentiate 

lists of PRECEPTS or rules found in MAHAYANA 

texts from those found in the VINAYA, the traditional 

source upon which monastic discipline was based. A 

large number of Mahayana texts contain such lists, 

some detailed and others very simple. 

The history of Mahayana precepts in Japan was decisively 

influenced by the country’s geography. Japan 

is an island country; during the Nara period, it was difficult 

to reach from the Asian mainland, and therefore 

difficult for ORDINATIONS to be performed in the orthodox 

manner, in rituals presided over by ten monks 

who had correctly received the precepts. GANJIN 

(688–763), for example, tried six times to lead a group 

of monks from China to Japan so that they could conduct 

a proper ordination. As a result, at least some 

monks resorted to self-ordinations, a Mahayana ritual 

in which monks would go before an image of the Buddha 

and perform confessions and meditate until they 

received a sign from the Buddha sanctioning their ordination, 

a sign that could occur either while they were 

awake or in a dream. In addition, government control 

of ordinations led other monks to use Mahayana precepts 

to ordain their followers. The most famous example 

of this is Gyoki (668–749), who used a set of 

Mahayana precepts, probably from the Yogacarabhu 

mi, to ordain groups of men and women who performed 

social works, such as building bridges and 

irrigation systems, activities specified in some sets of 

Mahayana rules. 

The term Mahayana precepts was frequently used 

in a polemical manner to criticize the rules of the 

vinaya. However, most monks who adhered to the 

vinaya rules believed that they were following precepts 

that were largely or completely consistent with 

Mahayana teachings. Ganjin used an ordination platform 

that included an image of two buddhas sitting 


499

M AHA YA NA P RECEPTS IN J APAN 

in a reliquary. This image is peculiar to the LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) and indicated 

that Ganjin probably interpreted the vinaya in a manner 

consistent with Tendai teachings that enabled him 

to “open and reconcile” HINAYANA teachings of the 

MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS with those of Mahayana 

so that no contradiction occurred. Moreover, 

Japanese monks were also ordained with the fiftyeight 

rules from a Mahayana text, FANWANG JING 

(BRAHMA’S NET SU TRA). In this case, the Mahayana 

precepts were intended to supplement those found in 

the vinaya, thereby giving the practitioner a Mahayana 

perspective. As a result, virtually the entire history of 

Buddhist precepts in Japan could fall under the rubric 

of Mahayana precepts. 

A decisive break with the rules of the vinaya occurred 

when SAICHO (767–822), founder of the Tendai 

School, argued that his monks should use the fiftyeight 

Mahayana precepts of the Brahma’s Net Su tra for 

their ordinations. Saicho’s main objective was to free 

his monks from administrative control of his adversaries 

in the Buddhist schools of Nara. His commitment 

to traditional standards of monastic discipline is 

revealed in a provision that Tendai monks “provisionally 

receive the Hnayana precepts” after twelve 

years on Mount Hiei. Because Saicho died before the 

court accepted his proposals, Tendai monks were left 

without clear instructions on how the terse precepts of 

the Brahma’s Net Su tra were to be interpreted when 

they were the main basis of monastic discipline. 

According to the Brahma’s Net Su tra, when the major 

precepts of the sutra were violated, confession, followed 

by a sign from the Buddha, served to restore 

the precepts. If a person did not receive a sign, the 

precepts could be received again. When esoteric Buddhist 

practices were used, a DHARAN I (magical spell) 

might be sufficient to remove the karmic consequences 

of wrongdoing. Some later Tendai monks 

such as Annen (late ninth century) argued that the 

esoteric Buddhist precepts were predominant, but 

these were so abstract that they offered little concrete 

guidance to monks. Several centuries later, Tendai 

monks argued that the principles of the Lotus Su tra, 

a vague set of recommendations, were sufficient to 

serve as precepts. Such interpretations meant that the 

Buddhist order of monks and nuns played little or no 

role in enforcing the precepts. In some cases, 

monastery rules might play a role in providing standards 

for behavior, but Tendai monastic discipline 

went into general decline. 

A number of monks made efforts to revive monastic 

discipline. Monks such as Shunjo (1166–1227) traveled 

to China and brought back the practice of using 

ordinations based on the vinaya but interpreting the 

precepts in a Mahayana manner based on Tiantai 

teachings. Ninku (1309–1388) tried to strengthen 

monastic discipline by emphasizing stricter adherence 

to the Brahma’s Net precepts. Instead of relying on the 

terse precepts found in that sutra, he wrote detailed 

subcommentaries on the text, basing his interpretation 

of the precepts on a commentary by the de facto 

founder of the Chinese TIANTAI SCHOOL, ZHIYI (538– 

597). Koen (1263–1317) was the center of another 

group based at Kurdani on Mount Hiei that tried to 

revive monastic discipline by reviving Saicho’s twelveyear 

period of sequestration on Mount Hiei. At the end 

of the sequestration, a ritual called a “consecrated ordination” 

was conducted in which a monk and his 

teacher affirmed that they had realized buddhahood 

with this very body through their adherence to the precepts. 

Myoryu (1637–1690) and Reiku (1652–1739) 

used Saicho’s statement allowing monks to “provisionally 

receive the Hnayana precepts” to argue that 

the vinaya could be used to supplement the Brahma’s 

Net Su tra. 

The issues and approaches that appeared in Tendai 

affected other schools in a variety of ways. Many Zen 

monks also strove to revive the precepts by using “Mahayana 

precepts.” Eisai (1141–1215), often considered 

the founder of Rinzai Zen, deemed the precepts from 

the vinaya to be the basis of Zen and wrote several 

works on them. DO GEN (1200–1253) used a unique set 

of sixteen Mahayana precepts for ordinations and 

wrote extensively on monastic discipline. The various 

Pure Land traditions interpreted the precepts in several 

ways, sometimes citing the DECLINE OF THE 

DHARMA (mappo ) as a reason why they were no longer 

valid, as in the case of Shinshu. However, the various 

branches of the Jodo school continued to use precepts 

in their ordinations even though monks frequently 

were not required to follow them. For NICHIREN, adherence 

to the Lotus Su tra served as the precepts. In 

addition, the establishment of an “ordination platform 

of the original teaching” played a role in Nichiren’s 

later thinking; the concept, however, was not clearly 

defined and has been interpreted in a variety of ways 

by later thinkers. Eison, founder of the Shingon Ritsu 

tradition, used a Mahayana self-ordination to establish 

a new lineage that followed the vinaya. 

In the last few centuries, few Japanese monks have 

followed any set of precepts closely. However, discus- 


M AINSTREAM B UDDHIST S CHOOLS 

sions of the role of precepts have continued to be important, 

as is shown by the fierce arguments that ensued 

when the Meiji government made celibacy and 

meat-eating optional. Even though many monks did 

not observe these rules, the prestige lost by the new 

government ruling was important. In addition, the use 

of Mahayana precepts for lay believers should be 

noted. These are conferred on laity who wish to have 

ethical rules to guide their lives; these precepts are also 

used to ordain the dead so that they will have a good 

rebirth. In conclusion, although Japan is often described 

as a country where monks do not follow the 

precepts, they have discussed them continuously for 

well over a millennium. 

See also: Japan; Meiji Buddhist Reform 

Bibliography 



Groner, Paul. “The Fan-wang ching and Monastic Discipline in 

Japanese Tendai: A Study of Annen’s Futsu jubosatsukai 

ko shaku.” In Buddhist Apocryphal Literature, ed. Robert E. 



School. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. 

Groner, Paul. “Vicissitudes in the Ordinations of Nuns during 

the Late Nara and Early Heian Periods.” In Engendering 

Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan, ed. Barbara 

Ruch. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University 

of Michigan, 2002. 

Jaffe, Richard. Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in 

Modern Japanese Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 2001. 

MAHIŚA SAKA 

PAUL GRONER 

The Mahśasaka mainstream Indian Buddhist school, 

a subschool of the Sthavira branch, was prominent in 

southern India and was closely tied historically and 

doctrinally to the THERAVADA school. The term 

Mahlśasaka is variously interpreted as referring to the 

name of the founder, a geographical locale, or to their 

role in governing or instructing the earth. 


COLLETT COX 

MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS 

By several centuries after the death of the Buddha, the 

itinerant mendicants following his way had formed settled 

communities and had changed irrevocably their 

received methods of both teaching and praxis. These 

changes were inevitable, a consequence of the growth 

and geographic dispersion of the practicing communities. 

Confronted with new challenges and opportunities 

in an increasingly organized institutional setting, 

monks expanded and elaborated both doctrine and 

disciplinary codes, created new textual genres, developed 

new forms of religious praxis, and eventually divided 

into numerous sects or schools. 

The character of mainstream Buddhist schools 

Unfortunately, sources for this period, including documents, 

inscriptions, and archaeological evidence, are 

poor. Inscriptions and archaeological finds, while providing 

a priceless contemporaneous record, are limited 

in detail. Documentary sources, including chronicles, 

doxographies, translator records, narrative sections of 

canonical texts, lists of teachers or school lineages, and 

the diaries of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who visited 

India from the fifth to seventh centuries C.E., provide 

greater detail, but postdate the emergence of schools by 

several centuries. As themselves products of the sectarian 

fragmentation that they describe, these documentary 

sources are colored by sectarian agendas. 

Nevertheless, they furnish valuable insight into the values 

and objectives of the developing Buddhist tradition. 

A picture of the history of Buddhist schools depends 

upon reconstruction of the major events in the early 

history of Buddhism in India: the life of the Buddha; 

the communal recitations or councils; the so-called 

first schism; and the fragmentation of the monastic 

community after this initial schism. Also important are 

more general questions concerning the criteria by 

which various groups were distinguished from one another 

and the notion of what constituted a sect or 

school within the tradition. It is unclear whether the 

school names mentioned in traditional sources were 

intended to refer to independent groups distinguished 

on similar grounds. Nor is it clear whether the notion 

of what constituted a sect or school remained consistent 

in sources of different periods. For example, certain 

school names corresponded to separate communities of 

practitioners distinguished by distinct ordination lineages 

and collections of monastic disciplinary codes. 

Other names, especially those that appear in the doctrinal 

scholastic texts and later doxographical treatises, 


501


appear to have been used not to mark distinct communities 

of practitioners, but simply for heuristic purposes, 

to represent differences in doctrinal perspective 

or teaching lineage. As a result, different source texts 

emphasize different factors that contributed to sectarian 

fragmentation. These contributing factors include 

geographical separation, language differences, doctrinal 

disagreements, selective patronage, the influence of 

non-Buddhists, lineage loyalties to specific teachers, 

the absence of a recognized supreme authority or unifying 

institutional structure, varying degrees of laxness 

regarding or active disagreements over disciplinary 

codes, and specialization by various monastic groups 

in differing segments of Buddhist SCRIPTURE. 

Further, the image of a harmonious early community 

from which distinct sects or schools emerged 

through gradual divergence in practice and in teaching 

must be questioned. Traditional sources attest to 

discord among the Buddha’s disciples even during his 

lifetime, and relate that at the Buddha’s death one 

monk, Subhadra, rejoiced since his followers would 

now be free to do as they liked. Similarly, accounts of 

the first communal recitation or council held soon after 

the Buddha’s death record that one group of practitioners 

led by Purana rejected the consensual 

understanding of the Buddha’s teaching and preferred 

instead to transmit it as Purana himself had heard it. 

Whether literally true or not, these stories affirm that 

the later traditions conceived of their own early history 

as involving both consensus and dissent. 

The first schism 

Virtually all later sources agree that the first schism 

within the early Buddhist community occurred with 

the separation of the MAHASAM GHIKA SCHOOL, or 

“those of the great community,” from the remaining 

monks referred to as Sthaviras, or the “elders.” Complex 

and inconsistent, these traditional sources postdate 

the first schism by several centuries and reflect the 

biases and viewpoints of separate transmission lineages. 

Hence, the actual circumstances for the first 

schism remain obscure and tied to other roughly contemporaneous 

events that later traditions connect with 

possibly three additional early councils. The first of 

these events, recorded in the monastic records of virtually 

all later schools, is the council of Vaiśal, which 

most sources date to approximately one hundred years 

after the death of the Buddha. Monastic records suggest 

that this council was convened in response to a 

disagreement over certain rules of monastic discipline, 

but do not state that the council resulted in a schism. 

Later Pali chronicles and the records of Chinese pilgrims 

and translators explicitly link the first schism 

with the outcome of either the first council immediately 

after the death of the Buddha or this second council 

of Vaiśal. They relate that some participants would 

not accept the communal recitation of the teaching at 

the first council or the decisions concerning the rules 

of monastic discipline rendered at the second council. 

These dissenters, who constituted the adherents of the 

“great community” (mahasam gha), recited a textual 

collection of their own and formed a separate Mahasam 

ghika school. 

Other northern Indian Buddhist sources, all postdating 

the second century C.E., associate the first 

schism with yet another council, claimed to have been 

held at Pataliputra during the mid-third century B.C.E. 

As a reason for this council, they cite discord over a 

doctrinal issue, specifically five points concerning 

characteristics of a “worthy one,” or ARHAT. These five 

points suggest that arhats are subject to retrogression 

from their level of religious attainment or to limitations 

such as DOUBT, ignorance, various forms of assistance 

from or stimulation by others, or the 

employment of artificial devices such as vocal utterances 

in the practice of the PATH. Although these 

points have been interpreted in traditional and many 

modern sources as an attempt to downgrade the status 

of the arhat in general, it is possible that they reflect 

an attempt primarily to distinguish and to clarify 

specific stages in religious praxis. The later textual 

sources of the northern early Buddhist schools relate 

that the supporters of the five points were more 

numerous and hence were referred to as the Mahasam 

ghikas, “those of the great community”; the minority 

opponents were then referred to as the “elders,” 

or Sthaviras. 

Finally, Pali sources record yet another council held 

in the third century B.C.E. at Pataliputra under the auspices 

of King AŚOKA. According to these accounts, after 

years of discord within the monastic community, 

Aśoka convened a council under the direction of the 

Buddhist monk Moggaliputta Tissa in order to rectify 

monastic conduct and to root out heretical views. After 

questioning by Aśoka, sixty thousand monks were 

expelled from the community, and a select group of 

some one thousand monks were charged to set down 

the contents of the Buddha’s true teaching. Moggaliputta 

Tissa is said to have recorded both the heretical 

views and their refutation in the Pali scholastic text, 

the Kathavatthu (Points of Discussion). Pali sources 

also relate that at the conclusion of the council, Aśoka 



promulgated an edict inveighing against future divisions 

within the community and sent missionaries to 

spread the Buddha’s teaching throughout his kingdom 

and beyond. 

This particular account of a council at Pataliputra, 

found only within Pali sources, may reflect a conflict 

limited to the predecessors of the later THERAVADA 

school. However, the so-called schism edict promulgated 

during the reign of King Aśoka provides additional 

evidence of concern about discord within the 

Buddhist monastic community during the third century 

B.C.E. that was sufficient to warrant secular intervention. 

Despite differences in the scholarly 

interpretation of certain directives presented within 

the edict, it clearly condemns formal division within 

the monastic community (saṅghabheda) and declares 

that the community of monks and nuns should be 

united. Thus, this edict implies the presence of or at 

least the threat of divisions within a community that 

ideally should be united and stable. 

Hence, the traditional sources do not paint a coherent 

picture of the reasons for the first schism, but instead 

offer two radically different possibilities, each 

reflected in later sectarian accounts. The Theravada and 

Mahasam ghika sources cite differences in the monastic 

disciplinary code, and the Sarvastivada sources, differences 

in doctrinal interpretation. The former possibility 

finds support in the oldest Mahasam ghika account 

of the schism, the Śariputrapariprccha (Questions of 

Śariputra). Here the Mahasam ghikas object to an attempt 

to tighten discipline through an expansion of the 

monastic disciplinary code and prefer instead to preserve 

the more restricted disciplinary rules as they stood. 

Scholarly consensus also prefers the view that the 

earliest distinct Buddhist groups emerged not through 

disagreements over doctrine, but rather through differences 

in their lineages of ORDINATION (upasampada) 

and in monastic disciplinary codes (VINAYA). While variety 

in doctrinal interpretation certainly existed even 

in the early period, the definition of formal division 

within the monastic community, which was eventually 

to be accepted by all groups, specifies monastic discipline 

as the key factor in the formation of independent 

groups. If this was indeed the case, then the names of 

schools reflecting differences in doctrinal interpretation, 

which are preserved in the later scholastic and 

COMMENTARIAL LITERATURE, cannot automatically be 

assumed to denote independent monastic communities, 

additionally defined by different ordination 

lineages and monastic disciplinary codes. These doctrinally 

distinguished school names may instead have 

functioned simply as heuristic labels, meaningful 

within the context of doctrinal interpretation, scholastic 

debate, and teaching lineages, but having limited 

significance in the life of the monastic community as 

a whole. Such an interpretation would be consistent 

with the reports of Chinese pilgrims that monks of different 

doctrinal persuasion resided together within the 

same monastery, where they were presumably unified 

by the same ordination lineage and monastic disciplinary 

code. Distinct monastic disciplinary codes (vinaya) 

of only six schools have been preserved: Mahasam ghika, 

MAHIŚASAKA, DHARMAGUPTAKA, Theravada, SARVASTI- 

VADA AND MULASARVASTIVADA. Therefore, at the very 

least, these six school names denote independent 

groups with distinct lineages of authority and separate 

monastic communities. In general, relations even 

among schools distinguished on the basis of monastic 

disciplinary code were generally not hostile. All practitioners 

were to be accepted as disciples of the Buddha, 

and to be treated with courtesy, regardless of 

differing disciplinary or doctrinal allegiances. 

Traditional mainstream schools 

Traditional sources maintain that eighteen schools 

emerged following the first schism, but since more 

than thirty school names are recorded, the number 

eighteen may have been chosen for its symbolic significance. 

The variety of names points to different origins 

for the schools, including a geographical locale 

(e.g., Haimavata, “those of the snowy mountains”), a 

specific teacher (e.g., Vatsputrya, “those affiliated 

with Vatsputra,” or Dharmaguptaka, “those affiliated 

with Dharmagupta”), a simple descriptive qualification 

(e.g., Mahasam ghika, “those of the great community,” 

or Bahuśrutya, “those who have heard 

much”), or a distinctive doctrinal position (e.g., Sarvastivada, 

“those who claim that everything exists,” or 

Vibhajyavada, “those who make distinctions,” or 

SAUTRANTIKA, “those who rely upon the sutras”). The 

later doxographical accounts, each of which is colored 

by its own sectarian bias, do not agree on the chronology 

or on the order in which the schools emerged, but 

instead give temporal primacy to the particular group 

or school with which they were affiliated. They do, 

however, tend to agree on the basic filiation of the 

schools with either the Sthavira or the Mahasam ghika 

branch and generally concur that the additional 

schools were formed within a century or two of the 

first schism. 


503


The Mahasa m ghika branch. From the Mahasam ghika 

branch, according to tradition, initially arose three major 

groups, each of which was associated in later accounts 

with additional school names. One group, the 

Kaukkutika, may have derived its name from the 

Kukkutarama Monastery in Pataliputra. The name of 

a second group, the Ekavyavaharika (or Lokottaravada) 

refers to “those who make a single utterance.” Later 

sources interpret this name as reflecting the view that 

all phenomena can be described by one utterance, 

namely, the fact that all entities exist merely as mental 

constructs or provisional designations. However, the 

name could also be interpreted as referring to the distinctive 

doctrinal position of this school that the Buddha 

offers only one utterance, namely, a transcendent 

utterance. This interpretation would be consistent with 

an alternative or possibly later name for this group, 

Lokottaravada, or “those who claim that (the Buddha 

and his utterance) are transcendent.” Such a concern 

with the character of the utterance of the Buddha is 

also evident in the views associated with the schools 

that emerged from the first group of the Kaukkutika: 

namely, the Bahuśrutya, who claimed that the Buddha 

offered both transcendent and ordinary teachings, 

and the Prajñaptivada, or “those who offer provisional 

designations,” which might also imply the claim that 

the Buddha utilized not simply transcendent utterance 

or absolutely true language, but also provisional designations 

or relative language. 

Thus, the original Mahasam ghika branch appears 

to have been divided, at least in part, on the basis of a 

difference of opinion concerning the fundamental 

character of the Buddha’s teaching, either as exclusively 

transcendent or as both transcendent and provisional. 

A third group emerging from the 

Mahasa mghika branch, the Caitya, centered in the region 

of Andhra in southern India, were presumably 

named in accordance with their practice of worship at 

shrines (caitya). They were also associated with a 

teacher, Mahadeva, who adopted and possibly reworked 

the five points concerning the characteristics 

of a “worthy one” that were cited by northern Indian 

Buddhist sources as the reason for the first schism between 

the Mahasam ghikas and the Sthaviras. 

The Sthavira branch. Later accounts record as many 

as twenty or more schools that trace their origin to the 

Sthavira branch. Despite inconsistency in these accounts, 

the first to emerge was probably the Vatsputrya 

(or Sam matya), also referred to as the 

PUDGALAVADA, or “those who claim that person(hood) 

(pudgala) exists.” The Pudgalavadins were attacked vociferously 

by other Buddhists schools for violating the 

most basic of Buddhist teachings, namely, that no self 

is to be found (anatman). The opponents of the 

Pudgalavadins argued that animate beings exist only 

as a collection of components or SKANDHA (AGGRE- 

GATE), which are conditioned and impermanent. Any 

unifying entity such as personhood exists only as a 

mental construct or a provisional designation, which 

has no reality in itself. For the Pudgalavadins, this view 

was tantamount to nihilism. They saw a unifying entity 

of some type as a necessary basis for the notion of 

mutually distinct animate beings and for the continuity 

of their experience. Otherwise, the phenomena of 

moral action, REBIRTH, and religious attainment accepted 

by all Buddhists would be impossible. Consistent 

with this position, the Pudgalavadins also 

maintained the existence of an INTERMEDIATE STATE 

(antarabhava) after death, a transition state that links 

the aggregates of one lifetime with those of the next. 

Pudgalavada positions that are presented and criticized 

in extant textual sources suggest that the Pudgalavadins 

did not simply defend the existence of personhood, 

but also used a distinctive method of 

argumentation that challenged the growing rigidity of 

stringent Buddhist scholastic analysis. Pudgalavada arguments 

employ a sophisticated method of negative 

dialectics that continues certain tendencies in the earlier 

sutra dialogues and stands in sharp contrast to their 

opponents’ more straightforward, positivist methods. 

Sarvastivada. Apart from the Pudgalavada, the 

Sthavira branch was further divided into two groups: 

the Sarvastivada and the Vibhajyavada. Evidence for 

an initial threefold split within the Sthavira branch 

among the Pudgalavadins, Vibhajyavadins, and Sarvastivadins 

comes from two early scholastic treatises, the 

Kathavatthu of the Theravadins and the Vijñanakaya 

(Collection on Perceptual Consciousness) of the Sarvastivadins. 

Traditional sources date the Kathavatthu 

to the period of King Aśoka (third century B.C.E.), but 

the presence in the Kathavatthu of doctrinal positions 

associated with each of these three groups does not 

prove that adherents of these views formed separate 

schools at that time. The earliest inscriptional references 

to the name Sarvastivada, found in the northwestern 

regions of Kashmir and Gandhara as well as 

in the north central region of Mathura, date from the 

first century C.E. Both regions are connected by tradition 

with prominent early Sarvastivada teachers and 

later became strongholds of the Sarvastivada school. 



Much of the Sarvastivada version of the Buddhist 

CANON is preserved in Chinese translations, including 

the complete monastic disciplinary code (vinaya), a 

portion of the dialogues (sutra), and the complete collection 

of scholastic treatises (ABHIDHARMA), as well as 

many other postcanonical scholastic texts and commentaries. 

The presence of certain texts in multiple recensions 

confirms that the Sarvastivada school was not 

homogeneous, but was rather a vast group distinguished 

by regional, chronological, doctrinal, and 

other differences. This was most likely true of all early 

Buddhist schools. In the case of the Sarvastivada 

school, these internal distinctions are clearly demarcated 

in their scholastic texts by the attribution of distinct 

doctrinal positions to Sarvastivada groups of 

different regions. 

Intragroup differences within the Sarvastivada 

school also may have led directly to the emergence of 

a Mulasarvastivada school, whose separate monastic 

disciplinary code survives in Sanskrit, and to whom 

can probably be attributed other assorted sutra dialogues 

and miscellaneous texts preserved in Chinese 

translation. The precise identity, however, of the 

Mulasarvastivadins remains elusive, and their relation 

to the Sarvastivadins a point of scholarly disagreement. 

Some suggest that the Mulasarvastivadins represent 

merely a later phase in the development of the Sarvastivada 

sectarian stream. Others see the distinction 

as reflecting both geographical and chronological differences 

within the Sarvastivada school, which was 

widespread throughout northern India and Central 

Asia, and in particular in the northwestern region of 

Kashmir and Gandhara and the north central region 

of Mathura. In this latter view, when the Sarvastivada 

school of the northwest declined in prominence, the 

Sarvastivadins of Mathura became more significant 

and adopted the name Mulasarvastivada (root Sarvastivada) 

to proclaim their status as the original 

Sarvastivadins. 

The Sarvastivadins of northwest India were 

renowned for their scholarly study of Buddhist doctrine 

or abhidharma. From compiling voluminous 

treatises called vibhasa, commentaries on the most significant 

of their canonical abhidharma scriptures, 

those in the Kashmiri Sarvastivada branch eventually 

came to be called Sarvastivada-Vaibhasika. The last 

and best known of these vibhasa treatises is called the 

Mahavibhasa (Great Exegesis). The later Sarvastivada 

summary digests and pedagogical manuals of abhidharma 

contain detailed discussions of all manner of 

doctrinal issues from ontology to religious praxis. The 

most controversial of these issues is the position from 

which the name Sarvastivada is derived: namely, sarvam 

asti or “everything exists,” referring specifically to 

the existence of conditioned factors (dharma) in the 

three time periods of the past, present, and future. This 

assertion was motivated by the need to provide a basis 

for the commonly perceived efficacy of past and future 

causes and conditions. If past actions are accepted 

as conditions for the arising of present events, and past 

or future entities function as objects of recollection or 

presentiment, these past and future actions or entities 

must, the Sarvastivadins claim, be admitted to exist. 

Attacked for violating the fundamental Buddhist doctrine 

of impermanence, the Sarvastivadins responded 

with an elaborate ontology that attempted both to delimit 

the specific manner in which past and future factors 

exist and to preserve their conditioned and hence 

impermanent character. 

Most prominent among the critics of this hallmark 

Sarvastivada position were the Sautrantikas or Darstantikas. 

The original meanings and referents of these 

names as well as their relationship to one another remain 

the subject of scholarly disagreement. Since no 

evidence survives of a separate Sautrantika or Darstantika 

monastic disciplinary code, they would appear to 

represent a particular doctrinal perspective, most likely 

the same doctrinal party within the Sarvastivada school. 

Proponents of this group may have used the term 

Sautrantika (those who rely upon the sutras) selfreferentially, 

and their opponents among the Sarvastivadins 

may have labeled them pejoratively as 

Darstantika (those who employ examples). The 

Sautrantika/Darstantikas criticized orthodox Sarvastivada 

ontology as thinly veiled permanence and instead 

argued for a doctrine of extreme momentariness. They 

rejected unequivocally the existence of past and future 

factors, and equated the existence of present factors 

with an instantaneous exertion of activity. In contrast 

to the complex array of existent factors proposed by the 

Sarvastivadins, the Sautrantika/Darstantikas claimed 

that experience is best described as an indistinguishable 

process. The name Sautrantika, “those who rely upon 

the sutras,” also indicates a rejection of the authority 

that the Sarvastivadins bestowed upon their separate 

canonical abhidharma collection. 

Vibhajyava da. The connotation of the term Vibhajyavada 

has also been the subject of prolonged scholarly 

disagreement, largely because of the variety of 

senses in which the term was used over time. In the 

early sutras, Vibhajyavada occurs as a descriptive term 


505


for the Buddha, who, in reference to various specific 

issues, is said to “discriminate” carefully rather than to 

take an exclusivist position. In their accounts of the 

council at Pataliputra, later Pali sources use the term 

Vibhajyavada to describe the correct teaching of the 

Buddha, and within Pali materials the name continues 

to be used as one among several names for the Theravada 

sect. A third-century C.E. inscription links the 

term Vibhajyavada with the Sthaviras located in the regions 

of Kashmir, Gandhara, Bactria, Vanavasa (i.e., 

Karnataka), and the island of Sri Lanka. This connection 

between the Vibhajyavadins and the northwestern 

regions of Kashmir, Gandhara, and Bactria clearly 

indicates that Vibhajyavada was not simply another 

name for the Theravada school. The Mahśasakas, 

Dharmaguptakas, and the Kaśyapyas, attested in inscriptions 

from the Northwest, are all connected by 

later sources with the Vibhajyavadins. As a result, the 

name Vibhajyavada might be best characterized as a 

loose umbrella term for those, excluding the Sarvastivadins, 

who belonged to the original Sthavira branch. 

A review of the many specific doctrinal views explicitly 

attributed to the Vibhajyavadins in the scholastic 

literature of the Sarvastivadins supports this 

interpretation. These viewpoints do not form a coherent 

group, but rather are unified simply by virtue of 

being opposed to respective Sarvastivada positions. For 

example, the Vibhajyavadins are said to support that: 

thought is inherently pure; form (ru pa) occurs even in 

the formless realm (aru pyadhatu); a subtle form of 

thought remains in states claimed to be without 

thought; PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINA- 

TION) and the path (marga) are unconditioned; there 

is no intermediate state (antarabhava) between rebirth 

states; clear comprehension (abhisamaya) of the FOUR 

NOBLE TRUTHS occurs in a single moment; worthy ones 

(arhat) cannot retrogress from their level of religious 

attainment; and finally, that the time periods (adhvan) 

are permanent in contrast to conditioned factors, 

which are impermanent. Various doctrinal positions 

attributed to the Mahśasakas, Dharmaguptakas, Kaśyapyas, 

or the Darstantikas are also assigned to the 

Vibhajyavadins, but each of these schools is characterized 

by views distinct from the others. For example, 

the Mahśasakas and the Dharmaguptakas disagreed 

on whether or not the Buddha should be considered 

as a part of the monastic community and on the relative 

merit of offerings to each. The Mahśasakas saw 

offerings to the community, which included the Buddha, 

as more meritorious, and the Dharmaguptakas 

advocated offerings to the STU PA as representing the 

unsurpassed path of the Buddha, who is distinct from 

and far superior to the community. 

Also associated with the Vibhajyavadins, the Theravada 

school became dominant in Sri Lanka and 

Southeast Asia and survives there to the present day. 

The connection of the Theravada school to the original 

Sthavira branch is clearly indicated by its Pali name 

thera, which is equivalent to the Sanskrit, sthavira, and 

by close ties to the Mahśasaka school suggested by 

both textual and doctrinal similarities. Traditional 

sources claim that Buddhism was brought to Sri Lanka 

by the missionary Mahinda, either after the death of 

Buddha’s direct disciple, A NANDA, or during the reign 

of Aśoka in the mid-third century B.C.E. By the fourth 

century C.E., the Theravada school had divided into 

three subgroups, distinguished by their monastic centers: 

the Mahaviharavasins from the Mahavihara 

founded at the time of the introduction of Buddhism 

to Sri Lanka; the Abhayagirivasins, dating from some 

two centuries later; and finally the Jetavanyas, dating 

from the fourth century C.E. 

The Theravada textual collection, including both 

canonical and extensive extracanonical and commentarial 

texts, is the only early Buddhist collection extant, 

in toto, in an Indian language (Pali). Theravada doctrinal 

positions often accord with those attributed to 

the Vibhajyavadins, in opposition to those of the Sarvastivadins. 

For example, like the Vibhajyavadins, the 

Theravadins claim that thought in its fundamental 

state is pure, that there is no intermediate state (antarabhava) 

between rebirth states, that clear comprehension 

(abhisamaya) of the four noble truths occurs 

in a single moment, and that worthy ones (arhat) cannot 

retrogress from their level of religious attainment. 

Perhaps the most distinctive view adopted by the Theravadins 

is that of a fundamental and inactive state of 

mind (bhavaṅga), to which the mind returns after each 

discrete moment of thought, and by which one rebirth 

state is connected with the next. Further, regarding the 

Sarvastivada claim that factors exist in the past and future, 

the Theravadins adopt the position that only present 

factors exist. However, on some positions the 

Theravadins agree with the Sarvastivadins (e.g., that 

there are five possible rebirth states; that all forms of 

defilement are associated with thought), and on still 

others, they differ from both the Vibhajyavadins and 

the Sarvastivadins (e.g., that NIRVAN A is the only unconditioned 

factor). Thus once again, a doctrinal picture 

of the various early Indian Buddhist schools 

reveals a complex mosaic of both shared and distinctive 

doctrinal positions. 


M AITREYA 

Mahayana 

The development of the MAHAYANA must also be 

viewed in the context of the mainstream Buddhist 

schools. Differing scholarly opinions attempt to locate 

the origin of Mahayana variously within the confines 

of a particular mainstream Buddhist doctrinal school, 

in ascetic movements within mainstream Buddhist 

monasteries, or among lay religious practitioners. Although 

it is doubtful that any particular mainstream 

Buddhist school can lay claim to the Mahayana, it is 

clear that later Mahayana practitioners adopted the 

monastic disciplinary codes of mainstream Buddhist 

schools. Further, key doctrinal positions later associated 

with Mahayana can be traced to mainstream Buddhist 

doctrinal works: for example, the religious ideal 

of the BODHISATTVA; the six PARAMITA (PERFECTIONS) 

that are the cornerstone of Mahayana religious praxis; 

the theory of multiple forms of the Buddha; and a fundamental, 

subtle form of thought. But in more general 

terms, the methods of philosophical argumentation, 

areas of doctrinal investigation, and modes of communal 

religious life and praxis that were established in 

mainstream Buddhist schools determined the course 

of Buddhist inquiry and practice in India for some one 

thousand years. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the; Councils, Buddhist 

Bibliography 

Bareau, André. Les Sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule. Saigon, 

Vietnam: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1955. 

Bechert, Heinz. “The Importance of Aśoka’s So-Called Schism 

Edict.” In Indological and Buddhist Studies: Volume in Honour 

of J. W. de Jong on His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. L. A. Hercus 

et al. Canberra: Faculty of Asian Studies, Australia 

National University, 1982. 

Chau, Thich Thien. The Literature of the Personalists of Early 

Buddhism, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Ho Chi Minh City: Vietnam 

Buddhist Research Institute, 1997. 

Cousins, Lance S. “The ‘Five Points’ and the Origins of the Buddhist 

Schools.” In The Buddhist Forum: Volume II, Seminar 

Papers 1988–1990, ed. Tadeusz Skorupski. London: Heritage, 

1991. 

Cousins, Lance S. “Person and Self.” In Buddhism into the Year 

2000: International Conference Proceedings. Bangkok and Los 

Angeles: Dhammakaya Foundation, 1994. 

Cousins, Lance S. “On the Vibhajjavadins: The Mahim sasaka, 

Dhammaguttaka, Kassapiya, and Tambapanniya Branches 

of the Ancient Theriyas.” Buddhist Studies Review 18, no. 2 

(2001): 131–182. 



1995. 


to the Saka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain, Belgium: 


Nattier, Janice J., and Prebish, Charles S. “Mahasaṅghika Origins: 

The Beginning of Buddhist Sectarianism.” History of 

Religions 16 (1977): 237–272. 

Norman, K. R. “Aśoka’s ‘Schism’ Edict.” In Collected Papers, 

Vol. 3. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1992. 

Sasaki, Shizuka. “Buddhist Sects in the Aśoka Period (1–8)” 

Bukkyo Kenkyu 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28 (1989–1999). 

MAITREYA 

COLLETT COX 

Maitreya is the bodhisattva anticipated by all Buddhists 

traditions to become the next buddha of this world, 

Jambudvpa. Currently dwelling in the Tusita heaven, 

Maitreya awaits rebirth at that time in the distant future 

when Śakyamuni Buddha’s dispensation will have 

been completely forgotten. 

Depicted as both BODHISATTVA and future buddha, 

Maitreya is frequently portrayed sitting Western-style 

with legs pendant, sometimes with ankles crossed. Another 

distinctive iconic attribute is a miniature STU PA 

or funerary mound placed at the front of his head, recalling 

the legend that Śakyamuni Buddha’s disciple 

MAHAKAŚYAPA remains suspended in meditation beneath 

a stupa, awaiting Maitreya, to whom he will 

present Śakyamuni’s robe and alms bowl, thus establishing 

the transmission of authority from one buddha 

to the next. East Asian Buddhists also recognize 

Maitreya in a particularly graceful form as the bodhisattva 

appearing in the lovely “pensive prince” pose 

and also as the “laughing buddha” ubiquitously encountered 

in the entryway of Chinese monasteries (and 

restaurants), the latter form based on the semihistorical 

sixth-century monk Putai, who was especially loved 

for his kindness to children. 

A devotional cult focusing on Maitreya developed 

very early in India, later becoming especially prominent 

in Central Asia and China during the fifth and 

sixth centuries. Devotees sought to secure rebirth in 

Tusita, first to benefit from Maitreya’s teaching there, 

and later to join him during his tenure as the next 

buddha. Although eventually eclipsed in East Asia by 


507

M AN D ALA 

the more popular AMITABHA cult, anticipation of 

Maitreya’s golden age continued to erupt periodically 

in millenarian movements that were intensely devotional 

and occasionally political as well. 

See also: Buddha(s); Millenarianism and Millenarian 

Movements 

Bibliography 

Lancaster, Lewis. “Maitreya.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, 

ed. Mircea Eliade, vol. 9. New York: Macmillan, 1987. 

Sponberg, Alan, and Hardacre, Helen, eds. Maitreya, the Future 

Buddha. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University 

Press, 1988. 

MAN D ALA 

ALAN SPONBERG 

The Sanskrit noun mandala is often translated as 

“circle” or “discoid object”; however, the term is also 

used to define visual and meditative images. Used in 

Hindu and Jain traditions as well as Buddhism, 

mandalas are described as cosmoplans both in the external 

sense as diagrams of the cosmos and in the internal 

sense as guides to the psychophysical practices 

of an adherent. Fundamentally, however, they represent 

the manifestation of a specific deity (or group 

thereof) in the cosmos and as the cosmos. Mandalas 

can include a few deities or thousands. Both figurative 

works, as well as those focusing on words, syllables, or 

attributes, are made. The principal deity, who is also 

its generative force, is usually placed at the center or 

core of the mandala. Other deities, who function both 

independently and as manifestations of the essence and 

powers of the central image, are carefully placed to illustrate 

their relation to the primary icon. A mandala 

can be understood, to some extent, as a web of forces 

radiating in and out of a self-contained and selfdefined 

spiritual cosmos. Rites based on these icons 

presume a constant dialogue between the deity at the 

heart of the mandala and the practitioner who moves, 

at least metaphorically, from the outside to its core. 

Once within, the practitioner identifies with the central 

deity, apprehends all manifestations as part of a 

single whole, and moves closer to the goal of perfect 

understanding or enlightenment. 

Preserved principally in architectural structures and 

permanent material such as wood, stone, and paint, 

mandalas are also made in ephemeral material such as 

sand or butter. The creation of a mandala is integral 

to a RITUAL, during or after which it is sometimes destroyed. 

Both permanent and impermanent examples 

are used to decorate and sanctify monasteries and 

homes, in initiation rites for monks and rulers, and as 

the focus of visualization by clergy and other advanced 

practitioners and of worship by lay followers. 

Groups of eight BODHISATTVAS assembled around a 

seated buddha (variously identified as Śakyamuni, 

AMITABHA, or Vairocana) are among the earliest and 

most widespread examples of mandala imagery. Lists 

of eight great bodhisattvas occur in early MAHA YA NA 

texts, where they are described as protectors of the 

faithful and providers of mundane blessings, and are 

linked to a group of eight BUDDHAS. In later texts such 

groupings are identified as mandalas. The first preserved 

visual examples of the Mandala of Eight Great 

Bodhisattvas date from the sixth century, and the type 

was widespread from the eighth to the twelfth century. 

Examples include an interesting portable wooden 

shrine in the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, 

Missouri; a group found along the interior walls of cave 

11 at Ellora in India; a distinctive ninefold arrangement 

from cave 12 at the same site; versions from 

Chandi Mendut, Chandi Sari, and Chandi Pawon in 

Indonesia; a large mural in cave 25 in the Yulin grottoes 

in Gansu province in China; and images in Ldan 

ma brag in the Chamdo district and the Assembly Hall 

of Gra thang Monastery in Tibet. Later painted examples 

are found in both Korea and Japan. 

Compositions of the Mandala of Eight Great Bodhisattvas 

fall into three basic types: those in which the 

eight bodhisattvas are arranged in two sets of four to 

either side of the central Buddha; those in which the 

eight bodhisattvas encircle the central Buddha; and less 

common examples in which the nine figures in the 

mandalas are arranged in groups of three placed one 

above the other. Of these, the circular arrangements, 

which provide prototypes for the inner sections of 

other mandalas, are the most influential in later Buddhist 

art. 

A Buddha surrounded by eight bodhisattvas forms 

the core of the Womb World Mandala (Sanskrit, Garbhadhatu; 

Japanese, Taizokai), whereas a ninefold 

arrangement is repeated in the structure of the Diamond 

World Mandala (Sanskrit, Vajradhatu; Japanese, 

Kongokai), examples of which are preserved since 

at least the eighth century. Found principally in Japan, 

these mandalas are shown as a pair and are placed on 

the east and west walls of the inner precinct of a tem- 


M AN D ALA 

Mandala of the Womb World. (Japanese hanging scroll, Kamakura period, thirteenth–fourteenth century.) The Brooklyn Museum of Art. 


ple. The Womb World (or Matrix) has 414 deities and 

symbolizes the possibility of buddhahood in the phenomenal 

world, while the Diamond World with 1,416 

deities is a guide to the requisite spiritual practices. 

Both the Womb World and the Diamond World 

mandalas focus on Vairocana Buddha, and both are 

further subdivided into courts, each of which has its 

own primary and secondary deities and its own theme. 


509

M AN D ALA 

Mandala of the Diamond World. (Japanese hanging scroll, Kamakura period, thirteenth–fourteenth century.) The Brooklyn Museum of 

Art. Reproduced by permission. 

For example, in the Womb World Mandala, Vairocana 

is seated in the center of an eightfold lotus containing 

four buddhas and four bodhisattvas. The mandala unfolds 

from the center in twelve sections, each containing 

a central deity and attendant figures, symbolic of 

aspects of the cosmos or the process of spiritual development. 

The three courts to the east, reading from 

the center, include six deities surrounding a central 

triangle containing the burning fire of wisdom; the 

historical Buddha, Śakyamuni, thought to be a man- 


M AN D ALA 

ifestation of Vairocana in the phenomenal world, with 

thirty-eight disciples; and at the outermost edge, Mañjuśr, 

the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, with an entourage 

of twenty-three other figures. 

Each mandala is based on a different text: the Womb 

World on the Mahavairocana-su tra (Great Vairocana 

Su tra) and the Diamond World on the Vajraśekara (Diamond 

World). The former was translated from Sanskrit 

into Chinese by the Indian Śubhakarasim ha 

(637–735) in the eighth century, while the latter is 

based on a translation by Amoghavajra (705–774) during 

the same period. Together with Vajrabodhi 

(669–741), these monks are revered as the founders of 

the MIJIAO (ESOTERIC) SCHOOL of Buddhism in China. 

Examples of both mandalas are said to have been 

brought to Japan from China in the early ninth century 

by the famed monk KU KAI (774–835). As is more 

often than not the case with mandalas, not all examples 

of these two conform precisely to these texts. 

South or Southeast Asian evidence for either 

mandala, and particularly for their use as a pair, is 

rare. It has been suggested that some figures in cave 

6 at Aurangabad, a sixth- or seventh-century site in 

western India, can be understood to symbolize the Diamond 

and Womb World mandalas. A variant of the 

Diamond World Mandala is thought to underlie the 

structure and imagery of the famous ninth-century 

BOROBUDUR in Java. In addition, two examples of 

three-dimensional mandalas, created using small 

(three- to five-inch) sculptures, have been found in 

Indonesia: a well-known late tenth- to early eleventhcentury 

group from Nganjuk, and a slightly earlier assemblage 

from Surucolo. 

Two divergent mandala traditions are preserved 

after the eleventh century. One is associated with 

Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, the other with Japanese 

practices. The Indo-Tibetan examples reflect the 

spread of the Anuttarayoga or Unexcelled Yoga 

Tantra tradition from India to Tibet; however, with 

the exception of a few stone stelae, Indian prototypes 

are no longer extant. 

A lotus flower, generally eight-petaled, fills the core 

of Indo-Tibetan mandalas. The lotus is housed in a 

palacelike inner sanctuary with elaborate arched gateways 

at the four cardinal directions. The square palace 

is surrounded by an outer circle composed of rings of 

fire, vajras (ritual implements symbolic of the adamantine 

properties of the diamond), and lotus petals. The 

small figures that inhabit the graveyards or charnel 

grounds, often placed between the inner palace and the 

outer ring, are standard images in Tibetan mandalas, 

and reflect early practices that led to the development 

of Anuttarayoga Tantra. The figures at the sides of the 

mandala represent either teachers associated with its 

practices, or related deities. 

Mandalas are made as single works or in sets. A wellknown 

series, based on the Vajravali (Diamond Garland) 

and commissioned by Ngor chen kun dga’ bzang 

po (1382–1456), includes both single icons and paintings 

depicting four related mandalas. 

A seventeenth-century painting of the KA LACAKRA 

Mandala in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston shows 

a large central mandala surrounded by four smaller 

versions for related deities. The painting is based on 

the Kalacakra Tantra (Wheel of Time Tantra), a late 

text distinguished by its elaborate cosmology and the 

prophecy of an apocalyptic war ending in the triumph 

of Shambhala, a hidden Buddhist kingdom, and the 

enlightenment of the cosmos. The central palace has 

been divided into three structures, one symbolic of 

body, one mind, and one speech, the three primary 

components of the complicated Kalacakra system. 

The twelve animals carrying circles filled with 

deities in the space between the middle and outer walls 

of the palace represent the days of the year according 

to the Kalacakra cycle. The tiny figures at the top of 

the painting are the kings of Shambhala, where the 

Kalacakra teachings were first taught and are preserved. 

The numerous small figures that provide the 

upper background for the five mandalas represent 

lamas who have upheld the Kalacakra lineage. Those 

toward the bottom are various deities associated with 

the Kalacakra. Monks and lay patrons, involved in the 

creation of the work and possibly in its ritual use, are 

shown seated around an offering table at the lower left. 

In addition to continuing early mandala traditions, 

such as that of the eight bodhisattvas, Japanese Buddhism 

created several unique traditions, also known as 

mandalas, that illustrate revered sites, such as the Kasuga 

shrine near Nara or Mount Koya to the south of 

Osaka. Ascetics and others, some of whom were influenced 

by early forms of Esoteric Buddhism popular in 

Japan from the eighth through the twelfth centuries, 

frequently used such sites. Over time, the sharing of 

ideas and practices among these varied seekers and 

more settled monastic adherents led to the creation of 

a system known as HONJI SUIJAKU or “true-nature” 

manifestation. According to this system, native Shinto 

gods are manifestations of imported Buddhist deities, 

and the two become interchangeable. Paintings 


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M ANTRA 

illustrating these complicated ideas include representations 

of famous scenic sites, with or without the 

Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples they house. Such 

paintings also include representations of both Shinto 

and Buddhist manifestations of the deities associated 

with these sites, as well as representations of the sacred 

animals or other emblems affiliated with the practices 

and beliefs of individual locations. 

See also: Stupa 

Bibliography 

Brauen, Martin. The Mandala: A Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism, 

tr. Martin Willson. Boston: Shambhala, 1998. 

Leidy, Denise Patry, and Thurman, Robert A. F. Mandala: The 

Architecture of Enlightenment. New York: Asia Society and 

Tibet House, 1997. 



1999. 

MANTRA 


Mantras, or incantations, magic formulas, or spells, 

were originally used in Vedic religion to invoke the 

gods during sacrificial rituals. They were used as spells 

and magic charms in mainstream Indian and East 

Asian Mahayana Buddhism, in which the word mantra 

was more less interchangeable with the word DHARAN I. 

Mantra was translated into Chinese as zhenyan (“true 

word”). Mantra became so fundamental an aspect of 

tantric Buddhism, or VAJRAYANA, which rose in the 

seventh and eighth centuries, that it was initially called 

the “Mantrayana.” 

Chanted in tantric ritual and practice, mantras are 

generally short combinations of syllables that have no 

direct or easily translatable meaning. The chanted 

sound of the formula, not the meaning, is the important 

factor. Mantras are powerful language understood 

to be the literal words or sounds of the Buddha. The 

word “mantra” is often combined or interchanged 

with the word hrdaya (“heart”), so that it means something 

like “quintessence.” A hrdaya-mantra often begins 

with om and ends with svaha, hu m , or phat. This 

use of mantra is essentially the same as, and is often 

translated as “seed syllable,” though that term is properly 

a translation of blja. The best-known mantra 

among Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhists is OM MAN I 

PADME HU M , an invocation of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, 

who is depicted holding a jewel and a lotus— 

the exact meaning of which has long been a matter of 

popular and scholarly debate. 

See also: Dharanl; Language, Buddhist Philosophy of; 

Tantra 

Bibliography 

Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et Mandarins: le bouddhisme 

tantrique en Chine. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1996. 

MAPPO . See Decline of the Dharma 

MA RA 


Mara, whose name literally means “death” or “maker 

of death,” is the embodiment of lust, greed, false views, 

delusion, and illusion. He is a virtually ubiquitous presence 

in Buddhist texts from the earliest accounts of the 

Buddha’s enlightenment on. Mara stands as an active 

antagonist of the Buddha and his followers, as well as 

a powerful metaphor. Paradigmatically, Mara attempts 

to stop the Buddha in his quest for enlightenment. 

In one of the earliest accounts of Mara’s treachery, 

in the Sutta Nipata (425–449), Mara approaches the 

about-to-be enlightened Buddha and attempts to convince 

him to abandon his efforts and to adopt the more 

conventional Brahmanical religious life, the life of sacrifice 

and good karma. The Buddha rejects this suggestion, 

and rebukes Mara and his minions. In later 

accounts of this episode found in the MAHAVASTU 

(Great Story), LALITAVISTARA, Nidana-katha (Story of 

Causation), and the BUDDHACARITA (Acts of the Buddha), 

Mara sends his various armies, including his own 

daughters, to frighten and tempt the Buddha as he sits 

in meditation; all such efforts of course fail. Finally, 

Mara himself comes to the Buddha and calls into question 

his right to sit on the bodhimanda, the place of 

enlightenment, claiming that it is he, and not the Buddha, 

who is the rightful occupant of that position (due 

to his own past good karmic deeds). The Buddha then 

reaches out his hand and calls the earth goddess, 

Bhudev, to bear witness to his past good deeds; the 

earth quakes, the goddess appears, and Mara and his 


M AR PA (MARPA) 

armies flee. This episode, known as the Maravijaya, or 

“defeat of Mara,” became one of the most common 

modes of representing the Buddha in many parts of 

the Buddhist world, conveying as it does his defeat of 

the forces of temptation, lust, greed, avarice, torpor 

and sloth, and, ultimately, death itself. Mara also figures 

in the postenlightenment of the Buddha, when he 

deludes A NANDA at the moment when the Buddha’s 

disciple is about to entreat the Buddha to remain on 

earth, preventing A nanda from requesting that the 

Buddha stay until the end of the eon to teach. Mara 

then reminds the Buddha that he had promised to depart 

once the dharma and SAṄGHA were established, 

and so the Buddha agrees that this will be his final life. 

Mara becomes a ubiquitous presence in Buddhist 

texts and iconography, standing as he does as the embodiment 

of trsna, the grasping that fundamentally 

leads to further rebirth and, thus, further suffering. In 

Southeast Asia, it is the saint UPAGUPTA who defeats 

Mara, binding him with his own snares and converting 

him to Buddhism. In the Pure Land text, the 

Bhaisajyaguruvaidu ryaprabharaja-su tra (Su tra of the 

Royal Lapis Healing Buddha), the “healing Buddha” 

vows to free all beings caught by Mara’s “heretical entrapments” 

and instill in them the correct views. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the; Divinities; Evil 

Bibliography 

Boyd, James W. Satan and Mara: Christian and Buddhist Symbols. 




MARATHON MONKS. See Shugendo 

MAR PA (MARPA) 


Mar pa (Mar pa Chos kyi blo gros, 1002/1012–1097) 

was a renowned translator and lay Buddhist master. He 

is revered as the Tibetan founder of the BKA’ BRGYUD 

(KAGYU) sect of Tibetan Buddhism. According to many 

traditional Bka’ brgyud texts, Mar pa is the reincarnation 

of the Indian MAHASIDDHA, or great adept, D omb 

Heruka (ca. ninth–tenth century B.C.E.). Born in 

Tibet to wealthy landowning parents in the southern 

Tibetan region of Lho brag, Mar pa was a precocious 

child, characterized in his traditional biographies as 

having a volatile, though inwardly compassionate, 

personality. His parents addressed both qualities by 

sending the boy to study Sanskrit and Indian vernacular 

languages under the learned translator ’Brog mi 

Lotsava Śakya ye shes (ca. 992/993–1043/1072) in 

western Tibet. 

Because the resources for studying Buddhism in Tibet 

at the time were limited, Mar pa decided to seek 

instruction in India, a journey he would make three 

times over the course of his life. He first spent three 

years in Nepal, acclimating to the new environment 

and continuing his study of local languages. There he 

met two Nepalese teachers, Chitherpa and Paindapa, 

who offered many religious instructions but also encouraged 

Mar pa to seek out the master who would 

become his chief guru, the great siddha NAROPA 

(1016–1100). 

Naropa first submitted Mar pa to a series of arduous 

trials, finally judging this perspicacious Tibetan to 

be a fit disciple. He studied under Naropa at the forest 

retreat of Pullahari, receiving initiations and teachings 

of several important tantric lineages. Among 

these instructions is a collection known in Tibetan as 

the Six Doctrines of Naropa (Na ro chos drug). This 

elaborate system of tantric ritual and meditative disciplines 

includes the yogic practices of: (1) inner heat 

(gtum mo); (2) the illusory body (sgyu lus); (3) dreams 

(rmi lam); (4) radiant light (’od gsal); (5) the intermediate 

state (bar do); and (6) transference of consciousness 

(’pho ba). 

Mar pa’s second great master was the Indian siddha 

Maitrpa (ca. 1007–1085), from whom he received instruction 

in the MAHAMUDRA teachings and the tradition 

of doha, or songs of spiritual realization. Although 

later disseminated in different forms among various 

Tibetan Buddhist sects, the Six Doctrines of Naropa 

and mahamudra became central meditation systems 

for the Bka’ brgyud. Mar pa received other tantric 

transmissions from Indian masters, such as Jñanagarbha 

and Kukkurpa, as well. 

Mar pa then returned to Tibet, where he married 

several wives (the most well known is Bdag med ma, 

who figures prominently in the life story of the 

renowned yogin MI LA RAS PA [Milarepa; 1028/40– 

1111/23]), established a home, and began his career as 

a Buddhist teacher and translator who was at the same 

time a landowner and farmer. Mar pa had planned to 


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pass his dharma lineage on to his son Dar ma mdo sde 

(for whom Mi la ras pa’s famous final tower was built), 

but the child died at a young age. Mar pa’s accumulated 

instructions, which contributed to the formation 

of a new stream of Buddhist thought in Tibet known 

as new tantra (rgyud gsar ma), were later passed to several 

principal disciples including Mi la ras pa. At least 

twenty-four works translated from Sanskrit attributed 

to Mar pa are preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon. 


Bibliography 




trans. The Life of Marpa the Translator. Boston: Shambhala, 

1986. 

MARTIAL ARTS 


Modern historians of East Asia have noted the seemingly 

incongruous presence of martial monks in Buddhist 

monasteries at various moments in Asian history. 

This unusual conjunction has appeared ironic to many 

in the West, given the prominent place the renunciation 

of violence has had in Buddhist teachings and 

monastic PRECEPTS. On the other hand, to many Westerners 

who have taken up the practice of the Asian 

martial arts, this conjunction has been seen not as contradictory, 

but as essential to the modern rhetoric of 

spirituality and the martial arts. Zen Buddhism, in particular, 

has played an important role in this approach 

to the martial arts. Underlying these contradictory understandings 

has been a Western tendency to idealize 

and romanticize both Buddhism and the martial arts, 

removing them from their historical and institutional 

contexts. Abetting such tendencies has been an uncritical 

use of categories that have emerged over the 

past two centuries in the study of religion both in Asia 

and the West, including the category of religion itself. 

To understand the relationship of the martial arts to 

Buddhism, then, it is necessary to know something of 

the history and nature of Buddhist institutions in Asia, 

and, also of the ways in which Western perceptions of 

Eastern religion and spirituality have contributed to 

contemporary understandings and, in many cases, distortions 

of Asian Buddhism. 

One of the definitive moments in becoming a Buddhist, 

either as a monastic or a layperson, is the act of 

taking a set of vows, which differ in character and total 

number depending on whether one remains a 

householder or receives ORDINATION as a monastic. 

Regardless, all Buddhists take a vow to abstain from 

harming living beings. One would be wrong, however, 

to regard these vows in general and nonviolence in particular 

as ends in themselves or as ethical absolutes. 

Rather, they seem to have been regarded as practical 

means to end suffering both for other living beings and 

for oneself. This fact has allowed for some flexibility in 

interpretation, as well as a degree of antinomianism. 

Faced with the dilemma of a vow of nonviolence and 

of allowing, for example, a mass murderer to continue 

wreaking havoc in the world—and at the same time 

adding to the sum of his own bad KARMA (ACTION) and 

implied future suffering—the compassionate act may 

be assassination, thus reducing the sum total of accumulated 

suffering. Such arguments have historically 

been offered by certain Buddhists to legitimate violence, 

in the assassination of a murderous Tibetan king 

in one instance. Though this example is somewhat extreme, 

in coming to terms with Buddhist ethics and 

practice, it suggests the importance of the historical 

and social contexts of Buddhist institutions. 

Monasteries and warrior monks 

Buddhist monasteries in Central Asia and the Far East, 

rather than existing as sites purely of otherworldly concerns, 

originated as institutions intimately embroiled 

in the affairs of society. Central Asian Buddhists introduced 

MONASTICISM to China sometime around the 

second or third centuries C.E. Monks accompanied 

Central Asian traders into China primarily to serve the 

ritual needs of their merchant patrons. At about the 

same time and for the next several hundred years, various 

Central Asian armies invaded north China, setting 

up their own generally short-lived dynasties. These 

kingdoms, like the merchants, employed the ritual services 

of Buddhist monks, now including many ethnic 

Chinese converts. Under such conditions, monastic institutions 

often found themselves caught in the ebb 

and flow of the political fortunes of their various sponsors. 

In addition, some monasteries, through their relationship 

with merchants and royalty, became wealthy 

in land and precious goods, making them frequent 

prey to marauding bands of warriors and bandits. 

In the Xu gaoseng zhuan (645, Continued Lives of 

Eminent Monks), one of the earliest records of the lives 

of Buddhist monks in China, there are a number of ac- 


M ARTIAL 

A RTS 

Child monks perform kung fu (gongfu) exercises at Lingyanshan Monastery, Puli, Taiwan. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced 


counts in which the monks’ martial abilities are noted, 

sometimes in defending their own monasteries, sometimes 

in serving the interests of their royal patrons in 

other than ritual practices. Some early sources also suggest 

that monasteries sometimes admitted applicants 

more for their martial skills than for their devotion to 

meditation or a life of renunciation. It seems to have 

been common at this time for warriors who were demobilized 

at the end of a war or marked for vengeance 

among the defeated to seek cover and anonymity in 

the monastic system. Martially trained monks would 

have been of value in times of instability, and in such 

cases the maintenance of monastic vows would often 

have been a lesser priority. According to a fifthcentury 

history of the Wei dynasty (Wei shu), several 

monasteries in the capital of Chang’an came under 

scrutiny in 438 for having developed large arsenals of 

weapons and posing a threat to public order. 

As monasteries in China became more sinicized, 

they evolved bureaucratic modes of organization that 

closely paralleled those of Chinese civil administration. 

Hierarchical in structure, they were composed of various 

departments of monks with designated functions, 

such as lecturers, ritualists, and meditators. It is not 

surprising then that we find monks whose primary 

functions were to manage the fields and the wealth of 

their monastic establishments. Among their duties 

would be the protection of that wealth, and implicit in 

this was an incentive perhaps to cultivate martial skills. 

In fact, there is little evidence to suggest that more than 

a few monasteries developed such defense forces. However, 

one monastery that did respond to these incentives 

was the Shaolin Monastery, located at the foot of 

Mount Song, considered the central peak of China’s 

five sacred mountains (wu yue), in Henan province. It 

is this monastery that has informed most later histories 

associating Chinese Buddhism with martial arts. 

According to the biography of the monastery’s fifthcentury 

founder, Fotuo, two of his first disciples were 

selected based not on their aptitude for traditional 

Buddhist cultivation practices, but for their acrobatic 

talents. While not explicitly martial, the ability of one 

of these disciples to balance precariously on a narrow 

well ledge while playing a sort of hacky-sack game with 


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his feet bears close similarity to some of the martial exercises 

emphasizing balance exhibited in Shaolin martial 

forms. 

By the seventh century the Shaolin Monastery had 

developed the cudgel as its weapon of choice. The 

heavy cudgel, while capable of great devastation, was 

neither metal nor sharp, and thereby was rhetorically 

legitimated as a nonweapon appropriate to Buddhist 

monks. According to popular histories, in 621 the 

monastery offered its cudgel-wielding monks, thirteen 

in all, to the service and ultimate victory of Li Shimin 

(d. 649), who became the first emperor of the Tang 

dynasty (618–907). Whether or not this tale is true, the 

monastery seems to have enjoyed imperial favor during 

the Tang dynasty, having been granted extensive 

land and wealth. Such increased holdings would have 

provided even greater incentive to maintain a martial 

presence in the monastery. Over the centuries, Shaolin 

monks developed other styles of combat, both armed 

and unarmed. By the fifteenth century, Shaolin had become 

synonymous in China with martial arts and has 

remained so to the present day. 

The existence of monastic defense forces can also be 

found in Tibet and in medieval Japan, though in very 

different political and social circumstances and with 

different consequences. Some of the more important 

Japanese shrine-temple complexes and Buddhist sects, 

which were thoroughly integrated into the social and 

political ethos of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 

built legions of monks trained in military skills and 

maintained militias not only to protect their existing 

wealth in land and power but also in some cases to expand 

it. The MONASTIC MILITIAS of Mount Hiei developed 

as a formidable force during this period, not only 

defending their own domains but also attacking the 

domains of neighboring monasteries and even attempting 

to intimidate the emperor in his Kyoto 

palace. Their existence, however, was abruptly ended 

in 1571 when Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) surrounded 

Mount Hiei with his soldiers and slaughtered all the 

people associated with the monastery, including every 

man, woman, and child living on the mountain. He 

subsequently destroyed another Buddhist force, the legions 

of the Exclusive (Ikko) Pure Land Buddhist sect, 

which had used its power to dominate entire provinces. 

What emerges from this brief overview of early Buddhist 

history are two important observations about the 

relationship of Buddhist monasticism and the martial 

arts. First, the phenomenon of monastic warriors and 

militias, while a historical fact, was nonetheless relatively 

isolated in time and place. Second, there is no 

compelling evidence in the texts dating from the early 

periods to indicate that martial training was carried out 

in the context of traditional Buddhist ritual or cultivation 

practices such as meditation, sutra explication, 

or chanting. Rather, martial training in Chinese, 

Japanese, and Tibetan monasteries appears to have 

been regarded not as a practice leading to awakening 

or liberation, but as an expedient deemed necessary in 

the circumstances in which many medieval Buddhist 

institutions found themselves. 

Zen Buddhism and martial arts 

Although there is little or no Buddhist doctrinal rationale 

for the activities of the monastic militias of the 

early period, the modern practice of Asian martial arts, 

particularly those that developed in Japan, are frequently 

characterized in terms that suggest modes of 

spiritual practice directly informed by the Buddhism 

of the CHAN SCHOOL (Japanese, Zen). Most contemporary 

martial arts have thus taken on a quasi-religious 

character. The student is encouraged to strive to attain 

a state of pure consciousness while in the midst of combat. 

In a psychological state of equanimity and oneness 

with the adversary, the student is assured that his 

or her actions will flow with effortless spontaneity. Initiations, 

practices, and successful progress are generally 

marked by formal rituals, including bowing, 

processions, and the award of certificates or insignia. 

These can be seen as stripped-down secularized versions 

of Asian religious rituals and practice. The distinction 

between the achievement of a state of 

awakening, understood as the ultimate goal of Buddhist 

practice, and the effortless defeat of an adversary 

in battle coalesce. The monk becomes warrior; the warrior 

becomes monk. Not surprisingly, many popular 

texts on martial arts trace their lineage to the Shaolin 

Monastery in China. 

By the eight century, Shaolin Monastery had become 

identified with the fifth-century semilegendary 

figure of BODHIDHARMA, popularly regarded as the 

person who introduce Chan Buddhism to China. According 

to legend, Bodhidharma spent nine years meditating 

in a cave above Shaolin Monastery. However, 

the earliest text to mention Bodhidharma, the sixthcentury 

Loyang qielan ji (Record of Monasteries in 

Loyang), describes him not as a wall-gazing meditation 

master, but as a wonder-working thaumaturge from 

the Western (barbarian) Lands. The thaumaturgic tradition 

in China contains accounts of such shamanlike 

characters performing prodigious feats of physical 


M ARTIAL 

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agility, such as leaping great distances. Though there 

is no suggestion that Bodhidharma performed martial 

feats, including him in this tradition makes clear that 

his skills placed him outside the exegetical or ritual 

spheres of the monastery and more firmly within a familiar 

Chinese tradition of religious eccentrics. Such 

an image was readily amenable to later martial traditions, 

particularly in Japan. The few works attributed 

to Bodhidharma give no indication of a concern with 

martial practices. Furthermore, as argued above, the 

Shaolin martial arts traditions bore only incidental relation 

to Chan Buddhist teachings. 

While not detracting from the martial skill that 

many achieve in these arts, there remains the question 

of whether these achievements and the views of the 

modes and objectives of Zen practice that inform them 

accurately reflect Buddhist monastic practices in Japan 

or China now or in the past. In general, they do not. 

At best they represent successful adaptations of certain 

Buddhist meditative techniques to martial practices, 

and at worst they impart an aura of mystification that 

has less to do with Buddhism than with commercialization, 

nationalism, or self-promotion. 

The rise of Japanese martial arts as they are known 

today only began to take shape in the closing decades 

of the nineteenth century following the collapse of the 

Tokugawa shogunate. The year 1868 marked the beginning 

of a thoroughgoing cultural revolution in 

Japan when the newly installed Meiji government 

sought to erase hundreds of years of local and state culture 

organized around a pervasive network of Buddhist 

temples and monks, and to replace this cultural substrate 

with the “rational” organs of the modern state. 

Temples were burned, images destroyed, and monks 

returned to lay status under the guise of destroying feudal 

superstition. State Shinto was declared the embodiment 

of the true spirit of the Japanese people and 

was, by definition, nonreligious, having been purified 

of the superstitious elements that had seeped into it 

due to the long presence of Buddhism in Japan. However, 

because “the spirit of the Japanese people” was 

somewhat ambiguous in meaning, an issue of great 

concern to the new national leadership was how to cultivate 

that spirit without religious institutions. 

At this point the Zen Buddhists and particularly 

their secularized apologists were able to reenter the 

public discourse. Reinventing themselves as the embodiment 

of a distinctly Japanese form of rational 

modernity and the custodians of a spiritual practice 

free of religious superstition, they were able to inject 

such notions as no-mind (mushin), here generally understood 

as the sublimation of the self to the people 

(the state), into the physical training curriculums of 

Japan’s schools. Moving into the twentieth century, 

these physical training curriculums took on an increasingly 

martial aspect and were highly amenable to 

the Japanese nationalism that was then emerging. Ironically, 

many of the notions put forward by these Zen 

advocates were in fact drawn more from Chinese 

Daoist and Confucian sources than they were from 

Buddhist traditions, specifically certain breathing practices 

and notions of self-sacrifice within an encompassing 

social hierarchy. Zen monks had been the 

primary conduits of such ideas into Japan as early as 

the twelfth century. Around the beginning of the twentieth 

century the suffix do , from the Chinese dao (way), 

replaced many of the more mundane categorical 

Japanese terms for the martial arts. This revised vocabulary, 

including the terms judo (way of gentleness), 

kendo (way of the sword), and budo (martial way), was 

clearly intended to impart a spiritual significance not 

present in words denoting technique or art (-jutsu). 

D. T. SUZUKI (1870–1966), writing in English, 

emerged in the mid-twentieth century as the person 

most responsible for introducing these interpretations 

of Zen and its relation to the martial arts, among other 

themes, to the English-speaking world. Significantly, 

he was not a Zen priest but a scholar trained in the 

“science of religion” during an eleven-year stay in the 

United States under the tutelage of Paul Carus 

(1852–1919). During these years, Suzuki was exposed 

to the writings of William James on pure experience 

and Rudolph Otto on the nature of religion, and the 

influence of their ideas can be seen in his psychological 

interpretations of Zen Buddhism and the martial 

arts. Little wonder, then, that Suzuki’s writings on Zen 

have struck many Westerners as exotic, and at the same 

time somehow familiar, drawing as they do on contemporary 

Western notions of religion and psychology. 

It should not be overlooked, however, that 

Suzuki’s writings before World War II often revealed 

a distinctly nationalist slant. The Zen mind of pure experience 

was frequently represented as a unique capacity 

of the Japanese spirit, ultimately inaccessible to 

non-Japanese. Though the contradictory notion of a 

universal potential to experience the Zen mind can be 

found throughout his writings, this theme became pronounced 

only in his postwar writings. Suzuki did more 

to shape popular conceptions of Zen in the twentieth 

century than anyone else. However, much of his representation 

of Buddhism constitutes what must be 


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M A TR CET A 

considered an invented tradition, and it is this tradition 

that has permeated much of the Western understanding 

of the relationship between Buddhism and 

the martial arts. 

The contemporary practice of the martial arts has 

clearly adapted some ideas and practices from the rich 

Buddhist heritage of Asia. But this does not make the 

objectives or the rationale of the martial arts Buddhist. 

In fact, much more of both the practice and rationale 

of contemporary martial arts are rooted in Chinese 

Daoism and Confucianism, as well as in modern 

notions of secular religion, sport, performance, and 

competition. 

See also: Confucianism and Buddhism; Daoism and 

Buddhism; Zen, Popular Conceptions of 

Bibliography 

Bodiford, William M. “Religion and Spiritual Development: 

Japan.” In Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 

2, ed. Thomas A. Green. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2001. 

Draeger, Donn F., and Smith, Robert W. Asian Fighting Arts. 

Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1969. 

Grapard, Allan G. “Japan’s Ignored Cultural Revolution: The 

Separation of Shinto and Buddhist Divinities in Meiji (Shimbutsu 

Bunri) and a Case Study (To nomine).” History of Religions 

23, no. 3 (1984): 240–265. 

Inoue, Shun. “Budo: Invented Tradition in the Martial Arts.” 

In The Culture of Japan as Seen through Its Leisure, ed. Sepp 

Linhart and Sabine Frühstück. Albany: State University of 


Shahar, Meir. “Ming-Period Evidence of Shaolin Martial Procedure.” 

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (December 2001): 

359–413. 

Sharf, Robert H. “The Zen of Nationalism” (1993). In Curators 

of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism, ed. 

Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 

1995. 

Suzuki, D. T. Zen and Japanese Culture (revised edition of Zen 

Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture, 1938). 


MA TRCETA 

WILLIAM POWELL 

Matrceta (second century C.E.) was a Sanskrit poet. A 

Śaivite convert to Buddhism, he is the author of: (1) 

Varnarhavarnastotra (Hymn in Praise of the Praiseworthy), 

a poem in 386 stanzas (hence the subtitle 

Catuhśataka) in praise of the Buddha, which survives 

in Sanskrit (incomplete) and Tibetan; (2) Prasadapratibhodbhava 

(Inspired by Faith), a poem in 153 

stanzas (hence the subtitle Śatapañcaśatka) also in 

praise of the Buddha, which survives in Sanskrit, Tibetan, 

and Chinese; and (3) Maharajakaniskalekha 

(Letter to the Great King Kaniska), a poem in 85 stanzas, 

surviving only in Tibetan translation, in which the 

aged Matrceta offers advice to the young Kaniska. A 

number of other works in the Tibetan Tanjur are attributed 

to Matrceta, but only a few further fragments 

remain of the original Sanskrit. Matrceta’s poetry is 

notable for its terse, clear style, which heightens the 

intensity of his thought and feeling. 


Bibliography 

Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, ed. and trans. The Śatapañcaśatka of 

Matrceta. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1951. 

Hahn, Michael, ed. and trans. Invitation to Enlightenment: Letter 

to the Great King Kaniska and Letter to a Disciple by Candragomin. 

Berkeley, CA: Dharma, 1999. 

Hartmann, Jens-Uwe, ed. and trans. Das Varnarhavarnastotra 

des Matrceta. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 

1987. 

MEDICINE 


Medicine has always been part of Buddhism. The central 

Buddhist teaching of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS is 

often described in terms of a medical paradigm by 

which suffering is the disease, desire its cause, cessation 

of desire its cure, and the Eightfold Path the 

method of its treatment. Although there is no evidence 

that medicine lay behind the formulation of the four 

noble truths, examples of the Buddha’s role as healer, 

medical similes, and references to medical terminology 

occur throughout Buddhist literature. 

Evidence suggests that the orthodox Hindu medical 

tradition of A yurveda (the knowledge of longevity) 

owed its origins to a certain extent to the heterodox 

religions, which included Buddhism. Certain wandering 

ascetics collected useful medical information for 

the purpose of self-healing. Gradually, part of this 

medical knowledge was brought together and, eventually, 

became the beginning section of the chapter of 


M EDICINE 

medicines (Bhesajjakhandha) of the Buddhist monastic 

code (Vinayapitaka; Basket of Discipline) of the Pali 

canon. Once established in the earliest canon, medicine 

became integral to Buddhist doctrine. 

The monastic code of the Pali canon provides two 

forms of medical information: materia medica and 

stories of treatments based on cases of diseases. The 

pharmacopeia, known as “the medicines requisite in 

sickness,” consisted of the five basic medicinal substances 

permitted all monks—clarified butter, fresh 

butter, oil, honey, and molasses—as well as various 

fats, roots, extracts, leaves, fruits, gums, and salts. Although 

monks and nuns are normally forbidden to eat 

after noon, in cases of illness, certain foods were 

deemed medicines and could, therefore, be consumed 

at any time of the day. 

The stories of medical treatments found in the 

monastic code are among the earliest examples of medical 

practice found anywhere in the world and illustrate 

the Buddha’s rational and utilitarian approach to 

healing. Buddhists focused on concrete therapies 

rather than the theory of disease and medicine. The 

process was paradigmatic: A certain monk, suffering 

from a particular illness, came to the Buddha who, after 

careful consideration, sanctioned a treatment. This 

practical method of healing became the model for later 

medical manuals. These are among the first examples 

of the Buddha’s role as healer. He provided cures for 

a variety of illnesses, ranging from demonic possession 

to sores on the feet, which were typically the kinds of 

maladies from which wandering ascetics might have 

suffered. Both the diseases and their cures bear a close 

affinity to their counterparts in the Sanskrit medical 

treatises. 

The story of the semimythical physician Jvaka Komarabhacca, 

found in another part of the Pali VINAYA, 

discloses a similar paradigm of utilitarian medicine. 

Variations of this popular tale occur in Tibetan and 

Chinese Buddhist canonical literature. Jvaka’s extraordinary 

skill made him the physician to kings and to 

the Buddha. 

Medicine grew along with Buddhism in India. Under 

the reign of King AŚOKA in the mid-third century 

B.C.E., Buddhism became a virtual state religion, and by 

royal proclamation basic medical care was provided to 

both humans and animals throughout the kingdom. By 

the seventh century C.E., medicine was part of the educational 

curriculum at major monastic centers in India. 

When Buddhism spread from India, medicine went 

with it and developed under indigenous influences. 

In the early centuries C.E., Sri Lanka received the 

original monastic medical doctrines. New Buddhist 

medical treatises were composed, and certain monasteries 

maintained a type of clinic with medicinal 

baths. In the THERAVADA countries of Southeast Asia, 

traditional medicine remains closely connected to 


In Central Asia, Buddhism was the vehicle for the 

transmission of Indian medicine to other parts of Asia. 

The original rational paradigm was the basis for new 

medical texts and manuals, which took the form of collections 

of formulas, each effective against several ailments. 

Originally composed in Sanskrit, they were 

translated into different Central Asian languages, and 

from those into Tibetan. Some manuals were even 

written on animal skins, which allowed doctors to 

carry them with ease and consult them when necessary. 

Certain Sanskrit medical treatises, translated into 

Tibetan, were incorporated into the Tibetan Buddhist 

canon. Indian medicine combined with Chinese, Persian, 

and indigenous Tibetan medical practices to yield 

Tibetan medicine. In China, where the cults of the 

healing buddhas and BODHISATTVAS found popularity, 

Buddhist medical doctrines were integrated with indigenous 

Chinese medicine. Similar trends were followed 

in Korea and Japan. 

Early Buddhism’s incorporation of medicine into its 

religious doctrine was unique and contributed to the 

religion’s development. The practical care and medical 

attention that was given to all who required it helped 

provide the support and popularity necessary to sustain 

a religious movement through its various transformations 

in Asia. 

Bibliography 

Birnbaum, Raoul. The Healing Buddha. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 

1979. 

Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad. Science and Society in Ancient India. 

Calcutta: Research India Publications, 1977. 

Filliozat, Jean. “La Médecine indienne et l’expansion bouddhique 

en Extrème Orient.” Journal Asiatique 224 (1934): 

301–307. 

Liyanaratne, Jinadasa. Buddhism and Traditional Medicine in Sri 

Lanka. Kelaniya, Sri Lanka: University of Kelaniya, 1999. 

Mitra, Jyotir. A Critical Appraisal of A yurvedic Material in Buddhist 

Literature. Varanasi, India: Jyotirlok Prakashan, 1985. 

Rechung Rinpoche Jampel Kunzang, trans. and ed. Tibetan 

Medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. 

Tatz, Mark, trans. Buddhism and Healing: Demiéville’s Article 

“Byo ” from Ho bo girin. Lanham, MD: University Press of 

America, 1985. 


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Zysk, Kenneth G. “Buddhist Healing and A yurveda: Some General 

Observations.” In Studies in Orientology: Essays in Memory 

of Prof. A. L. Basham, ed. S. K. Maity, Upendra Thakur, 

and A. K. Narain. Agra, India: Y. K. Publishers, 1988. 

Zysk, Kenneth G. “Indian Ascetic Traditions and the Origins of 

A yurvedic Medicine.” Journal of the European A yurvedic Society 

1 (1990): 119–124. 

Zysk, Kenneth G. “New Approaches to the Study of Early Buddhist 

Medicine: Use of Technical Brahmanic Sources in Sanskrit 

for the Interpretation of Pali Medical Texts.” Pacific 

World, New Series, no. 11 (1995): 143–154. 

Zysk, Kenneth G. Medicine in the Veda, Vol. 1: Indian Medical 

Tradition. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1996. 

Zysk, Kenneth G. “Mythology and the Brahmanization of Indian 

Medicine: Transforming Heterodoxy into Orthodoxy.” In 

Categorisation and Interpretation: Indological and Comparative 

Studies from an International Indological Meeting at the Department 

of Comparative Philology, Göteborg University, ed. 

Folke Josephson. Göteborg, Sweden: Meijerbergs Arkiv för 

Svensk Ordforskning 24, Göteborg University, 1999. 

Zysk, Kenneth G. Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine 

in the Buddhist Monastery, Vol. 2: Indian Medical Tradition. 


MEDITATION 

KENNETH G. ZYSK 

In common usage, the word meditation approaches the 

meanings of the Indian Buddhist term DHYANA 

(TRANCE STATE): a shift in awareness typically carried 

out intentionally, in silence, and while holding the 

body in a static position (most characteristically sitting 

with legs crossed). Various practices of dhyana are associated 

with notions of sainthood, wisdom, serenity, 

and extraordinary mental powers, such as the ABHIJN A 

(HIGHER KNOWLEDGES). Additionally, the term suggests 

mental and bodily discipline, and is associated 

with systematic methods of self-cultivation, and with 

monastic or eremitical lifestyles. 

Generally, Buddhist theories of meditation propose 

that the core of these practices consists in achieving a 

state of deep calm and concentration, called samadhi, 

which in turn can give rise to, or serve as the foundation 

for, a clear and accurate view (vipaśyana) that discerns 

the real from the unreal. Furthermore, perfect 

calm and concentration can give rise as well to extraordinary 

visions and marvelous powers. 

Wondrous powers arise when the mind is “concentrated, 

pure, translucent, spotless, free of trouble and 

confusion, supple.” For instance, “from [one’s] own 

body arises another body that has the constituents and 

shape of a material body but is made of mind. [And 

one] applies and directs this mind to the acquisition 

of wondrous powers. . . . Although [this person is] one, 

he becomes many, or having become many becomes 

one again; he becomes invisible, and then visible again” 

(Dlghanikaya 1, 77–78). 

And, the perfect calm of a concentrated mind leads 

to extraordinary levels of knowing—especially an insight 

into reality that liberates the meditator from the 

bonds of DUH KHA (SUFFERING). “He applies and directs 

this mind to that insight that comes from knowledge. 

He discerns clearly: ‘my body is made of matter, . . . 

produced by a father and a mother, and continually 

renewed by boiled rice and juicy foods, . . . it is subject 

to decay, wear, dissolution, and disintegration. 

This consciousness of mine too depends on that body, 

is bound up in that body’” (Dlghanikaya 1, 76). With 

this, the meditator knows the reality of the FOUR NO- 

BLE TRUTHS: This is suffering; this is the origin of suffering; 

this is the cessation of suffering; and this is the 

path leading to the cessation of suffering (Dlghanikaya 

1, 83). 

The literate elites generally regard as more estimable 

this second fruit of meditation: insight into 

the nature of reality and liberation from the bonds of 

suffering and REBIRTH. Nonetheless, meditation remains 

a practice for embodied beings, and is also valued 

for its putative transformative power on the world 

of embodiment. 

The body 

Insofar as the meditator assumes bodily postures that 

are considered to be those of the Buddha himself, in 

particular sitting cross-legged in the traditional lotus 

posture, the act of meditation is, in a manner of speaking, 

the actualization of the goal of meditation: to become 

like the Buddha. One is advised to “sit on a soft, 

comfortable seat,” and to assume “the cross-legged 

posture,” appropriately called “the posture of the Buddha 

Vairocana,” or the half-lotus posture. Then, other 

aspects of body and mind need to conform to the ideal 

icon of a Buddha: (1) eyes neither open nor closed, and 

aimed at the tip of the nose; (2) body erect, without 

slouching or becoming too stiff; (3) mindfulness 

turned inward; (4) shoulders level; (5) head [erect] 

without bending [the neck] forward, backward, [or 

wavering] to either side, the nose in line with the navel; 

(6) teeth and lips [only] lightly closed, the tongue resting 

on the gums of the upper teeth; (7) breath in- 


M EDITATION 

audible, neither heavy nor too rapid, breathing in and 

out slowly and effortlessly (Kamalaśla, First Bhavanakrama). 

These instructions, written in the eighth 

century C.E. for a Tibetan audience, would not differ 

substantially from the instructions given to beginners 

in other Buddhist traditions. 

Other postures may acquire a similar significance, 

whether they are explicitly linked to the technique of 

meditation or not. Thus, walking meditation reflects 

the gait and demeanor of the awakened, and monks 

are sometimes asked to sleep in the recumbent position 

of the Buddha in NIRVAN A, while they remain 

mindful of DEATH and liberation. 

Some traditions expressed the connection between 

body and meditation more concretely by locating certain 

religious experiences or stages of meditation in different 

parts of the body. Such conceptions were central 

to the so-called Tantric tradition, especially in India, 

although the idea also has East Asian manifestations. 

In this meditation theory, several “spiritual nerve centers” 

(cakras) map out the interface between body and 

meditative experience. As many as eight and as few as 

five cakras are located along the spinal column, on 

what traditional anatomy regarded as two veins or 

pathways for spiritual energy. In the process of meditation 

this energy (conceived sometimes as a kind of 

fluid) was forced up or down these veins, concentrating 

alternatively in each one of the cakras: from the 

lowest in the area of the genitals or the sphincter, 

through the area of the solar plexus, the heart, the larynx, 

the eyes, and the crown of the head. Generally, 

the concentration of energy on the top cakra was regarded 

as the culmination of the meditation process, 

although each cakra had a distinct spiritual value. 

A less technical location of meditation in the body 

occurs in the practice of mindfulness meditation, 

where the main exercise consists in cultivating a clear 

awareness of one’s body, its breathing, its movements, 

its functions and feelings. In the Chan tradition, likewise, 

there is a common rhetoric of the body not only 

in an emphasis on proper posture, but also in the notion 

that nonconceptual thought is located in the belly 

(Japanese, hara), not in the head. 

The body as object of meditation 

The human body itself can become the object of meditation. 

Classical Indian texts describe various ways to 

think about or mentally analyze the body into its parts 

and processes. Some advise the meditator to sit next 

to a corpse and reflect on the meditator’s own mortality, 

on the fragility and corruption of the body, and 

on the impossibility of discovering a permanent self in 

one’s own material frame. This meditation is known 

as “cultivating the impure” (aśubhabhavana) because 

a greater part of the practice consists in understanding 

that the living body shares the foul nature of the 

rotting corpse. The practice continues in isolated 

pockets in THERAVADA countries, where monks now 

may have to visit a public hospital and sit in the 

morgue with the bodies of the unidentified and the indigent. 

The more common practice is to keep a skeleton 

or a skull in the monastery as a prop to aid in what 

may be termed “a reflection on one’s self,” vicariously 

using someone else’s body to imagine one’s own as the 

object of meditation. 

In Tibet this tradition resonated with a number of 

local practices. In areas where the dead are disposed 

by exposure, a traditional meditation on the corpse was 

possible and occasionally practiced. But more characteristic 

of Tibetan Buddhism is the practice of gcod 

(chöd), a complex sequence of both performative and 

meditative actions meant to provoke various experiences 

of bodily dissolution. The meditator, instructed 

by an experienced master who knows the proper invocations 

and protective prayers, imagines himself being 

devoured by demons in a variety of settings called 

“feasts.” In a “red feast,” for instance, the body is visualized 

as being dismembered and cut up into bloody 

fragments, which are then offered to flesh-eating 

demons. A “white feast” transforms each part of the 

body into an idealized, pure part of a universe that will 

delight the gods. The new sanctified body becomes ambrosia 

and feeds benevolent deities. 

Transforming the body into a spiritual body by ritual 

or meditation is a central notion in the TANTRAS. 

For instance, the ritual use of symbolic hand gestures, 

called MUDRA, sacred “seals,” serve as a unifying principle 

for the transformation of the person through 

artistic representation, ritual performance, and meditation. 

Although many of these are even today common 

Indian hand gestures, they are regarded as the 

gestures of the Buddha himself, their association with 

the Buddha being confirmed by their appearance in 

Buddhist icons, and by the attribution of “secret” or 

mystical meanings the gestures. 

Ritual acts, ritual frames 

The theme of embodiment can also be used as a heuristic 

in understanding the connection of meditation to 

RITUAL. Most meditation practices occur within some 

sort of ritual or symbolic frame, and follow very 


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A monk meditates at a small stone altar on the grounds of the ruins at Sarnath, India. © Chris Lisle/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

specific instructions. In most cases meditation sessions 

are planned, prepared, and adorned, and thus tagged, 

in predictable fashion, as “proper meditation,” or 

“meditation like that of the Buddha.” Meditation sessions 

are usually seen as an integral part, if not the culmination, 

of a religious life that includes moral 

preparation and doctrinal definitions of what one 

should expect. Apart from the expectations of doctrine, 

ethical values, and cultural habits, Buddhist 

meditations are also usually announced and framed by 

ritual activities. 

A long tradition of preliminaries associated with 

meditation rituals survives in various forms in East 

Asian and Tibetan practice. Custom, as well as ritual 

manuals, helped consecrate ritual practices as diverse 

as cleaning and adorning the place of meditation, setting 

up an altar or image, offering flowers and perfumed 

water, and framing the period of meditation 

with ancillary rituals, such as the sevenfold act of worship 

or the invocation of protective deities. In fact, 

meditation and ritual often form a web of activities 

that includes not only ostensible silent meditations and 

publicly performed ceremonies, but also activities such 

as chanting, recitation, and circumambulation that 

hold an ambiguous status between ritual and meditation, 

mechanical reading and deep reflection. 

Special meditations are also sometimes regarded as 

preliminary or preparatory exercises. For instance, the 

Tibetan tradition often recommends the practice of the 

sngon’gro (ngöndro, preliminaries), which are divided 

into two types. The first is that of the four “outer preliminaries,” 

which often serve as a standard or common 

meditation for the nonspecialist. This set of four 

consists of meditations of the “recollection” type, with 

reflection on the following four topics: the value of human 

rebirth, impermanence, the vicissitudes of KARMA 

(ACTION), and the suffering of living beings. The second 

type is formed by the five “inner preliminaries,” 

which are construed as purificatory activities, each 

neutralizing or counteracting the effects of one of the 

major passions. Thus, pride is countered by taking 

refuge and performing ten thousand prostrations, jealousy 

by cultivating the aspiration to awaken for the 

sake of all living beings (the BODHICITTA), hatred by 

reciting the hundred-syllable mantra of Vajrasattva, 

craving by a MAN D ALA offering, and delusion by visu- 


M EDITATION 

alizing one’s teacher as identical with one’s protective 

deity (a practice called guru-yoga). 

Mental culture 

The above reflections are not meant to minimize the 

significance of meditation as a technology of selfcultivation 

meant to affect mental states and traits, as 

well as the content of mind. India scholastics canonized 

an early schema (perhaps pre-Buddhistic) that saw 

meditation as combining two kinds of mental exercise. 

One exercise, dhyana proper, involved techniques for 

the cultivation of calm (śamatha) and concentration 

(samadhi), and was the main ground for extraordinary 

powers, yet, by itself, it could not lead to liberation. 

The other, the exercise of the cognitive faculty (jñana) 

in an act of accurate perception (darśana), involved the 

practice of calm, clear-minded observation (vipaśyana) 

and the cultivation of discernment (prajña). 

Most Buddhist meditation theories consider both 

aspects of meditation necessary in the pursuit of liberation, 

but argue that correct insight is the uniquely 

Buddhist component in this joint practice. Nonetheless, 

techniques of calm and techniques of discernment 

often overlap. The ABHIDHARMA, for instance, tended 

to group together certain techniques and objects of 

meditation that were seen as primarily means toward 

the development of concentration, but could be used 

as props for discernment. Many of these lists are in fact 

mixed groupings of objects, styles, and states of meditation. 

One such inventory, explained by BUD- 

DHAGHOSA in his Visuddhimagga (Path of Purity), lists 

forty “fields” of cultivation of meditation (each is a 

kammatthana, working ground). The list includes heterogeneous 

categories, such as a hierarchy of meditative 

states (the four dhyanas), object-states (e.g., the 

boundless states or brahmavihara), general objects 

(e.g., material or corporeal objects), and particular 

object-tools of meditation (that is, objects designed 

specially as aids to meditation). 

Buddhaghosa’s summary is thus a heterogeneous 

list describing various technical dimensions of meditation. 

For instance, among the “object-tools” of meditation 

are the all-inclusive or total objects, usually 

identified by their Pali name kasina. This device is a 

simple visual object that can become the single, neutral 

object of attention. For instance, a red kasina is a 

circle of red sand or clay that is spread out on the 

ground before the meditator, who then focuses on it 

until he is able to displace all thoughts from the mind 

except the image of the red circle. The meditator continues 

the practice until he is able to keep in his mind 

the red circle even when he is away from the actual external 

kasina. The outcome is regarded as a state of 

perfect calm and concentration that can serve as a 

foundation for special psychic powers or as a preliminary 

to insight meditation. 

The mind: practices of recollection. Like meditation 

techniques and objects, meditative states cannot 

be easily classified as objects or states, processes or 

supports for sustained attention, nor can they be easily 

distinguished into states of serenity, processes of 

observation, or moments of insight. For example, the 

practice of MINDFULNESS (smrti) can be used emblematically 

for concepts that encompass concentrated 

mental calm, as well as insightful observation, and that 

likewise straddle the distinction between object, 

process, and goal. 

Broadly understood, mindful recollection includes 

a spectrum of mental states and exercises that the tradition 

conceives as “memory” or “bringing to mind” 

(the literal meaning of smrti) and that overlap with 

practices of watchful recollection (anusmrti). As a 

superordinate term smrti refers broadly to three related 

practices: (1) vigilance with regard to one’s own demeanor 

and behavior, (2) bringing to mind (recalling) 

and keeping in the mind (retaining) a prescribed object 

of meditation, and (3) constantly directing one’s 

attention toward, and keeping in awareness, a prescribed 

object, especially the processes of one’s body 

and mind. 

The first usage, watching one’s own behavior, arguably 

fits better in a discussion of the rules of monastic 

conduct and consists primarily of an effort to 

remain constantly aware of one’s own demeanor, bodily 

posture, tone of voice, gaze, and so on, with a view 

to keeping mind and body (thoughts and senses) calm 

and restrained. This dimension of practice is totally ignored 

in Western accounts of Buddhist meditation but 

is amply described in classical literature under the 

rubrics of sam vara (self-restraint) and śiksa (training 

practices). Although often found as an integral part of 

monastic practice, its importance is suggested by both 

its pervasiveness on the ground and by influential classical 

treatments in works like ŚANTIDEVA’s BODHI- 

CARYAVATARA or the Xiaozhiguan attributed to ZHIYI, 

the systematizer of the Chinese TIANTAI SCHOOL. 

Recollection practices of the second type (recalling 

and retaining prescribed objects of meditation) may be 

divided heuristically into the recollection of ideas, the 

recollection of sensory images, and the evocation of affective 

states. In the classical Indian practice of 


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M EDITATION 

anusmrti (recollection), the meditator is required to 

bring to mind one of six different ideal subjects: the 

Buddha, his teachings (dharma), the community of his 

noble disciples (saṅgha), good moral habits, generous 

giving, and heavenly beings (deva). The meditator first 

brings to mind the traditional description of the chosen 

topic, then reviews discursively the good qualities 

associated with the subject of meditation. 

A practice that is not explicitly called smrti, yet involves 

a systematic bringing to mind or an evocation 

of affect is “abiding in sublime abodes” (brahmavihara, 

also called “boundless states”). Four such states are prescribed: 

benevolence, compassion, joy, and equanimity. 

In one of the most common forms (recommended 

and practiced in Theravada circles) the meditator begins 

by developing thoughts of benevolence toward a 

person to whom the meditator is indifferent, then toward 

a friend, then an enemy, and finally all SENTIENT 

BEINGS, infusing the whole universe with feelings of 

benevolence. The meditator then proceeds to develop 

the other three feelings in the same manner. 

A third type of smrti, commonly known as “mindfulness 

practice” or “attention to mindfulness” 

(smrtyupasthana; Pali, satipatthana), may be called 

“mindfulness proper.” It is the “recollection” or 

bringing to mind of bodily and mental states, and of 

the conditions to which these states are subject. Once 

“recollected” they are held in attention and observed 

with clear awareness. 

Tradition prescribes four objects of mindfulness: 

body, sensations (bodily feelings), mind (thought and 

stream of consciousness), and dharmas (doctrinal 

truths and doctrinal ideas). However, tradition has it 

that all four are encompassed by the sole practice of 

“mindfulness of breathing” (anapanasmrti), which can 

be undertaken in preparation for, or in conjunction 

with, the practice of the other four. One may argue 

that mindfulness proper is a type of insight practice 

(vipaśyana), insofar as calm awareness is a requisite for 

keen observation. Observation is usually formulated as 

follows: “What is my body doing?” or “What is my 

mind doing at this moment?” 

At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of 

the twentieth century, several Buddhist monks from 

Myanmar (Burma) set out to reform the practice of 

Buddhist meditation. Leading figures like Ledi Sayadaw 

(1856–1923) and Sayagyi U Ba Khin (1889–1971) 

objected to what they perceived as an excessive emphasis 

on meditation as samadhi, that is, technically, 

as mental withdrawal and spiritual power. They proposed 

a putatively more direct meditation in which 

mindfulness was the primary technique and insight the 

ultimate goal. This, they felt, had been the teaching of 

the Buddha himself. 

Presented in a variety of forms, this basic approach 

came to be known as “mindfulness” or “insight” (or 

by the original Pali terms, satipatthana and vipassana). 

The prototypical practice was mindfulness of breathing, 

but other forms of mindful awareness and recollection 

were emphasized. Insight meditation lent itself 

to lay practice, and soon came to satisfy the aspirations 

of the new secular, middle-class audience that appeared 

in modern Southeast Asia, and of young Western 

disciples who came to Asia in search of the dharma. 

The mind: calm and insight. Contemporary advocates 

of mindfulness/insight methods regard such 

practices as distinctive or self-contained practices, as 

suggested in canonical texts like the Satipatthana-sutta 

(Majjhimanikaya 1, 55–63). However, the most common 

scholastic position in classical times was to suppose 

that one needed techniques for making body and 

mind supple and malleable, serene and focused, as a 

basis for mental culture. 

In this context, the word samadhi denotes a family 

of techniques shared by other religious systems of India, 

but normative Buddhist literature generally regards 

these techniques as preparatory or foundational, 

and not as aims in themselves. Although, in practice, 

many even today pursue states of samadhi for their 

own sake, the higher, normative goal is insight, which 

is believed to lead to liberation from suffering and from 

the cycle of rebirth. 

Insight is not a simple “looking” or “seeing,” but 

rather a review of reality or truth. Insight is therefore 

not easily separated from doctrine and doctrinal reflection. 

The classical Indian tradition sometimes accepts 

the possibility that there can be insight without 

the cultivation of serenity. An integration of both is 

not a given, and it is neither simple nor necessary, yet 

most traditions acknowledge the need for both, even 

when one is emphasized more than the other. Generally, 

the theoretical integration is based on two assumptions: 

that a preparatory calming of the mind will 

allow for clear insight, and that the objects used as the 

foundation for calm can also be used as objects of investigation 

by means of insight. The goal of insight is 

discernment or clear understanding (prajña), and this 

discernment would never arise without the cultivation 

(bhavana) of insight accompanied by the cultivation of 

perfect calm and concentration. 


M EDITATION 

Meditation in Mahayana 

Most Buddhist currents and religious groups in India—whether 

they were identified as nikaya (so-called 

MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS) or MAHAYANA 

communities—tended to model meditation on elements 

found in a common pool of practices. These corresponded 

in their rough outlines to the techniques 

summarized in the formula of the forty kammatthana, 

and they are also found in practice manuals (so-called 

yogacara or yogavacara manuals). Sometimes these recommendations 

were incorporated into larger treatises 

on doctrine and practice, like the encyclopedic Yogacarabhũmi 

attributed to ASAṄGA. 

Thus, Mahayana meditation in India followed some 

variants of the common background of practices found 

in non-Mahayana traditions. Mahayana texts recommend, 

for example, the practice of the boundless states, 

the meditation on the corpse (aśubhabhavana), and 

mindfulness practices. Many of these practices were 

transported to Mahayana regions outside India in versions 

that seldom differed significantly from the accounts 

found in the Indian texts we possess. 

Nevertheless, a number of innovations occurred in 

Mahayana, in India and beyond. Emphasis on ŚU NY- 

ATA (EMPTINESS) led some Mahayana authors to criticize 

the notion that the corpse was impure or foul 

(aśubha), arguing that it was better to conceive of it as 

empty of both substance and characteristics. In the 

same vein, the classical meditation on mental states 

(citta), which had earlier focused on a clear distinction 

between mental states that are good or healthy (kuśala) 

and those that are noxious or unhealthy (akuśala), 

shifted according to Mahayana dialectic, and the meditator 

asked himself whether his own thoughts, good 

or bad, could be located anywhere: “Where did they 

come from, where will they go, where are they located, 

inside of me, outside, or somewhere in between?” 

Śantideva describes in his Bodhicaryavatara a psychologically 

complex meditation on no-self and compassion 

that became a classic in Tibet and has been 

admired in the West for almost a century. The meditation 

has two parts: identification of self with others, and 

reversing roles between self and others. In the first part, 

the meditator explores the boundaries of the self and 

the preconceptions that make us set such boundaries. 

For instance, one is to reflect on the fact that suffering 

is the same in all beings, so that our natural impulse to 

avoid suffering makes more sense as a desire to protect 

all living things from suffering than in any selfish desire 

to protect ourselves at the expense of others. 

In the second part of the meditation, Śantideva 

imagines another person, one who is less fortunate 

than he is. Then he assumes the role of this other person 

and imagines this person looking back at Śantideva 

first with envy, then reproaching him for his 

pride and for his insensitivity in regarding the less fortunate 

as inferiors, instead of as the only reason for 

his existence, for only those in pain justify one’s existence 

since service to others is the only meaning of the 

Buddhist’s life. 

A group of texts written approximately a century 

later, Kamalaśla’s three Bhavanakramas, also describe 

uniquely Mahayana practices. These three essays borrow 

extensively from the Yogacara tradition. The second 

essay establishes clearly a uniquely Mahayana use 

of the boundless states (apramanya) as a way to generate 

the great compassion that will motivate the meditator 

to seek the awakening of a buddha. The same 

texts also summarize meditations on emptiness that 

progress from an abhidharmic analysis of matter, 

through a yogacara analysis of mind and its contents, 

and culminate in a state of samadhi that is devoid of 

any conceptual contents (animittasamadhi). The latter 

state is the gateway to the liberating knowledge that is 

nondual (advayajñana). 

Tantric practices 

The Buddhist textual and ritual traditions that are usually 

called Tantric expanded on some of the practices 

outlined above and adopted practices that may have 

been autochthonous to the localities where Tantra 

grew roots. The typical Tantric meditation session is a 

pastiche or a stratified event, in which elements from 

different periods and currents of the tradition intermingle. 

Such a session, called a sadhana (realization, 

empowerment) is typically a mixture of evocation and 

visualization overlaying a classical Mahayana liturgy. 

Three characteristics of Tantric meditation stand 

out in a sadhana; two of them are evident to an outside 

observer, one is apparent only to the practitioner. 

First, meditation exercises can take the form of complex 

liturgies. These are ritual events that may or may 

not include meditation proper, since often the representation 

or performance of the liturgical process is 

considered as effective as, equivalent to, or inducive of 

events internal to the practitioner. Yet, silent, private 

meditation may incorporate these ritual elements as 

inner, or mental, rituals. The dividing line between a 

meditation embedded in a ritual and a liturgy meant 

to display publicly the structure and power of the meditation 

is often blurred. 


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Second, one cannot escape the obvious emphasis 

on the senses that pervades Tantric practice. Sight is 

both stimulated and used by a number of multicolored 

props, offerings, and ritual implements, and 

by the mandala (a graphic representation that in part 

maps out the ritual and any internal processes of meditation). 

The sense of smell is stimulated by the frequent 

use of incense and flowers. The ear is involved 

through recitation and through the focusing of the ritual 

and the meditation on specific ritual formulas and 

“mystical” formulas (mantras) and syllables (bljas). 

The third characteristic is less palpable. Tantric 

liturgical-meditative events are often presumed to depend 

on or to induce an inner sensory process in the 

practitioner. This process is sometimes called “visualization,” 

since instructions often ask the meditator to 

“see” something in his or her heart or mind. This object 

is to be retained in the mind for a prescribed time, 

to the exclusion of everything else, and serves some of 

the functions of the kasina. 

Although some Western observers have questioned 

the meaning of these instructions, it seems clear that 

the practitioner is being asked to view something in 

the mind. Whether this is at all possible is not as critical 

as understanding that many people think it is possible. 

Once the picture is in the mind one can look at 

it, view it, and contemplate it; or one can become one 

with the object. 

The inner process is also called sadhana, and it may 

be construed as a “realization” because it implies that 

the vision is, or should be made to become, something 

that is real or that can be appropriated or incorporated 

into one’s person. The meditator, for instance, is asked 

to perceive mentally, in his own heart, the first vowel, 

A, which gradually turns into the orb of the moon. In 

the middle of this moon he should see a lovely blue lotus. 

On the filaments of this lotus he will see the spotless 

orb of a second moon, upon which appears the 

yellow seed-syllable (blja) Taṁ. Thereupon, the meditator 

sees rays of light issuing from this yellow seedsyllable, 

and this mass of rays destroys the darkness of 

the world’s delusions, illuminates all the endless 

worlds that exist in the ten directions, and gathers the 

numberless, measureless families of buddhas and bodhisattvas 

from the whole universe, bringing them before 

the meditator. 

Such visualizations often lead to meditations of the 

insight type that we have seen before: The mental picture 

of a buddha, for instance, is examined by asking 

questions regarding the substantiality of the image, and 

of the buddha it represents. 

The evocation of deities in contexts that shade off 

from simple invocation to visualization, and from 

apotropaic and propitiatory prayer to meditations of 

identity, was especially popular among Tibetan Buddhists. 

It is sometimes called deity yoga in the West, in 

accordance with a free English translation of the Tibetan 

term lha’i mgnong rtogs (“realization” or “actualization” 

of the deity). In a deity-yoga sadhana, the 

meditator invokes and visualizes the physical appearance 

(including shape, sound, and smell) of his or her 

own meditation deity (the chosen or assigned object of 

meditation), which is also the person’s main protective 

deity, the “chosen” tutelary deity (yi dam; Sanskrit, 

istadevata). As a step into higher meditations the practice 

is indistinguishable from a basic sadhana, but as a 

devotional practice it is perhaps the most popular of 

all meditations in circles that follow Tibetan traditions 

of meditation. A meditation of this type is the nyungne 

(bsnyung gnas), which is especially popular among the 

laity and is devoted to the bodhisattva of compassion, 

Avalokiteśvara. This ritual meditation is usually carried 

out during the days celebrating the birth, enlightenment, 

and death of the Buddha. The nyungne is a twoday 

fasting retreat for laypersons, led by a monk. 

Although the primary objective appears to be strengthening 

the vows and precepts of the bodhisattva and the 

invocation of Avalokiteśvara’s compassionate assistance, 

the model for the liturgy is still that of a deityyoga 

sadhana inviting the bodhisattva to make himself 

present before and inside the meditator. 

Another form of Tantric practice, a syllable or a full 

phrase (of the mantra genre), recited aloud or mumbled, 

becomes the focus for the development of concentration 

and insight. These Sanskrit syllables often 

represent sacred presences, and by extension embody 

and therefore invoke and appropriate them (that is, 

fuse or exchange the identities of meditator and deity). 

In Japanese Tantric practice, as modeled, for instance, 

in the Shingon tradition, the syllable hrl is taken 

to represent the name, person, and presence of 

AMITABHA. When the syllable is drawn or recited, the 

believer presumes that the Buddha Amitabha has been 

invoked or, better yet, that he is present. The set of all 

syllables, and therefore of all buddhas, bodhisattvas, 

and deities, is contained in the primary vowel sound 

A. This syllable is regarded as the origin and essence 

of all syllables, and hence of all language and every- 


M EDITATION 

A twelfth-century statue of the Buddha seated in meditation position, at Polonnaruva, Sri Lanka. (Sri Lankan, 1153–1186.) The Art 

Archive/British Museum/The Art Archive. Reproduced by permission. 

thing constructed and generated by language. Its invocation 

therefore brings forth not an individual buddha, 

but the totality or essence of what is real 

(dharmadhatu). 

Tantric meditation blends the themes and instruments 

of ritual, sound, and language, combining them 

with the ideas of serenity and insight, all in a process 

rooted in a conviction that deities can be made manifest 

before or assimilated into the meditator. This is 

then not only meditation of speech, but also meditation 

of visual imagery; yet it is also a technique for 

inviting holy, ideal beings to come, as guests, before 

the meditator, and then gradually share their identity 

with that of the meditator. Additionally, this identity 

is usually reduced to the emptiness of all things, which 

is, paradoxically, what is ultimately real, stable, and 

foundational. 

Other uses of the word 

Belief in the transformative power of word and syllable 

is not limited to Tantra. A different sort of invocation 

is found in the practice of calling on or calling 

out the name of the Buddha Amitabha. Indian notions 

of the sacred name found fertile ground in East Asia, 

where they tended to cluster around the cult of this 

buddha in particular, whose invocation has become 

synonymous with Buddhist devotionalism. 

In China, where the East Asian tradition has its 

roots, one may chant either the name of the Buddha 

Amitabha or the equivalent of the Sanskrit expression 

“homage to the Buddha Amitabha” (namo ’mitabhaya 

buddhaya; Chinese, namo Amito-fo), which has been 

turned into a sacred name or “the Name.” The recitation 

is conceived as devotion or devotional surrender, 

but can also be conceived as meditation embedded in 


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M EDITATION 

traditions of mental culture and moral-ascetic cultivation. 

In the latter function, the recitation may be part 

of a visualization exercise in which the meditator imagines 

or images the paradise of Amitabha, the Pure Land. 

Traditional understandings of meditation on the 

name include conceiving of it as concentrated wish or 

devotion, as meditation on the true name or essence 

of the Buddha, or as an aid to visualizing Amitabha’s 

Western Paradise. Additionally, the recitation of the 

sacred name has been used as part of Chan meditation 

practice. 

The Chan use of language in meditation is less explicit 

that it is in Tantric tradition, as the Chan tradition 

claims to have access to an experience that is 

nonconceptual and free from the boundaries of language. 

Yet important strands of the tradition claim that 

this nonconceptual mode of being is achieved through 

a peculiar use of words. Although ostensibly the ultimate 

meaning of Chan is “an independent transmission 

that is outside doctrinal teaching, and does not 

rely on words,” Chan has had much to do with words, 

and has developed a specialized language of the unspoken 

and the ineffable. 

The Chan traditions (chanzong, or Zen in contemporary 

Western parlance) began to develop an approach 

that was described as a method of no-method, 

but which was in fact a radical method, using a rhetoric 

of iconoclasm and paradox. The tradition conceives 

enlightenment as already present in the mind, or, 

rather, as the mind itself being already enlightened and 

therefore requiring no cultivation, no meditation. 

Some strands of the tradition argue accordingly that 

method and meditation are superfluous; truth must be 

grasped directly, without mediation; delusion and suffering 

are nothing but a mistake, and if one abandons 

the mistake, the true mind manifests itself. Such extreme 

statements perhaps were put into practice 

among a limited circle of disciples and for a short time 

during the Tang dynasty (618–907 C.E.), but, in theory, 

this rhetoric remained in the tradition as an ideal 

description of Chan. 

Be that as it may, the most characteristic Chan use 

of language developed in the Song dynasty (960–1279 

C.E.) and is known in the West as the KO AN— 

borrowing the Japanese pronunciation (ko an) of the 

Chinese gong’an. The term refers today to a key word 

or phrase used as the pivot or focus for meditation 

and believed to be derived directly from the words of 

ancient masters. The key phrase is usually found in an 

anecdotal or legendary exchange between disciple and 

master. These dialogues are known as “question and 

answer” (Japanese, mondo ; Chinese, wenda) and are 

for the most part presented as vignettes of incidents 

or anecdotes of dialogues from the lives of great Chan 

masters. The incident or exchange was regarded as a 

“public case” (the meaning of gong’an), hence a 

“court precedent” embodying the wisdom of the 

greatest judges of what is true enlightenment, that is, 

the great meditation masters of the past. The master’s 

“verdict” or judgment was the key phrase (huatou) in 

the anecdote. 

In the Japanese Rinzai tradition, the meditator memorizes 

the anecdote with its key phrase (both called 

ko an in common parlance) and uses the phrase as the 

focus of concentrated attention. In China, Korea, and 

Vietnam, it is common to reserve the cases for study, 

reflection, commentary, or debate, and make the focus 

of meditation a more general or all-encompassing 

question, such as: “What is it?” “Who is it?” “Who is 

reciting the sutras?” In this phrasing, the it and the who 

are the focus of concentrated attention. 

Whatever the assigned question might be, the meditator 

is expected to cultivate undistracted awareness 

of the koan during sitting meditation and then “take 

it with him wherever he goes.” This is reminiscent of 

the kasina exercise, in the sense that the person is expected 

to become one with, and think of nothing but, 

the object of meditation. 

But the exercise also develops insight because the 

phrase becomes an object of inquiry as part of the question 

formulated in the koan (e.g., “What is this?”) The 

answer has to be nondiscursive: a gesture or a sound, 

or perhaps even the right unquestioned and unreflective 

word. A common reply is an interjection. Among 

the interjections, some have become classical answers 

on the same plane with other sayings of the great masters. 

One such word is ho! (Japanese, katsu!), a Chinese 

monosyllabic expression indicating a sharp 

scolding or sarcastic surprise. The Chan master Can of 

Boyun Wuliangsi states, 

Throughout the twenty-four hours of the day, walk with 

your key phrase (huatou), stand with your key phrase, sit 

with your key phrase, lie down with your key phrase. 

Your mind should feel just like a thorn bush, so you cannot 

swallow such notions as “person,” “self,” “delusion,” 

etc. Whether you are walking, standing, sitting, or lying 

down, turn your entire body into a ball of DOUBT . ... 

Then, upon hearing some sound or seeing some shape 

or color, most certainly you will shout, “Ho!” This single 

sound takes you to the end. (Taisho 2024, vol. 48, 

1100a2–7) 


M EDITATION 

The system remained permeable to various influences 

from the literature and philosophy of the countries 

in which koan were used. For instance, beginning 

with the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Pure Land 

recitation was often used as a koanlike topic. Master 

Zhiji advised, 

Recite the name of the Buddha Amitabha once, or three, 

or five, or seven times. Then turn back silently and ask 

yourself, “Where does this recitation of the name of the 

Buddha arise?” Or ask yourself, “Who is this reciting the 

name of the Buddha?” If you have doubts, simply have 

doubts . . . . Investigate it carefully, inquire into it thoroughly. 

(Taisho 2024, vol. 48, 1102b18–23) 

The practice of Zen meditation, although idealized 

sometimes as a path of lonely self-discovery, requires 

constant coaching, prodding, and questioning by a 

qualified Zen master. In the Japanese Rinzai Zen tradition, 

interactions between the disciple and the meditation 

instructor take place in private interviews 

known as sanzen (Zen practiced by visiting) or dokusan 

(private visit). The interview can be frightening to 

the novice because the master traditionally sits on a 

cushion with his teaching rod lying at his feet, in a dark 

room, with a single candle illuminating the room from 

behind the master’s back. The disciple must bow before 

the master and immediately give or demonstrate 

his understanding of the meditation exercise. Any exchange 

taking place in dokusan is considered secret because 

it is believed to embody transmission from mind 

to mind. 

Although tradition sometimes suggests that all 

koans ultimately have the same meaning, it is not 

uncommon to organize koans in graded or step-wise 

presentations, or to prescribe them for different purposes 

(including the healing of specific diseases). 

Collections composed mostly during the Song dynasty 

also generated much debate as to the meaning 

of koans and the proper explanation or “answer” to 

the riddle implicit in the fact that a koan cannot have 

a “discursive” meaning. 

In Japan, approximately after the seventeenth 

century, koans were systematized into a curriculum of 

Zen training that included, for instance, traditional 

correct answers to the koans. The plan also incorporated 

some koans of Japanese origin, such as the famous, 

“What is the sound of one hand,” attributed to 

HAKUIN EKAKU (1686–1768). The disciple is expected 

to come up with the correct answer to a given koan, 

which will then be accepted or rejected by the master. 

Once the answer is accepted, the master assigns a different 

koan. The rigidity of the system and a number 

of abuses were often criticized, the most thorough and 

devastating criticism coming at the beginning of the 

twentieth century. 

The contexts of meditation 

What we conceive as “Buddhist meditation” may involve 

a spectrum of beliefs and practices embedded in 

both the private and the public lives of Buddhists. 

Moreover, as outlined above, meditation practice and 

doctrine, inner meditation processes, and external ritual 

overlap significantly and reinforce each other. 

Unlike ritual, meditation is, in practice, open-ended 

and subject to missing its ultimate goal, even when 

technically correct. To express it differently, meditation 

is supposed to have a transformative effect, but in 

actual practice, the effect may come about gradually, 

imperfectly, or not at all. Both the experience of the 

struggle, the failures and frustrations, and the pragmatic 

quest for the right technique, time, and intensity 

of practice are topics worth exploring. 

The full range of meditation includes many experiences. 

We have noted already some of the more abstract: 

notions of truth, polemical and philosophical 

insights, and the experience of preparation, retreat, or 

ritual frames. But, as a personal journey, meditation 

meets many obstacles: a person’s frustration with meditation; 

sleepiness or overexcitability during meditation; 

physical pain, fatigue, or discomfort; and the 

disappointment of making no progress. For people 

who practice meditation these obstacles are equally important 

experiences. Sometimes they are either commented 

upon in meditation instruction, or used for 

meditation itself. 

Needless to say, meditation, like other aspects of the 

religious life, also has its social contexts and its interpersonal 

correlates. In its social contexts, meditation 

can have many meanings and functions. Similarly, the 

goals of meditation can vary considerably even in the 

lifetime of one individual. Such goals may be associated 

with traditions of hygiene, health, and healing, or 

with those of wonder-working. Meditation is also often 

closely associated with the visionary quest, the 

quest for visions of hidden or distant worlds, HEAVENS 

and HELLS. It is also associated with ASCETIC PRACTICES, 

withdrawal, or escape. In all of these functions the tendency 

is to see meditation as essentially the concentration 

of spiritual power. 

Buddhists can, and often do, appeal to the experience 

of meditation as a justification or a foundation 

for their beliefs, values, and practices, regardless of 


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M EIJI B UDDHIST R EFORM 

their willingness or capacity to actually practice meditation. 

But it is also true that many Buddhists see meditation 

as a value in itself, as an ideal that may be 

difficult to achieve, too difficult for most of us, but 

nevertheless as a spiritual discipline that represents the 

highest accomplishment that a human being is capable 

of achieving. A Buddhist expressing this second 

view of meditation can also consider meditation as essentially 

a practice, something to be done or accomplished, 

and therefore, as something that is not merely 

a belief or an ideal. 

See also: Bodhi (Awakening); Chan School; Nenbutsu 

(Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, Yŏmbul); Psychology; 

Vipassana (Sanskrit, Vipaśyana); Yogacara School 

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1988. 

MEIJI BUDDHIST REFORM 


The collapse of the Tokugawa regime and the wave of 

changes accompanying the restoration of imperial rule 

and the formation of a new government at the start of 

the Meiji period (1868–1912) stimulated directly and 

indirectly numerous significant changes in Japanese 

Buddhism. The harsh critiques of Buddhism by Confucians, 

Nativists, and Shintoists during the waning 

years of the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) and at the 

start of Meiji culminated in the state-mandated sepa- 


M EIJI B UDDHIST R EFORM 

ration of Buddhist and local elements of worship 

(which came to be identified as Shinto), triggering a 

brief but exceedingly violent suppression of Buddhism 

that lasted until 1871. Numerous Buddhist clerics were 

forcibly laicized, monastery lands were confiscated, 

and many temples and works of Buddhist art were destroyed. 

Even after the overt violence subsided, Buddhists 

were left reeling by an end to state support, 

government-mandated institutional centralization 

and restructuring, and the end to state enforcement of 

traditional protocols of Buddhist discipline, particularly 

the prohibitions against such clerical infractions 

as eating meat, marriage, and abandoning clerical 

dress or tonsure. An additional threat to Buddhism 

was posed by the growing influence in Japan of foreign 

Christian missionaries and Japanese Christian 

converts, who, along with domestic critics of Buddhism, 

characterized Buddhism as decadent, corrupt, 

impotent, and outdated. 

Buddhists responded to the challenges of the Meiji 

period at the denominational, clerical, and lay levels. 

At the institutional level, leaders of the main Buddhist 

denominations availed themselves of the growing centralization 

of denominational governance in an effort 

to end the clerical abuses that they believed had helped 

bring Buddhism to its troubled state. Such leaders as 

Fukuda Gyokai (1809–1888), Shaku Unsho (1827– 

1909), and Nishiari Bokusan (1821–1910) called on the 

Buddhist clergy to voluntarily preserve traditional 

Buddhist praxis, especially adherence to the PRECEPTS, 

and to ground themselves thoroughly in traditional 

Buddhist learning. These reform efforts gave rise to the 

adoption of strict new denominational rules and the 

creation of centers for clerical education that evolved 

into such sectarian universities as today’s Ryukoku, 

O tani, and Komazawa universities. The main branches 

of the Jodo Shinshu, in particular, sponsored travel and 

study in Europe and the United States by such important 

contributors to the construction of modern Japanese 

Buddhism and Buddhist studies as Akamatsu Renjo 

(1841–1919), Kitabatake Doryu (1820–1907), Shimaji 

Mokurai (1838–1911), Nanjo Bun’yu (1849–1927), 

and Takakusu Junjiro (1866–1945). 

Groups of clerics, working independently of the denominations, 

began movements that aimed to reform 

clerical practice, meld Buddhist and Western styles of 

PHILOSOPHY and scholarship, and restructure denominational 

governance. Notable among the cleric-led 

movements that sought to extend Buddhist morality 

into day-to-day social life were Kiyozawa Manshi’s 

(1863–1903) Jodo Shin-based “spiritualist” movement 

(Seishin shugi); the pro-temperance Hanseikai (Selfreflection 

Society), which was led by such Nishi Honganji 

notables as Takakusu Junjiro, MURAKAMI SEN- 

SHO , INOUE ENRYO , and Furukawa Rosen (1871–1899); 

and Shaku Unsho’s Tokkyokai (Morality Society). 

Other clerical reformers, for example, Kuruma Takudo 

(1877–1964), Tanabe Zenchi, and Nakazato Nissho, 

worked for the acceptance of clerical marriage and 

the creation of an educated Buddhist clergy that was 

totally engaged with family, social, and national affairs. 

Lay Buddhist movements, stimulated by the growth 

of a literate middle class, were also a major feature of 

the religious landscape during the Meiji era. Such former 

clerics as Inoue Enryo, O uchi Seiran (1845–1918), 

Daido Choan (1843–1908), and Tanaka Chigaku 

(1861–1939) founded new lay Buddhist organizations 

that ran the political gamut from liberal to very conservative. 

These groups variously sought to create a 

new Buddhism that would play an integral role in the 

daily lives of their members, give Buddhism intellectual 

parity with Western religion, philosophy, and science, 

and, at the same time, provide solid ideological 

support for the new Japanese nation-state. O uchi’s 

Sonno Hobutsu Daidodan (Great Association for 

Revering the Emperor and Worshipping the Buddha) 

and Tanaka Chigaku’s Nichiren-based, lay religious 

groups that evolved into Kokuchukai (National Pillar 

Society) were vehemently anti-Christian and strongly 

nationalistic. These movements served as influential 

models for many of the Buddhist-based new religious 

movements that arose in the first half of the twentieth 

century. 

See also: Clerical Marriage in Japan; Japan 

Bibliography 

Collcutt, Martin. “Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication.” In 

Japan in Transition, ed. Marius Jansen and Gilbert Rozman. 



Separation of Shinto and Buddhist Divinities in Meiji (Shinbutsu 

Bunri) and a Case Study: Tonomine.” History of Religions 

23 (February 1984): 240–265. 

Ketelaar, James Edward. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan. 


Snodgrass, Judith. Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West: 

Orientalism, Occidentalism, and the Columbian Exposition. 

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. 



531

M ERIT AND M ERIT-MAKING 

MERIT AND MERIT-MAKING 

Merit (punya; Chinese, gongde; Japanese, kudoku) is 

karmic virtue acquired through moral and ritual actions; 

it is widely regarded as the foundation of Buddhist 

ethics and salvation. Although Jodo Shinshu, the 

Shin (true) PURE LAND SCHOOL of Japanese Buddhism, 

rejects the efficacy of meritorious acts, the vast majority 

of Buddhist communities affirm the soteriological 

effects of good actions. As indicated by the term meritmaking, 

virtue is the deliberate result of human consideration 

and conduct. 

Buddhist literature widely attests to the making and 

consequences of merit. The JATAKA tales tell stories of 

how people benefit from their virtues and suffer from 

their vices. “Be quick in goodness,” counsels the Word 

of the Doctrine (DHAMMAPADA), “from wrong hold 

back your thought.” In Milinda’s Questions (MILINDA- 

PAN HA), the Buddhist monk Nagasena tells King 

Milinda that those who are pure in heart, refined and 

straight in action, and free from the obstacles of craving 

will see NIRVAN A. In these Pali texts, merit accrues 

from moral actions. 

In MAHAYANA literature, the importance of morality 

is affirmed, but the notion of merit is extended to 

the idea of benefits obtained largely through ritual 

actions. Since ritual involves magical power exceeding 

that of moral effort, the benefits are greater. The 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA; Japanese, 

Myo ho rengekyo ), for example, describes the magnificent 

benefits that will fall on those who do no more 

than read, recite, copy, and uphold the sutra. Their 

benefits will be without limit or measure, far exceeding 

the merits acquired through moral practices such 

as almsgiving, patience, and gentleness. An investment 

in ritual actions yields greater benefits than merits realized 

through moral effort. 

The relationship between ritual benefits and moral 

merits varies according to different traditions and 

teachers, but in most cases both are affirmed and are 

indicated by the single Japanese term kudoku, which 

literally means “the virtue of effort.” In order to specify 

the particular value of Buddhist effort, as opposed 

to all other human actions, the idea of the “field of 

merit” (punyaksetra; Chinese, futian; Japanese, fukuden) 

identifies Buddhism as the field within which 

merit and benefits can be realized and even multiplied. 

The Chinese and Japanese terms extend even further 

beyond the idea of ritual benefits to suggest divine 

blessings. The field of blessings is identified variously 

with the Buddha, the SAṄGHA (monastic community), 

and the dharma—that is, the entirety of Buddhism 

itself—and is defined even more specifically as particular 

deities, texts, or objects such as relics, all of which 

have the power to grant blessings. Despite the emphasis 

on ritual benefits and divine blessings, the merit of 

moral action is seldom forgotten. In the category of 

the “three fields of blessings,” for example, the first 

field involves reverence to the BUDDHAS, the second 

calls for repaying obligations to parents and teachers, 

and the third requires acts of compassion to help the 

poor and the sick. The value of any act, therefore, depends 

not just on the person carrying out the act but 

on the recipient as well. More merit and benefit will 

accrue by giving to buddhas rather than humans, humans 

rather than animals, monks rather than laypersons, 

and the poor rather than the rich. 

Benefits and blessings, the related virtues of merit, 

are enjoyed as rewards for one’s efforts, but they can 

also be dedicated or transferred to others. Like economic 

transactions, merit can be transferred from one 

account to another. In Milinda’s Questions, Nagasena 

argues that only the merits of good deeds can be transferred 

to others; the results of evil deeds cannot. Many 

rituals close with a section on the transfer of merit 

(parinamana; Japanese, eko ) to all sentient beings and 

to ancestors. Far from being fixed, karmic merit is 

transactional: Bad KARMA (ACTION) acquired in the 

past can be extinguished or offset by merit accrued in 

the present, and the karmic accounts of the dead can 

be augmented by a transfer of merit from the living. 

Rendering karmic aid to the dead is particularly important 

for those who might be reborn in the HELLS, 

where they will face the Ten Kings of Hell, who will 

surely indict them for lack of merit. Even for those 

whose lives were clearly meritorious, transferring merit 

assured their general well-being, and is a key element 

in the postmortem care of ANCESTORS. The best reason 

for transferring merit to the deceased is to help 

them gain rebirth in the pure land, the heavenly paradise 

in Buddhist COSMOLOGY. 

Since these transfers take place through formal rituals, 

monks and nuns, acting as agents brokering the 

transfer, receive donations for their services. This economic 

support has been an essential part of the institutional 

life of Buddhism; in addition to being the 

foundation of Buddhist morality and salvation, the belief 

in merit and the transfer of merit is a cornerstone 

for sustaining the clergy and their monasteries. 


M IJIAO 

(ESOTERIC) SCHOOL 

Sparrows are freed by a merit-maker during the Thai new year festival in Bangkok, Thailand, 1999. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced 


Merit can also be transferred between people without 

the ritual services of a cleric. Passing merit directly 

between people technically does not constitute a transfer 

of merit, which requires the ritual intervention of 

a monk or nun and is limited to the merit of good 

deeds. These direct karmic interchanges are better described 

as exchanges of merit taking place through personal 

relationships. In these situations, it is commonly 

believed that harm done to another will result in harsh 

retribution. Wrongdoing represents a loss of merit 

from the perpetrator to the victim, who thereby has 

the right to retaliate, often in the form of curses. Misfortunes 

are commonly interpreted to be retributions 

and even revenge inflicted by those who have been 

wronged. In Japan, aborted fetuses, for example, are 

said to be able to inflict harm on the parents who terminated 

their lives. Resolution of this problem takes 

the form of a ritual (MIZUKO KUYO ) through which a 

transfer of merit (eko ) from the parents to the fetus 

provides proper recompense. An exchange of bad 

karma through personal relationships can be corrected 

through a transfer of merit. 

As a moral commodity, merit is quantifiable. 

Chanting the name of the Buddha produces merit, and 

greater numbers of repetitions result in greater merit. 

In both China and Japan, people kept merit books in 

which they recorded the number of times they performed 

a ritual. Accumulated merit could be applied 

to oneself or transferred to a group, to ancestors, or to 

particular persons, such as the emperor. Quantification 

also permitted simplification, and practices such 

as reciting the Buddha’s name became popular among 

lay believers who did not have the resources for more 

complex rituals. The conflation of merit, benefits, and 

blessings meant that the rewards of virtue could be en- 


533

M IJIAO 


joyed in this life as well as the next, and testimonies 

abound about how people gained worldly boons from 

their moral and ritual practices. 

With the exception of Jodo Shinshu, all schools of 

Buddhism affirm the acquisition of worldly benefits 

through merit-making. In Japan, the ritual essentials 

are extremely simple, consisting of short petitionary 

prayers and the purchase of good luck amulets and 

charms. In the teaching of karma, nothing can happen 

by luck or chance, everything is the result of human 

deliberation and action. The belief in the power of 

amulets to produce benefits and blessings is often criticized 

by intellectuals and scholars as a form of magic 

that contradicts the doctrine of karma. Defenders of 

the practice, however, point out that it is precisely the 

law of karma that is at work when believers create merit 

by purchasing and venerating amulets. Benefits—and 

they include health, wealth, business success, good 

grades, family harmony, traffic safety, safe childbirth, 

and a host of other good things in life—result from the 

virtue of acquiring amulets and believing in the divine 

power it represents. Since amulets are believed to be 

consecrated with the power of specific deities, the 

worldly benefits are received as divine blessings. 

While there is clearly an element of magical thinking 

associated with amulets, few people believe that the 

mere possession of charms will produce the desired effects 

without any exertion of effort on their part. Japanese 

students, for example, purchase amulets for good 

grades, but do not believe that they are thereby relieved 

of having to study for an exam. Right action is still necessary 

in order to create merit, which can be complemented 

by divine blessings, but is not abrogated. 

Set within the larger context of the teaching of 

karma, merit and merit-making comprise a cogent 

system in which moral action produces merit, ritual 

performance generates benefits, and the buddhas 

and bodhisattvas grant blessings to those who earn 

them through their efforts and can share the fruits 

of their virtues with the living and the dead in hopes 

of gaining a good rebirth and, ultimately, entry into 

nirvana. 

See also: Amulets and Talismans; Death; Ghosts and 

Spirits; Rebirth 

Bibliography 

Brokaw, Cynthia J. The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit: Social 

Change and Moral Order in Late Imperial China. Princeton, 


Kalupahana, David. Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis. 








MIJIAO (ESOTERIC) SCHOOL 


The Esoteric school (Chinese, Mijiao) of Buddhism 

was introduced to China as part of the general spread 

of MAHAYANA Buddhism that took place in the third 

and fourth centuries of the common era. The earliest 

forms of Esoteric Buddhist practice consisted of incantations 

and DHARAN I, as found in a number of 

canonical and essentially exoteric sutras belonging to 

the Mahayana tradition. The gradual development toward 

esotericism in Indian Mahayana Buddhism is reflected 

in Chinese translations, which preserve the 

largest number of early Esoteric Buddhist scriptures. 

In the course of its development in China, Esoteric 

Buddhism evolved from a ritualistic appendix on the 

exoteric scriptures to full-scale Esoteric Buddhist scriptures 

that propagated a wide range of practices and beliefs 

with ritualized magic at the center. In the course 

of this development the Esoteric Buddhist tradition 

adapted a number of Daoist beliefs and practices, while 

at the same time greatly contributing to the development 

of that rival religious tradition. 

During the Tang dynasty (618–907) Esoteric Buddhism 

reached its zenith in terms of influence and popularity, 

and its lore and ritual practices were adopted 

by most Buddhist traditions in China. Esoteric Buddhism 

under the Tang was chiefly represented by the 

Zhenyan (True Word) school, which propagated a systematic 

and highly elaborate form of Esoteric Buddhism. 

Its leading patriarchs were Śubhakarasim ha 

(637–735), Vajrabodhi (669–741), and Amoghavajra 

(705–774), all of whom were of foreign ancestry. All 

three teachers served as preceptors for a succession of 

Chinese rulers. The teachings and rituals of the 

Zhenyan school were based on a large number of 

sutras and scriptures, most of which propounded the 

use of MUDRAs, MAN D ALAs, and visualizations, as well 

as incantations of magical formulas in the forms of 

MANTRAs and dharans. The main teachings and practices 

focused on the Mahavairocana (Great Sun) and 


M IJIAO 


the Vajraśekhara (Vajra Pinnacle), sutras that exemplify 

the kriya (action [i.e., rite]) and carya (ritual performance) 

stages according to the later classification of 

Esoteric Buddhism. In other words, the school focused 

on the initial or preliminary stages of practice in accordance 

with mature Tantric Buddhist doctrine. The 

antinomian practices commonly associated with the 

later Tantric tradition, including meat-eating, the 

drinking of alcohol, and ritual sex (i.e., the conscious 

breaking of the conventional Buddhist PRECEPTS), were 

not practiced by the teachers of the Zhenyan school. 

However, in the ritual cycles relating to the Vajrasattva 

cult as propagated by Amoghavajra, there is evidence 

of tendencies toward antinomianism. 

The centers of Zhenyan Buddhism were situated in 

the twin capitals of Chang’an and Luoyang, and included 

a series of famous monasteries such as Anguosi, 

Da Xingshansi, and Qinglongsi. During the late 

eighth and early ninth centuries, Mount Wutai in 

Shanxi province, with its hundreds of monasteries and 

hermitages, was a flourishing center of Zhenyan Buddhism. 

It was during this period that the Japanese 

monks SAICHO (767–822), the founder of the Japanese 

Tendai (Chinese, Tiantai) school, and KU KAI (774– 

835), who established Zhenyan in the form of SHIN- 

GON BUDDHISM in Japan, studied under Esoteric Buddhist 

masters in China. 

The Huichang persecution of Buddhism of 844 to 

845 destroyed most of the important Buddhist monasteries 

in Chang’an and Luoyang, and, while it seriously 

crippled the Zhenyan school, it did not cause lasting 

damage to the development of Esoteric Buddhism in 

China. Although the Zhenyan tradition declined, Esoteric 

Buddhist practices in nonsectarian and more 

unstructured forms continued to flourish in the 

provinces. In particular, Sichuan in the southwestern 

part of China saw the rise of a strong Esoteric Buddhist 

tradition that continued well into the Southern Song 

dynasty (960–1279). Yunnan, which at that time was 

ruled by the Dali kingdom (937–1253), also saw the 

rise of a distinct form of Esoteric Buddhism that incorporated 

influences from China, Tibet, and Burma. 

During the early Song, a new wave of translations of 

Buddhist scriptures introduced the first full-fledged 

tantras to Chinese soil, including the Mañjuśrlmu lakalpa 

(Fundamental Ordinance of Mañjuśrl), the Hevajratantra 

(Tantra of Hevajra), and the Guhyasamaja-tantra 

(Tantra of Guhyasamaja). However, it appears that the 

antinomian practices expounded in these scriptures did 

not win many adherents among the Chinese Buddhists. 

In contrast, the Tanguts, a people of Tibeto-Burmese 

stock, who had founded the Xixia dynasty (1038–1223) 

in present-day Ningxia and Gansu provinces, followed 

a mixture of Sino-Tibetan Buddhism that included Esoteric 

Buddhism in its Tantric form. Here the higher 

yoga and annuttarayoga tantras were taught. Tibetan 

lamas served as imperial preceptors to the Tangut rulers. 

During the Yuan (1260–1368) and early Ming 

(1368–1644) dynasties, Esoteric Buddhism in the form 

of Tibetan Lamaism was introduced in China, where it 

remained influential for several centuries. Under the 

Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Lamaism became the official 

religion of the Manchu rulers, who favored a succession 

of important lamas from Tibet and Mongolia. 

During this period, a number of important Tibetan and 

Mongolian tantric texts were translated into Chinese. 

See also: China; Daoism and Buddhism; Esoteric Art, 

East Asia; Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu) Buddhism in 

Japan; Persecutions; Tantra; Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Chou I–liang. “Tantrism in China.” Harvard Journal of Asian 

Studies 8 (1945): 41–332. 

Lü Jianfu. Zhongguo Mijiao shi (The History of Esoteric Buddhism 

in China). Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 

1995. 

Orzech, Charles D. “Seeing Chen–yen Buddhism: Traditional 

Scholarship and the Vajrayana in China.” History of Religions 

29, no. 2 (1989): 87–114. 

Osabe Kazuo. To So Mikkyo shi ronko (Essays on the History of 

Esoteric Buddhism during the Tang and Song). Kobe, Japan: 

Eiden bunsho do , 1963. 

Osabe Kazuo. To dai Mikkyo shi no zakko (History of Esoteric 

Buddhism during the Tang Dynasty). Kobe, Japan: Eiden 

bunsho do , 1971. 

Shi Jinbo. Xixia fojiao shilu (An Abbreviated History of Buddhism 

under the Xixia). Yinchuan, China: Ningxia renmin chubanshe, 

1988. 

Sørensen, Henrik H., ed. The Esoteric Buddhist Tradition: Selected 

Papers from the 1989 SBS Conference. Copenhagen and 

Aarhus, Denmark: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 1994. 

Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: Le bouddhisme 

tantrique en Chine. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1996. 

Xiao Dengfu. Daojiao yu mizong (Daoism and Esoteric Buddhism). 

Taipei, Taiwan: Xinwenfeng, 1993. 

Yoritomi Motohiro. Chu goku mikkyo no kenkyu (Studies in Chinese 

Esoteric Buddhism). Tokyo: Daito shuppan sha, 1980. 



535

M I LA RAS PA (MILAREPA) 

MI LA RAS PA (MILAREPA) 

Mi la ras pa (pronounced Milarepa, 1028/40–1111/23) 

was a highly revered Tibetan yogin. He is considered 

an early founder of the BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU) sect of 

Tibetan Buddhism. Mi la ras pa is esteemed throughout 

the Tibetan cultural world as an exemplar of religious 

dedication, perseverance through hardship, 

and meditative mastery. His life story has been the 

subject of a vast hagiographic tradition in Tibet. The 

most famous biographical account (Lhalungpa 1977) 

and collection of spiritual songs (Chang 1962), both 

composed in the late fifteenth century, remain extremely 

popular within the Tibetan Buddhist world. 

The themes associated with his biographical 

tradition—purification of past misdeeds, FAITH and 

devotion to the guru, ardor in MEDITATION and yogic 

practice, and the possibility of attaining buddhahood 

in a single lifetime—have influenced the development 

of Buddhist teaching and practice in Tibet, and the 

way they have been understood in the West. 

Mi la was his clan name; ras pa is derived from the 

word for a single cotton robe (ras) worn by Tibetan 

anchorites—an attire Mi la ras pa retained for most of 

his life. The name is therefore an appellation, perhaps 

translated as “The Cotton-Clad Mi la.” 

Although his dates are debated, biographies agree 

that Mi la ras pa was born to a prosperous family in 

the Gung thang region of southwestern Tibet. At an 

early age, after the death of his father, he and his family 

were dispossessed of their wealth and home by Mi 

la ras pa’s paternal aunt and uncle, and thereby reduced 

to a life of poverty and privation. At the behest 

of his mother, Mi la ras pa studied black magic in order 

to exact revenge upon his relatives, and he eventually 

murdered a great number of people. Later, 

feeling contrition and realizing the magnitude of his 

misdeeds, he sought to redeem himself from their 

karmic effects through the practice of Buddhism. He 

studied briefly under several masters before meeting 

his principal guru, the great translator of Indian texts 

MAR PA (MARPA) (1002/1012–1097). Mar pa, however, 

did not immediately teach Mi la ras pa, but rather subjected 

him to continual abuse, forcing him to undergo 

various ordeals, such as the famous trial of constructing 

immense stone towers. Pushed to the brink of utter 

despair, Mi la ras pa even contemplated suicide. 

Mar pa finally assuaged his disciple, revealing that the 

trials were actually a means of purifying previous negative 

karma. He explained that Mi la ras pa was, from 

the beginning, his disciple as prophesied by the Indian 

master NAROPA (1016–1100). Mi la ras pa received numerous 

tantric initiations and instructions— 

especially those of MAHAMUDRA and the practice of yogic 

inner heat (gtum mo)—together with the command 

that he should persevere against all hardship, meditating 

in solitary caves and mountain retreats. 

Mi la ras pa spent the rest of his life practicing meditation 

in seclusion and teaching small groups of disciples, 

mainly through poetry and songs of realization. 

He had little interest in philosophical discourse and no 

tolerance for intellectual pretension. His songs are 

composed in vernacular idioms, abandoning the 

highly ornamental formal structures of classical poetry 

in favor of a simple, direct, and often playful style. According 

to tradition, he was active across southern Tibet 

from Mount KAILAŚA (KAILASH) to Bhutan. Dozens 

of locations associated with the yogin have become important 

pilgrimage sites and retreat centers. Foremost 

among Mi la ras pa’s disciples were Sgam po pa Bsod 

nams rin chen (Gampopa Sonam Rinchen, 1079– 

1153) and Ras chung pa Rdo rje grags (Rechungpa 

Dorje Drak, 1084–1161). 


Bibliography 

Chang, Garma C. C., trans. The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, 

2 vols. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1962. 

Reprint, Boston: Shambhala, 1999. 

Lama Kunga Rinpoche and Cutillo, Brian, trans. Drinking the 

Mountain Stream. Novato, CA: Lotsawa, 1978. Reprint, 


Lama Kunga Rinpoche and Cutillo, Brian, trans. Miraculous 

Journey. Novato, CA: Lotsawa, 1991. 



MILINDAPAÑHA 


The Milindapañha, or Milinda’s Questions, is a Pali 

text that, though normally regarded as extracanonical, 

is nonetheless accepted in Myanmar (Burma) as 

part of the Khuddakanikaya of the Pali canon. Possibly 

based on a Sanskrit or Prakrit original, it dates 

prior to the fourth century C.E., when it—or the Sanskrit 

original—was translated into Chinese. Some even 

surmise that the original text was written in Greek. 


M ILLENARIANISM AND M ILLENARIAN M OVEMENTS 

In general, the text records a series of conversations 

between the Buddhist monk Nagasena and the Bactrian 

Indo-Greek king Milinda (also called Menander), 

who ruled northwestern India from Sagala (modern 

Sialkot) during the second century B.C.E. Its main 

thrust lies in eighty-one dilemmas, couched in Socratic 

dialogue, in which Milinda seeks to reconcile what appear 

to him to be contradictory statements by the Buddha 

in the Pali canon. Most notable of these is 

Milinda’s inability to reconcile the supposed doctrine 

of anatta (Sanskrit, anatman; no-self) and the Buddha’s 

belief in REBIRTH, which Nagasena skillfully resolves 

with his account of the chariot, in which he 

demonstrates that the terms self and chariot are simply 

concepts superimposed upon what is in fact merely a 

collection of parts. 

Although clearly regarded as authoritative by the 

scholar BUDDHAGHOSA, who quotes from it in his Visuddhimagga 

(The Path of Purification) and other commentaries 

(Horner, vol. I, p. xx), the text seemingly 

evinces Sarvastivadin influence in maintaining that 

both nibbana (NIRVAN A) and space are without cause, 

whereas for the Theravada only nibbana is non-compounded. 

See also: Pali, Buddhist Literature in 

Bibliography 

Horner, I. B., trans. Milinda’s Questions, 2 vols. London: Luzac, 

1963–1964. 

MILLENARIANISM AND 

MILLENARIAN MOVEMENTS 

PETER MASEFIELD 

Like most religious traditions, Buddhism has an understanding 

of time, both cyclic and linear, and a developed 

tradition of thought concerning the eventual 

end of the world. Within Buddhism, this tradition centers 

around the person of MAITREYA bodhisattva, who 

was identified early on as the future successor to 

Śakyamuni Buddha. Particularly in the MAHAYANA tradition, 

Maitreya came to be viewed as a messianic figure. 

In East Asia, the arrival of Maitreya was linked 

both to the apocalyptic end of the current epoch and 

the initiation of a future epoch in which the world 

would be transformed into a paradise. Historically, the 

worship of Maitreya has served as the seed both for 

general utopian longing and armed movements meant 

to usher in the millennium. 

Judeo-Christian and Buddhist millenarianism 

Millenarianism is a branch of utopianism, one specifically 

concerned with the arrival (or return) of a divinely 

portended messianic figure and the subsequent 

establishment of an earthly kingdom of peace and 

plenty. The term itself derives from the Christian belief 

in a thousand-year reign of Christ preceding the 

final judgment, leading to anticipation that the apocalypse 

would occur in the year 1000 C.E. For most 

Western readers, the concept of millenarianism is 

closely connected to the Judeo-Christian tradition, 

both the Jewish belief in the arrival of a messiah and 

the related Christian belief in Armageddon and the return 

of Christ Triumphant as described in the Book of 

Revelation. There is an inherent danger in relying too 

heavily on these conceptions of the millennium to understand 

similar ideas in Buddhism. The scriptural 

portents given by prophets of the Old and New Testaments 

provide a very specific picture of the arrival of 

the messiah and the nature of the judgment, reward, 

and punishment, none of which fits precisely with 

those of Buddhism or has much significance for millenarian 

movements in Buddhist history. 

At the same time, however, certain elements of 

Judeo-Christian millenarianism are conceptually similar 

to those seen in other traditions (including what 

might be termed political millenarianism, such as the 

anticipated return of a mythical ruler), suggesting that 

millenarian thought and movements involve certain 

universal themes. The first such element is a system of 

reckoning cosmic time. In most traditions, time is 

composed of three parts: epochs of the mythical past, 

the current age, and the distant future. These three 

epochs are separated by events of cosmic significance 

in which the old order is destroyed or altered completely, 

and thus the recorded history of humankind 

falls primarily inside the second age. In the Judeo- 

Christian tradition, the pivotal event that marked the 

commencement of the age of humans was the expulsion 

of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Human 

history progresses in a linear fashion from that 

point, reaching its culmination in the arrival or return 

of the messiah, at which point humankind as a whole 

will be subjected to its final judgment. 

The second element is the conception of the postmillennial 

paradise, which is depicted in very physical, 

earthly terms. Jewish messianism has historically produced 

a wide spectrum of ideas and movements, but 


537


is most fundamentally predicated on the physical return 

of the Jews to Palestine. The Christian Book of 

Revelation, as well, emphasizes the physicality of the 

millennium, with resurrection of the body and the 

founding of the Kingdom of God on earth. This type 

of millenarianism, which is predicated on the arrival 

of a sacred figure from heaven, is referred to as the descending 

motif. It is distinguished from belief in a postmortem 

paradise, often described as a place where 

purified souls await the final apocalypse. The ascent of 

souls to this heavenly kingdom marks this as the ascending 

motif. 

Maitreya in South and Central Asia 

Millenarian thought and devotion to Maitreya have 

appeared in almost every manifestation of the Buddhist 

tradition and may reflect pre-Buddhist themes. 

The arrival of a messianic and triumphant figure is 

based on the Indian ideal of the cakravartin, a virtuous 

universal monarch who is divinely destined to 

unify the earthly realm. Both the Buddha himself and 

Buddhist political figures such as King AŚOKA and the 

Japanese prince SHO TOKU were identified with this 

monarch. Early contact between Buddhism and 

Zoroastrianism (from Iran and Bactria) may have influenced 

this belief with the addition of beliefs concerning 

Mithra, a deity associated with apocalyptic 

change, and the image of Saošyant, a divine savior who 

would appear on earth at the end of twelve cosmic cycles, 

purge the world of sin, and establish an immortal 

material paradise. Scholars are undecided as to the 

exact relation of these traditions to the development 

of Buddhist millenarianism and Maitreya worship. 

Maitreya is not discussed in any of the canonical 

South Asian texts and is mentioned only tangentially 

in the canonical literature of the THERAVADA, but he 

catapults to prominence in the MAHAVASTU (Great 

Story), a central text of the MAHASAM GHIKA SCHOOL. 

This text, which outlines the theory of bodhisattvas as 

supernatural beings, places Maitreya at the head of a 

list of future buddhas. The Mahayana sutras continue 

in this line, portraying Maitreya as a worthy monk, 

who spent lifetimes developing in wisdom and preaching 

the dharma before being reborn as a bodhisattva 

in the Tusita heaven, where he awaits his incarnation 

as the buddha of the next epoch. 

This latter event, however, is spoken of in relatively 

vague terms, and it is destined to occur only in the very 

distant future (five billion years, by some accounts), 

according to cycles of growth and decay. An early Buddhist 

idea says that the universe oscillates between 

growth and decay in cycles called kalpas. All things, 

from the dharma to human life span (which can be as 

long as eighty thousand years or as short as ten) depend 

on this cycle, which is currently in an advanced 

state of decay, a phenomenon known as the DECLINE 

OF THE DHARMA. Once the nadir of this cycle has 

passed, the universe will again begin a period of 

growth, and as it approaches its peak, a cakravartin 

king will appear to usher in Maitreya’s advent and the 

Maitreyan Golden Age. 

This formulation is significant because it placed the 

return of Maitreya in the distant future and says that 

the human world must first pass the nadir of the cosmic 

cycle before this can happen. Because things would 

get worse before they got better, people placed their 

hopes on the ascending motif of individual salvation, 

such as rebirth in the Pure Land or Tusita heaven, 

rather than the millennium. 

Buddhist millenarianism in China 

It was in China that the worship of Maitreya and tradition 

of longing for a distant golden age evolved into 

millenarian movements. This transformation happened 

for three reasons. First, when Buddhism took 

root in China during the first few centuries C.E., it encountered 

a well-established tradition of Daoist millenarianism. 

This tradition encompassed many of the 

elements that would come to be associated with Buddhist 

millenarianism in East Asia, such as the tripartite 

division of sacred time. The Daoist millenarian tradition 

was focused on the immanent return of a transcendent 

manifestation of Laozi called Lord Lao on 

High (taishang laojun), who would establish a millennial 

kingdom called the Great Peace (taiping). From the 

second through fourth centuries C.E., this belief served 

as the seed for a number of sizable rebellions, including 

one that was able to establish a viable, although 

short-lived, state in the mountainous southwest. 

The second innovation was the restructuring of the 

theory of cosmic rise and decline so as to place the enthronement 

of Maitreya Buddha at the nadir of the cycle, 

rather than at its peak. These ideas were developed 

in Chinese apocryphal sutras from the sixth century, 

which discussed the arrival of Maitreya as a vast cleansing 

that would see a cosmic battle between bodhisattvas 

and demons, following which a pure and perfect 

world would be created. This reinterpretation not only 

made the arrival of the millennial event more immanent, 

it also located it at the lowest point of human 



suffering. This new eschatology was especially appealing 

during times of demographic crisis, such as war or 

famine, which were now felt to portend the end of the 

age. Although such crises also fueled the ascending motif 

of Buddhist utopianism, the belief that the individual 

soul would find postmortem salvation in the Pure 

Land, Maitreya soon came to be distanced from this 

vision and closely associated with the descending motif 

of the apocalypse. This belief also provided inspiration 

for those who would take action to hasten along 

the millennium by causing the destruction that marked 

the end of the cycle. 

The third innovation was the participation of Chinese 

political actors in worship of Maitreya and reinterpretation 

of the cakravartin, not as a precursor to 

the arrival of Maitreya, but as Maitreya himself. In part, 

this was facilitated by the pre-Buddhist belief in the divine 

significance of Chinese rulers as beneficiaries of 

the “mandate of heaven.” As early as the fourth century, 

rulers of the Chinese Northern Wei dynasty 

(386–534) were identified as Buddhist deities, first as 

TATHAGATAs and later as Maitreya. The most famous 

instance occurred in the late seventh century, when the 

empress Wu Zhao (625–705) revealed her identity as 

Maitreya Buddha in order to bolster her highly contested 

claim to the throne. 

This politicization of Maitreya worship was soon 

turned against its masters, and came to take on the distinctly 

antistate stance that it has held ever since. The 

earliest known instances both occurred in the year 613, 

when two separate individuals each proclaimed themselves 

to be Maitreya Buddha and raised the flag of 

rebellion. In the eighth and eleventh centuries, largescale 

uprisings were mounted under the slogan of ending 

the decaying epoch of Śakyamuni and ushering in 

the arrival of the new buddha. Finally, in the early fourteenth 

century, a collection of religious societies devoted 

to the Maitreyan vision rose in rebellion against 

the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), and the leader 

of one of these groups, Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), 

founded the Ming (meaning “bright,” an allusion to the 

Buddhist ideal of divine KINGSHIP, the vidyarajas; Chinese, 

ming wang) dynasty in 1368. 

White Lotus sectarianism 

The Ming dynasty brought organized Buddhism under 

close state control, while lay devotion became 

increasingly integrated into a syncretic mixture of Buddhism, 

Daoism, and Confucianism known as the Three 

Teachings. Particularly during the Ming and Qing dynasties 

(mid-fourteenth through early twentieth centuries), 

this mixture took shape in a tradition of popular 

teachings known collectively as White Lotus 

sectarianism. 

Although the White Lotus encompassed a number 

of independent teachings, the tradition as a whole developed 

through a medium of scriptures known as 

“precious scrolls” (baojuan), which were composed by 

the hundreds over the course of these six centuries. 

The earliest known text, dating from 1430, expounds 

a basic version of the White Lotus eschatology, including 

a tripartite division of sacred time, punctuated 

by periods of apocalyptic calamity between epochs, 

and the role of Maitreya as the buddha of the millennial 

third epoch. However, although Maitreya is occasionally 

mentioned in these scriptures in connection 

with the change of epoch, he is not the primary figure. 

Rather, the characteristically sectarian contribution 

to this scheme is a supreme deity called the Eternal 

Venerable Mother (wusheng laomu), from whom all 

life emanates, and who has sent a series of teachers to 

earth in order to save humankind from its own 

wickedness. This must be accomplished before the end 

of the second epoch, at which point, those of her human 

children who have cultivated goodness and purified 

themselves will be called to join the Dragon 

Flower Assembly and invited to dwell in a millennial 

paradise ruled over by Maitreya and the Eternal Venerable 

Mother. 

As was the case with later Maitreyan millenarianism, 

the eschatological vision of the White Lotus sect 

sees the decay and destruction of the human order as 

precursors of the epochal change. Moreover, this 

process can be hastened by human action in the form 

of armed rebellion. Thus, the White Lotus tradition 

was strictly banned, most energetically by the Ming 

emperor who himself had ridden just such an uprising 

to power. The most notable period of White Lotus 

activity was during the nineteenth century, when 

a number of such teachings, such as the Eight Trigrams 

(bagua) and Primal Chaos (hunyuan) teachings, rose 

in rebellion, often spurred on by the claim of a leader 

to be the reincarnation of Maitreya. Such claims persisted 

well into the middle of the twentieth century, 

when groups such as the Way of Pervading Unity 

(yiguandao) prophesied that a Communist victory 

over the Nationalist forces would prompt the early 

arrival of the millennium. Even among those groups 

active during this period with no organizational or 

doctrinal ties to the White Lotus tradition, such as the 

mid-nineteenth-century Taipings or the Boxers five 


539

M IND 

decades later, the themes of millennial world renewal 

are easily linked to the larger tradition of Maitreya 

worship. 

Agrarian utopianism in Japan 

In Japan, as well, native utopian ideals promised a 

coming age of peace and plenty. As had been the case 

in China, Buddhist millennialism in Japan grafted onto 

an extant tradition, restructuring elements so as to incorporate 

Buddhist terminology and figures such as 

Maitreya. However, in the Japanese tradition, this millennium 

was not premised on epochal change or the 

violent destruction of the world order, and as a consequence, 

did not serve as the inspiration for revolt as 

often as it did in China. 

One characteristic of Japanese belief was the location 

of the promised land on earth, either on a mountaintop 

or across the sea. The pre-Buddhist cult of 

mountain worship was taken up and transformed by 

various sects of Japanese Buddhism, who established 

sacred mountains as the home of Maitreya and the location 

of the millennial paradise. The deathbed utterance 

of KU KAI (774–835), the deified founder of the 

esoteric Shingon school, that he would descend to 

earth with Maitreya, has prompted the belief that he 

remains alive and in deep meditation on Mount Koya. 

This and other sacred mountains, such as Fuji and 

Kimpu, became regarded as gates to the Pure Land, 

and were the home of ascetics known as yamabushi, 

who dwelled between heaven and earth. Similarly, another 

tradition prophesied the arrival of Maitreya by 

ship, prompting a tradition of popular folk worship in 

anticipation of the triumphal arrival of Maitreya in a 

ship laden with rice. 

See also: Apocrypha; Cosmology; Monastic Militias; 

Nationalism and Buddhism; Politics and Buddhism; 

Pure Land Buddhism; Sanjie Jiao (Three Stages 

School); Syncretic Sects: Three Teachings 

Bibliography 

Baumgarten, Albert I., ed. Apocalyptic Time. Boston and Leiden, 


Haar, B. J. ter. The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious 

History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992. 

Hori, Ichiro. Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change 

(1968), ed. Joseph M. Kitagawa and Alan L. Miller. Chicago: 


Naquin, Susan. Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams 

Uprising of 1813. New Haven, CT: Yale University 

Press, 1976. 

Overmyer, Daniel. Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in 

Late Traditional China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 1976. 

Overmyer, Daniel. Precious Volumes: An Introduction to Chinese 

Sectarian Scriptures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. 


Ownby, David. “Chinese Millennial Traditions: The Formative 

Age.” American Historical Review 104, no. 5 (1999): 

1,513–1,530. 

Seidel, Anna. “The Image of the Perfect Ruler in Early Taoist 

Messianism: Lao-tzu and Li Hung,” History of Religions 9, 

nos. 2–3 (1969/1970): 216–247. 

Sponberg, Alan, and Hardacre, Helen, eds. Maitreya: The Future 

Buddha. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge 


MIND. See Consciousness, Theories of 

MINDFULNESS 

THOMAS DUBOIS 

Mindfulness (Sanskrit, smrti; Pali, sati) is a spiritual 

practice that is common to both early Buddhism and 

early Jainism. It plays a particularly important role in 

the former. Two conspicuously different forms of 

mindfulness are found near each other in the standard 

description of the PATH to liberation that occurs numerous 

times in the early canonical sermons: one in 

preparatory exercises and the other in meditation 

proper. During the former the (hypothetical) practitioner 

“acts consciously while going and while coming, 

while looking forward and while looking 

backward, while bending his limbs and while stretching 

them, while carrying his clothes and alms-bowl, 

while going, while standing, while sleeping, while waking, 

while speaking and while remaining silent.” However, 

at some point the practitioner sits down, folds his 

legs, holds his body erect, and applies mindfulness. Applying 

mindfulness (Sanskrit, smrtyupasthana; Pali, 

satipatthana) is the precondition for the four stages of 

dhyana (trance state) that follow. Indeed, mindfulness 

accompanies the practitioner in all of them, the fourth 

being characterized by “purity of equanimity and 

mindfulness.” Clearly mindfulness in its highest degree 


M IRACLES 

of purity is required for the next step: reaching liberating 

insight. 

As happens frequently in the Buddhist canon, a 

number of sermons present mindfulness itself or, more 

precisely, the applications of mindfulness as the way 

to liberation. Some of these sermons have smrtyupasthana 

or satipatthana in their title, and distinguish four 

applications of mindfulness: (1) on the body; (2) on 

feelings; (3) on the mind; (4) on the dharmas. The Pali 

Satipatthana-sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya makes the 

highest promises to those who practice mindfulness: 

“If anyone should develop these four applications of 

mindfulness in such a way for seven days, one of two 

fruits could be expected for him: either final knowledge 

here and now, or if there is a trace of clinging left, 

non-return.” 

Mindfulness also figures in the noble eightfold path, 

at the seventh place, just before meditative concentration 

(samadhi). This position agrees with the account 

found in the standard description of the path to liberation, 

where mindfulness is a precondition for and an 

accompaniment of the four stages of dhyana. 

No doubt as a result of subsequent attempts to organize 

the received teachings of the Buddha, mindfulness 

came to be incorporated in various lists. It is, for 

example, the first of the seven “members of enlightenment” 

(bodhyaṅga). However, the list of seven members 

of enlightenment is itself an item in a longer list 

that altogether contains thirty-seven so-called aids to 

enlightenment (bodhipaksyadharma). The artificial nature 

of this enumeration can be seen from the fact that 

this long list also, and separately, contains the four applications 

of mindfulness, plus mindfulness as included 

in the five faculties (indriya), in the five forces 

(bala), and in the noble eightfold path. That is to say, 

mindfulness by itself accounts for eight of the thirtyseven 

aids to enlightenment. 

See also: Dhyana (Trance State); Meditation 

Bibliography 

Bronkhorst, Johannes. “Dharma and Abhidharma.” Bulletin of 

the School of Oriental and African Studies 48 (1985): 305–320. 

Gyatso, Janet, ed. In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections on Mindfulness 

and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. 



MIRACLES 

The English word miracle (from the Latin miraculum, 

meaning “object of wonder”) has traditionally been 

used in a Christian context to refer to an extraordinary 

event that cannot have been brought about by human 

power alone or by the ordinary workings of nature and 

hence must be ascribed to the intervention of God. For 

most Christian theologians, only God can perform 

miracles; the function of saints, in heaven close to God, 

is to act as intermediaries on behalf of a supplicant to 

request a miracle from God. Hence, according to a 

strict Christian interpretation of the word, there are no 

miracles in the Buddhist tradition. A looser definition 

of the term, however, harking back to its original 

meaning as “object of wonder,” allows miracles to be 

understood as extraordinary events that, because they 

cannot be explained by ordinary human powers or the 

everyday functioning of nature, evoke a sense of wonder. 

This looser definition proves useful to describe a 

wide variety of phenomena, including omens and 

other extraordinary changes in the natural world, acts 

of the Buddha and his disciples, and supernormal powers 

acquired through MEDITATION—all common 

throughout Buddhist literature. 

Miracles in the life of the Buddha 

Paradigmatic miracles occur in accounts of the life of 

the Buddha, well-known wherever Buddhism is practiced. 

Although there is much diversity in detail, accounts 

of the Buddha’s birth generally describe it as a 

marvelous event, different in almost every way from 

an ordinary birth. The Buddha was conceived in a 

dream in which his mother saw a white elephant enter 

her womb, an event accompanied by earthquakes 

and other auspicious omens. Unlike other women in 

ancient India who gave birth sitting down, the Buddha’s 

mother gave birth standing up, the infant emerging 

not from the womb, but from his mother’s right 

side, causing her no pain. At birth the infant was 

bathed by streams of water that fell from the sky, after 

which he immediately took seven steps and declared 

in a loud voice, “I am the chief in the world.” 

Later, as the child matures, marvelous events accompany 

him throughout his life as he receives the assistance 

of gods who through various devices help him 

to pursue his fated life as a seeker of truth. At the moment 

when Śakyamuni is enlightened and becomes a 

buddha, the earth shakes, the heavens resound with the 

sound of drums, and flowers fall from the sky. As a 


541

M IRACLES 

buddha, Śakyamuni was believed to possess the standard 

set of supernormal powers or ABHIJN A (HIGHER 

KNOWLEDGES) accruing to those of high spiritual attainments, 

including the power to know details of his 

previous lives, the ability to see the past lives of others, 

the power to read minds, and other magical powers, 

such as the ability to fly. In the course of his 

teachings, the Buddha demonstrates these powers repeatedly, 

frequently, for instance, recounting events 

that took place in the previous lives of members of his 

audience in order to explain the workings of KARMA. 

Similarly, the Buddha performed two famous miracles 

at the city of Śravast in order to win converts. After 

admonishing his own disciples for displaying their 

magical powers in public, the Buddha declared that, in 

their place, he would perform a miracle at the foot of 

a mango tree to demonstrate his superiority to proponents 

of false teachings. On hearing this, his opponents 

uprooted all of the mango trees in the vicinity so that 

he would be unable to fulfill his vow. In response, the 

Buddha took the seed of a ripe mango, and no sooner 

planted it in the ground than it sprouted and in an instant 

grew into an enormous tree. This done, he fulfilled 

his promise to perform a miracle by the mango 

tree when he rose into the sky and emitted water and 

fire from his body in spectacular fashion. 

Finally, the Buddha’s NIRVAN A is accompanied by a 

number of marvelous events. When the Buddha predicts 

his own death, vowing to enter nirvana in three 

months time, the earth quakes once again. Three 

months later, as the Buddha lay down to die, flowers 

fell from the sky. At the moment he entered nirvana, 

there was a great earthquake and loud peals of thunder. 

Some of those present then attempted to light the 

funeral pyre, but were unable to do so. Later, when the 

disciple MAHAKAŚYAPA, who had been away, arrived on 

the scene, the pyre miraculously caught fire of itself, 

leaving behind relics that were themselves later attributed 

with miraculous powers. 

Many attempts, of varying degrees of sophistication, 

have been made to root out all that is miraculous, and 

hence historically suspect, in accounts of the Buddha’s 

life in order to derive a more sober, believable narrative, 

or to interpret miracles in the Buddha’s life as 

rhetorical tools for explaining Buddhist doctrines. For 

the vast majority of Buddhists, however, marvelous 

events were and are an integral part of any biography 

of the Buddha. In general, Buddhists have interpreted 

these literally, as signs of the Buddha’s unique attainments. 

Indeed, some of the phenomena described 

above, such as the Buddha’s power to see the previous 

lives of others, are recounted in such a matter-of-fact 

manner that they are miraculous only in a weak sense. 

In other words, however fantastic such powers may appear 

to a modern skeptic, from the perspective of the 

tradition, they are more commonsensical than marvelous. 


Many of the Buddha’s disciples were credited with supernormal 

powers and associated with miraculous 

events. Mahakaśyapa, as a product of his determined 

cultivation of the most trying austerities, could fly. 

ŚARIPUTRA attained the “dharma eye,” allowing him to 

perceive the past lives of others. MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, 

called “foremost of those who have supernormal powers,” 

could vanish from one place and appear in another 

in an instant. 

Later figures in Indian Buddhism possessed marvelous 

powers as well. UPAGUPTA, for instance, to 

prove a point, once caused a drought of twelve years. 

The powerful King AŚOKA (third century B.C.E.), who 

was at first hostile to Buddhism but eventually became 

its greatest patron, was, according to legend, converted 

upon seeing the supernormal powers of a monk his executioners 

could not kill. 

Miracles in the spread of Buddhism 

Miracles continued to play a prominent role in the history 

of Buddhism as it spread beyond India. Legends 

of the founding of Buddhism in other lands are typically 

tied to miraculous events. In Sri Lanka, it is said 

that the Buddha himself visited the island at a time 

when it was dominated by demons. Traveling directly 

to a grand meeting place of these demons, the Buddha 

hovered above them in the sky, calling up rain, winds, 

and darkness, and thereby terrifying the demons to 

such an extent that they conceded dominion of the island 

to him. In China, the introduction of Buddhism 

was linked to Emperor Ming of the Han dynasty (r. 

58–75) who, according to the legend, had a marvelous 

dream in which he saw a golden deity flying through 

the air. The following day, when he asked his ministers 

to explain the dream, one informed him that he 

had heard of a deity called the Buddha whose body was 

of golden color and who could fly. The emperor then 

dispatched envoys to obtain more information about 

the Buddha, thereby initiating the introduction of 

Buddhism to China. In Japan, the introduction of the 

first Buddhist image was followed by widespread pesti- 


M IRACLES 

lence, prompting the emperor to have the image destroyed. 

This act was followed by the miraculous appearance 

of a large log of camphor wood that emitted 

the sound of Buddhist chants. Impressed, the emperor 

gave orders that the wood be fashioned into two Buddhist 

images, thus assuring the successful introduction 

of Buddhist devotion to Japan. 

Miracles and monks 

Throughout the Buddhist world, accounts of holy 

Buddhist monks are laced with miraculous events and 

descriptions of their marvelous powers. Many of these 

are patterned on accounts of the Buddha, noting a 

monk’s auspicious birth and the omens that followed 

his death. It is said, for instance, that when the prominent 

Chinese monk Hongren (602–675) was born a 

bright light filled the room, and that when he died the 

sky turned dark and mountains trembled, as they did 

every year on the anniversary of his death. Other 

monks are credited with the standard supernormal 

powers of being able to read minds, levitate, and recognize 

the past lives of others. For example, according 

to one biography, the Korean monk WŎNHYO 

(617–686) once appeared at one hundred places at the 

same time. Holy monks are often thought to have special 

powers over nature, taming wild animals and 

changing the weather. The twelfth-century Vietnamese 

monk Tinh Gió , I, for instance, received the title Rain 

Master after provoking rain during a serious drought, 

something other eminent monks of the time were unable 

to accomplish. The Japanese monk KU KAI 

(774–835) was also said to be able to provoke rain 

through his mastery of Buddhist ritual. To this day, 

stories circulate of miraculous events associated with 

prominent or mysterious monks, nuns, and lay Buddhist 

figures, living and dead. 

In addition to miracles provoked by individuals, 

countless miracles are associated with Buddhist objects. 

Buddhist scriptures are said at times to protect 

their owners from fire, Buddhist images come to life 

in dreams to offer warnings and advice, and prayers to 

relics result in miraculous cures. Such stories permeate 

Buddhist culture, only a small portion of the total 

ever being written down or otherwise reaching beyond 

the local level. 

Explanations for miracles 

Scholastic Buddhist literature does not group all of the 

phenomena discussed here into one category; there is 

no well-attested Buddhist term equivalent to miracle. 

Buddhist writers have expounded at length on the classic 

set of supernormal powers accruing to holy men, 

but have shown less interest in proposing a general 

theory of miracles. In some cases, the miraculous was 

explained according to local theories. In East Asia, for 

instance, recourse was often made to the Chinese concept 

of resonance (ganying) by which animals, the 

weather, and so on respond to a person of high attainments 

or an event of extraordinary significance just 

as one string on a musical instrument responds naturally 

to another. More frequently, wondrous events are 

simply recorded without a sustained attempt at explanation. 

In fact, many Buddhist texts and teachers make 

a point of downplaying the significance of supernatural 

events. They insist that supernormal powers are a 

by-product of cultivation and not its goal. The Buddha 

himself upbraided his disciples for displaying their 

powers in public. Nonetheless, the allure of the marvelous 

made it an exceptional rhetorical tool. That is, 

Buddhist texts are at pains to demonstrate the extraordinary 

powers of, for instance, the Buddha, before 

going on to dismiss these powers as child’s play and 

peripheral to the far greater goals of enlightenment and 

release from suffering. 

There has never been a strong tradition of skepticism 

toward miracles within Buddhist circles, though 

those hostile to Buddhism were always ready to discount 

Buddhist claims to the marvelous. For the most 

part, Buddhists have always accepted the supernormal 

powers of the Buddha and the potential of Buddhist 

figures and objects to provoke miracles. In modern 

times, however, it has become commonplace for Buddhist 

writers to strip away miraculous events from ancient 

Buddhist writings in an attempt to reveal a 

historical core to a given legend. While not in itself unreasonable, 

this approach is often accompanied by the 

assumption that miraculous stories emerge in response 

to the demands of an unsophisticated laity, steeped in 

popular superstition. In fact, for most of Buddhist history, 

miracle stories have been popular at all social levels 

and accepted as literally true by even the most 

erudite of monks. 

The future of Buddhist miracles is uncertain. Even 

Buddhist leaders skeptical of accounts of miracles have 

not made concerted efforts to disprove Buddhist miracles 

or discourage the propagation of stories of marvelous, 

supernatural events associated with Buddhism, 

suggesting that miracles will continue to occupy a place 

of importance in Buddhist culture for the foreseeable 

future. 


543

M IZUKO 

K UYO 

See also: Buddhahood and Buddha Bodies; Buddha, 

Life of the; Disciples of the Buddha; Relics and Relics 

Cults 

Bibliography 

Gómez, Luis O. “The Bodhisattva as Wonder-Worker.” In Prajñaparamita 

and Related Systems: Studies in Honor of Edward 

Conze, ed. Lewis Lancaster. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Buddhist 

Studies Series, 1977. 



Press, 1997. 

Nakamura, Kyoko Motomochi. Miraculous Stories from the 

Japanese Buddhist Tradition: The Nihon ryo iki of the Monk 

Kyo kai. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. 


Values and Orientations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

1994. 

Thomas, Edward J. The Life of Buddha as Legend and History 

(1927). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975. 

Woodward, Kenneth L. The Book of Miracles: The Meaning of 

the Miracle Stories in Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, 

and Islam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999. 

MIZUKO KUYO 


Mizuko kuyo is a Japanese rite performed at Buddhist 

temples for the repose of aborted fetuses. Mizuko, literally 

“water child,” is the modern term used for fetus, 

and kuyo refers to rituals for making offerings. Mizuko 

kuyo was popular particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, 

and is still performed at many Buddhist temples. 

Japanese Buddhists are divided in their attitudes toward 

mizuko kuyo . The Shin (true) Pure Land school 

(Jodo Shinshu) is opposed officially to this rite on the 

grounds that it is based on the superstitious fear that 

spirits of the dead can curse the living. Others criticize 

the rite as a moneymaking scheme made popular 

through advertisements designed to make women feel 

guilty about abortions and the anguish of the aborted 

fetuses, who will surely curse those who killed them. 

Defenders of the rite argue that mizuko kuyo provides 

the same ritual service that funeral and memorial rites 

do in commemorating and caring for the deceased. 

Associated with mizuko kuyo is the practice of dedicating 

a sculpted image of Ksitigarbha (Japanese, Jizo), 

the BODHISATTVA who protects children, by tying a baby 

bib around its neck. Parents inscribe the bib with the 

name of the child, and often include words of apology 

and regret. While some of these words can be interpreted 

as expressions of guilt arising from the clear 

sense of moral wrongdoing, they more often express 

sadness and regret for having done something circumstantially 

unavoidable but not morally reprehensible. 

See also: Abortion 

Bibliography 

Hardacre, Helen. Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan. Berkeley: 


LaFleur, William R. Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in 



MODERNITY AND BUDDHISM 

No religion has a greater claim to embodying modernity 

than Buddhism. This assertion can be supported 

by examining what is meant by modernity, and by relating 

this modernity to the doctrinal characteristics of 

Buddhism. The term modernity derives from Latin 

modernus, which itself derives from the adverb modo, 

a term that since the fifth century C.E. was equivalent 

to nunc (now). During the European Middle Ages 

one’s status as modernus required distinguishing oneself 

from the antiqui. Modernity, then, is to be understood 

as requiring an act of self-conscious distantiation 

from a past in which ignorance or naiveté prevailed. 

More specifically, modernity has required moving 

from an organic to a mechanic conception of the cosmos 

and society, from hierarchy to equality, from the 

corporate to the individual, and from an understanding 

of reality in which everything resonates with everything 

else to an understanding built around precision 

and the increasing differentiation of domains. Ultimately, 

modernity has had to do with the perpetual 

questioning of one’s presuppositions. In terms of religion, 

modernity has generally involved the rejection of 

a symbolic view of reality and of anthropomorphic 

conceptions of the divinity, and, even more radically, 

the rejection of any notion of transcendence. When 

discussing modernity in the context of Western history, 

this process has been understood above all as involving 

a movement away from religion. Both in 

Christian and Buddhist terms, however, such a view is 

problematic to the extent that the process of differen- 


M ODERNITY AND B UDDHISM 

tiation has involved less a movement away from religion 

than the coming into being of two separate domains, 

the religious and the secular. 

Concepts of modernity and causality 

The concept of modernity has been used in a Buddhist 

context, mainly when studying reform movements of 

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The concept of 

modernity has not been used, however, when studying 

the emergence of the movement or the characteristics 

of the dharma. The main reason for this has to 

do with the assumption that although the time of 

modernity’s birth may be uncertain, its place of birth, 

the West, is certain. Against this view it is worth considering 

whether instead of thinking in terms of one 

modernity, one should think in terms of multiple 

modernities. Thinking in terms of multiple modernities 

forces us to consider the differences between a 

modernity that combines heightened reflexivity and 

technological development, as in the West since at least 

the seventeenth century, and a modernity understood 

mainly in cultural terms. This means that even as we 

seek to identify the constitutive elements of modernity, 

we must keep in mind that those characteristics are not 

found all at once. For example, in the world in which 

Buddhism appeared there was no technological equivalent 

to the Buddha’s concern with causality. On the 

other hand, as we shall see below, one can establish a 

correlation between the Buddhist analysis of reality in 

terms of dharmas and the use of coins in northern India 

in the sixth century B.C.E. 

Causality is present at the beginning of Buddhism, 

when, according to the Mahatanhasankhaya-sutta of 

the Majjhimanikaya, the Buddha teaches: “When this 

exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that 

arises.” Causality is similarly present as the principle 

that underlies the relation among the FOUR NOBLE 

TRUTHS: DUH KHA (SUFFERING), the cause of suffering, 

the cessation of suffering, and the PATH that leads to 

that cessation. The counterpart of a causal chain whose 

components can be identified is a conception of the 

world based on the principle of correlation, a conception 

in which various aspects of reality resonate with 

each other, allowing those who can manipulate such 

correlations to claim special rights and powers for 

themselves. The Buddha rejected such an organic understanding 

of society, which was exemplified by the 

brahmins’ claims to have been born from the mouth 

of the primordial being, Purusa. According to the 

Assalayana-sutta of the Majjhimanikaya, the Buddha 

ridiculed those claims, pointing out that brahmin 

women give birth just like everybody else. This issue is 

related to the contrast between the Buddhist and the 

traditional Indian understanding of language. While 

the former regards the connection between words and 

reality as arbitrary, so that words are understood as labels, 

the latter, being a “sonic” view of reality, regards 

the connection between words and reality as involving 

an intrinsic connection between the very sound of 

words and the things named by them. 

It is this assumption of a nonarbitrary connection 

between words and things that underlies the belief in 

the efficacy of RITUAL and of practices generally labeled 

as magic. It is worth noticing in this regard the Buddha’s 

refusal to be considered a magician in the sense 

of being a mayavin, a possessor of maya (understood 

in this context as “fraud” or “deceit”)—this, despite 

the fact that he was believed to possess supernatural or 

magic powers (rddhi) and was known as daśabala (endowed 

with ten powers). The Buddhist rejection of the 

ritual powers claimed by brahmins and by priests in 

general is still present today, for, at least in theory, Buddhist 

monks are not supposed to have sacramental 

powers analogous to those that depend on a person’s 

birth or those that Catholic priests claim to have obtained 

through ordination. The distance established 

between monks and sacramental powers is further 

demonstrated by the fact that the return of monks to 

lay status is common, especially in Southeast Asia. It 

is true that throughout the Buddhist world, including 

Sri Lanka and southeast Asia, monks engage in ritual 

practices, such as the paritta ceremony, the selling of 

AMULETS AND TALISMANS, and the preparation of astrological 

charts, love philters, and the like. But it is 

also true that when seeking to return to a scripturallybased 

religion, Buddhist reform movements have been 

able to find canonical support for the rejection of what 

reformers considered superstitious practices. 

Subjectivity and intentionality 

The condemnation or at least mistrust of ritual practices, 

especially of the wasteful expenditures associated 

with them, has been central to attempts at modernization. 

Equally important have been efforts to move 

religious practices away from the material world and 

toward a spiritual realm, a realm that has frequently 

been equated with the domain of morality. All these 

processes are ultimately linked to an emphasis on subjectivity, 

will, and intentionality. We encounter all of 

them in Buddhism, long before they became the preoccupation 

of medieval Christians. We find an early 

example when the Buddha advises Sigalaka to engage 


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Young monks take a computer class at Ban-Thaton Temple in northern Thailand in 1995. © Gilles Mingasson/Getty Images. Reproduced 


in ethical behavior and avoid dissipation instead of 

engaging in elaborate ritual practices. We also encounter 

it more than two millennia later when, intent 

on modernizing their country, southeast Asian kings 

such as Mongkut (r. 1851–1868) and Chulalongkorn 

(1868–1910) sought to curtail ritual expenditures, labeling 

them as wasteful and superstitious. That a Thai 

king such as Mongkut sought to reform the SAṄGHA 

in the process of centralizing power and modernizing 

his country is typical of attempts at modernization. 

Equally typical—whether in Thailand, in Myanmar 

(Burma), or in Reformation Europe—is the fact that 

reformers have usually shown an extreme unease toward 

ritual and consider themselves as having returned 

to the original, textually-based teachings of 

their religion. Indeed in Thailand, the monks around 

Mongkut (himself an ex-monk) called themselves the 

Thammayut (Dhammayuttika, “those adhering to 

doctrine”). Connected to these twin processes of centralization 

of power and curtailing of ritual activities 

is the delimitation of a religious realm, analogous to 

that found in the West since the eighteenth century. 

Once again, we find examples of this delimitation in 

Southeast Asia, partly as the result of the desire to emulate 

the degree of development demonstrated by colonial 

powers, and ultimately to counteract the colonial 

powers’ activities. 

The emphasis on intentionality is found in the acknowledgment, 

present since the earliest day of Buddhism, 

that in order for an action to be considered 

blameworthy, one has to be aware of what one is doing. 

This distinguishes Buddhism radically from the archaic 

approach found in the Hindu world, according 

to which one incurs guilt regardless of one’s intentions. 

What is peculiar to Buddhism is the coexistence of an 

emphasis on intentionality and a radical rejection of a 

reified self. Indeed, what distinguishes Buddhism from 

all other religious systems is a processual understanding 

of reality combined with the rejection of reification, 

an understanding and a rejection that find their 

culmination in the concept of anatman (no-self). 

But rejection of the notion of self does not entail 

lack of concern for subjectivity. The reverse is in fact 



the case, as Buddhist intellectual elites have devoted 

considerable effort to exploring in theory and in practice 

various levels of awareness. Contrary to common 

assumptions, however, meditative practices do not always 

have as their goal a calm mind (śamatha). In the 

context of a discussion of the connection between Buddhism 

and modernity it is significant to note that the 

mental states that are the goal of VIPASSANA (SANSKRIT, 

VIPAŚYANA) meditation—awareness, discrimination, 

analysis—are congruent with the analytical attitude 

that allows one to master the world. In more general 

terms, the exploration of one’s subjectivity can be said 

to constitute a central component of one’s attempt to 

distance oneself from the tyranny of the past. But this 

exploration of levels of consciousness did not lead 

Buddhists to a mastery of the physical world similar to 

the one that occurred in the West since the scientific 

revolution, bringing us back to the point made at the 

beginning of this entry about the need to distinguish 

a modernity that takes place mainly in cultural terms 

from one that encompasses economic and technological 

attainments. It should be added that one of the 

components of the Buddhist revival that has taken 

place in Sri Lanka has involved a revival of vipassana 

meditation among the urban middle classes. 

Institutional modernity 

There are intimations of Buddhist modernity not just 

at the philosophical or psychological level, but also at 

the institutional level. We have already seen how 

throughout Buddhist history attempts were made to 

put distance between monks and supernatural powers. 

A further step in that direction was taken when it 

was determined that position in the saṅgha would depend 

exclusively on seniority, and that decisions 

would be made by majority vote or consensus. Another 

significant characteristic of the saṅgha is the fact 

that, in principle, administrative positions could not 

be inherited because monks were expected to be celibate. 

It goes without saying that to a greater or lesser 

extent all these regulations were breached in practice. 

We know, for example, that monks had property and 

that they were able to keep prebends within the family 

by passing administrative positions from uncle to 

nephew. Similarly, one needs to keep in mind that the 

seniority system is overruled by GENDER considerations, 

insofar as even the most junior monk is considered 

senior to even the most senior nun. Despite 

this, gender-based taboos prevalent in South Asia generally 

do not apply to Buddhists; for example, whereas 

menstruating women are not allowed to enter Hindu 

temples, their Buddhist counterparts can enter their 

own temples. More generally, it is important to note 

that even when disregarded in practice, that certain 

regulations had to be honored at least in theory establishes 

an abstract legal framework. Even more significant 

is the fact that such a framework was not 

transcendentally legitimized. 

The economics of modernity 

It would be worthwhile to examine the conditions that 

may have contributed to the emergence of this radically 

modern understanding of the world. In broad 

swathe, the process of urbanization, political centralization, 

and monetarization of the economy that took 

places in northern India in the sixth century B.C.E. can 

be understood as constituting a radical change that required 

a readjustment of the ideological system that 

includes religion. In this sense, Buddhism can be understood 

as a critique of the new order, but also as a 

commentary. Money, for example, can be related both 

to asceticism and to the concept of dharma. Money is 

in some ways analogous to asceticism because it symbolizes 

the solidification of labor, and, insofar as it is 

not spent, money constitutes a deferral of the satisfaction 

of one’s desires. Money is also related to the concept 

of dharma in that just as all of reality can be 

analyzed in terms of dharmas, all economic interactions—labor, 

commodities, one’s position in the world 

in relation to labor—can be analyzed using money as 

the means of universal convertibility. In a hierarchical 

society in which one’s chances in life were determined 

by one’s position in the hierarchy, money, as the ultimate 

solvent, can have liberating effects. In this regard, 

insofar as it dissolves qualitative relationships into 

quantitative ones, money dissolves hierarchies, and in 

that sense it functions as does language in relation to 

sensory objects: as a label, as a mere designation. That 

in a society such as India the cash nexus can be liberating 

can be seen even today in the case of the B. R. 

AMBEDKAR Buddhists of Maharashtra: As Timothy 

Fitzgerald shows, besides being highly literate and resisting 

actively the power of brahmins and Marathas, 

Ambedkar Buddhists are willing to work only for cash. 

Given the importance of money in Buddhism, it is 

not surprising that it was urban groups, above all merchants, 

who identified most readily with this approach 

to life. This was also the case for the land-based gahapati, 

who were also early supporters of the saṅgha. The 

gahapati are especially relevant, not only because they 

constituted networks of traders who can be regarded 

as having helped the expansion of Buddhism; as 


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M OHE 

ZHIGUAN 

interstitial groups, the gahapati are also significant for 

comparative purposes, given analogous developments 

in the eastern Mediterranean at the time of the birth 

of another successful world religion, Christianity. Considering 

the importance of trade and traders in the 

early history of Buddhism, it is at first surprising to 

find that the rules of discipline kept monks from handling 

the ultimate leveler, money. But such rules can be 

understood as rendering visible the autonomy of the 

economic realm, as well as the relatively new reality of 

money as the embodiment of labor. 

Suspicion toward transcendence, an emphasis on 

contractual arrangements, and a tendency toward 

analysis and abstraction—all these characteristics can 

easily be shown to have been disregarded in practice 

long before the advent of the Mahayana. Thus, for 

every Mongkut one can point to dharmarajas, such as 

the rulers of Angkor. Similarly, the modernization of 

Thailand can be contrasted to the rigidity of southeast 

Asian polities whose Buddhist-based systems of legitimation 

interfered with attempts to resist colonial aggression. 

Likewise, we can see the rationalization of 

everyday life challenged, either by the materiality of 

popular ritual or by the utopian emphasis on subjectivity 

and inner freedom cultivated by the middle 

classes. In conclusion, we may apply to Buddhism what 

we have written about modernity in general—namely, 

that the fundamental ambiguity at its core is revealed 

by the tension between the two strands at work in the 

cultivation of subjectivity: on the one hand the selfcentered 

rationality of individualism, and on the other 

the ideal of internal freedom and ceaseless selfexploration 

exemplified by mystics. 

See also: Colonialism and Buddhism; Economics 

Bibliography 

Benavides, Gustavo. “Modernity.” In Critical Terms for Religious 


Press, 1998. 

Bond, George D. The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka: Religious 

Tradition, Reinterpretation and Response. Columbia: University 


Fitzgerald, Timothy. “Politics and Ambedkar Buddhism in Maharashtra.” 

In Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century 

Asia, ed. Ian Harris. London and New York: Pinter, 1999. 

Gombrich, Richard. Theravada Buddhism: A Social History of 

Buddhism from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo. London 

and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988. 




Harris, Ian, ed. Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia. 

London and New York: Pinter, 1999. 


Values, Issues. New York and Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


Tambiah, S. J. World Conqueror and World Renouncer. A Study 

of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background. 

New York and Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1976. 

MOHE ZHIGUAN 

GUSTAVO BENAVIDES 

The Mohe zhiguan is a work by ZHIYI (538–597). It was 

transcribed from his lectures by his disciple Guanding 

(561–632), and it is considered one of the “Three Great 

Works of Tiantai” and a comprehensive manual of 

Tiantai practice. The title means “The Great Calming 

and Contemplation,” zhi and guan being the Chinese 

translations of the traditional Buddhist terms śamatha 

and vipaśyana (Pali, vipassana). In Chinese, the first 

term means literally “stopping,” the latter “contemplating”; 

for both Zhiyi distinguishes “relative” and 

“absolute” types. Relative stopping and contemplating 

are each interpreted, in typical Tiantai manner, as having 

three aspects: 

1. Stopping as putting an end to something. 

2. Stopping as dwelling in something. 

3. Stopping as an arbitrary name for a reality that 

is ultimately neither stopping nor nonstopping. 

1. Contemplation as comprehending something. 

2. Contemplation as seeing through something. 

3. Contemplation as an arbitrary name for a reality 

that is ultimately neither contemplation nor 

noncontemplation. 

The first sense of stopping corresponds to the second 

sense of contemplation (ending something as seeing 

through it); the second sense of stopping corresponds 

to the first sense of contemplation (dwelling in some- 


M ONASTIC 

A RCHITECTURE 

thing as comprehending it); and the third senses of both 

correspond to each other (each is a provisional name 

for an absolute reality that can be described alternately 

as quiescent, illuminating, both, or neither). On the basis 

of this interpervasion of stopping and contemplating, 

Zhiyi establishes the “absolute (or perfect-sudden) 

stopping and contemplating.” Zhiyi first gives an 

overview of the ritual procedures for practice in the 

“four samadhis”: the “constantly sitting,” “constantly 

walking,” “half sitting and half walking,” and “neither 

sitting nor walking” samadhis. The first three are specific 

ritual practices, during which Tiantai doctrinal 

contemplations were to be simultaneously applied. 

The fourth samadhi, known also as the “samadhi of 

following one’s own attention,” while also associated 

with particular texts and practices, was more broadly 

applicable. This involved the contemplation of each 

moment of subjective mental activity (good, evil, or 

neutral) as it arose, and the application of the Tiantai 

three truths doctrine to see its nature as empty, provisionally 

posited, and the mean—that is, as the absolute 

ultimate reality that pervades and includes, and is identical 

to, all other dharmas. 

After this overview, Zhiyi describes “ten vehicles of 

contemplation.” The first of these ten vehicles is the 

contemplation of (1) the realm of the inconceivable. It 

is here that Zhiyi gives his famous teaching of “the 

three thousand quiddities inherently entailed in each 

moment of experience” (yinian sanqian). All possible 

determinacies are here to be seen not as “contained” 

in or “produced by” a single moment of experience, 

but as “identical to” each moment of experience, just 

as a thing is identical to its own characteristics and 

properties, or to its own process of becoming and perishing. 

As a supplement to this practice, Zhiyi then describes 

nine other contemplations of the same object 

in terms of (2) bodhicitta, (3) skillful pacification of the 

mind, (4) universal refutation of all dharmas, (5) 

recognition of obstructions and throughways, (6) adjustment 

of aspects of the way, (7) curative aids, (8) 

understanding stages of progress, (9) forbearance, and 

(10) freedom from attachment to spiritual attainments. 

The text applies these ten methods first to one’s 

own conditioned existence as such, and then to other 

more specific objects of contemplation, such as KARMA 

(ACTION), illnesses, defilements, and so on. 

See also: Tiantai School; Vipassana (Sanskrit, Vipaśyana) 

Bibliography 

Donner, Neal. “Chih-i’s Meditation on Evil.” In Buddhist and 

Taoist Practice in Medieval Chinese Society, ed. David W. 

Chappell. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1987. 

Donner, Neal. “Sudden and Gradual Intimately Conjoined: 

Chih-i’s T’ien-t’ai View.” In Sudden and Gradual: Approaches 

to Enlightenment in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. 

Gregory. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987. 

Donner, Neal, and Stevenson, Daniel B. The Great Calming and 

Contemplation: A Study and Annotated Translation of the 

First Chapter of Chih-i’s Mo-ho chih-kuan. Honolulu: University 


Hurvitz, Leon. Chih-i (538–597): An Introduction to the Life and 

Ideas of a Chinese Buddhist Monk. Brussels: Institut Belges 

Des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1980. 

Ng Yu-kwan. T’ien-t’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika. Honolulu: 

University of Hawaii, 1993. 

Stevenson, Daniel. “The Four Kinds of Samadhi in Early T’ient’ai 

Buddhism.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, 

ed. Peter N. Gregory. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 1986. 

MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE 

BROOK ZIPORYN 

The monastery has been and remains the core of Buddhist 

communal life in all parts of Asia. Designated religious 

space first appeared in India in the late centuries 

B.C.E., and the importance, size, and complexity of 

Buddhist monastery buildings increased as the religion 

traveled eastward across Central Asia to China, Korea, 

and Japan. Always constructed with local materials, 

monastery architecture adapted itself to every region 

of Asia, from desert sands to snow-covered mountains, 

and the individual structures changed according to the 

worship requirements of every branch and school of 

Buddhist Asia. Yet its fundamental purpose as a setting 

for Buddhist worship and education has remained 

constant through more than two millennia. 

Monastic architecture in South Asia 

The origins of the Buddhist monastery lie in residential 

architecture at the time of the historical Buddha, 

Gautama Siddhartha. According to legend, a merchant 

once offered the Buddha and his congregation sixty 

dwellings for meditation and retreat. Thereafter it became 

fashionable for wealthy lay devotees to offer large 

complexes of buildings to accommodate the needs of 


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M ONASTIC 

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monastic life. Although each structure was probably 

made of perishable materials, such as bamboo, thatch, 

and wood, the buildings included dwellings, private 

cells, porches, storehouses, privies, promenades, wells, 

bathing chambers, and halls of unspecified purposes. 

The same multiplicity of building functions, usually in 

a secluded location but close enough to the greater 

population to allow for alms collection, would remain 

standard for monastery architecture in East Asia. The 

conversion of residential space into Buddhist space, 

including the donation of residences for transformation 

into monasteries, would also become common in 

East Asia. 

Three structures named in Sanskrit texts or inscriptions 

of the last centuries B.C.E. are associated with early 

Indian Buddhist monastic architecture: the vihara, the 

caitya, and the STU PA. All were constructed of enduring 

materials and were derived from vernacular architecture 

in which rooms of a covered arcade enclose an 

open courtyard. In a Buddhist context, vihara refers to 

the residential cells of monks and the courtyard they 

define. Because a resident monastic population is fundamental 

to religious life, the Sanskrit term vihara can, 

in certain instances, be translated as “monastery.” The 

first meaning of caitya is mound or pedestal, but the 

concept of a locus for elevation quickly gave way to a 

more general meaning of “sacred place.” In the vocabulary 

of Buddhist architecture, caitya is most often an 

adjective for hall (caityagrha), and the most common 

form of caitya is a rock-carved worship cave with a 

stupa inside. Some of the best examples of this kind of 

caitya hall are at Lmas R si in the Barabar Hills and 

Bhaja and the nearly adjacent site, Karl, both about 

one hundred kilometers southeast of Mumtaz (Bombay). 

Dated to around the third century B.C.E., the first 

century B.C.E., and the first century C.E., respectively, 

the exterior entry to each is marked by a pointed, horseshoe-shaped 

arch known as a caitya arch. The same 

archway appears in relief sculpture from contemporary 

stupas at Bharhut and SAN CI. 

Although each is best known for its monumental 

stupa and in some cases torana (gateways) with relief 

sculptures recounting the life and legends of the Buddha, 

the monasteries Sañc in Madhya Pradesh, Amaravat 

and Nagarjunikonda in Andhra Pradesh, and 

Taxila in present-day Pakistan included all three types 

of monuments in the late centuries B.C.E. and early centuries 

C.E. Moreover, all remained sacred sites of Buddhism 

to which architecture would be added through 

their history. Temple 17 at Sañc, for instance, built 

four centuries after the monastery’s famous stupa, is 

an excellent example of a Gupta temple. 

Rock-carved monastic architecture 

Full-scale monastic complexes were also carved into 

natural rock in India. Most famous are the caitya and 

vihara of AJAN T A in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. Consisting 

of twenty-eight caves excavated over ten centuries, 

Ajanta includes some of the best examples of 

architecture of the Gupta period (ca. fourth to seventh 

centuries), the stylistic pinnacle in Buddhist art production 

in India. Two distinctive cave types and all 

three architectural forms are preserved there. The majority 

of caves are vihara-style, consisting of monastic 

cells enclosing a central, open, squarish space or an interior 

with pillars arranged in grid pattern. Caitya-style 

caves at Ajanta (numbers 9, 10, 19, and 26) are elliptical 

in shape with pillar-defined arcades and a stu pa at 

the interior end of the ellipse. Like the majority of caves 

at Ajanta, all the caitya-caves are MAHAYANA. That is, 

the Buddha image is represented, often seated on in a 

stupa, in the caitya chapels. In plan, it is hard to differentiate 

between a Mahayana and pre-Mahayana 

caitya- or vihara-style cave. Inside they are immediately 

distinguishable, the early ones having an unornamented 

stu pa for circumambulation at the deepest 

point in the cave and the later ones with the Buddha 

image represented not only on the stu pa but in other 

sculpture and murals. 

Rock-cut monasteries and temple complexes were 

constructed in India through the course of Buddhist 

history. The details of architectural style were often of 

the period, so that a Gupta monastery might house a 

building whose structure, minus the iconographic decoration, 

would be hard to distinguish from a contemporary 

Hindu temple. In general, it can be said that 

Hindu architecture surged and Buddhist monastery 

construction began to wane after the Gupta period. By 

that time, however, monks and travelers from the east 

had come to India to study, and Indian Buddhists had 

traveled eastward. The midway points where meetings 

between Chinese and Indian monks occurred resulted 

in some of the most extraordinary Buddhist monasteries 

known. Monasteries in these points of encounter 

in former Chinese and Russian Turkestan, the presentday 

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, and 

the republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, 

Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, survive as ruins in 

oases of the death-defying mountain ranges, deserts, 

and barren wasteland that characterize CENTRAL ASIA. 


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Almost every oasis had a Buddhist presence, although 

chronologies of the sites and their architecture 

are sketchy. It is similarly difficult to trace the movement 

of Buddhist sects from one to another. Datable 

materials suggest Buddhist monasteries propagated in 

Central Asia by the third century C.E. and survived until 

other religions, such as Islam, or invasions of peoples, 

such as the Mongols, destroyed them. Like most 

construction in Central Asia, monastery buildings were 

almost without exception mud brick. Some of the earliest 

Buddhist monasteries in Central Asia are in Miran 

on the southern SILK ROAD in eastern Xinjiang 

province. An inscription and paintings date Buddhism 

in Miran to the second century C.E. Both freestanding 

temples and stupas survive. 

Buddhism was present in China by the first century 

C.E., and a growing number of sites such as the 

rock-carved elephant at Lianyun’gang in Jiangsu 

province attest to this fact. By the fourth century, Buddhist 

CAVE SANCTUARIES inspired by Indian models 

were carved in several regions of Xinjiang, in China 

proper, and at oases in China’s westernmost territory. 

Most famous among the cave monasteries are, from 

west to east, Kizil, Kumtura, and Bezeklik in Xinjiang; 

the Mogao and other cave-temple groups in the 

DUNHUANG region and Maijishan in Gansu province 

of Western China; and YUN’GANG, Tianlongshan, 

Xiangtangshan, LONGMEN, and Gongxian in the north 

central Chinese provinces of Shanxi, Hebei, and 

Henan. Additional cave sanctuaries have been studied 

in China in the last two decades of the twentieth 

century, in particular in Gansu, the Ningxia Hui 

Autonomous Region, and southeastern China, giving 

way to redating and refinement of chronologies. Still, 

it is not possible to suggest a clear path of transmission 

of Buddhism and its monasteries. Rather, monastery 

remains suggest that, from the third or fourth 

centuries through the ninth or tenth centuries, monks 

traveled and dwelt in Buddhist sites from Afghanistan, 

Persia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in the 

West to Central China in the East, alongside practitioners 

of other faiths; their monasteries consisted 

of rock-cut caitya halls, freestanding temples, and 

stupas. The earliest monastery remains in China date 

to the fifth century. As far as can be determined, the 

dominant structures in early Chinese monasteries 

were a stupa and Buddhist worship hall, with the 

stupa often towering as a major monument in a town 

or city. 

Monastic architecture in China 

By this time, the stupa had become four-sided in plan, 

closer in appearance to multistory Chinese towers of 

the late B.C.E. and early C.E. centuries than to circular 

stupas of India or Central Asia. The Northern Wei 

(386–534) capital at Luoyang in Henan province contained 

1,367 Buddhist structures or building complexes. 

Its two most important monasteries were 

Jimingsi, which had a seven-story pagoda, and Yongningsi, 

whose wooden pagoda rose 161 meters in nine 

stories. Each side of each story had three doors and six 

windows and was supported by ten pillars. The doors 

were vermilion lacquer, held in place with golden nails. 

Golden bells hung from each corner of each level. The 

great Buddha hall directly to its north was fashioned 

after the main hall of audience of the Luoyang palace. 

It contained a three-meter golden Buddha. Also following 

imperial architecture, Yongningsi was enclosed 

by a 212-by-301 meter mud-earth wall, 3.3 meters 

thick, with a gate on each side; its main gate, seven bays 

across the front, was sixty-six meters high and rose 

three stories. Yongning Monastery is said to have contained 

a thousand bays of rooms, among which were 

monks’ quarters, towers, pavilions, and the main Buddha 

hall and pagoda behind one another at the center. 

The oldest wooden architecture in China survives 

at four monasteries in Shanxi province of the late 

eighth and ninth centuries of the Tang dynasty (618– 

907). Still resembling palace architecture, Buddhist 

halls also became models for sarcophagi in the Tang 

period. The most important monasteries were commissioned 

by the emperor or empress, usually for national 

capitals or sacred Buddhist peaks. 

It was still common in the Tang dynasty for imperial 

residential architecture to be transformed into a 

Buddhist monastery. The residence of the Prince of 

Wei, son of the second Tang emperor, was transformed 

in 658 into a monastery of more than four thousand 

bays of rooms with thirteen major Buddhist halls 

arranged around ten courtyards. One hall measured 

51.5 by 33 meters at the base. It was not the main hall, 

which was considerably larger. By the Tang dynasty, it 

is possible to associate building plans with Buddhist 

ceremonies. Halls used for ordination of Zhenyan 

(Shingon in Japan) monks were divided into front and 

back areas, the private back space for the initiation rite 

in which the Womb and Diamond World MAN D ALAS 

were removed from the wall and placed on a low central 

table or the floor. Other halls had a central inner 

space for the altar and images and an enclosing 


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The Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, China, also known as the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas. © Wolfgang Kaehler/Corbis. Reproduced 


ambulatory defined by pillars. Both hall types and fullscale 

monasteries are depicted in Buddhist murals and 

paintings on silk of the period. 

From the Song (960–1279), Liao (907–1125), and 

Jin (1125–1234) dynasties, monasteries with numerous 

buildings survive all over China. As was the case 

earlier, a pagoda or multistory pavilion and main Buddha 

hall on the same building line dominated some 

monasteries. Tenth- or eleventh-century monasteries 

with pagodas or pavilions as their focus include Dule 

Monastery in Hebei province, whose pavilion and 

front gate date 984; Fogong Monastery in Shanxi, 

whose 67-meter pagoda, the tallest wooden pagoda in 

China today, dates 1056; and Fengguo Monastery in 

Liaoning, whose main hall was built in 1013. 

One of the most extensive lines of main structures 

survives at Longxing Monastery in Zhengding, Hebei 

province, where a hall to the Sixth Patriarch HUINENG, 

a hall to Śakyamuni Buddha, an ordination platform, 

and a pavilion to Avalokiteśvara known as Dabei or 

Foxiang Pavilion stood on the main axial line behind 

the front gate; pairs of side halls, pavilions, and towers 

framed each major courtyard in front of one of the 

axially-positioned structures. The pairing of pagodas 

and pavilions on either side in front of a main hall became 

standard in tenth- to thirteenth-century Chinese 

Buddhist monasteries. Shanhua Monastery in Datong 

in Shanxi province consisted of a front gate, a hall of 

the three deities, and a main hall along its main building 

line, along with two pairs of halls and a pair of 

pavilions joined to the covered arcade that enclosed it. 

One of the pavilions at both Shanhua and Longxing 

monasteries contained the sutra collection of each 

monastery. A sutra hall, often a pavilion or other 

multistory structure, was another standard feature in 

Chinese monasteries of this middle period. 

By the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), centered 

in Hangzhou, monasteries of the CHAN SCHOOL 

dominated Buddhist architecture. The major monasteries 

of this meditative school were dominated by 

seven halls arranged along a north-south line: a front 

gate, a Buddha hall, a Vairocana hall, a dharma hall, 

abbot’s quarters, and a room for seated meditation. 

Buildings for mundane affairs, such as storage halls and 


M ONASTIC 

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dormitories, filled the space on either side of the main 

building line. Monks’ quarters sometimes contained a 

single huge bed on which monks meditated and slept. 

By the thirteenth century, monastery architecture in 

China was marked by great variety. The lack of consistency 

can in part be explained by numerous Buddhist 

schools and by an increasing syncretism in 

Buddhist and Daoist worship that gave rise to new 

sects. Often a twelfth- or thirteenth-century Buddhist 

monastery was architecturally indistinguishable from 

a Daoist one until one entered the halls and saw the 

statues and paintings. In addition, Daoist precincts 

could be constructed at Buddhist monasteries and 

Buddhist precincts at Daoist temple complexes. 

Lamaist monasteries in China 

By the fourteenth century, Lamaist Buddhist architecture 

also was present on the Chinese landscape. The 

most representative structure of a Lamaist Buddhist 

monastery is the bulb-shaped pagoda known as a 

dagoda, often painted white. The Lamaist pagodas of 

Miaoying Monastery, built in 1279, and in Beihai Park, 

built in 1651, still rise above much of the rest of Beijing’s 

architecture. Lamaism and its architecture dominated 

the regions of China adjacent to Tibet, the 

center of this branch of Buddhism, in particular the 

areas of Sichuan and Gansu and regions adjacent to 

them in Ningxia Hui, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia. 

Patronized by the Manchu rulers of the last Chinese 

dynasty, Qing (1644–1911), some of the most creative 

architecture of China’s last three imperial centuries 

stands at Lamaseries. The most purely Tibetan monasteries, 

in Qinghai and Sichuan, include multistory 

stone buildings with small windows and flat roofs, the 

style famous on the mountainous terrain of Tibet. The 

Sino-Tibetan style of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, and 

Gansu, represented by Wudangzhao in Baotou or Xilituzhao 

in Hohhot, both in Inner Mongolia, is characterized 

by the axial arrangements seen in Chinese 

monasteries but with great sutra halls in the block style 

of Tibet, as well as numerous funerary pagodas. Often 

several buildings are interconnected into one blocklike 

structure, but roofs may be of Chinese glazed ceramic 

tile. 

Ta’er Monastery in Qinghai is of this type. Most impressive 

are the Sino-Tibetan Lamaseries of Chengde 

(formerly Jehol) in Hebei province. Site of a summer 

palace of the Qing emperors, Chengde had twelve temple 

complexes, known as the Eight Outer Temples 

after the eight offices through which they were administered 

in the eighteenth century. Often the monasteries 

contain Chinese-style architecture in the front 

and Tibetan-style buildings behind. One monastery 

even had architecture that replicated the POTALA 

palace in Tibet. Dominated by great sutra halls, traditional 

buildings dedicated to, for example, the four divine 

kings, are also present at the Eight Outer Temples. 

This kind of regionalism in architecture was widespread 

in Qing China, giving way not only to scores of 

residential styles among the “minority” peoples of the 

empire, but also to Sino-Burmese Buddhist monasteries 

in Xishuangbanna in southwestern Yunnan 

province near the border with Myanmar. Traditional 

Buddhist monasteries never disappeared from China. 

Yonghegong, a princely palace in the heart of Beijing 

that was turned into a lamasery during the eighteenth 

century, with its main halls painted red and golden 

rooftops on an axial line, represents a Chinese-style 

lamasery. In other parts of China, Chan monasteries 

continued to be built and restored, especially at historically 

sacred locations, such as the four great peaks: 

These include Wutai in Shanxi province, dedicated to 

Mañjuśr; Putuo, the unique island setting off the coast 

of Ningbo, dedicated to Avalokiteśvara; Emei in 

Sichuan, dedicated to Samantabhadra; and Jiuhua in 

Anhui, dedicated to Ksitigarbha. The later monasteries 

of traditional sects retained axial arrangements but 

were larger than their pre-fourteenth century predecessors, 

with two new hall types, the diamond hall 

and the hall of divine kings. Both halls were incorporated 

into Lamaist construction in China. Also new in 

the fourteenth century were brick halls, nicknamed 

“beamless” halls, which stood in sharp contrast to the 

ubiquitous wooden buildings of Chinese construction. 

Monastic architecture in Korea 

Since initial contacts in Northeast Asia, things Chinese 

were transmitted to the Korean peninsula. Buddhism 

entered Korea from China officially in 372. Although 

not every Chinese Buddhist school became popular in 

Korea, most were known to Korean monks who traveled 

to China or through Chinese Buddhist missionaries. 

Korean Buddhist monasteries thus contained the 

standard structures of Chinese monasteries. A standard 

plan in Korean Buddhist monasteries has an entry 

gate with a pair of divine kings on each side, 

followed by a dharma hall and main hall. 

Buddha halls, pagodas, and cave sanctuaries all are 

found in Korea. Korea’s best-known Buddhist monasteries, 

Pulguksa and SŎKKURAM, both in the outskirts 

of Kyŏngju, capital of the unified Silla kingdom 


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(668–935), borrow from monastery traditions of 

China and represent two distinctly Korean types of 

Buddhist architecture at the same time. Pulguksa consists 

of a front gate and two halls directly behind it, 

and smaller halls dedicated to buddhas or bodhisattvas 

in their own precincts. The entry and most of the enclosing 

corridors of the monastery, however, are elevated 

on stone foundations. Pulguksa’s twin pagodas 

are also made of stone, the predominant and uniquely 

Korean material of early pagodas. Sŏkkuram is Korea’s 

most famous Buddhist cave sanctuary. The greatest 

concentration of Buddhist rock-carved niches and 

worship spaces in Korea is on Namsan (South Mountain), 

also in the vicinity of Kyŏngju. The largest 

monastery in Korea is T’ongdosa, located between 

Kyŏngju and Pusan. One of the most noteworthy 

monasteries is Haeinsa, where an extensive set of 

woodblocks of the Korean CANON survives. 

Monastic architecture in Japan 

Early Buddhist monasteries in Japan are believed to 

have followed the patterns of continental East Asia, 

transmitted directly from China or from China by way 

of Korea. Much can be learned about East Asian 

monasteries from Japan’s monasteries because more 

pre-ninth-century wooden architecture survives in 

Japan than anywhere else in East Asia. As was the case 

in contemporary China and Korea, the main structures 

of Japanese monasteries of the Nara period (710–784) 

were the Buddha hall and pagoda. Their arrangements, 

however, signaled distinctive types believed to follow 

regional variations in Korea and probably also in 

China. At Shitennoji in Osaka, for example, whose plan 

dates before the Nara period, to 593, the pagoda and 

hall are on an axial line, matching the arrangement that 

was implemented in China at Yongning Monastery in 

the late fifth or early sixth century. At Horyuji and 

Kawaharadera, the pagoda and main Buddha hall, 

known in Japan as kondo , were built side by side. 

At Asukadera, south of Nara in Asuka and dated to 

the sixth century, three kondo enclosed a dominant 

central pagoda on all but the south side. Yet another 

Nara-period plan included twin pagodas on either side 

in front of the main hall. Eighth-century monasteries 

of Japan also inform us of the range of buildings in an 

active temple complex of the early period in East Asia. 

The Great Buddha Hall at Todaiji, in Nara, Japan, built in 1692. It replaced an original of 752 that was twice destroyed by fire. 

© Robert D. Fiala, Concordia University, Seward, Nebraska. Reproduced by permission. 


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The Phoenix Hall, at the Byodoin, Kyoto, Japan. Built in 1053, it was intended as a three-dimensional representation of the Sukhavatl 

Pure Land—the Western Paradise—of Amitabha. © Sakamoto Photo Research Laboratory/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

Horyuji, for instance, had a gatehouse, kondo , pagoda, 

and covered arcade connected to the gatehouse at its 

core, as well as a south gate, lecture hall, monks’ dormitories, 

sutra library, bell tower, refectory, and administrative 

offices, and a separate precinct with an 

octagonal hall dedicated to Prince SHO TOKU (574–621). 

The Great Eastern Monastery in Nara (Todaiji) had 

south and middle gates, its main Buddha hall, another 

gate, a lecture hall, and monks’ quarters on the main 

building line, and twin pagodas, halls for ceremonies 

of the second and third moons of the year, an ordination 

hall, and a treasure repository located elsewhere. 

None of these buildings was unique at Horyuji or 

Todaiji. Monasteries could also include shrines to 

monks or monk-founders, halls to individual buddhas 

or bodhisattvas, gardens, bathhouses, and anything 

else that offered full-service life and education to the 

monastic and sometimes lay community. Coincident 

with the move of the main capital to Heian (Kyoto) at 

the end of the eighth century, esoteric Buddhist schools 

rose in Japan. In contrast to monasteries of the Nara 

capital, early Heian-period monasteries had smaller 

buildings located in remote, often mountainous settings. 

Not only were the clergy kept distant from court 

affairs, the new mountain monasteries were primarily 

for esoteric Buddhist schools, especially Tendai and 

Shingon, which had been transmitted to Japan from 

China at the turn of the ninth century. 

Although monastery structures in the middle part 

of the Heian period remained small in comparison to 

their Nara counterparts, decoration became lavish. The 

change corresponded to the surge in PURE LAND BUD- 

DHISM, whose monasteries often included a re-creation 

of the Buddha’s paradise, or Pure Land, in the form of 

a hall with lotus pond in front of it. The PHOENIX HALL 

(AT THE BYO DO IN) in Uji, once the residence of one of 

Japan’s wealthiest families, and the Golden Hall of 

Chusonji in Hiraizumi are typical Fujiwara-period 

(951–1086) monastery buildings. 

By the end of the Heian period, however, monasteries 

that were much less ornate became popular. 

Single-bay square halls dedicated to AMITABHA, Buddha 

of the Western Paradise, were common. Austere 


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monastery construction was characteristic of the next 

period of Japanese history, the Kamakura (1185– 

1333). Austerities were suited to Zen, the dominant 

form of Buddhism among the military rulers of Japan. 

Five great Zen monasteries and countless small ones 

covered the mountainous village of Kamakura; these 

were modeled after the great Chan mountain monasteries 

of Southern Song China. The front gate of a Zen 

monastery was two stories with a triple entry and access 

to the second floor, where statues of the sixteen 

arhats often were found. The main hall was known as 

the butsuden, or Buddha hall. Public ceremonies were 

held in the butsuden, whereas lectures and other assemblages 

of monks took place in the dharma hall, a 

structure also found in Chinese monasteries of the 

eleventh century. Both in Kamakura and in Kyoto, Zen 

monasteries consisted of public reception space used 

chiefly by the main abbot, abbot’s quarters, halls for 

study and meditation, a hall for sutra recitation, a hall 

dedicated to the monastery founder, and usually gardens. 

The abbot’s quarters traced its origins to a humble 

single-bay square hut (ho jo ), the kind of dwelling 

used by the earliest Indian Buddhists, but the structure 

became increasingly important and lavish by the end 

of the Kamakura period. 

Yet another hall type in Zen monasteries was the 

shariden, the relic hall. Examples of all these structures 

remain in Kamakura and most survive at one of the 

best examples of Zen architecture outside Kamakura— 

Tofukuji in Kyoto. Whereas some Kamakura-period 

monastery architecture originated in two areas of 

China’s southeastern coast, and came to be known as 

Indian style or Tang style, in contrast to native Japanese 

style, monastery architecture of the fourteenth and 

fifteenth centuries displayed a uniquely Japanese architectural 

aesthetic. As represented by the monasteries 

of the Silver and Golden pavilions, Ginkakuji and 

Kinkakuji in Kyoto, the return of the Japanese capital 

to Kyoto was coincident with a return to luxurious living 

among the military lords of Japan’s Muromachi 

period (1338–1573). 

Buddhist monasteries continue to be built and restored 

in China, Korea, and Japan at the beginning of 

the twenty-first century, and are preserved as historic 

relics in India and Central Asia. 


Art in; Himalayas, Buddhist Art in; Horyuji and 

Todaiji; Japan, Buddhist Art in; Korea, Buddhist Art 

in; Monasticism; Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Mitra, Debala. Buddhist Monuments. Calcutta: Sahitya Samdad, 

1971. 


and Its Function as a Setting for Buddhist Monastic Life. 

Copenhagen, Denmark: G. E. C. Gad; London: Oxford University 

Press, 1937. 

Sarkar, H. Studies in Early Buddhist Architecture of India. New 

Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966. 

Seckel, Dietrich, The Art of Buddhism, tr. Ann Keep. New York: 

Greystone Press, 1968. 

Soper, Alexander. The Evolution of Buddhist Architecture in 


Suzuki Kakichi. Early Buddhist Architecture in Japan, tr. Mary 

N. Parent and Nancy S. Steinhardt. Tokyo, New York, and 

San Francisco: Kodansha International, 1980. 

Zhongguo jianzhu yishu quanji (universal history of the art of 

Chinese architecture), Vol. 12: Fojiao jianzhu (Buddhist architecture). 

Part 2: The North. Beijing: China Building Industry 

Press, 2002. Part 2: The South, Beijing: China Building 

Industry Press, 1999. 

MONASTICISM 

NANCY SHATZMAN STEINHARDT 

The term monasticism is derived from the Greek word 

monos, which means “single” or “alone.” Despite the 

etymology, the majority of Buddhist monastics are not 

hermits or solitary wanderers. Monastics, even those 

who may choose to take up a solitary life from time to 

time, belong to the Buddhist SAṄGHA or community. 

The range of Buddhist monastic communities is quite 

extensive, including everything from extremely large 

and wealthy urban monasteries, to mid-size and small 

village monasteries, to forest, cave, and mountain 

monasteries. 

Buddhist monasticism has its origins in India and 

dates back to the lifetime of Śakyamuni Buddha. The 

earliest members of the monastic order appear to have 

led lives that alternated between wandering from place 

to place in groups and residing in parks and groves donated 

by kings and wealthy merchants. Some Buddhist 

scholars, such as Sukumar Dutt, have argued that the 

wandering lifestyle was gradually transformed into a 

more permanently settled monastic existence as a result 

of the Buddha’s requirement that MONKS and NUNS 

cease wandering during the monsoon season. Other 

Buddhist scholars, such as Mohan Wijayaratna, have argued 

that the first monastic complexes were the result 


M ONASTICISM 

of the desire of wealthy laypeople to donate land and 

permanent structures to the saṅgha. Although scholars 

debate the origins of monasteries, they do agree that 

with the advent of permanent structures, there arose a 

class of monastics who remained in the monasteries permanently 

to act as caretakers and administrators. 

Texts and archeological evidence reveal that shortly 

after the death of the Buddha, there were eighteen large 

Buddhist monasteries near the city of Rajagrha alone. 

The records of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims point to the 

existence, during the fifth to seventh century C.E., of 

great Buddhist monasteries and monastic universities 

in India that housed thousands of monastics from a 

variety of Buddhist traditions. The monasteries quickly 

became wealthy institutions endowed with land, buildings, 

and numerous possessions. 

The Buddhist monastic order was originally made 

up of ordained male and female monastics. During 

the medieval period, however, the lineage of fully 

ordained nuns died out in the THERAVADA order. 

Although the formal order was gone, some women 

did continue to live as novices in nunneries. While 

novice nuns in certain countries (such as the dasa sil 

matavas in Sri Lanka) often lack the recognition and 

support that is so essential to their survival, novice 

nuns in other countries (such as the śramanerika in 

Tibet) have enjoyed a wider network of support and 

a greater recognition of their status. Since the 1980s 

there have been moves to reintroduce the lineage of 

fully ordained nuns in certain Theravada countries 

such as Sri Lanka and Thailand, though this effort has 

often met fierce opposition from the male order. 

By the medieval period all Buddhist monastic orders 

had died out in India. By that time, Buddhist 

monasticism had already become a pan-Asian phenomenon. 

Within the last century Buddhist monastic 

institutions have not only been reestablished in India, 

but have also been founded throughout North and 

South America, Africa, Europe, and Australia. 

Monasticism and the saṅ˙ gha 

In Buddhism, the monastic order is referred to as the 

saṅgha, which, in its strictest sense, refers specifically 

to MONKS and NUNS. The saṅgha began when the Buddha 

accepted his first five disciples shortly after his enlightenment. 

As the monastic order grew and the 

religion spread in an ever-widening radius, numerous 

disciplinary rules were put forth to govern the lives of 

the monks and nuns. Even though the rules, which are 

found in the VINAYA section of the Buddhist CANON, 

are very complex, the underlying intention is straightforward: 

to help guide the lives of monks and nuns on 

a spiritual PATH and to create a unified group of 

monastics. The Buddhist monastic order functions to 

preserve and teach the Buddhist doctrine and, by dictating 

how to live in accordance with the way taught 

by Śakyamuni Buddha, the order’s rules provide an 

historical link to the past. 

The Buddha originally functioned as the head of the 

monastic order. At the time of his death he refused to 

appoint a successor; instead, the Buddhist teachings 

and disciplinary code were said to take the place of a 

central authority. Lacking a leader who could maintain 

doctrinal and disciplinary congruity, the saṅgha 

split into several monastic traditions in the centuries 

following the death of the Buddha. The early splits in 

the saṅgha were often based on disputes regarding discipline 

and led to the formation of separate vinaya 

texts. Within the first millennium following the death 

of the Buddha and continuing to the present, the disputes 

often related to doctrinal and disciplinary issues, 

thus resulting in the growth of Buddhist sects and 

schools centered around particular doctrines, texts, 

monastic leaders, and practices. 

The lack of a central authority in Buddhism may be 

seen as problematic and as the cause of internal disputes 

and divisions. In a more positive light, the openness 

to interpret Buddhist practice and doctrine has 

led to a staggering range of Buddhist monastic institutions 

and types of monastic vocations, thus contributing 

to the adaptation of the tradition through 

time and space. As the order expanded geographically 

over time, adjustments were needed to make the tradition 

and the monastic institution acceptable to the 

people living in the various countries where the religion 

was introduced. For example, while monks of the 

Theravada order (such as those living in Sri Lanka, 

Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia) are prohibited 

from farming and must receive their food directly 

from the laity, the monks from the CHAN 

SCHOOL of East Asia are encouraged to grow their own 

food, an idea that is closely related to the Confucian 

ideal of not being a parasite to society. 

Categories of monastics 

Buddhist monasteries house many different categories 

of Buddhist monastics, from postulants seeking admission 

into the saṅgha to the abbot of a monastery. Prior 

to becoming a monk or nun, a person seeking admission 

into the saṅgha usually spends a probationary 

period, ranging from several days to several years, in 


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Thicksay Monastery, Leh, Ladakh, India, 1997. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

the monastery where he or she is seeking ORDINATION. 

During this period, the postulant learns about the 

practice of monastic life, is involved in various menial 

and demanding tasks around the monastery, and is in 

charge of taking care of the needs of the other monastics. 

This period allows the postulant as well as the 

monks and nuns of the monastery to ascertain whether 

monastic life is an appropriate choice. 

Traditionally, entrance into the Buddhist saṅgha 

follows a two-step process in which the postulant first 

becomes a novice (śramanera, śramanerika) before 

becoming a fully ordained monk (bhiksu) or nun 

(bhiksunl). To become a novice, one must be old 

enough to scare away crows (usually interpreted to be 

seven to eight years of age). Novices must follow ten 

basic injunctions or PRECEPTS: 

1. Not killing 

2. Not stealing 

3. Not engaging in sexual activity 

4. Not lying 

5. Not taking intoxicants 

6. Not eating after midday 

7. Not watching shows or listening to musical performances 

8. Not wearing garlands or perfume 

9. Not sleeping on high beds 

10. Not handling gold or silver (understood to be 

money) 

Monks and nuns who remain in the order may choose, 

once they reach twenty years of age, to take a second, 

more formal “higher” ordination (upasampada). As 

“fully ordained” monastics, monks and nuns are required 

to follow a greater number of precepts that not 

only elaborate the ten novice precepts, but also deal 

with subjects of decorum, dress, and demeanor. Even 

though the number of precepts differ between the various 

regions and schools as determined by the vinaya 

code that is followed, monastics rarely follow all of the 

precepts, and in some traditions in Japan and Tibet, 

for example, a married clergy was deemed acceptable 

and even preferable. 


M ONASTICISM 

The categories of monks and the stages of ordination 

outlined above are often traced back to Indian 

Buddhist practices. In actuality, many variations exist 

regarding ordination and the categories of monastics. 

One such variation pertains to whether or not becoming 

a fully ordained monastic is a permanent or temporary 

commitment. Another important variation 

concerns the upasampada ordination: While in most 

Theravada countries there are social pressures for 

novices to take the upasampada ordination once they 

reach the appropriate age, the majority of monks in 

China choose to remain novices, possibly due originally 

to a lack of monasteries able to administer the 

monastic precepts. Moreover, most East Asian monastics, 

after becoming fully ordained, take another set of 

precepts called BODHISATTVA vows derived from the 

FANWANG JING (BRAHMA’S NET SU TRA), which, in accordance 

with the MAHAYANA tradition, are based on 

a commitment to lead all beings to enlightenment. 

Daily monastic routines 

Monastic daily routines are often centered around four 

types of activities: studying, practicing MEDITATION, 

performing RITUALs, and fulfilling assigned monastery 

duties. Outside of these activities, Buddhist monastics 

have also involved themselves, from time to time, in 

politics and in social service activities like the construction 

of shelters for the homeless, schools, animal 

shelters, and hospitals. 

Generally, daily monastic routines include activities 

such as cleaning the monastery; performing a variety 

of monastery duties; honoring the Buddha, his teachings 

(dharma), the monastic community (saṅgha), and 

one’s own teacher; studying; chanting; and meditating. 

In addition to being restricted by the monastic code, 

the daily monastic routines are further limited by the 

actual Buddhist tradition, monastery, rank of the 

monastic, and time of the year. For instance, while certain 

meditation-oriented monasteries might dedicate 

the majority of the day to the practice of meditation, 

the daily routine of other monasteries might focus 

more heavily on studying Buddhist texts and performing 

rituals. In addition to these differences, 

monastic routines vary between Buddhist traditions 

and countries. Whereas Theravada monks from Thailand, 

Myanmar (Burma), or Laos might go out in the 

early morning to collect alms and must refrain from 

eating after midday, Mahayana monks from China, 

Taiwan, Korea, and Japan rarely seek alms and may 

partake in an evening meal (sometimes called a “medicine 

meal”). Daily monastic routines may also change 

depending upon the time of year. For example, 

whereas monks living in certain Sŏn (Chinese, Chan) 

monasteries in Korea might meditate for over fourteen 

hours a day during the retreat seasons (summer and 

winter), they may devote little time to meditation during 

the nonretreat season. During this time, monks often 

visit other monasteries, travel on PILGRIMAGEs, and 

engage in various other projects around the monastery, 

such as gardening, farming, and construction work. 

Buddhist monastic routines are also punctuated by 

monthly rituals and ceremonies that may vary in form 

and content between the different Buddhist traditions. 

One such monthly ritual commonly practiced in the 

Theravada tradition is the posadha (Pali, uposatha) ritual, 

which is held semimonthly on new moon and full 

moon days. In this ritual, the disciplinary code is recited 

and the members of the monastic community are 

asked whether or not they have broken any of the precepts. 

This confessional ritual creates a sense of unity 

within the monastic community and encourages selfscrutiny 

and monastic purity, which are necessary for 

spiritual progress. 

The posadha ritual is slowly gaining in renewed popularity 

in certain Mahayana countries such as Taiwan 

and Korea. In monasteries where the ritual is not practiced, 

other monthly and semimonthly rituals may take 

its place. It is common in the Korean Sŏn tradition, 

for instance, that every fortnight during the new and 

full moons days the abbot gives a lecture and may even 

administer the bodhisattva precepts to the monks. 

Usually this lecture covers various aspects of the Buddha’s 

or other famous Buddhist monks’ teachings, as 

well as brief instructions on meditation. 

Yearly rituals and celebrations also play an important 

role in monastic routines. One of the most popular 

and important annual Buddhist ceremonies is the 

celebration of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and 

death. This ceremony usually occurs during the full 

moon of the fourth lunar month (usually late April or 

early May) of each year. In anticipation of this very important 

celebration, monks in the week leading up to 

the full moon begin thoroughly cleaning the monastery 

and decorating it with handmade paper lanterns. During 

this ritual, the laity flock to their local monastery, 

where they wander in and around the monastic buildings, 

meet with the monks and nuns, partake in certain 

rituals, and attend lectures on various aspects of 

the Buddha’s life and teachings. 


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M ILITIAS 

Relationship between the monastic institution 

and the laity 

The survival of the Buddhist monastic order depends 

on two factors: men and women who desire to take up 

the monastic life and the LAITY who support them. 

From the earliest period, it was the laity who funded 

the construction of the first Buddhist monasteries in 

India and beyond. 

Despite the fact that a monastic “goes forth” 

(pravrajita) from society when he or she enters the 

saṅgha, monks and nuns remain deeply connected to 

the laity in a symbiotic manner. The laity ideally supplies 

the four requisites (food, clothing, shelter, and 

medicine) to the monks and nuns in exchange for 

guidance and spiritual support in the form of sermons 

and the performance of rituals. The interaction between 

monastics and the laity varies considerably depending 

on the type of monastery: Whereas residents 

of forest, cave, and mountain monasteries tend to have 

more limited contact with the laity, monastics living 

in village and city monasteries often have close ties with 

the laity. Indeed, along with serving as centers where 

the laity could receive instructions on Buddhist doctrine 

and practices, these urban and village monasteries 

functioned and may still function as educational 

centers that teach religious and secular subjects. 

Underlying the symbiotic relationship between the 

monastic order and the laity is the very important 

concept of merit. As the monastic order is made up 

of people who represent, perpetuate, and follow the 

teachings of the Buddha, the monastic institution itself 

is said to be the highest field of merit and therefore 

most worthy of offerings. According to this 

system, donating to the monastic order is one of the 

most wholesome acts a person can perform and anything 

donated to the saṅgha increases the donor’s 

store of merit. Not only does this merit ensure good 

fortune and more propitious rebirths in the future, it 

can also be transferred to others who need it, such as 

a deceased relative. 




Dutt, Sukumar. Early Buddhist Monachism: 600 B.C.–100 B.C. 

London: Kegan Paul, 1924. 

Gombrich, Richard. Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism 

in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon. Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 

1971. 




Henry, Patrick G., and Swearer, Donald K. For the Sake of the 

World: The Spirit of Buddhist and Christian Monasticism. 

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989. 


to the Śaka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Paris: L’Institute Orientaliste 

de Louvain, 1988. 

Olivelle, P. The Origin and the Early Development of Buddhist 

Monachism. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Gunasena, 1974. 

Samuel, Geoffrey. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. 

Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1993. 


Papers on the Archeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic 


1997. 

Silber, Ilana F. Virtuosity, Charisma, and Social Order: A 

Comparative Sociological Study of Monasticism in Theravada 

Buddhism and Medieval Catholicism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 







Wijayaratna, Mohan. Buddhist Monastic Life: According to the 



Press, 1990. 

JEFFREY SAMUELS 

See also: Chanting and Liturgy; Councils, Buddhist; 

Economics; Festivals and Calendrical Rituals; Merit 

and Merit-Making; Repentance and Confession 

Bibliography 




MONASTIC MILITIAS 

Monastic militias (Chinese, sengping; Korean, sŭngbyŏng; 

Japanese, so hei) is a generic term for armed 

members of the SAṄGHA or the private armed forces 

employed by Buddhist monasteries. The term monastic 

militia is not a Buddhist one, but was coined by 

Confucian historians and its use cannot be attested ear- 


M ONGOLIA 

lier than circa 1451 in Korea, 1682 in China, or 1715 

in Japan. Although the term is relatively late, it can be 

used to retrospectively designate earlier phenomena. 

Buddhist scriptures prohibit the use of force and the 

taking of life. Nonetheless, East Asian history records 

many instances during times of political conflict, regional 

unrest, dynastic change, or foreign invasion 

when Buddhist institutions relied on armed forces to 

defend their interests. During the years from 1553 to 

1555, for example, Chinese monastic forces fought 

alongside government troops to repel coastal raiders. 

Likewise, in 1592 Korean Buddhist monks formed 

armed bands to help fight invading Japanese armies. 

Neither Chinese nor Korean examples, however, 

have been as historically prominent or as well studied 

as those of early and medieval Japan. Throughout most 

of that period the institutions of secular government 

in Japan derived legitimation from the divine protection 

of buddhas (enshrined in temples) and local gods 

(placated at shrines), while the temples and shrines engaged 

in the secular activities of controlling large tracts 

of land and the people who worked thereon. Beginning 

in the tenth century, major shrines (such as Ise) 

developed the tactic of protesting unfavorable government 

actions by sending armed bands of men to the 

capital, where they would parade the divine body of 

the gods in front of the residences of terrified government 

officials. Major Buddhist centers (Mount Hiei, 

Onjoji, Kofukuji, Todaiji, etc.) soon adopted this tactic. 

By the end of the eleventh century, they were 

directing their armed forces not just to protest government 

authorities but also to attack one another. 

Mount Hiei, the main center of the Japanese Tendai 

school, became infamous for its men of arms. During 

the twelfth century they repeatedly attacked and 

burned Onjoji, a rival Tendai center. English-language 

accounts of these conflicts frequently render the term 

so hei as “warrior monks,” although membership in 

those armed bands was not limited to the clergy, but 

consisted primarily of laborers (shuto, jinin, etc.) in 

various degrees of servitude to the temples and shrines. 

The warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) campaigned 

to eliminate the military power of Japanese Buddhist 

institutions beginning with Mount Hiei, which he 

torched in 1571. His successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi 

(1537–1598) successfully concluded this campaign in 

1585 when he defeated the Shingon school’s stronghold 

of Negoroji and eradicated monastic militias 

from Japan. 

See also: Hyujŏng; Martial Arts; War; Yujŏng 

Bibliography 

Adolphson, Mikael S. The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and 

Warriors in Premodern Japan. Honolulu: University of 


Hirata Toshiharu. “Akuso ni tsuite.” In Shu kyo shakaishi 

kenkyu , ed. Rissho Daigaku Shigakkai. Tokyo: Yuzankaku. 

1977. 

Kuroda Toshio. Jisha seiryoku: mo hitotsu no chu sei shakai. 


McMullin, Neil. Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth Century 


Nishigaki Harutsugu. “Ritsuryo taisei no kaitai to Ise jingu.” 

Chicho 56 (1955): 37–51. 

MONGOLIA 


In the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, a 

confederation of Mongol tribes rose up in Outer and 

Inner Mongolia under the leadership of Genghis Khan 

(Chinggis Khan, named Temujin, 1162?–1227). 

Though the Mongols had certainly had contact with 

Buddhist neighbors (Jurchen, Tanguts, and Chinese), 

Genghis continued to support indigenous shamanist 

practices. However, following his death in 1227 and 

the subsequent conquest of China and much of 

Central and Western Asia by his sons and grandsons, 

Buddhism—specifically Tibetan Buddhism—began 

to have a significant impact on Mongolian concepts 

of rulership and empire. 

Buddhism during the Mongol Yuan dynasty 

(1260–1368) 

Genghis’s son Ogodei (r. 1229–1241) established a 

Mongol empire that stretched from Korea (occupied 

in 1238) to present-day Poland and Hungary (1241). 

Ogodei’s second son, Gödan Khan, invaded Tibet several 

times and in 1244 brought three prominent Tibetan 

SA SKYA (SAKYA) lamas as guests (or hostages) 

to his court in Liangzhou (modern Gansu province). 

They were SA SKYA PAN D ITA (SAKYA PAN D ITA, 

1182–1251), head of the Sa skya pa, and his two 

nephews, ’Phags pa (1235–1280) and Phyag na rdo rje 

(1239–1267). Under duress, Sa skya Pandita wrote a 

letter to Tibet’s great nobles and lamas praising Gödan 

Khan, but he also initiated him into Tibetan Bud- 


561

M ONGOLIA 

dhist practice, thereby trading political control of Tibet 

for spiritual authority over the Mongol khan. 

Mongol rule over Tibet was formally achieved in 1252 

by Ogodei’s nephew, Möngke (r. 1251–1259), whose 

guru was the BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU) master, miracle 

worker, and eventual second KARMA PA, Karma Pakshi 

(1204–1283). 

Möngke’s successor and brother, Kublai Khan 

(Qubilai Khan, r. 1260–1294) followed Gödan Khan’s 

example when he proclaimed himself emperor of the 

Chinese Yuan dynasty in 1260. Urged by his wife 

Chabi, Kublai allowed ’Phags pa to initiate him into 

the Hevajra Tantra on the promise that he would gain 

the intelligence and compassion of the great protector 

Mahakala. Tibetan VAJRAYANA Buddhism offered 

worldly benefits to the emperor as well. By naming 

’Phags pa guoshi (national preceptor) and, ten years 

later, dishi (imperial preceptor), the two reigned sideby-side 

as “sun and moon” in an ostensibly balanced 

yon mchod (patron-lama) relationship. ’Phags pa acted 

as the Mongols’ agent in Tibet and as head of their 

Zongshiyuan (court of the general administration of 

Buddhism), the office in charge of religious institutions 

throughout the empire. Kublai’s protection and 

patronage of the Tibetan Sa skya pa signaled his auspicious 

status as a world-ruling Buddhist cakravartin 

(wheel-turning king), though he also encouraged an 

atmosphere of religious tolerance, even sponsoring debates 

at court between Buddhists and Daoists. In 1345 

Kublai was posthumously celebrated at the Juyongguan, 

a grand stone stupa-gate constructed northeast 

of the Mongol capital at Dadu (modern Beijing), where 

a multilingual inscription asserted his identity as 

“benevolent king” and “Mañjuśr-emperor.” Kublai’s 

representation as an emanation of Mañjuśr, the bodhisattva 

of wisdom, who, it was believed, dwelled in 

China’s Wutaishan (Five Terrace Mountains in modern 

Shanxi province), was a strategic move designed to 

solidify waning Mongol control over north China. 

Mongolian Buddhism after the fall of the Yuan 

dynasty (late fourteenth to sixteenth centuries) 

The Mongol Yuan dynasty was not long able to rule 

China effectively after Kublai’s death, however. By the 

middle of the fourteenth century, they had lost control 

of southern China and, in 1368, the Yuan was toppled 

by a former Chinese Buddhist monk, Zhu 

Yuanzhang, who founded the Ming dynasty. With the 

collapse of their East Asian empire, the Mongols retreated 

beyond the Great Wall. Evidence of their continued 

devotion to Buddhism is sparse in the centuries 

following the end of the Yuan. Buddhist practice was 

mainly limited to the Genghisid aristocracy, who retained 

limited political control in the Chahar region of 

eastern Inner Mongolia as the Northern Yuan. In the 

late sixteenth century, however, as the Ming dynasty 

began to decay, a number of khans moved to rebuild 

the Mongol empire. Among them was a Western Mongol 

of the Tumed tribe, Altan (the Golden) Khan (r. 

1543–1582). Altan drove the Northern Yuan east to 

Liaodong, captured Ogodei’s old Outer Mongolian 

capital, Kharakhorum, and forged an alliance with the 

Ming. Altan was not a blood descendant of Genghis 

Khan, however, which proved to be an obstacle in his 

attempts to forge a new Mongolian confederation. Following 

an initiation into Tibetan Buddhism presaged 

in a dream, in 1577 he arranged to meet the DGE LUGS 

(GELUK) lama Bsod nams rgya mtsho (1543–1588) at 

Kokonor, in modern Qinghai province (Amdo). Bsod 

nams rgya mtsho was in the direct lineage of TSONG 

KHA PA (1357–1419), the founder of the Dge lugs order. 

At Kokonor the two exchanged titles: Bsod nams 

rgya mtsho recognized Altan as Kublai Khan’s incarnation, 

and Altan gave Bsod nams rgya mtsho a new 

title, Dalai (meaning “ocean” in Mongolian) Lama. 

Bsod nams rgya mtsho became the third in the DALAI 

LAMA lineage, with two of his predecessors posthumously 

named as the first and second. This exalted title 

and Mongol support gave the Dge lugs pa an 

advantage in their ongoing struggles with the Bka’ 

brgyud pa, who were advisers to the Tibetan kings, and 

the Sa skya pa. The Mongols had once again become 

an essential component in the power structure of Tibetan 


To honor Bsod nams rgya mtsho, Altan Khan built 

a monastery, Byang chen theg chen chos ‘khor gling, 

at his capital Koke qota (modern Hohhot in Inner 

Mongolia). There, following Altan’s decree prohibiting 

shamanist practices, the third Dalai Lama used the 

fire MAN D ALA of Mahakala to burn ongod, shamanist 

ancestral images. By Altan Khan’s order, the deities of 

Tibetan Buddhism quickly replaced many of the spirits 

of shamanism, while in the following decades the 

shamanist spirits of important Mongolian mountains 

were incorporated whole into an expanding Buddhist 

pantheon. 

The Dge lugs pa’s willingness to ally themselves with 

Mongol khans brought other candidates forward. 

Among them was Genghis’s descendant, Abadai Khan 

of the Outer Mongolian Khalkha tribe, who met with 

Bsod nams rgya mtsho at Koke qota in 1576 or 1577, 

where he was entitled as khan. Abadai Khan returned 


M ONGOLIA 

to Khalkha to found the Tusheet khanate and to build 

Erdeni Zuu, a monastery at Ogodei’s old capital of 

Kharakhoram modeled on Altan Khan’s monastery in 

Koke qota. After failing to recruit Dge lugs pa lamas 

to come to Khalkha for his monastery’s consecration, 

Abadai enlisted local Sa skya pa lamas. As a result, 

Erdeni Zuu continued to be allied with the Sa skya pa, 

even long after the Khalkha khans solidly came to support 

the Dge lugs pa. 

In 1588 the third Dalai Lama died en route to Mongolia. 

Altan Khan, sensing a brilliant opportunity, 

pushed to have his own great-grandson recognized as 

the fourth Dalai Lama, who was named Yon tan rgya 

mtsho (1589–1617). Despite this prestigious coup, 

through the first decades of the seventeenth century 

Inner Mongolia remained contested ground. The 

Northern Yuan emperor, Ligdan Khan (r. 1605–1634), 

a devout Buddhist, patronized the Sa skya pa and supported 

a complete Mongolian translation of the Bka’ 

’gyur (a project later emulated in a woodblock printed 

version by the Manchu Kangxi emperor, r. 1660– 

1723). In 1617 Ligdan was given a golden image of Mahakala 

that was said to have been made by ’Phags pa 

and used in Kublai’s campaigns against south China. 

Ligdan enshrined it at the center of his capital in Chahar. 

As he retreated west in the face of Manchu incursions 

in 1634, the Mahakala and all the powers that 

accompanied it fell into Manchu hands. In 1636 they 

took the image and installed it in the center of their 

ancestral capital, Mukden, later moving it to Beijing. 

Mongolian Buddhism and the Manchus 

Meanwhile, in Tibet, the fifth Dalai Lama enlisted the 

support of Gushri Khan of the Qoshot, who had established 

himself in the Kokonor region. In 1642 

Qoshot troops defeated the rivals of the fifth Dalai 

Lama and the Dge lugs, most notably the king of 

Gtsang. This year traditionally marks the beginning of 

the Dalai Lamas’ rule over Tibet. However, it was only 

with the death of Gushri Khan in 1656 that the fifth 

Dalai Lama became the unrivaled ruler of Tibet. 

Some years earlier, in 1639, Abadai’s son, the 

Tusheet Khan Gombodorji (1594–1655), had had his 

own young son, known as Öndür Gegen or Zanabazar 

(1634–1723), initiated as a Buddhist monk at Erdeni 

Zuu before a convocation of Khalkha lords. The boy 

traveled to Tibet with a large retinue in 1651, where 

the fifth Dalai Lama recognized him as an incarnation 

of the famous historian Taranatha (1575–1634), a 

member of a rival order, the Jonang pa, who had spent 

years missionizing in Mongolia. The Dalai Lama gave 

Öndür Gegen the title Rje btsun dam pa (Mongolian, 

Bogdo Gegen) and charged him with establishing the 

Dge lugs pa in Khalkha. Öndür Gegen is credited with 

building numerous monasteries, the primary of which 

was a traveling collection of yurts, Urga (from Mongolian 

örgöö, “palace”) or Da Khuree (Great Circle), 

where he reigned as Rje btsun dam pa Khutukhtu 

(Mongolian for incarnate lama) of Urga. He also designed 

rituals; established religious festivals, among 

them the annual Maitreya Festival; borrowed from the 

Panchen Lama’s monastery, Bkra shis lhun po; and 

produced brilliant paintings and sculptures. In 1691, 

pressed by the onslaughts of Galdan, khan of the Western 

Mongolian Dzungar tribe, Öndür Gegen led the 

Khalkha lords to Dolonnor, Inner Mongolia, to seek 

the protection of the Qing Kangxi emperor. The emperor 

and his lama subsequently spent considerable 

time together in Beijing and at Wutaishan. When first 

the emperor and then Öndür Gegen died in 1723, the 

latter’s remains were enshrined at imperial expense at 

a new, palatial Chinese-style monastery, Amarbayasgalant 

khiid (hermitage), south of Lake Baikal. 

The Qing emperors, following the Mongols’ precedent, 

were recognized by the fifth Dalai Lama as emanations 

of Mañjuśr. They maintained close diplomatic 

relations with the great lamas of Tibet and Mongolia. 

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, hundreds 

of Mongolian lamas flooded into the Qing capital 

at Beijing, where they were mainly housed at the 

Huangsi (Yellow Monastery) and the Yonghegong 

(Palace of Harmony). The lineage that forged the closest 

ties to the Qing emperors was that of the Lcang skya 

Khutukhtus, who were granted primacy over the Dge 

lugs pa Buddhists of Inner Mongolia. Particularly 

effective was the third incarnation, Rol pa’i rdo rje 

(1719–1786). Born in Amdo of a Monguor (Tibetanized 

Mongol) family, Rol pa’i rdo rje was brought 

to the Songzhu Monastery in Beijing as a child during 

the reign of the Yongzheng emperor (r. 1723–1735) 

and raised with Yongzheng’s eventual heir, Hongli, 

who reigned as the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–1795). 

Qianlong’s reign marks the height of Mongolian and 

Tibetan Buddhist prestige and power at the Qing court. 

Rol pa’i rdo rje initiated the emperor into the Cakrasam 

vara Tantra in 1745, taught him Tibetan and Sanskrit, 

and accompanied him on regular pilgrimages to 

Wutaishan. Rol pa’i rdo rje was also an invaluable adviser 

in the emperor’s efforts to control the process of 

incarnation among the powerful lineages of Tibet and 

Mongolia, and in his many projects in Buddhist art, 


563

M ONGOLIA 

The monastery of Erdeni Zuu in Kharakhorum, Mongolia, founded in 1585. It is now a museum. © Nik Wheeler/Corbis. Reproduced 


architecture, translation, and publishing in Beijing, 

Chengde (Jehol), Dolonnor, and beyond. 

The Mongolian lineages of the Rje btsun dam pa 

Khutukhtus of Urga and the lCang skya Khutukhtus 

of Beijing and Inner Mongolia, as well as many other 

Mongolian lineages, were perpetuated through incarnation 

into the twentieth century. The Qing closely 

controlled this process to the end of the dynasty and 

found all the Rje btsun dam pa Khutukhtus after 

Öndür Gegen’s immediate successor in Tibet. Few of 

Öndür Gegen’s incarnations (with the exception of the 

fourth) exhibited his spiritual or political brilliance; in 

fact, few lived to reach adulthood. The eighth in the 

line (1870/1–1924) was brought to Urga from Tibet in 

1876 and eventually found himself enthroned as Bogdo 

Khan, a Mongolian title previously reserved for the 

Qing emperors, upon the fall of the Qing empire in 

1912. He played a dual role as leader of the Mongolian 

Dge lugs pa and head of the new (Outer) Mongolian 

state until his death from syphilis in 1924. His 

incarnation, the ninth Bogdo Gegen, was found 

shortly after, but by then Mongolia was in the midst 

of political chaos and the new incarnation was forced 

into exile. 

Mongolian Buddhism in the twentieth century 

Through the 1930s and 1940s Buddhist themes were 

deployed as propaganda by various contending forces. 

Among them were the Japanese, who during their occupation 

of Manchuria claimed Japan was Shambhala; 

the Russians, who made the same claim about the Soviet 

Union, even as others hinted that V. I. Lenin was 

an incarnation of Glang dar ma, the apostate ninthcentury 

Tibetan king; and the Chinese, who spread rumors 

that the PANCHEN LAMA, then in exile in China, 

would invade Mongolia leading the armies of Shambhala. 

Other would-be rulers, among them Jamtsarano, 

a Buriat Mongol and a practicing Buddhist, 

urged a revitalization of Buddhism that would recapture 

the principles of Śakyamuni. His renewal move- 


M ONKS 

ment failed to convince the new communist-led government 

of the People’s Republic of Mongolia, however, 

and, in 1937, following the precedent set by 

Joseph Stalin’s repression of the Russian Orthodox 

Church, Buddhism was banned. The Mongolian government 

executed thousands of lamas, burned monasteries 

to the ground, and destroyed religious books and 

images. Beginning with the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet 

Union, to which the People’s Republic of Mongolia 

was tied as an unofficial satellite, Buddhism began 

to resurface in both Outer Mongolian and in Russian 

Buriatia. Gandantegchinling, the main monastery in 

Ulan Bator (located at the last site of Urga); Amarbayasgalant 

khiid, where Öndür Gegen’s remains were 

once enshrined (and whence they were apparently 

stolen); Erdeni Zuu; and other monasteries in Outer 

Mongolia began to rebuild their monastic populations, 

both through the return of former monks, by then elderly, 

and the entrance into monastic life of new initiates. 

By contrast, in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous 

region of the People’s Republic of China, Buddhism 

has been submitted to the same Chinese state control 

as exists in Tibet. 

Bibliography 

Bawden, Charles R. The Modern History of Mongolia. London: 

Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968. 2nd revised edition, London 

and New York: Kegan Paul, 1989. 

Berger, Patricia, and Bartholomew, Terese. Mongolia: The 

Legacy of Chinggis Khan. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum 

of San Francisco, 1995. 

Dharmatala, Damcho Gyatsho. Rosary of White Lotuses, Being 

the Clear Account of How the Precious Teaching of Buddha 

Appeared and Spread in the Great Hor Country, tr. Piotr 

Klafkowski. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1987. 

Farquhar, David. “Emperor as Bodhisattva in the Governance 

of the Ch’ing Empire.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 38, 

no. 1 (1978): 5–35. 

Grupper, Samuel. “The Manchu Imperial Cult of the Early 

Ch’ing Dynasty: Texts and Studies on the Tantric Sanctuary 

of Mahakala at Mukden.” Ph.D. diss. Indiana University, 

Bloomington, 1979. 

Heissig, Walther. “A Mongolian Source to the Lamaist Suppression 

of Shamanism in the Seventeenth Century.” Anthropos 

48, nos. 1–2 (1953): 1–29; nos. 3–4 (1953): 493–536. 

Heissig, Walther. The Religions of Mongolia, tr. Geoffrey Samuel. 


Jagchid, Sechin. “Buddhism in Mongolia after the Collapse of 

the Yuan Dynasty.” In Traditions religieuses et parareligieuses 

des peuples altaiques. Paris: Presses Universitaires 

de France, 1972. 

Moses, Larry W. The Political Role of Mongol Buddhism. Bloomington: 

Asian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University, 

1977. 

Pozdneyev, Aleksei M. Mongolia and the Mongols, tr. John Roger 

Shaw and Dale Plank. Bloomington: Indiana University, 

1971. 

PATRICIA BERGER 

MONGOLIA, BUDDHIST ART IN. See Himalayas, 


MONKS 

The English word monk derives from the Latin monachus, 

originally referring to a religious hermit, but 

eventually coming to mean instead a male member of 

a religious order living in a community of other renunciants 

devoted to the performance of religious duties. 

Similarly, while terms for monk in the Buddhist 

tradition (Sanskrit, bhiksu or śramana; Pali, bhikkhu or 

samana) are rooted in words connoting mendicancy 

and austerity, the Buddhist monk is more generally understood 

as a member of a community of religious renunciants 

(the SAṄGHA) who has undergone a formal 

ORDINATION ceremony conducted by a quorum of fully 

ordained monks. In addition to the fully ordained 

monk (bhiksu), novice monks (śramanera) may also 

be considered members of the monastic community. 

Hence, one way to understand what it means to be 

a Buddhist monk is to examine the collective to which 

monks belong, a line of inquiry readers can pursue under 

entries for saṅgha and MONASTICISM. It is equally 

useful, however, to focus on smaller groups or types of 

monks within this larger community, and to examine 

the most common motivations for becoming a 

monk—subjects not necessarily covered in compendia 

of monastic regulations or discussions of the history 

of the monastic community as a whole. 

Ascetics 

One such type is the ascetic monk, who devotes himself 

to physical austerities. Almost all monks are ascetics 

in a loose sense of the term, since becoming a 

monk involves renunciation of certain sensual pleasures, 

usually including avoidance of sex, adornment, 

and alcohol. But some monks are drawn to the challenge 

of greater acts of self-denial. These may involve 


565

M ONKS 

fasting, sleep deprivation, self-mutilation, and various 

other sorts of physical trials. Reasons for a man to pursue 

such a life are various, including an attempt to purify 

the body, to experiment with states and insights 

achieved through mortification of the body, a desire 

for the prestige that society renders ascetic virtuosi, and 

even, in some cases, dementia and masochism. One or 

more of these factors coalesce in the ascetic, one type 

of Buddhist exemplar. 

The Buddha himself is an ambivalent model for the 

ascetic monk. In one of the most memorable episodes 

in accounts of the Buddha’s life, he rejects extreme austerities 

after nearly starving himself to death, and, 

much to the dismay of his disciples, begins to take food 

after realizing that enlightenment cannot be achieved 

on an empty stomach. In the context of ancient India, 

with its strong traditions of severe asceticism, the Buddha 

cannot be said to have promoted an extreme variety 

of self-mortification. Nevertheless, the stories of 

the Buddha’s ascetic feats before this realization, including 

acts he committed in previous lives, have inspired 

many to follow his earlier example. Another 

important early exemplar of the ascetic path was the 

Buddha’s disciple MAHAKAŚYAPA, known as “the foremost 

of those who observe the austere discipline.” Mahakaśyapa 

engaged in long bouts of uninterrupted 

meditation, isolated in a cave, and wearing only robes 

made of coarse rags, cast off by others. So immune was 

he to sensual concerns that, according to one account, 

he once accepted and ate an offering from a leprous 

woman into which a piece of her rotted finger had accidentally 

fallen. 

For monks outside of India, more proximate models 

for ASCETIC PRACTICES are readily found in accounts 

of local monks in Tibet, Thailand, China, Vietnam, and 

elsewhere. Supernormal powers are one of the byproducts 

of ascetic practice. Mahakaśyapa, for instance, 

was said to be able to fly. Stories of strange and 

wondrous abilities are often attached to such figures 

and are among the reasons monks have chosen to pursue 

ascetic training. In modern times, Buddhists 

throughout the world have, following a general trend, 

become increasingly uncomfortable with extreme 

forms of asceticism, but the ascetic impulse at some 

level continues to provide a key motivation for men to 

become monks and for the laity to follow them. 

Scholars 

If the ascetic lifestyle appeals to those attracted to physical 

and at times even anti-intellectual practice, the 

model of the scholar monk provides inspiration for 

men drawn to the study and explanation of Buddhist 

doctrine, ritual, and history. For much of the history 

of Buddhism, monasteries were centers of learning, 

equipped with excellent libraries and staffed with erudite 

monks. Indeed, in premodern Sri Lanka and 

Burma (Myanmar), monasteries served as schools for 

neighboring children, providing basic EDUCATION in 

reading and writing as well as Buddhist knowledge. 

Even in China, with its strong tradition of secular 

learning, candidates preparing for the imperial civil 

service examinations would often study in monasteries 

for the discipline and tranquility, not to mention 

books, to be found there. As in the case of asceticism, 

a model for the scholar-monk could readily be found 

among the Buddha’s most prominent disciples in the 

person of ŚARIPUTRA, known among the Buddha’s disciples 

as “foremost in wisdom.” Praised for his prodigious 

memory, astute questioning, and ability to refute 

false doctrines in pointed debate, Śariputra was also 

the paradigmatic saint of the most abstruse, formal 

branch of Buddhist knowledge, ABHIDHARMA. All cultures 

where Buddhism is practiced have produced 

monks known for their erudition, primarily in Buddhist 

learning, but also in fields not directly related to 

Buddhism, such as painting, poetry, calligraphy, engineering, 

and medicine. The Japanese monk KU KAI 

(774–835), for instance, in addition to his considerable 

contributions to the development of Buddhist thought 

in Japan, is also known as one of Japan’s greatest calligraphers, 

poets, and lexicographers, credited with 

compiling the oldest extant dictionary in Japan and 

even, some claim, with inventing the kana syllabary— 

the foundation of modern written Japanese. In modern 

times it is not uncommon for scholastically 

inclined monks to pursue academic degrees at home 

and abroad, and to teach in secular institutions. 

Administrators 

While not, at first glance, as glamorous as the otherworldly 

ascetic or the brilliant scholar, the institutional 

leader, responsible for monastic administration 

and the performance of ceremony is essential to the 

survival of the saṅgha. On a mundane level, monastic 

administrators are charged with soliciting funds 

and overseeing the performance of ritual for lay patrons. 

They also set standards for the monastery, in 

some cases earning a monastery a reputation for rigor, 

intellectual activity, or splendor of ceremony. Institutional 

leaders may be either conservative monks, 

determined to maintain traditional standards, or reformers, 

intent on introducing change to the Buddhist 

order or to society in general. In the twentieth- 


M ONKS 

Monks at a ceremony at Biechuan Monastery, Guangdong, China, 1987. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

century, Buddhists have turned to such reform monks 

to meet the challenge of finding new sources of revenue 

with the emergence of radically different national 

economies, and of opposing or incorporating new intellectual 

and social trends, including socialism, feminism, 

and the findings of modern science. Leading 

Buddhist monks now establish universities and hospitals, 

instigate missionary programs abroad, and at 

times exercise considerable political influence. In Taiwan 

and Sri Lanka, monks have stood for political office. 

Less directly, but more importantly, leading 

monks shape the political opinions of their followers 

and control substantial economic resources. While 

some express discomfort with the prestige and power 

that accrue to institutional leaders, seemingly at odds 

with the traditional monastic imperative to renounce 

such values, others see them as admirable and necessary 

for protecting and disseminating Buddhist beliefs 

and practices. 

Eccentrics and degenerates 

Standing outside these conventional types, on the margins 

of the monastic community, are monks known 

for their eccentricity. The “holy fool,” a monk who appears 

to be mad or stupid but is in fact enlightened, is 

a stock figure in much of Buddhist art and literature. 

Such figures are often credited with supernatural powers 

to foresee the future, heal the sick, and influence 

the weather. The fifth-century Chinese thaumaturge, 

Baozhi, for instance, was known to wander the streets 

making incomprehensible statements. Only later were 

his statements understood to have predicted important 

events. In modern times, some monks are known 

for their bizarre, unpredictable behavior and willingness 

to break monastic regulations on the grounds that 

a full appreciation of doctrines of nonduality and 

emptiness renders conventional restrictions moot. Attitudes 

toward such figures are necessarily ambivalent, 

as it is often difficult to distinguish between an enlightened 

holy man, beyond the ken of ordinary 

morals, and a charlatan. 

Individual monks may be more drawn to one of the 

types of monks described above over another, but few 

monks would openly challenge the legitimacy of any 

of them: Ascetics, scholars, institutional leaders, and 


567

M OZHAO C HAN (SILENT I LLUMINATION C HAN) 

even enlightened eccentric monks are all, for the most 

part, positive images. Equally prominent in all cultures 

where Buddhism is practiced, however, is the negative 

image of the corrupt, degenerate monk. In Buddhist 

writings, perhaps the most famous bad monk was DE- 

VADATTA, cousin and disciple to the Buddha, who out 

of envy and ambition tried repeatedly to thwart the 

Buddha’s goals, at one point even attempting to poison 

him, an act for which he was, in the end, consigned 

to hell. Equally vile was Mahadeva, said to have had 

sex with his mother before killing both his parents, after 

which he sought ordination in a desperate attempt 

to redeem himself. As a monk, his most significant act 

was to propose five controversial theses that led to dissension 

within the saṅgha. Legends such as these probably 

grew out of attempts to vilify proponents of rival 

schools or factions. Descriptions of malicious, insincere 

monks are common in Buddhist writings, where 

they are condemned and employed as a pedagogical 

device to inspire more noble monks to avoid their example. 

Because of this rhetorical aspect in such stories, 

one must be cautious before accepting accounts of immoral 

monks as accurate descriptions of real behavior, 

even when such accounts come from Buddhist sources. 

Outside of Buddhist sources, the corrupt monk is 

also a stock figure in non-Buddhist literature, where 

monks are often portrayed as only pretending to accept 

Buddhist principles of renunciation and detachment 

in order to better achieve the most base and 

worldly aims. The characteristics of such monks depend 

in part on the mores of their country of origin. 

In China, for instance, where vegetarianism is an important 

part of the monk’s identity, monks are often 

portrayed as secretly satisfying their cravings for meat 

and wine. And sexually depraved, insatiable monks appear 

in the literature of all cultures where Buddhism 

is practiced. Again, it is often difficult to assess the accuracy 

of such characterizations. While from ancient 

times to the present there have no doubt always been 

monks of questionable ethics ready to violate their 

vows for selfish intent, many such accounts are products 

of lay fantasy rather than accurate descriptions of 

actual monks. 

Grouping the entire monastic community into a few 

ideal types masks its diversity. In addition to joining 

the saṅgha for ascetic training, to investigate Buddhist 

doctrine, to promote Buddhist institutions, or for less 

lofty motives, some join because of social obligation, 

whether out of the custom of becoming a monk for a 

short period as in Thailand and Burma, or to fulfill a 

vow made by one’s parents. Men become monks after 

failing in the secular world or after becoming disillusioned 

with secular success. They may seek tonsure out 

of a yearning for tranquility, contempt for the materialism 

and pettiness of ordinary society, or out of a 

sense of boredom. In short, the list of reasons for becoming 

a Buddhist monk is long and varied. It is in 

part because of this diversity of character and motive 

that the monastic vocation has held such an enduring 

appeal for so many and that monks have played such 

an influential role in all of the societies in which Buddhism 

is or was once prevalent. 

See also: Disciples of the Buddha; Nuns; Wilderness 

Monks 

Bibliography 

Bechert, Heinz, and Gombrich, Richard, ed. The World of Buddhism: 








Press, 1997. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr., ed. Buddhism in Practice. Princeton, NJ: 




1994. 

Welch, Holmes. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900–1950. 


MOZHAO CHAN (SILENT 

ILLUMINATION CHAN) 


Used as a derogatory term by its critics, “silent illumination” 

Chan (Chinese, mozhao Chan; Japanese, 

mukosho Zen) designates an approach to practice and 

enlightenment that strongly emphasizes the inherently 

enlightened buddha-nature (TATHAGATAGARBHA) in all 

SENTIENT BEINGS. Silent illumination Chan advocates 

an objectless, still MEDITATION, in which all dualisms 

disappear and enlightenment naturally manifests itself. 

The term silent illumination was first used in Chinese 

Chan (Korean, Sŏn; Japanese, Zen) circles in the 

first half of the twelfth century, probably introduced 


M U DRA AND V ISUAL I MAGERY 

by the great Chan master of the Caodong tradition, 

Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157). However, the term 

was made infamous by Hongzhi’s contemporary 

Dahui ZONGGAO (1089–1163) of the Linji Chan tradition, 

who vehemently attacked what he called the 

“heretical silent illumination Chan” of his day as a quietistic 

form of meditation, lacking in wisdom and enlightenment. 

Dahui Zonggao countered with his own 

kanhua Chan meditation (literally “Chan of observing 

the key phrase” or “KO AN introspection Chan”), and 

he succeeded in imbuing the term silent illumination 

with strongly negative connotations that came to characterize 

it in all of East Asian Buddhism. 

Hongzhi is the only Chan master on record who 

used silent illumination in a positive sense, although it 

is possible that the term was expunged from the 

records of other Caodong masters after Dahui’s attacks. 

In his writings and recorded sayings, Hongzhi 

often lyrically extols the realm of enlightenment that 

manifests in quiet meditation, as in the opening lines 

of his famous poem “Mozhao Ming” (“Inscription on 

Silent Illumination”), where he writes: “In complete silence, 

words are forgotten; total clarity appears before 

you.” However, in this poem and elsewhere, Hongzhi 

stresses that although there is no need to strive for an 

enlightenment experience, the meditator must not fall 

into a murky and unthinking state of mind; transcendent 

wisdom will naturally manifest itself only in an 

alert mind. To Hongzhi, silent illumination was by no 

means a passive or thought-suppressing exercise. 

Other Caodong masters around the time of 

Hongzhi can be shown to have embraced similar 

teachings, beginning with the reviver of the Songdynasty 

(960–1279) Caodong tradition, Furong 

Daokai (1043–1118). There is, however, no evidence 

that a special silent illumination approach characterized 

the Caodong Chan tradition from the time of its 

reputed founder, Dongshan Liangjie (807–869), although 

this has often been assumed. 

In the thirteenth century the Japanese monk DO GEN 

(1200–1253) received a transmission in the Chinese 

Caodong tradition and founded the Japanese Soto sect 

of Zen. Dogen did not use the term silent illumination, 

but his shikantaza (just sitting) meditation practice can 

clearly be seen as influenced by the silent illumination 

of the twelfth-century Caodong tradition, although 

there is no agreement among scholars as to the extent 

of this influence. The Japanese Rinzai (Chinese, Linji) 

sect of Zen, which became heir to Dahui Zonggao’s 

kanhua Chan, has occasionally accused the Soto sect 

of practicing silent illumination, but the Soto sect has 

never used the term for its own teachings. In Korean 

Sŏn, kanhua (Korean, kanwha) Chan dominated early 

on, and silent illumination Chan never had an impact. 

Although kanhua Chan became the standard for meditation 

in China shortly after Dahui Zonggao and was 

even adopted in the late Song Caodong tradition, silent 

illumination style meditation is still recognized as legitimate 

in Chinese Chan. 


Bibliography 

Leighton, Taigen Daniel, ed. and trans. (with Yi Wu). Cultivating 

the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master 

Hongzhi. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1991. 

Schlütter, Morten. “Silent Illumination, Kung-an Introspection, 

and the Competition for Lay Patronage in Sung-Dynasty 

Ch’an.” In Buddhism in the Sung, ed. Peter N. Gregory and 

Daniel Getz. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 1999. 

MUDRA AND VISUAL IMAGERY 

MORTEN SCHLÜTTER 

With the exception of the earliest phases of Indian Buddhist 

art, when the presence and achievements of the 

Buddha were represented by symbols, such as a STU PA 

(burial mound), footprints, or an empty throne, the 

study of Buddhist art is generally that of figural representations. 

BUDDHAS, BODHISATTVAS, and other deities 

are invariably depicted as idealized anthropomorphic 

images, and their physical perfection—defined differently 

in various places and times—reflects their spiritual 

advancement. Indian images of the Buddha 

emphasize intellectual concepts, represented by, for example, 

the wide breast and narrow waist of a lion, or 

the long legs of a gazelle. In addition, physical marks, 

such as the usnlsa (a cranial protuberance), the u rna (a 

tuft of hair or “third eye” between the eyebrows), 

webbed fingers, and wheels on the soles of the feet, further 

distinguish a buddha from other beings. Symbols 

such as the lotus, emblematic of purity, or the wheel, 

indicative of preaching, are ubiquitous in Buddhist art. 

The first anthropomorphic images of the Buddha 

stressed his role as a teacher, showing him wearing the 

monk’s long skirt covered by a full shawl. By the eighth 

century, crowned and bejeweled buddhas were also 

represented. Such icons, which parallel monastic practices 

in which a crown was placed on the head of a 


569


monk during initiation, are one way of representing 

the numerous transcendent buddhas of the later pantheon. 

Like the earlier icons, bejeweled buddhas are 

physically perfect. Gestures, postures, and implements 

are used to distinguish them from one another. 

Mudras in Buddhist imagery 

The enthroned Buddha seated in a meditative or lotus 

posture (padmasana) on a tenth- or eleventh-century 

Indian sculpture holds his proper right hand in a gesture 

of meditation and his proper left in the gesture of 

touching the earth (bhu misparśamudra [Figure 1, d]). 

The earth-touching gesture illustrates a specific moment 

in Śakyamuni’s sacred biography when he was 

challenged by MARA, the personification of EVIL. To defend 

his right to seek enlightenment, the Buddha-to-be 

Śakyamuni reached down to touch the ground, calling 

upon the earth as witness to validate the propriety 

of his quest. The earth responded thunderously, 

and Mara was vanquished. Known generically as mudras, 

such gestures, which have long roots in Indian 

culture, may derive from early dance traditions or 

from other forms of physical communication. Śakyamuni 

is known to have used one in an early JATAKA 

tale (a story detailing one of the lives he lived before 

he become a buddha) in order to communicate with 

a potential wife. Sixteen such gestures are listed in an 

early Buddhist text, while three hundred are found in 

a later work. 

The four smaller standing buddhas on this same 

sculpture illustrate additional moments in Śakyamuni’s 

life: Moving clockwise from the lower left are 

Śakyamuni’s descent from the Heaven of the Thirty- 

Three Gods (Trayastrim śa), which he visited to preach 

to his mother; the first sermon; the story of a monkey’s 

offering of honey to the Buddha; and the taming 

of the mad elephant Nalagiri, sent by his evil cousin 

DEVADATTA to kill him. These events, from a standardized 

group of scenes called the Eight Great Events 

in a buddha’s life, can be interpreted both as historical 

records and as paradigms for the process of enlightenment. 

For example, the taming of the mad 

elephant is sometimes understood as a symbol of the 

mastery of certain aspects of the self that must be disciplined. 

The specific historical moments illustrated by the 

four smaller buddhas are identified by the postures of 

the figures, the objects they hold in their hands, and 

their hand gestures or mudras. For example, the gesture 

of fearlessness (abhayamudra [Figure 1, a]) often 

identifies the moment when Śakyamuni tamed the 

mad elephant. In this mudra, the right hand is held 

upward with the palm facing outward, illustrating the 

act of teaching and signifying the Buddha’s ability to 

grant fearlessness to his followers. 

Most of the mudras found in Buddhist texts are not 

used in the visual arts, but instead are performed in 

personal devotions and as an aspect of RITUAL. In general, 

deities with their hands held up and open are actively 

engaged in the cosmos, while those with closed 

hands, or hands held close to the body, are in a transcendent 

state. The gesture of appeasement or argumentation 

(vitarkamudra [Figure 1, b]) in which the 

thumb and index, middle, or ring finger of the upraised 

right hand are shown touching, indicates teaching, 

and is one of the most common in visual imagery. 

Teaching is also defined by upraised hands with the 

thumb and index fingers of both hands touching each 

other, a gesture known as “turning the wheel of the 

law” (dharmacakramudra [Figure 1, f]). Hands placed 

on the lap, one above the other, with palms upward 

(dhyanamudra [Figure 1, e]) indicate concentration or 

meditation. Donors and other devotees have clasped 

palms, a universal symbol of prayer, known as the gesture 

of worship (añjalimudra [Figure 1, c]). 

Bodhisattvas 

Hand gestures and postures are also used to identify the 

innumerable bodhisattvas found in the Buddhist pantheon. 

In early Buddhism, the term bodhisattva is used 

to define an individual who, like Śakyamuni, is on the 

path to enlightenment. The aristocratic clothing and 

jewelry worn by these figures indicate their active engagement 

in the world, while the same accoutrements 

worn by the great bodhisattvas in later traditions suggest 

their transcendence. These later figures, a primary 

theme in the visual arts, are revered for their decision 

to remain accessible to and guide the devout. 

MAITREYA is a bodhisattva in the present age, and 

will become a buddha in the next. As a bodhisattva, he 

is identified by the stupa that is found in his headdress, 

which indicates that he carries on the legacy of the current 

buddha Śakyamuni. The white lotus he holds and 

the small figure of the Buddha AMITABHA in his headdress 

identify Avalokiteśvara, the personification of 

compassion. Mañjuśr, the personification of wisdom, 

rides a lion and holds a blue lotus that bears a copy of 

a “perfection of wisdom” (prajñaparamita) text. Mañjuśr 

is sometimes paired with Samantabhadra (whose 

name means “universal kindness”) on an elephant. In 

addition, Ksitigarbha, or the Bodhisattva of the Earth 



FIGURE 1 

Six common Buddhist Mudras 

Gesture of Fearlessness 

(a) 

Gesture of Appeasement (Argumentation) 

(b) 

Gesture of Worship 

(c) 

Earth-Touching Gesture 

(d) 

Gesture of Concentration 

(e) 

Gesture of Turning 

the Wheel of the Law 

(f) 

SOURCE: Adapted from Eliade, et al. (1987), vol. 10, p. 135. 

Womb, who is generally portrayed as a monk, plays an 

important role in Central and East Asia, where he is 

revered as a guide to paradise, a protector from the 

torments of hell, and, at times, the special guardian of 

travelers, and women and children. 

By the sixth century, the major bodhisattvas 

had acquired multiple manifestations. For example, 

Avalokiteśvara, who eventually became the most widely 

revered deity in Asia, has both an eleven-headed form 

(Ekadaśamukha) and one with one thousand hands and 

one thousand eyes (Sahasrabhujasahasranetra). In Chinese 

culture, Avalokiteśvara occasionally takes female 

forms, which led to his misrepresentation as a Buddhist 

“madonna” in early Western studies of the religion. 

Mañjuśr and Samantabhadra also have manifestations 

distinguished by multiple arms and heads. The former, 

whose name means “pleasing to behold,” is invariably 

depicted as a young prince, and often wears a necklace 

made of tiger claws, commonly used in India to protect 

children. 

Some images show Mañjuśr with one head and 

four hands, seated in a lotus posture. As befits his role 

as a bodhisattva, he is active, leaning slightly to the 

right. Mañjuśr brandishes a truncated sword in his 

primary right hand, and a lotus supporting a text in 

his left. His secondary right hand once held an arrow 

that was paired with a bow in the left. The first two 

implements illustrate his capacity to defeat egoism, the 

second his ability to confound ignorance. Often called 

Tksna-Mañjuśr, this manifestation of the Bodhisattva 

of Wisdom is prevalent in the Himalayas and China, 

but not elsewhere in Asia. 

Female deities found in later Buddhist traditions are 

sometimes understood as buddhas and sometimes as 

bodhisattvas. Of these, Tara, who takes many forms, 

some green, some white, is the most prominent. She 


571

M U LASARVA STIVA DA 

is frequently linked with Avalokiteśvara and is revered 

in Tibet. Others include Prajñaparamita, the personification 

of wisdom, and Usnsavijaya, the embodiment 

of the cranial protuberance on the Buddha’s head. 

Guardians and other figures 

A wide array of protectors is found in Buddhist 

iconography. The guardians of the four cardinal directions, 

derived to some extent from early Indian nature 

spirits known as yaksas, are the earliest and most 

longstanding. After the sixth century, they are usually 

shown wearing heavy armor and carrying weapons 

and other attributes in the arts of Central and East 

Asia. Door or entranceway guardians (dvarapalas), on 

the other hand, are shown in active, almost threatening, 

postures, and wear only the dhoti, a skirtlike Indian 

garment. The five wisdom kings (vidyaraja), who 

manifest the powers of the transcendent Buddha 

Vairocana, are commonly found in East Asian traditions 

beginning in the eighth century. They are characterized 

by Indian clothing, weapons, and terrifying 

expressions. 

Related figures, often based on Hindu Śaivism, 

such as Hevajra, Cakrasam vara, and Yamantaka- 

Vajrabhairava, are common in Tibetan traditions, 

where they serve as both protectors and the focus of 

individual practices. Yamantaka-Vajrabhairava is a terrifying 

manifestation of Mañjuśr, whose benign head 

appears at the top of his stack of nine faces. His primary 

face, which is that of a buffalo, is a reference to 

Yama, the Hindu god of death, who rides this animal. 

Yamantaka-Vajrabhairava’s adoption of this face illustrates 

his ability to transcend the state of death. He has 

thirty-four arms, many of which hold ritual implements, 

and sixteen legs. The garland of severed heads, 

and the human beings and animals that he tramples, 

illustrate negative states that must be conquered in the 

quest for enlightenment. His embrace of Vajravetali 

signifies the union of compassion and wisdom, the 

two penultimate Buddhist virtues. Known as fathermother, 

or yab-yum, such icons are common in Tibet. 

Tibetan Buddhism preserves the use of a system of 

five buddha families to help structure the enormous 

pantheon that had evolved by the eleventh and 

twelfth centuries. The Tibetan system derives from 

one used in eastern India (Bihar, West Bengal, and 

Bangladesh) during this period, and is loosely based 

on an earlier grouping of three families. Each family 

is headed by one of the five major transcendent buddhas: 

AKSOBHYA, Amoghasiddhi, Vairocana, Amitabha, 

and Ratnasambhava. Each of the five buddhas and the 

various members of his family have an associated 

color, vehicle, attribute, gesture, and direction. 

Sculpted and painted portraits of famous monks, 

both historical and semilegendary, are found in Tibet, 

China, Korea, and Japan. Other commonly portrayed 

figures include ARHATS, enlightened disciples of the 

Buddha who became popular in China in the ninth 

and tenth centuries, and spread from there to Korea, 

Japan, and Tibet. In addition to representations in 

sculpture and painting, arhats are often shown as a 

theme in the decorative arts. Found in groups of sixteen, 

eighteen, or five hundred, they are depicted either 

as gruesome figures or as handsome young men. 

The MAHA SIDDHAS, a group of semihistorical adepts often 

credited with the creation of the later esoteric traditions 

practiced in Tibet, are commonly found in 

paintings from that part of Asia. 

See also: Bodhisattva Images; Buddha Images; Buddha, 

Life of the, in Art; China, Buddhist Art in; 

Himalayas, Buddhist Art in; Huayan Art; India, Buddhist 

Art in; Indonesia, Buddhist Art in; Japan, Buddhist 

Art in; Korea, Buddhist Art in; Robes and 

Clothing; Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Eliade, Mircea, ed. The Encyclopedia of Religion, 16 vols. New 

York: Macmillan, 1987. 

Mallmann, Marie-Thérèse de. Introduction a l’iconographie du 

tantrisme bouddhique. Paris: Librarie Adrien-Maisonneuve, 

1975. 

Saunders, E. Dale. Mudra: A Study of Symbolic Gestures in Japanese 

Buddhist Sculpture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1985. 

Snellgrove, David L., ed. The Image of the Buddha. London: 

Serindia; Paris: UNESCO, 1978. 

MU LASARVA STIVA DA. See 

Mu lasarvastivada 

MU LASARVA STIVA DA-VINAYA 


Sarvastivada and 

The Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya is one of the six extant 

Buddhist monastic codes, or VINAYAS. There is some 

controversy about how to understand its title, and 


M URAKAMI 

S ENSHO 

thereby its place among the various vinayas. It could 

be read as “The Root (or Original) Monastic Code of 

the Group that Teaches that All Exists,” or it could be 

read as “The Monastic Code of the Root (or Original) 

Group that Teaches that All Exists.” However it be 

taken, it is almost certain that the presence of mu la in 

the title reflects a polemical claim on the part of its 

compilers or their group. 

Although again there is some controversy, the best 

available evidence would seem to indicate that, in the 

form that we have it, it was probably compiled in the 

first or second century C.E. in northwest India. Several 

scholarly studies have suggested that, in comparison 

with the other vinayas, the Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya 

often seems to contain some very early material or accounts 

that are markedly undeveloped when compared 

with those found elsewhere. “Very early,” however, is 

relative since this vinaya, like all the surviving vinayas, 

appears to have been redacted late, centuries after the 

time of the Buddha, and to presuppose a fully developed 

and very sophisticated form of monasticism. 

One of the most striking characteristics of the 

Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya is its enormous size. It has 

been called “monstrous” and has been said to be 

about four times longer than any other vinaya. Its Tibetan 

version, in traditional format, fills thirteen 

large volumes and consists of more than four thousand 

leaves or eight thousand “pages.” In addition to 

this Tibetan version, which appears to be complete, 

the Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya survives in a partial (but 

still massive) Chinese translation, and significant 

parts of it have also come down to us in Sanskrit. Very 

little of this monster has been translated into English; 

a little more has been translated into German. 

This vinaya, like all vinayas, contains a huge number 

of major rules and minor regulations meant to govern 

everything from ORDINATION to how to use the 

latrine. But this vinaya also contains rules detailing 

how monks should lend money on interest or borrow 

money from laymen, how they should warehouse and 

sell rice, take images in procession into town, make up 

parts of canonical texts, and a host of other things not 

commonly presented as integral parts of Buddhist 

monasticism. 

Rules per se, however, take up a relatively limited 

space in this huge collection. It also contains a significant 

number of texts that elsewhere are found in the 

sutra collection. More importantly, perhaps, it is 

stuffed with stories and narrative tales. On this account 

one scholar has even called it “one of the masterpieces 

of Sanskrit literature,” and it has certainly been a 

source that later authors and artists drew on heavily 

for their subjects, and that scholars will be mining for 

a very long time. 

See also: Sarvastivada and Mulasarvastivada 

Bibliography 

Schiefner, F. Anton von. Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian 

Sources, tr. W. R. S. Ralston. Boston: Osgood, 1882. 

Schopen, Gregory. Buddhist Monks and Business Matters: More 

Collected Papers. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003. 

MURAKAMI SENSHO 


Murakami Sensho (1851–1929) was a Jodo Shinshu, 

O tani branch cleric and scholar of Buddhism. He was 

born in Tanba (Hyogo prefecture) in Japan, the eldest 

son of an O tani-branch Jodo Shin cleric. Murakami 

received a classical Confucian and Buddhist education 

at academies in Himeji and at the Higashi Honganji in 

Kyoto. He took the surname Murakami when he married 

into the family of Murakami Jokai, a Shin cleric 

in Mikawa. Murakami went on to hold teaching positions 

successively at the Sotoshu Daigakurin, the 

O tani Kyoko, and finally, Tokyo Imperial University, 

where he became a lecturer in Indian philosophy. 

In an effort to further scholarship of Buddhism that 

was historically sound, pan-sectarian in scope, and 

sympathetic to the tradition, Murakami, together with 

Washio Junkyo (1868–1941) and Sakaino Koyo 

(1871–1933), founded the important journal Bukkyo 

shirin (Buddhist History), one of the earliest academic 

journals devoted to the humanistic study of Buddhism 

in Japan. Murakami also published the pathbreaking, 

pan-sectarian study of Japanese Buddhist history, 

Dainihon Bukkyo shi (History of Japanese Buddhism). 

Most controversially, in his book describing the doctrines 

fundamental to all streams of Buddhism, 

Bukkyo to itsu ron (The Unity of Buddhism), and more 

fully in Daijo bussetsu ron hihan (Critique of the Argument 

that Mahayana Is the Teaching of Śakyamuni 

Buddha), Murakami advanced the radical thesis that 

MAHAYANA Buddhism was not the direct teaching of 

Śakyamuni Buddha. Rather, he contended that Mahayana 

was a development of Śakyamuni’s teaching 

and that all other BUDDHAS and BODHISATTVAS for 


573

M YANMAR 

example, AMITABHA (Amida) and Mahavairocana 

(Dainichi), were, unlike the historical Śakyamuni, abstract 

expressions of the historical Buddha’s ideal 

qualities. Hostile reactions to his book from the Buddhist 

establishment, particularly his own Shin denomination, 

forced Murakami to renounce his status 

as a Shin cleric in 1901. He reconciled with the Shin 

establishment, however, reclaiming his clerical status 

in 1911. 

See also: Buddhist Studies 

Bibliography 

Vita, Silvio. “Interpretations of Mahayana Buddhism in Meiji 

Japan: From Religious Polemics to Scholarly Debate.” Transactions 

of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 

31 (1986): 44–57. 

MYANMAR 


The modern state of Myanmar, also known as Burma, 

is geographically the largest and westernmost country 

of mainland Southeast Asia. Its population of approximately 

forty-seven million as of the year 2000 is comprised 

of more than one hundred nationalities, the 

largest of which include the majority Bamar or ethnic 

Burmans, the Rakhine (Arakanese), the Shan, the 

Kayin (Karen), and the Mon. As a convention in English, 

members of all of these nationalities receive the 

designation Burmese as citizens of the country. The vast 

majority of the Burmese people, regardless of their ethnic 

affiliation, subscribe to THERAVADA Buddhism as 

their traditional faith. So pervasive is the influence of 

this religion on the people of Myanmar that it is often 

said that to be Burmese is to be Buddhist. Indeed, historically 

it was Theravada Buddhism more than any 

other force that drew the many peoples of Myanmar 

together into a single civilization, so much so that even 

non-Buddhist citizens of the country acknowledge the 

centrality of Theravada ethical, social, and political 

conceptions to the fabric of Burmese life. 

Historical background 

Burmese chroniclers trace the origin of Theravada 

Buddhism in their country to the Buddha himself, who 

they assert personally converted the inhabitants of 

Lower and Upper Myanmar. These regions are the respective 

homelands of the Mon and the ancient Pyu 

people, precursors of the modern Bamar and the nationalities 

most closely associated with the evolution 

of Burmese Buddhism. Burmese sources further equate 

the Mon homeland with Suvannnabhumi and the Pyu- 

Bamar homeland with Aparanta, identifications that 

allow them to claim for their country two missions 

from King AŚOKA (ca. 300–232 B.C.E.). Reflecting a 

long-standing cultural rivalry with Sri Lanka, the same 

sources emphasize that the two missions restored an 

already established Theravada tradition in Myanmar, 

whereas the simultaneous single Aśokan mission to Sri 

Lanka merely established Theravada Buddhism on the 

island for the first time. As a final claim to primacy, 

the Mon identify the great Pali commentator BUD- 

DHAGHOSA as a native son. 

Although Theravada Buddhism has a long history 

in Myanmar, there is little evidence of its presence in 

the country before the fourth century C.E. In addition, 

that which has been uncovered does not support the 

traditional portrayal of early Burmese Buddhism as 

uniformly Theravada. Rather it shows an eclectic mix 

of traditions that included multiple forms of Buddhism, 

Brahmanism, and indigenous animist cults. Excavations 

at the ancient Pyu capital of Śrksetra, for 

example, unearthed images of VISN U, MAHAYANA bodhisattvas, 

and Pali and Sanskrit Buddhist inscriptions. 

Seventh-century Chinese travelogues note that the city 

supported Sthaviravada (Theravada), Mahasam ghika, 

Mulasarvastivada, and Sam matya monks and that the 

Pyu observed the custom of ordaining all youths as 

novices in the Buddhist religion. 

During this early period Myanmar absorbed cultural 

influences chiefly from South India, though important 

contacts were also maintained with Sri Lanka. 

Beginning in the ninth century, by which time the Bamar 

had begun to replace the Pyu in Upper Myanmar, 

Bengal emerged as a major source of Indian influence 

in the region. Large numbers of Buddhist votive tablets 

bearing Mahayana imagery and Sanskrit inscriptions 

written in north Indian script were imported and produced 

locally at this time. Bengali influence waned by 

the twelfth century as a consequence of the Muslim 

conquest of north India, a development that encouraged 

the expansion of Burmese ties with Sri Lanka. The 

Sri Lanka connection facilitated the introduction of 

new reformist strands of Sinhalese Theravada Buddhism 

that in time emerged as the majority Buddhist 

tradition of mainland Southeast Asia. This process 

proceeded incrementally and did not complete itself in 

Myanmar until the eighteenth century. 


M YANMAR 

In 1057 C.E., the Bamar king of Pagan, Anawrahta 

(Pali, Anuruddha), conquered the Mon kingdom of 

Thaton in Lower Myanmar, inaugurating the first 

Burmese empire (1057–1287). Tradition states that he 

carried off to his capital Pali texts, relics, and orthodox 

monks, and that he adopted Theravada Buddhism 

as the sole religion of his domain. To prepare 

for this, Anawrahta suppressed an already established 

sect of heretical Buddhist monks known as the Ari, 

who, though notorious for their wickedness, had enjoyed 

the traditional support of his forefathers. Whatever 

the historical accuracy of the legend, epigraphic 

and archaeological evidence indicates that Anawrahta 

was more eclectic than portrayed. He assisted the Sinhalese 

king Vijayabahu I to reinstate a valid Theravada 

ordination line in Sri Lanka; at the same time he 

circulated in his own kingdom votive tablets adorned 

with Mahayana imagery. Anawrahta also supported a 

royal cult of nat or spirit propitiation dedicated to the 

very deities said to have been worshipped by the Ari 

monks. 

In 1165 the Sinhalese king Parakkamabahu I reformed 

the Theravada SAṄGHA of Sri Lanka by abolishing 

the Abhayagiri and Jetavana monasteries and 

compelling all worthy monks to be reordained in the 

Mahavihara fraternity. Within two decades, this reformed 

Sinhalese tradition was established at Pagan 

and elsewhere in the Burmese empire. The Burmese 

monarch extended patronage to the imported Sinhalese 

order but did not compel the native saṅgha to 

unite with it. As a consequence, the Burmese monastic 

community split into two groups, an indigenous 

unreformed faction called the Myanma saṅgha, and 

the reformed Sinhalese faction called the Shala saṅgha. 

The Shala saṅgha was revered for its discipline and 

scholarship, though it fractured repeatedly, giving rise 

to a pattern of saṅgha disunity that has been characteristic 

of Burmese monasticism ever since. 

In the thirteenth century a powerful community of 

forest-dwelling monks emerged from the Myanma 

saṅgha, whose discipline was lax when viewed by Sinhalese 

standards. Modern scholarship has identified 

these as the Ari monks of the chronicles. Ruins of their 

headquarters at Minnanthu near Pagan include temples 

decorated with Mahayana and tantric imagery, 

suggesting that the forest dwellers were votaries of 

these traditions. The Tibetan historian Taranatha 

(1575–1634) states that Buddhist TANTRA was introduced 

to Pagan from Bengal by this time and inscriptions 

indicate that as late as the fifteenth century the 

Myanma saṅgha received, along with Pali scriptures 

and commentaries, Mahayana and tantric works as donations 

to its libraries. 

Ascendancy of Sinhalese orthodoxy 

Toward the end of the thirteenth century the Pagan 

empire began to disintegrate. The Mon broke away 

and established the kingdom of Ramañña in Lower 

Myanmar, while the Bamar divided Upper Myanmar 

into several smaller states, chief of which was the kingdom 

of Ava. The monastic community remained divided 

throughout the region. In the fourteenth and 

fifteenth centuries, new waves of reformed Theravada 

Buddhism emanating from Sri Lanka were introduced 

into Southeast Asia via Lower Myanmar. In 1476 

Dhammazedi, the Mon king of Ramañña, adopted 

these reforms, compelling all monks in his realm to 

be reordained in the new more stringent Sinhalese order 

and to be educated according to a standardized 

curriculum. 

Dhammazedi’s reformed saṅgha was favored by two 

succeeding Burmese empires, the Taungoo (1531– 

1752) and the Konbaung (1752–1885), though rival 

monastic fraternities were allowed to flourish unmolested. 

It was during this period of relative stability that 

the village monastery became the basic institutional 

unit of the Burmese saṅgha and assumed its traditional 

role as village center and school for village youth. It 

was principally through this institution, which facilitated 

literacy and the propagation of a standardized 

Buddhist ethos, that the cultural integration characteristic 

of Burmese civilization was achieved. In 1791 

the Burmese monarchy ordered Dhammazedi’s reforms 

imposed uniformly throughout the empire, thus 

unifying the Burmese saṅgha for the first time. Although 

monastic unity was short lived and did not 

survive the demise of the Konbaung dynasty, all contemporary 

monastic fraternities in Myanmar trace 

their lineages back to Dhammazedi’s reforms and share 

a common interpretation of the monastic code. Buddhism 

was disestablished as the state religion under the 

British colonial government (1885–1947) to the detriment 

of saṅgha discipline. State oversight of religious 

affairs was restored at Burmese independence in 1947, 

and has remained in place under both the original democratic 

government and the subsequent military 

junta that has ruled the country since 1962. 

In addition to overseeing monastic affairs, Burmese 

kings devoted themselves to the acquisition of Buddha 

relics (Pali, dhatu; Burmese, dat-daw) and to the 

preservation of Buddhist texts. These three together 

(relics, texts, and monks) are the physical embodiments 


575

M YANMAR 

have formed the core curriculum of state administered 

monastic examinations. 

The golden spire of the Shwedagon pagoda in Yangon (Rangoon), 

Myanmar (Burma). © David Cumming; Eye Ubiquitous/Corbis. 


of the Buddha, the dhamma (Sanskrit, dharma; teachings), 

and the saṅgha—the three JEWELS (Pali, 

tiratana) at the center of Buddhist devotional practice. 

Within the precincts of every capital were grand 

pagodas (Burmese, zedi) housing relics that functioned 

as palladia of the state, and during periods of 

imperial unity, the shrines of subjugated territories 

were often restored and embellished as signs of the 

emperor’s piety and magnanimity. Myanmar’s most 

magnificent shrine, the gilded SHWEDAGON pagoda in 

Yangon (Rangoon), reached its present monumental 

dimensions through a process of repeated expansion 

at the hands of rival monarchs. Since Pagan times 

Burmese kings took upon themselves the task of promoting 

monastic learning and preserving accurate 

copies of the Theravada CANON—the Pali tipitaka. The 

most recent recensions of the tipitaka in Myanmar 

were produced during two Buddhist councils; the first 

convened by King Mindon in 1871 and the second 

convened by Prime Minister U Nu in 1954. Since at 

least the fifteenth century, officially edited tipitakas 

The Burmese synthesis of traditions 

Buddhism in Myanmar combines several key elements 

from its variegated past to produce a unique form of 

Theravada orthodoxy. Occupying the center is the Pali 

textual tradition with its beliefs, practices, and institutions 

as interpreted by the Burmese Theravada saṅgha, 

and supported by the state and the general populace. 

There are, in addition, important rites and beliefs that 

derive from non-Pali sources but are regarded as 

wholly orthodox. Prominent among these is the shinpyu 

ceremony, the obligatory temporary ordination of 

boys as Buddhist novices, and the simultaneous earpiercing 

ceremony for girls, rites of passage that can be 

traced back to the Buddhist initiation ceremonies of 

the ancient Pyu. The popular cult of Shin Upagot (Sanskrit, 

UPAGUPTA), an immortal ARHAT and remover of 

obstacles, and the cave-shrine of Alaung-daw Kathapa 

near the city of Monywa, which allegedly contains the 

sacred corpse of MAHAKAŚYAPA (Pali, Mahakassapa), 

both have their origins in Sanskrit Buddhist traditions. 

The famous water festival of Thin-gyan, which marks 

the Burmese New Year in April, was adapted from the 

Hindu New Year festival of Holi, with Buddhist elements 

taken from Pali scripture interpolated into the 

festival’s legend. 

For purely worldly concerns, Burmese seek the assistance 

of a host of nats or spirits. Considered morally 

ambiguous at best, nats may be nature deities or the 

ghosts of legendary persons who died violent deaths 

and whose energies can be tapped in exchange for veneration. 

At the national level the belief system is organized 

into the cult of the Thirty-Seven Lords, which 

originally was a royally administered cult of spirit propitiation 

that tied pre-Buddhist regional deities and 

their human devotees into a hierarchical web of ritual 

obligation paralleling the political order. Nat worship 

often entails the offering of alcohol and blood sacrifice 

(chickens), for which reason it is regarded even by 

its votaries as falling outside of Buddhism. Nevertheless 

the nat pantheon is conceived of in entirely Buddhist 

terms and it is situated within the lower strata of 

the Buddhist cosmos as articulated by the normative 

tradition. 

Burmese Buddhism as a salvific system can be divided 

into three general types or PATHs. The first and 

most traditional of these is the path of merit-making 

whereby one strives to accumulate merit (Pali, puñña; 

Burmese, kuthol) through the observance of PRECEPTS 


M YANMAR, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

(Pali, slla), the performance of meritorious deeds, and 

acts of DANA (GIVING) directed especially toward religious 

persons and objects, such as monks and pagodas. 

The goal of merit accumulation is repeated for 

happy rebirth as a human or god, with NIRVAN A (Pali, 

nibbana) or final liberation at most a very distant goal 

in the mind of the practitioner. The majority of Burmese 

Buddhists, both lay and ordained, have happy rebirth 

as their preferred goal, an orientation that has 

been typical of Buddhists in Myanmar since at least the 

Pagan period. 

The second system is the path of VIPASSANA (SAN- 

SKRIT, VIPAŚYANA) or insight meditation. Vipassana 

meditation, when successfully practiced, leads to the 

attainment of BODHI (AWAKENING), or enlightenment, 

and nirvana, either in this life or in a not-too-distant 

future life. Practitioners of vipassana in Myanmar typically 

meditate privately and join meditation centers 

(Burmese, wipathana yeiktha) during retreats. The observance 

of precepts and a general moral lifestyle is 

considered a necessary foundation for insight practice. 

Vipassana meditation was revived in Myanmar in the 

early eighteenth century and by the late twentieth century 

was widely popular among all classes throughout 

the country. 

The third salvation system is called weikza-lam or the 

path of the Buddhist wizard. This is an esoteric system 

of powerful occult sciences requiring initiation by a 

master. The goal of this path is to become a weikza or 

weikza-do (from the Pali vijjadhara), which is a kind of 

semi-immortal magician or wonder-worker. The weikza 

vows to remain in the world for the benefit of the faithful 

until the advent of the future Buddha MAITREYA 

(Pali, Metteyya), at which time the weikza will attain nirvana 

or take a vow to become a perfect buddha himself. 

As a service, he acts as teacher to human disciples, instructing 

them in the recitation of spells, the casting of 

runes, alchemy, and samatha (Sanskrit, śamatha) or 

tranquility meditation. Weikza practitioners typically 

eschew vipassana meditation on the basis that it could 

potentially cut short their career by causing them to attain 

nirvana too quickly. In its methodology and goals, 

the weikza-lam shows striking similarities to the tantric 

Buddhist MAHASIDDHA tradition of medieval Bengal. 

Because it proposes an alternative soteriology to that 

contained in Pali sources, the weikza-lam is sometimes 

viewed with suspicion by the religious authorities. 

See also: Esoteric Art, South and Southeast Asia; Folk 

Religion, Southeast Asia; Southeast Asia, Buddhist 

Art in 

Bibliography 

Aung Thwin, Michael. Pagan: The Origins of Modern Burma. 


Bischoff, Roger. Buddhism in Myanmar: A Short History. Kandy, 

Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1995. 

Duroiselle, Charles. “The Ari of Burma and Tantric Buddhism.” 

Annual Report of the Arhaeological Survey of India (1915– 

1916): 79–93. 

Htin Aung, Maung. Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism. Oxford: 


Mendelson, E. Michael. Saṅgha and State in Burma: A Study of 

Monastic Sectarianism and Leadership, ed. John P. Ferguson. 


Ray, Nihar Ranjan. Sanskrit Buddhism in Burma. Amsterdam: 

H. J. Paris, 1937. 


Its Burmese Vicissitudes. Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1982. 

Than Tun. “Mahakassapa and His Tradition.” Journal of the 

Burma Research Society 42, no. 2 (1959): 99–118. 

MYANMAR, BUDDHIST ART IN 


Burma, renamed Myanmar in 1989, is the largest 

mainland country in Southeast Asia. Burma has a continuous 

tradition of Buddhist art from the early centuries 

of the common era to the present. The principal 

forms of this art involve the construction of monuments, 

either stupas or temples, which embody the 

main artistic media: architecture, painting, and sculpture, 

in addition to the decorative arts. Despite the 

large number of monuments and other vestiges of this 

tradition, Burmese art history has remained a neglected 

area of study. 

Early history, 600–800 C.E. 

Between the fifth and eight centuries C.E. the Irrawaddy 

valley was settled by a people known as the Pyu, sometimes 

described as the Proto-Burmese, who migrated 

from southwest China. Living in walled city-states, 

their civilization was documented by imperial Chinese 

chroniclers who marveled at the Pyu’s sophistication 

in matters of music, dance, jewelery making, textile 

production, and religious life. Archaeological finds at 

Śr Ksetra, the largest Pyu city near the modern town 

of Prome (Pyay), and Beik-than-myo, which literally 

translates as “Visnu City,” indicate a mixed religious 


577


life derived from the Indian subcontinent. This had elements 

of Sanskritic and Pali Buddhism. In addition, 

various Hindu images have been found indicating that 

Pyu religious life incorporated a number of cults and 

movements. The workmanship of these images, particularly 

the gold work on the reliquary casket found 

at the Khin Ba mound, is exquisite and bears testimony 

to the accounts of the Chinese chroniclers. The principal 

Buddhist monuments found at Śr Ksetra, large 

stupas like the Be-be-gyi, are said to derive from colossal 

Sri Lankan prototypes; cave temples, such as the 

Lei-myet-hna, were made of brick and are precursory 

to the monuments found at Pagan. They share similar 

structural systems, incorporating the pointed arch and 

voussoir brick patterns. 

Along the southern Burma coastline the Mon civilization 

enjoyed good maritime contacts with India 

and acted as a conduit for the ingress of Buddhism into 

the Irrawaddy valley. Iconographic finds at Thaton and 

the other Mon sites indicate a mixed religious life derived 

from the subcontinent. Portable votive plaques 

made of terra-cotta illustrate principal scenes from the 

life of the Buddha; relief stone sculptures are in the 

Mon-Dvaravat style, which is also found in southern 

Thailand. Bronzes and other portable images brought 

from the subcontinent also have been found. There are 

no surviving temples or original stupas from this period. 

The Mon possessed their own script, and their 

knowledge of Pali texts was significant to the development 

of art at Pagan. 

Pagan, 1000–1300 C.E. 

The Pyu city of Śr Ksetra fell to a Chinese raid in 832 

C.E., after which a new state emerged to dominate the 

middle part of the Irrawaddy valley at Pagan. Early Pagan 

STU PAs, such as the Nga-kywe-na-daung, or temples, 

such as the Alo-pyi, are of Pyu origin. By the 

eleventh century C.E., Pagan under King Anawartha 

came to dominate much of the valley and annexed the 

Mon kingdom of Thaton. As a consequence, both Mon 

and Pali texts appeared for the first time at Pagan. 

These provided the basis for cycles of religious paintings 

and sculpture. Inside temples, THERAVADA texts, 

tales of the life of the Buddha, and JA TAKA stories were 

depicted. Along the terraces of stupas, terra-cotta 

plaques, usually glazed, illustrated jataka stories. As 

with the Pyu cities, religious life at Pagan appears to 

have been mixed, even eclectic, with Theravada, MA- 

HAYANA, and Brahmanic elements coexisiting. It is significant 

that Pagan’s rise coincided with the decline of 

Buddhism in India and elsewhere. The wealth and patronage 

of Pagan kings attracted both scholars and 

artists to court, whether from the MAHA YA NA world of 

Pala Bengal or the Theravada heartland of Sri Lanka. 

By the beginning of the twelfth century the Pagan kings 

had firmly embraced Theravada, and epigraphy describes 

the “purification” of the country’s religious life. 

Theravada notions of KINGSHIP styled the Pagan kings 

as dhammaraja and khammaraja—protectors of Buddhism 

granting them legitimacy in their imperial mission 

to unite all Burma. Pagan kings in turn promoted 

the faith through the lavish and profuse construction 

of monuments. 

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, 

and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) survey 

completed in 2000 there are 2,217 standing monuments 

at Pagan; in addition there are numerous mounds indicating 

collapsed monuments. An earlier survey by an 

eighteenth-century king had listed over 4,000 monuments. 

The palace-city was walled and moated and 

covered a relatively small corner of the twenty-fivesquare-mile 

site. The principal architectural forms are 

the stupa and the temple, with a number of hybrid 

forms integrating both these types. Monastery complexes, 

library structures, and ordination halls are to 

be found, either as part of, or independent of, larger 

temple complexes. Nearly all of these monuments were 

constructed with brick. Monuments were endowed, 

whether by the king and royal family or by courtier 

families, with considerable grants of glebe land and 

“pagoda slaves” for the maintenance of these foundations 

into posterity. The greater dedications were collegiate 

centers of study and scholarship. Most of the 

wooden monasteries, which, along with the palaces 

and domestic buildings, were made from perishable 

materials, have been lost. It may be that the decline of 

Pagan in the late thirteenth century was the result of 

the strain of having much of the national economy 

dedicated to the service of these monuments and their 

incumbents. Considerable information on the extent 

and costs of such dedications is contained in contemporary 

epigraphy. 

Burmese Buddhism, from Pagan times to the present, 

has been described as kammatic, the main preoccupation, 

from the king to humblest subject, being 

the earning of merit to ensure a favorable REBIRTH in 

the next existence. Coupled to this, the royal dedication 

of colossal monuments was seen as an act of communal 

merit-earning that would benefit the entire 

nation. (This thinking has remained current with successive 

postindependence military regimes, who, like 

the kings of Pagan, dedicate a large part of the na- 



tional product to Buddhist building activities.) Linked 

to this was the belief that enlightenment is too difficult 

for most people to attain and therefore the objective 

in merit-making is to be reborn when the 

future Buddha Metteya (MAITREYA) appears on earth, 

for an encounter with Metteya brings instant and easy 

enlightenment. This messianic belief, whose origins 

can be found in Pyu sculptures, gave rise to a pentagonal 

plan for monuments that reached its zenith in 

the construction of the virtuoso Dhamma-yazika 

stupa at Pagan. 

During the three centuries of artistic activity at Pagan 

there were three principal phases in which art and 

architecture evolved. During the early period, Pyu 

temple types, such as the Abe-yadana or Naga-yon, 

housed paintings and sculpture clearly derived from 

Pala Bengal that illustrate textual sources originating 

from Sri Lanka but captioned in the Old Mon language. 

Coupled with imperial expansion was a proselytizing 

movement of conversion to the Theravada 

way, and this art was essentially educational. By 1150, 

with the construction of the That-byin-nyu and 

Dhamma-yan-gyi temples under Sithu I, a transitional 

period becomes evident in the Pagan temple, whereby 

a clear Burmese idiom emerges in architecture, painting, 

and sculpture. At the same time, the Old Burmese 

language is written for the first time as captions beneath 

wall paintings. Bronze work, perhaps derived 

from the Arakan, achieves a succinct beauty rarely paralleled 

in Buddhist art. Temples grow taller, lighter, 

and more spacious compared with the darker, more 

mystical early types. By 1200, late period temples, such 

as Sula-mani or Hti-lo-min-lo, with the main shrine 

on the upper level, display a virtuoso technical sophistication 

and quality of craftsmanship. Likewise, 

painting and sculpture pass from an early period style 

that is, in spiritual terms, highly charged to a late period 

style that is supremely confident, yet in execution 

delicate and in effect delightful. 

Iconography from this period betrays the mixed 

origins of Pagan Buddhism and by the mid-eleventh 

century the dominance of the Theravada tradition. 

Bodhisattva, dvarapala, garuda, naga, and other “sacred 

beasts” of the Hindu-Buddhist pantheon abound 

mainly as decorative elements in great cycles of narrative 

paintings depicting the life of the Buddha, the 

jataka, and other Theravada tales. During the early period, 

Buddhist “purifications” of ancient animist cults 

were absorbed into the new state religion, as were 

Hindu deities, as supporters of the faith. These spirit 

or nat cults survive to this day, and such “folk art” 

combined with ritual, costume, and dance is a rich potential 

area of anthropological study. 

Post-Pagan, 1300–1752 

Following the Mongol incursion of 1278, Pagan fell 

into economic decline and into the power vacuum 

stepped Shan-Tai tribes who were responsible for 

much of the desecration of the temples at Pagan. Later 

converted to Buddhism, the art and architecture of the 

Shan states is a rich potential source of study with distinct 

styles of architecture, sculpture, and decoration 

more akin to Thailand than Burma. Likewise for the 

Arakan, a kingdom on the Bay of Bengal that remained 

independent until the late eighteenth century with its 

capital at Mrauk-U and its own highly original styles 

betraying the proximity of India. By the sixteenth century 

the Burmese under the First Ava dynasty had reasserted 

itself at Toungoo. They established capitals at 

Pegu, which they captured from the Mons, who had 

regained lost territories following the decline of Pagan, 

and then at Ava in 1637. During this period the country 

was reunified and Thailand invaded several times. 

Little of architectural interest survives from this period, 

with the exception of various royal stupas that 

have since been remodeled. Sculpture from this period 

can be heavy and crude in execution. The first 

mural paintings since the end of Pagan may be seen 

at the Thi-loka-guru (1672) caves at Sagaing and at 

the Hpo-win-daung caves in the Chindwin valley. 

These paintings, like the sculpture of this period, are 

naïve yet vividly entertaining. Early carved wood 

monasteries at Mingkin show an excellence of decorative 

work, and Ava period temples, though technically 

less ambitious than Pagan temples, reveal fine stucco 

work in the Pagan tradition. 

The Konbaung dynasty, 1752–1885 

It was not until the rise of the Konbaung dynasty in 

1752 that a true revival of the arts in Burma is evident. 

The Konbaung kings were conscious of their own Pagan 

heritage; indeed, they set about the first restorations 

of monuments there and dedicated a number of 

new monuments at Pagan. Compared with the more 

restrained classical idiom of Pagan, the art of the Konbaung 

has a distinctly rococo tendency. Decoration can 

be highly florid; stucco carvings adorning temple pediments 

tend to be flamboyant. The principal Konbaung 

monuments are found in the area around present-day 

Mandalay, in the vicinities of the sites of the three former 

Konbaung capitals at Ava, Amarapura, and Mandalay 

itself, established in 1855. Under the Konbaung, 


579


number of Italianate pavilions at the new Mandalay 

palace and in a number of religious dedications, notably 

the Atu-ma-shi Monastery, destroyed by fire in 

an 1890 war and since reconstructed. Following the 

British annexation of Upper Burma in 1886, the Buddhist 

arts underwent something of a renaissance as a 

result of increased prosperity coupled with the liberation 

of a devout mercantile class from sumptuary controls. 

Splendid monastery complexes, such as the 

Ma-so-shin and Myin-wun-taik monasteries, were 

constructed in the 1890s with traditional ground plans 

and pseudo-Palladian facades. The classical arcades of 

the Yakhine Maha-myat-muni Hpaya-gyi, the principal 

pagoda of modern Mandalay, dedicated in 1784 but 

largely rebuilt in the colonial period, again reveal this 

European influence. In the mural paintings found 

within the Hpaya-gyi, early portrayals of Europeans, 

railway trains, and steamboats are depicted in classical 

Konbaung style. 

See also: Cave Sanctuaries; Merit and Merit-Making; 

Monastic Architecture; Myanmar; Shwedagon 

Bibliography 

Kyaiktiyo Pagoda hangs on a cliff top in Mon state, Myanmar 

(Burma). Pilgrims must hike seven miles up a jungle mountain path 

to reach it. The twenty-four-foot-tall stupa atop the rock is said to 

contain a hair from the Buddha’s head. AP/Wide World Photos. 


woodcarving flourished, as seen in a number of splendid 

carved wood monasteries, including Shwe Kyaung 

in Mandalay and Bagaya Kyaung in Ava. The unfinished 

Mingun Pagoda, built by the megalomaniacal 

King Bodawhpaya in 1790, is said to be the largest brick 

structure in the world, and its bell is the largest working 

bell in the world. Across the Irrawaddy from Mandalay, 

the pilgrimage center of Sagaing contains a 

number of Ava, Konbaung, and colonial-period dedications 

revealing the high levels of craftsmanship 

achieved in the decorative arts during these periods. Illustrated 

manuscripts (secular and religious), glass 

mosaic work, textiles, lacquer ware, and silversmithing 

are but a few of the crafts that flourished. 

The sixth conquest of AYUTTHAYA in Thailand in 

1767 resulted in the relocation of a number of Thai 

artists in Burma whose work includes the redecoration 

of the Upali Thein at Pagan. Chinese influences appeared 

in the works of Bagyidaw. The hand of Italian 

engineers employed by King Mindon can be seen in a 

Aung Thaw. Historical Sites in Burma. Rangoon: Ministry of 

Union Culture, 1972. 

Harvey, G. E. A History of Burma from Earliest Time to 10 March 

1824. London: Frank Cass and Co., 1925. 

Luce, G. H. Old Burma—Early Pagan, 3 vols. Locust Valley, NY: 

J. J. Augustin, 1969–1970. 

Pichard, Pierre. Inventory of Monuments at Pagan, 8 vols. Paris: 

UNESCO; Gartmore, Scotland: Kiscadale Publications, 

1992–2002. 


Its Burmese Vicissitudes. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. 


Bay, Scotland: Kiscadale Publications, 1989. 

Than Tun. Essays on the History of Buddhism in Burma, ed. Paul 

Strachan. Whiting Bay, Scotland: Kiscadale Publications, 

1988. 

MYO E. See Koben 

PAUL STRACHAN 

MYSTICISM. See Bodhi (Awakening); Meditation 


N 

NA GA RJUNA 

The Indian philosopher Nagarjuna (ca. second century 

C.E.) is probably the single most important Buddhist 

philosopher. Nothing reliable is known about his life; 

modern scholars do not accept the traditional account 

whereby Nagarjuna lived for some six hundred years 

and became a Tantric wonderworker (siddha), although 

it is believed that Nagarjuna was the teacher of 

A RYADEVA (ca. 170–270 C.E.). There is moreover a debate 

over which works can be attributed to this Nagarjuna, 

with some agreement on: 

Madhyamakakarika (Verses on Madhyamaka), 

Nagarjuna’s main work, still extant in Sanskrit; 

Vigrahavyavartanl (Countering Hostile Objections), 

verses extant in Sanskrit together with an autocommentary, 

a reply by Nagarjuna to his critics. 

Save for a few fragments, the following works survive 

only in Tibetan and, in some cases, Chinese translation: 

Yuktisastika (Sixty Verses on Reasoning); 

Śu nyatasaptati (Seventy Verses on Emptiness); 

Vaidalyaprakarana (The Treatise That Grinds into 

Little Pieces), an attack on the categories of the 

Hindu epistemologists; 

Ratnavall (The Jewel Garland), a long epistle apparently 

to a king (a shorter royal epistle attributed 

to Nagarjuna is the Suhrllekha [Letter to a 

Friend]); 

Catuhstava (four hymns). 

Nagarjuna saw his philosophy as itself part of the 

spiritual project of enlightenment, of “seeing things the 

way they really are” (yathabhu tadarśana). His arguments 

should be placed in the context of Buddhist philosophy 

(preceding ABHIDHARMA thought), which he 

both presupposed and the ontology of which he trenchantly 

criticized. It was Nagarjuna who first explained 

philosophically the concept of ŚUNYATA (EMPTINESS). According 

to Nagarjuna, emptiness is a property (a -ness) 

possessed by each thing without exception. It is the 

property of lacking intrinsic existence (nihsvabhavata) 

as a result of being one way or another, the result of 

causal processes. Existing is nothing more than an intersecting 

point of causal factors. Nagarjuna sought to 

demonstrate this by asserting that if something—say, 

a table—were more than just an intersecting point of 

causal factors, it would prove resistant to analytical deconstruction. 

Absolutely nothing can resist the process 

of analytical deconstruction, investigating its coherence 

through reasoning. Thus Nagarjuna’s works embody 

arguments in the style of a skeptic, debunking concepts 

like existence and nonexistence, causation, perception, 

time, motion, and even religious concepts 

like the Buddha, or enlightenment itself. Nagarjuna 

also offers methodological reflections on what he is doing, 

why he is not a nihilist or even really a skeptic, 

and how his practice fits into the overall Buddhist project. 

For Nagarjuna this project is a deep “letting-go,” 

which nevertheless also facilitates compassionate reengagement. 

Nagarjuna was enormously influential in India. The 

MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL of philosophy, which he probably 

founded, was the earliest of the two great Indian 

schools of MAHAYANA thought. In Tibet, Madhyamaka 

is said to represent the highest philosophical standpoint, 

581

N ARA 

B UDDHISM 

the final truth. In East Asian Buddhism, the influence 

of emptiness can be seen in Chinese and Japanese art, 

in poetry, in the martial arts, and even, ostensibly, in 

Japanese business practice. 

In the West, attempts have been made to compare 

Nagarjuna’s thought with Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. 

Hegel, or Francis Herbert Bradley, and more recently 

with Jacques Derrida (deconstruction, particularly of 

egocentricity) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (liberation of 

others from philosophical predicaments that result 

from fundamentally confused preconceptions; return 

to the everyday world of praxis). Emptiness has also 

been portrayed as a philosophy of relativity, or ecological 

cosubsistence. 

Bibliography 

Bhattacharya, Kamaleswar, ed. and trans. The Dialectical Method 

of Nagarjuna (Vigrahavyavartanl), critically ed. E. H. Johnston 

and Arnold Kunst. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978. 

Hayes, Richard. “Nagarjuna’s Appeal.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 

22 (1994): 299–378. 

Inada, Kenneth K. Nagarjuna: A Translation of His Mu lamadhyamakakarika, 

with an Introductory Essay. Tokyo: Hokuseido 

Press, 1970. 

Lindtner, Christian. Nagarjuniana: Studies in the Writings and 

Philosophy of Nagarjuna. Copenhagen, Denmark: Akademisk 

Forlag, 1982. 

Potter, Karl H., ed. Buddhist Philosophy from 100 to 350 A.D., 

Vol. 8: Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1999. 

Ruegg, David S. The Literature of the Madhyamaka School of Philosophy 

in India. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1981. 

Tola, Fernando, and Dragonetti, Carmen. On Voidness: A Study 

on Buddhist Nihilism. Delhi: Banarsidass, 1995. 



Williams, Paul, with Tribe, Anthony. Buddhist Thought: A Complete 

Introduction to the Indian Tradition. London and New 


NARA BUDDHISM 

PAUL WILLIAMS 

The term Nara Buddhism refers to Buddhist scholarship 

and monasteries in Nara, the first permanent capital 

of Japan, during the Nara period (645–794 C.E.). 

From the time of the official introduction of Buddhism 

to Japan in the mid-sixth century, the Japanese acquired 

a wide variety of Buddhist scriptures and other 

texts from Korea and China, where doctrinal schools 

had developed. By the Nara period, Buddhism in Japan 

was classified into six philosophical schools. These 

schools did not comprise exclusive sectarian organizations, 

but were custodians of doctrinal traditions studied 

freely by monks and nuns. 

The six doctrinal traditions were: (1) the Jo jitsu, 

which denied the permanent reality of the self and the 

world; (2) the Kusha, which denied the permanent reality 

of the self but not the world; (3) the Sanron, which 

asserted that the self and the world are empty; (4) the 

Hosso , which asserted the nature of reality as a function 

of the mind; (5) the Kegon, which linked all existences 

into a web of connections; and (6) the Ritsu, 

which taught the precepts governing the lifestyle of 

monks and nuns. Large monasteries such as Todaiji, 

Kofukuji, and Toshodaiji served as home bases for 

these schools. 

Nara Buddhism was incorporated into the government, 

which enforced a legal code for monks and nuns. 

The code prohibited clergy from practicing and propagating 

Buddhism in the countryside and restricted 

them to their home monasteries. The government also 

limited the annual number of monks receiving ordination, 

which could only be carried out at an officially 

sanctioned ordination platform. The court conferred 

ranks on leading monks, thus creating a sense of gratitude 

and obligation as well as a chain of command 

used to regulate the clerical community. The official 

system gave rise to illegal monks, who were often selfordained 

and worked freely among the people. 

The court also created a national system, the PROVIN- 

CIAL TEMPLE SYSTEM (KOKUBUNJI, RISHO TO ). The central 

monastery was Todaiji, which established a branch 

monastery in each of the provinces. This national system 

emphasized the power of the court as the central 

political authority, and also placed Buddhism in the service 

of the nation. The provincial monasteries were 

dedicated to the ritual protection of the country. 

Large families and clans also built private monasteries. 

Kofukuji, for example, was the clan monastery for 

the powerful Fujiwara family. At the family level, Buddhist 

rites were conducted for the well-being of the clan, 

and for commemorating their ancestors. Nara Buddhism 

thus consisted of the national system, family monasteries, 

and illegal monks working among the people. 

Late in the Nara period, the monk DO KYO (d.u.–772) 

gained political power through an intimate relationship 

with a reigning empress, and attempted to usurp 


N A ROPA 

the throne. The scandal highlighted the significant power 

and influence that the Nara Buddhist establishment had 

gained, and the court, for many reasons including its 

concern about Buddhist interference, decided to move 

the capital out of Nara. The new permanent capital was 

located in Heian-kyo (now known as Kyoto), and while 

Nara continued to be an important site for Buddhist 

learning and practice, new forms of Buddhism, namely 

Tendai (Chinese, TIANTAI SCHOOL) and Shingon, arose 

in the succeeding Heian period (794–1185). 

See also: Japan; Japanese Royal Family and Buddhism; 

Nationalism and Buddhism; Shingon Buddhism, Japan 

Bibliography 

de Bary, William Theodore; Keene, Donald; Tanabe, George; 

and Varley, Paul. Sources of Japanese Tradition, 2nd edition, 

Vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 

Kitagawa, Joseph M. Religion in Japanese History. New York: 



NA ROPA 

Naropa (1016–1100) was an Indian tantric adept and 

scholar who is counted among the eighty-four MA- 

HASIDDHAS, or great adepts. He is widely revered in Tibet 

for his tantric instructions. According to one of his 

traditional biographies, Naropa was born to royal parents 

in a brahman family of Bengal. At the age of eleven 

he traveled to Kashmir in northwest India and after a 

brief period of Buddhist study, he was forced to marry 

at the age of seventeen. The marriage lasted only eight 

years, after which the couple divorced by mutual consent; 

Naropa’s former wife (or sister according to some 

sources) has been identified as Niguma, who became 

an influential tantric teacher in her own right. Naropa 

received monastic ordination and in 1049 entered the 

Buddhist university of Nalanda, in present-day Bihar. 

He excelled as a scholar and subsequently served a term 

as abbot and senior instructor at Nalanda, where he 

was given the name Abhayakrti. 

In 1057, however, he reached a turning point in his 

career. One day, in the midst of his philosophical studies, 

he was surprised by a vision of an old, haggard 

woman—in reality a D AKINI goddess. She challenged 

the level of his spiritual insight and, through her 

provocative intervention, the prodigious scholar realized 

that although he understood the literal words of 

his religious texts, he did not yet fathom their underlying 

meaning. The woman compelled Naropa to abandon 

his post at the university and seek his destined 

spiritual master, the great tantric adept Tilopa 

(988–1069), a figure about whom scant historical information 

exists. During his extended search across 

northern India, Naropa repeatedly encountered Tilopa 

in various guises, although he was unable to recognize 

the guru in his true form. Finally, as Naropa was driven 

to the brink of despair and even suicide, Tilopa revealed 

himself and accepted the seeker as a worthy 

disciple. 

In the ensuing years, Tilopa famously subjected 

Naropa to a series of twelve greater and twelve lesser 

trials, inflicting upon him the most terrible forms of 

abuse and physical punishment. Naropa persevered, 

however, eventually coming to understand these ordeals 

as a means for purifying his past negative actions. 

Among the seminal instructions Tilopa taught were the 

Four Transmissions (bka’ babs bzhi). Although the list 

varies according to different sources, the four are often 

enumerated as the transmissions of illusory body 

(sgyu lus), dreams (mi lam), radiant light (’od gsal), and 

inner heat (gtum mo). Naropa later codified these instructions 

and transmitted them to his own principal 

disciples, including the Tibetan translator MAR PA 

(MARPA; 1002/1012–1097), who then carried them to 

Tibet. This system, known in Tibetan as the Six Doctrines 

(or Yogas) of Naropa (Na ro chos drug), was promulgated 

by numerous Buddhist sects, but became 

especially associated with the BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU). 

The Bka’ brgyud sect subsequently came to view Naropa 

as an important founder of their lineage. Several works 

of spiritual songs and tantric commentarial literature 

attributed to Naropa are preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist 

canon. 


Bibliography 

Guenther, Herbert V. The Life and Teaching of Naropa. Boston 

and London: Shambhala, 1986. 

Mullin, Glen H. Tsongkhapa’s Six Yogas of Naropa. Ithaca, NY: 


Mullin, Glen H. Readings on the Six Yogas of Naropa. Ithaca, 




583

N ATIONALISM AND B UDDHISM 

NATIONALISM AND BUDDHISM 

Buddhists traditionally maintained close ties with established 

political authority, which typically meant 

KINGSHIP. When the global system of nation-states began 

to develop in earnest during the nineteenth century, 

Buddhists too began to engage in nationalist 

imaginings. The linear, progressive, and essentialist 

concept of nation is a modern construct. Researchers 

have attributed the following characteristics to nationalism: 

global industrialization, the development of 

print capitalism and of modern science and technology, 

and the pursuit of status and respect. 

There is an affinity between modernity and nationalism 

and between Buddhism and nationalism. For example, 

“Zen nationalism” was born through the 

process of interaction between Japanese Buddhism and 

Western modernity. As a way of defending Buddhism 

during the MEIJI BUDDHIST REFORM, the Japanese created 

what they termed New Buddhism, a “modern, 

cosmopolitan, humanistic, and socially responsible” 

form of the tradition (Sharf, “Buddhist Modernism,” 

p. 247). Robert Sharf notes that the contemporary version 

of Zen Buddhism is an offspring of this New Buddhism. 

Japanese Zen Buddhists employed Western 

discourse to create the new tradition and eventually 

presented it as being superior to Western modernity. 

This universalizing discourse of Zen implied the cultural 

superiority of Japanese Buddhism. 

Similarly, the universalism of religion and the particularism 

of nationalism go hand in hand, despite 

their apparent differences. Religion remains a strong 

force, if not an active accomplice, in the formation of 

nationalism. Kenneth Wells points out that Korean 

Protestants, for example, had no difficulty in retaining 

their identities as both Koreans and Protestants. Korean 

Protestants fused their religion and nationalism 

by trying to incorporate their Christian beliefs into the 

process of nation building. The same may also be said 

for Buddhist nationalism. 

Buddhist responses 

During the latter half of the nineteenth and the first 

half of the twentieth centuries, most Buddhists in Sri 

Lanka, China, Korea, and Japan faced similar political 

and social changes due to the colonial expansion of the 

West. To these Asian Buddhists, who had theretofore 

enjoyed stability, Western invasions initiated crises 

that threatened the survival of the religion. The rapid 

influx of Western civilization brought about chaotic 

disturbances to the traditional social and political equilibrium; 

Asian Buddhists could no longer enjoy their 

privileged status in the traditional order. Some Asian 

intellectuals began to believe that their traditional religions, 

including Buddhism, were superstitious and 

backward, and thus obstacles to the modernization 

process. Under these circumstances, Buddhist institutions 

throughout Asia soon became the target of attack 

and they found themselves surrounded by rapidly secularizing 

societies. 

The survival of Buddhism depended largely on the 

capability and willingness of Buddhists to adapt their 

religion not only to Western modernity but also to the 

new political structure of nation-states that emerged 

as a result of interaction with the West. In particular, 

the rapid dissemination of Christianity awakened Buddhists 

to the imminent nature of the challenges they 

were facing. Whether Buddhism could demonstrate its 

viability in this new context became a pivotal point for 

the continuance of the religion. 

Buddhists participated in nationalist movements, 

often embracing nationalism in the name of modernization. 

Buddhism was reappropriated in terms of issues 

central to Protestantism and the Enlightenment, 

namely, anticlericism, this-worldly engagement, rational 

and pragmatic inclination, and individualism. 

In this process of reappropriation, religious identity 

was formed and intensified. The emergence of religious 

identity instilled national pride in many Buddhists. 

Buddhism was regarded as their indigenous 

heritage vis-à-vis the imported Western religion of 

Christianity. 

In Sri Lanka, the challenge of Christian missionaries 

sharpened the Buddhist sense of self-identity. It 

took much time and prolonged attack from Christian 

missionaries before the Sinhala Buddhists entered 

into polemical debates with them. Before the 1860s 

Buddhists did not react in any organized way to the 

hostile attacks of Christianity. With the developing 

self-awareness prompted by the need to respond to 

Christian inroads, however, Buddhists began to refute 

the coexistence of variant religious practices that characterized 

their traditional religion. Buddhists tried to 

purge such popular elements as spirit cults, magic, and 

astrology from their practices. They took a fundamentalist 

approach, attempting to return to what they 

considered to be canonical Buddhism. 

Furthermore, the history of organized Buddhism in 

Sri Lanka was identified with the history of the nation, 

and Buddhism was promoted as a way to defend the 



Monks carrying Vietnamese flags march past the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh during an Independence Day parade in Hanoi, Vietnam, 

2000. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. 

nation from the colonial West. ANAGARIKA DHARMA- 

PALA (1864–1933), a lay celibate, urged the Sinhalese 

to restore their true identity as Buddhists by discarding 

foreign influences. Buddhist intellectuals adopted 

nationalism in order to confer cultural identity and 

ethnic consciousness on the Sinhalese. 

In China, under the name of modernization, the 

state campaigned to eradicate “superstitious” practices 

and to convert religious properties for public purposes. 

The late Qing dynasty (1644–1911) targeted Buddhist 

properties as financial resources to rebuild the country 

and to defend against the threat imposed by Western 

imperial powers. The Chinese Buddhist 

establishment, which already had suffered severe devastation 

during the Taiping rebellion in the midnineteenth 

century, faced the persistent recurrence of 

violence. The state withdrew its official protection of 

Buddhism in 1900 and issued a general order to convert 

temple property to schools. 

Under these circumstances, Chinese Buddhists also 

presented Buddhism as their traditional religion and 

attempted to use their religion to counterbalance the 

challenges of Christianity and Western cultural encroachment. 

Liang Qichao (1873–1929) contended 

that the Chinese made Buddhism their own by creating 

their own indigenous schools of Buddhist philosophy 

and practice. In his presentation of the tradition, 

Chinese Buddhism encompassed both philosophical 

and religious attributes, while Christianity rested on 

the delusive beliefs of a shallow philosophy. 

In Japan, the Meiji state (1868–1912) supported the 

active importation of Western civilization. Under the 

guise of modernization, the state inflicted severe blows 

to the Buddhist establishment. Starting in the midseventeenth 

century, anti-Buddhist measures had begun 

in individual domains. The Meiji government 

carried out these anti-Buddhist policies nationwide, 

equating Buddhism with the previous Tokugawa 

regime and forging a distinctive Shinto national ideology 

by separating Shinto from Buddhism. The Office 

of Proselytization was set up by Shinto propagandists 

in 1869 to promote Shinto as the national creed. The 

separation of Buddhism and Shinto led to a massive 

anti-Buddhist movement that resulted in the destruction 

of great numbers of Buddhist institutions. The 


585


government further developed its policy of disestablishing 

Buddhism in 1871 and 1872. 

Japanese Buddhists offered their services to the government 

in order to soften the ongoing persecution. 

They tried to prove Buddhism’s value by supporting 

national policies. Japanese Buddhists claimed that Buddhism 

was the indigenous religious practice of Japan 

and that the Japanese version of the religion was the 

consummation of all previous developments within 

Asian Buddhism. They also promoted Buddhism as a 

way to defend their nation against the incursions of 

Christianity. Along with growing nationalist sentiments, 

they identified themselves as protectors of 

Japanese tradition against the encroachments of Western 

culture, including Christianity. 

Korean Buddhists developed their sense of national 

identity around the turn of the twentieth century, beginning 

with the opening of the nation to the Western 

world in 1876 and the subsequent colonization by 

Japan in 1910. Awakened by the influx of Western 

modernity, and threatened by the rapid growth of 

Christianity and Japanese Buddhism on the peninsula, 

Korean Buddhists developed a sense of their own independent 

identity. They attempted to present Buddhism 

as a source of national identity by identifying it 

as the backbone of Korean history and culture. They 

began to consolidate their own identity as distinct from 

that of Japanese Buddhists, in particular, and to write 

their own history. 

Overall, Buddhist nationalism arose in response to 

the influx of Western civilization. Buddhists presented 

the religion as being useful to the nation and reclaimed 

its status as a traditional religion, in opposition to the 

imported Christian traditions of the West. 

The problematic nature of Buddhist nationalism 

For an understanding of Buddhist nationalism, however, 

a more nuanced approach is needed. When the 

ethnicity of the rulers was the same as that of the 

governed, Buddhist nationalism posed no difficulties. 

Japanese Buddhists, for instance, became faithful 

followers of state policies, identifying themselves 

with the nation-state. By the mid-Meiji period, Buddhism 

managed to present itself as the essence of 

Japanese culture. Buddhist leaders actively joined the 

state’s military policies. They endorsed and rationalized 

imperial policies during the Sino-Japanese War 

(1894) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904). They 

sent war missionaries to the battlefields to comfort 

soldiers. They also organized the Buddhist Society 

for the Defense of the Nation during World War I 

and became involved in the state’s war effort during 

the Pacific War. 

In contrast, Buddhists under colonial governments 

displayed confusing behaviors in their development of 

nationalism. The Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka, for example, 

pursued formal recognition from, and the patronage 

of, the colonial government. They asked 

persistently for state intervention in the maintenance 

and supervision of Buddhist temporalities. Kitsiri 

Malalgoda suggests that these ties with foreign rulers 

account for the fact that the Sinhala Buddhist revival 

movements did not develop into a concerted movement 

for national independence. The Chinese SAṄGHA 

also showed ambivalence when their religious interests 

and national interests diverged. Chinese monasteries 

voluntarily subjected themselves to Japanese Buddhist 

schools to protect their property. They rushed to register 

their monasteries with major Japanese Buddhist 

denominations to solicit protection from the Japanese 

consulate. The Chinese saṅgha was accused of collaborating 

with the Japanese after the Japanese commenced 

a campaign of military conquest in 1937. 

During the colonial period, the Korean Buddhist 

saṅgha also maintained close ties with the Japanese 

regime, seeking favors from it. The majority of Korean 

Buddhist leaders tacitly or overtly acquiesced to the 

Japanese policy of “Japan and Korea Are One Entity,” 

which aimed to eradicate Korean identity. Some Korean 

monks gave lectures in support of the Japanese 

war effort during the 1940s and even made consolatory 

visits to the Japanese imperial army, submitting 

to the demands of the Japanese regime. 

The political ambivalence and impotence of Buddhists 

resulted in liaisons with those in power, no 

matter who they were. Japanese Buddhists followed imperialist 

policies out of their collective interest in protecting 

their establishments and in consonance with 

their traditional subservience to political authority. The 

saṅgha’s traditional dependence on the ruling court 

produced further confusion among Sinhala, Chinese, 

and Korean Buddhists. This ambivalence toward the 

state attests to the complexity of Buddhist nationalism. 

This complexity derives partly from the fact that the 

concept of nation is unstable and a source of contention. 

There are many different versions of nation 

and nationalism, such as the nation-state and the “ethnic 

nation.” Japanese Buddhists identified the state 

with nation, faithfully supporting its policies. In comparison, 

Sri Lanka developed its own version of nation, 


N ENBUTSU (CHINESE, NIANFO; KOREAN, YŎ MBUL) 

while recognizing the confinement of the colonial 

state. Likewise, Korean Buddhists also separated nation 

from state. At the same time, the Japanese colonial 

state did not entirely deny the development of 

ethnic nationalism, as long as the nation-state was not 

threatened. After 1930 the Japanese regime even participated 

in the creation of national identity for Koreans. 

For the efficient operation of the nation-state, the 

Japanese colonial government felt that it needed to create 

homogeneous national subjects, even as it treated 

Koreans as second-class citizens. 

Asian Buddhists forged their religious identity and 

redefined the role of Buddhism in response to Western 

modernity and the concept of the nation-state. 

Buddhists adopted social tactics and nationalist stances 

in order to prove the utility of the religion, so that the 

status of Buddhism in society would be improved. The 

accommodations they reached with colonial powers, 

however, account for the Buddhists’ insensitivity to, 

and occasional collaborations with, imperial war, social 

injustice, and military occupation. 

See also: Christianity and Buddhism; Colonialism and 

Buddhism; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections of the 

Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. Revised 

edition, 1991. 

Bond, George. The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka: Religious Tradition, 

Reinterpretation, and Response. Columbia: University 


Buswell, Robert E., Jr. “Imagining ‘Korean Buddhism’: The Invention 

of a National Religious Tradition.” In Nationalism 

and the Construction of Korean Identity, ed. Hyung Il Pai and 

Timothy R. Tangherlini. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian 


Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 

1983. 



Princeton University Press. 1988. 

Greenfeld, Liah. “Transcending the Nation’s Worth.” Daedalus 

122, no. 3 (1993): 47–62. 

Heisig, James, and Maraldo, John, eds. Rude Awakenings: Zen, 

the Kyoto School, and the Question of Nationalism. Honolulu: 




Press, 1990. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr., ed. Curators of the Buddha: the Study of 

Buddhism under Colonialism. Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1995. 

Malalgoda, Kitsiri. Buddhism in Sinhalese Society 1750–1900: A 

Study of Religious Revival and Change. Berkeley: University 


Sharf, Robert. “Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative 

Experience.” Numen 42 (1995): 228–283. 

Sharf, Robert. “Whose Zen? Zen Nationalism Revisited.” In 

Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, and the Question of 

Nationalism, ed. James W. Heisig and John C. Maraldo. 


Welch, Holmes. The Buddhist Revival in China. Cambridge, MA: 


Wells, Kenneth. New God, New Nation: Protestants and Self- 

Reconstruction Nationalism in Korea, 1896–1937. Honolulu: 


Wright, Arthur F. “Buddhism in Modern and Contemporary 

China.” In Religion and Change in Contemporary Asia, ed. 

Robert F. Spencer. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota 

Press, 1971. 

NENBUTSU (CHINESE, NIANFO; 

KOREAN, YŎMBUL) 

PORI PARK 

Nenbutsu, also transcribed as nembutsu (Chinese, nianfo; 

Korean, yŏmbul), is the religious practice in PURE 

LAND BUDDHISM of chanting or invoking the name of 

the Buddha Amida (Sanskrit, AMITABHA or Amitayus; 

Chinese, Amituo). There are many buddhas whose 

names can be chanted, but in practice, nenbutsu typically 

refers to chanting Amida’s name. In Japan, the 

practice consists of reciting the six-character formula 

Namu Amida Butsu (Chinese, Namo Amituo fo), 

“Homage to Amida Buddha.” This invocation can be 

spoken once or repeatedly. Commonly it is intoned as 

a melodic chant, but can also be uttered in ordinary 

intonation. It is sometimes used as an ancillary practice 

in meditative trance or visualization, but more frequently 

it is performed as an independent and 

self-contained practice. Buddhist liturgy, especially of 

the Pure Land tradition, typically contains sections or 

interludes of nenbutsu chanting. 

Religious chanting, which was common in Buddhism 

from an ancient period, no doubt influenced 

the development of the nenbutsu. But another influence 

was the practice of reflecting or meditating on the 

Buddha. In fact, nenbutsu literally means thinking on 


587

N EO-CONFUCIANISM 

the Buddha or keeping him in mind (Buddhanusmrti). 

To that extent, it does not explicitly denote verbal activity. 

But since chanting sacred syllables or names often 

accompanied meditation, the practice of intoning 

the Buddha’s name coalesced with the idea of keeping 

him in mind. Over the centuries there emerged two 

primary views of nenbutsu chanting: One treated it as 

an aid to visualizing the Buddha, which was considered 

a practice leading to enlightenment; the other 

treated it as an act resulting in birth in Amida’s Pure 

Land paradise. The two, however, often overlapped. 

In Japan, the verbal practice eventually overshadowed 

visualization, so that nenbutsu came to mean invoking 

Amida’s name without necessarily meditating on 

him, though mental awareness of the Buddha was always 

considered one aspect of saying his name. 


Chanting and Liturgy; Pure Land Schools 

Bibliography 

Andrews, Allan A. “Pure Land Buddhist Hermeneutics: Honen’s 

Interpretation of Nembutsu.” Journal of the International Association 


Fujiwara, Ryosetsu. The Way to Nirvana: The Concept of the 

Nembutsu in Shan-tao’s Pure Land Buddhism. Tokyo: Kyoiku 

Shincho Sha, 1974. 

Hori, Ichiro. “Nembutsu as Folk Religion.” In Folk Religion 

in Japan: Continuity and Change, ed. Joseph M. Kitagawa 

and Alan L. Miller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 

1968. 

Pas, Julian. Visions of Sukhavatl: Shan-tao’s Commentary on the 

Kuan Wu-Liang-Shou-Fo Ching. Albany: State University of 



NEO-CONFUCIANISM. See Confucianism and 


NEPAL 

Like most of the Himalayan region, the valley called 

Nepal was a frontier zone until the modern state’s creation 

in 1769. The area absorbed and interpreted Indic 

cultural influences from the south and, later, from 

the Tibetan region to the north. This entry will discuss 

the history of the early Indic traditions in the Kathmandu 

valley, the Tibetan Buddhist lineages originating 

from the Tibetan plateau, the Newar-supported 

MAHAYANA traditions, and the recently imported 

THERAVADA tradition. 

Early Buddhism in the Licchavi era 

The earliest historical records of the central Himalayan 

region—more than two hundred Sanskrit inscriptions 

made by kings of a ruling dynasty who referred to 

themselves by the name Licchavi—are found in the 

Nepal valley beginning in 464 C.E. These inscriptions 

indicate that Hindu temple institutions existed alongside 

Buddhist monastic traditions in a harmonious 

relationship confirmed by the Chinese pilgrim XUAN- 

ZANG around 640 C.E. This relationship has endured 

up to the present day. The Licchavi inscriptions reveal 

connections between the Nepal valley and the traditions 

of monasticism and patronage that originated 

across the Gangetic plain from the time of the Buddha. 

There are references in the inscriptions to MONKS 

and NUNS from over a dozen discrete saṅghas residing 

in land-owning viharas (monasteries) and enjoying the 

support of prominent local merchants and caravan 

leaders. The most frequently mentioned saṅgha is that 

of the MAHASAM GHIKA SCHOOL. 

These early monasteries were centers of a predominantly 

Mahayana culture, with the inscriptions providing 

only a few hints of Vajrayana practice. Monastic 

precincts reveal verses of praise addressed to Śakyamuni 

and other buddhas, as well as shrines to the 

celestial bodhisattvas Manjuśr, Vajrapani, Samantabhadra, 

and—most frequently—Avalokiteśvara. Donations 

of STU PAs, in several instances by nuns, are also 

mentioned. Nepal’s earliest monasteries charged 

monks with maintaining law and civic order in settlements 

built on lands donated to them, a custom that 

is unattested in Indian sources. Examples of similar duties 

are also found in the records of the residents (mandalis) 

of contemporaneous Hindu temples. 

Tibetan monasticism across the 

Himalayan highlands 

Tibetan texts recount how great Indian sages came up 

through the Nepal valley to establish Buddhist traditions 

on the Tibetan plateau. Later legends describe 

their subduing demons and establishing communities 

of devotees. Although the history of these first Himalayan 

monasteries remains obscure, some may have 

been established by the great siddha PADMASAMBHAVA 

(ca. late eighth century) or his disciples. Texts composed 

to recount the lives of ATISHA (982–1054) and 


N EPAL 

Nepalese lay Buddhists circumambulate the Bodhanath Stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal, 1997. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. 


MAR PA (MARPA; 1002/1012–1097) describe their sojourns 

visiting still-recognized valley locations. 

Once Buddhism was firmly established in central 

Tibet as a result of its second introduction (ca. 1050 

C.E.), the northernmost settlements of modern highland 

Nepal became sites where monasteries were established 

by every major school of Tibetan Buddhism. 

These areas include Humla in the far west, as well as 

(from west to east) Dolpo, Lo-Mustang, Nyeshang, 

Nupri, Manang, Langtang, Helambu, Solu-Khumbu, 

and Walung. Local boys interested in training to become 

senior monks would travel to central Tibet and 

return to maintain local institutions that typically sheltered, 

at most, a dozen or so monks whose main occupation 

was ritual service. This same pattern occurred 

for the BON faith in a few of these regions. 

There was a second level of connection with the 

monastic networks of central Tibet established among 

the Tibeto-Burman–speaking peoples living in the 

mid-hills, including the Magars, Gurungs, Tamangs, 

and Sherpas. Many of these peoples followed the 

RNYING MA (NYINGMA) school and relied on householder 

lamas to perform Buddhist rituals for their villages. 

To train for this service, young men typically 

lived for several years as apprentices with elder householder 

lamas or in the regional highland monasteries. 

Most returned to marry and maintain shrines established 

as their family’s own property. Thus, most “Buddhist 

monasteries” among Tibeto-Burman peoples 

were (and are) family shrine-residences, and sons usually 

succeed their fathers as local Buddhist ritualists. 

By the early Malla era (1350 C.E.) Tibetan monks 

came to the Nepal valley to acquire tantric initiations, 

ritual practices, and texts from resident masters 

(Newars and others), traditions they conveyed up to 

the highlands. Some Tibetan monks also established 

branch monasteries affiliated with the main Tibetan 

schools; the first were located near the monumental 

stupas at Svayambhu and Bauddha. Notable Tibetan 

teachers probably influenced the practices of Newar 

Buddhists. 

Although the Hindu state of Nepal, which was established 

in 1769, did not favor Buddhism and tried 

to make Buddhists conform to brahmanical laws, the 


589

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traditions and loyalty of most Buddhist ethnic groups 

has endured, as have Nepal’s family-based monasteries. 

Since 1990 the strength of Buddhist identity that 

is held together by these institutions among the 

Tibeto-Burman groups has become the basis of ethnic 

nationalism directed against the high caste dominated 

Hindu state. 

The Kathmandu valley is now one of the most important 

centers of Tibetan Buddhism in the world for 

several reasons. First, one of the world’s largest concentrations 

of Tibetan refugees has settled in the 

Kathmandu valley, where they have focused on building 

institutions for their communities. Some of the 

profits generated by the carpet-weaving industry have 

been used to expand the initial structures and build 

new monasteries. Second, since about 1970, many of 

the most affluent Tibeto-Burman Buddhists from 

Nepal have chosen to establish homes in the valley, 

both for business and political purposes. Prominent 

donors from this community have bought lands and 

built monasteries that have drawn monks or nuns from 

their home regions. Finally, as Tibetan Buddhism has 

become increasingly attractive to Westerners, prominent 

Tibetan lamas funded by their donations have established 

“dharma centers” that in most ways resemble 

traditional monasteries. Here one can find textual 

study and meditation being pursued by both ethnic Tibetans 

and Westerners clad in monastic robes. 

Newar Buddhism (1000 C.E. to the present) 

By the early Malla era, the valley had become an important 

regional center active in domesticating an indigenous 

Indic Mahayana Buddhism. Nepalese monks 

developed a highly ritualized Buddhist culture among 

the Newars, whose life-cycle rites, Mahayana festivals, 

and temple ritualism reached high levels of articulation. 

It was VAJRAYANA Buddhism and tantric initiation 

that assumed the highest position in local 

understanding, though only a few practiced esoteric 

traditions. MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE reflects this development: 

In the large courtyards that define the 

monastic space, the shrines facing the entrance have, 

on the ground floor, an image of Śakyamuni, but on 

the first floor above is the agama, a shrine with a Vajrayana 

deity, with access limited to those with tantric 

initiation. 

By the later Malla era (1425–1769 C.E.), when Hindu 

shrines and law were in the ascendancy, Newar Buddhism 

underwent many changes and assumed roughly 

the form extant today. This era was marked by the 

building of many new viharas, but there was also a literal 

domestication of the saṅgha, wherein former 

monks became householders. These Newar householder 

monks called themselves Bare (from the Sanskrit 

term vande or vandana, an ancient Indic term of 

respect for monks), adopted the names śakyabhiksu, 

and vajracarya, and began to function as endogamous 

castes. This meant that one had to be born into the 

saṅgha and, with a few exceptions, everyone else was 

prohibited from being admitted. Thus, ordination into 

celibate monastic life was possible only in the local Tibetan 

saṅghas. The Newar saṅghas were probably 

transforming their tradition to conform to caste laws 

and thereby preserve the social and legal standing of 

the Buddhist community, as well as their extensive 

monastic land holdings. Since that time, those wanting 

to become adult members of the Newar saṅgha 

must first undergo (in local parlance) śravaka-styled 

celibate ordination (usually taking three days), then 

Mahayana-styled initiation into what is referred to as 

the bodhisattva saṅgha. 

Many contemporary Newar monasteries, especially 

in Patan, still bear the name of their founding patrons, 

some dating back to the early Malla period. Local Buddhist 

monks, like Hindu panditas (scholars), were especially 

active in manuscript copying; by the modern 

era, Buddhist monastic libraries had became a vast 

repository of Sanskrit texts. 

Unlike the monastic institutions of Tibet that fostered 

in-depth philosophical inquiry and vast commentarial 

writings, Newar monks produced few 

original contributions to Buddhist scholarship. The 

Newar saṅgha’s focus was the performance of rituals 

drawing upon deities and powers of the Mahayana- 

Vajrayana Buddhist tradition. Like married Tibetan 

monks of the Rnying ma order, vajracarya priests serve 

the community’s ritual needs, with some specializing 

in textual study, medicine, astrology, and meditation. 

Lifelong ritual relations link householders to family 

vajracarya priests, which some have called “Buddhist 

brahmins.” Their ritual services are vast, including 

Buddhist versions of Hindu life-cycle rites (sam skara), 

fire rites (homa), daily temple rituals (nitya pu ja), 

MANTRA chanting protection rites, merit-producing 

donation rites, stupa rituals, chariot festivals (ratha 

jatra), and tantric initiation (abhiseka). Some of these 

cultural performances were noted centuries ago in India. 

In Kathmandu’s Itum Baha one can still observe 

monks rapping on wooden gongs to mark time, a 

monastic custom begun over two thousands years ago 


N EPAL 

in ancient India. The “Mahayana cult of the book” endures 

as well. In this and many other respects, Newars 

continue the evolutionary patterns of ritual practice 

and lay ideals of later Indic Buddhism. Claims that “Indian 

Buddhism died out” defy geography and ignore 

the ongoing survival of Newar Buddhism. 

Once the Newar kings were ousted by the Shah dynasty 

from Gorkha that unified the modern state in 

1769, discrimination against Buddhists and changes 

in land tenure laws undermined the tenancy system 

that had supported the domesticated Newar monastic 

institution. At its peak, Newar Buddhists had established 

over three hundred monasteries. Today, 

roughly 10 percent have all but disappeared and more 

than 50 percent are in perilous structural condition. 

The majority of the monasteries, however, still function 

and most of the remainder can still be located using 

modern records. 

The cities of Kathmandu and Patan both have a system 

of main monasteries (mu baha), eighteen and fifteen, 

respectively; each monastery is linked to one or 

more satellite monasteries. Every householder monk 

is ordained in one of these monasteries, though they 

may reside in one of the several hundred branch 

monasteries affiliated with the main monasteries. A 

system of rotation requires that each ordained male 

perform the monastic daily ritual duties periodically. 

Bhaktapur and other smaller towns in the Kathmandu 

valley also have bahas, but each is an independent entity. 

Newar monasteries are now ruled by the senior 

male members of their individual saṅghas, which 

makes reform or innovation within the local saṅgha 

difficult. From the Shah-era conquest in 1769 until the 

present, Newar Mahayana Buddhism has been gradually 

weakening as a cultural force due to the loss of 

landed income and leadership. Yet despite the decline 

of the monasteries as buildings and institutions, much 

is still preserved in the elaborate monastic architecture, 

the thousands of archived texts, and the wealth 

of cultural observances. 

The typical Newar baha is situated around a courtyard. 

The main entrance, often ornamented by a tympanum, 

usually has small shrines dedicated to the 

monastery guardians Ganesh and Mahakala, which 

flank the passageway leading into the main courtyard. 

Opposite the entrance is the main shrine building. On 

the ground floor is the kwapa dyah, usually Śakyamuni 

Buddha, flanked by images of his two great disciples, 

MAHAMAUDGALAYANA and ŚARIPUTRA. Stairs within 

the main shrine building lead to the agama, a tantric 

shrine that is opened only to adults who have received 

the appropriate Vajrayana initiation. The windows and 

the door, including another tympanum, are often 

adorned by elaborate wood carvings. 

One of the most important changes that Shah rule 

brought to the middle hill regions of the country was 

the expansion of trade, and this was commonly in the 

hands of Newars who migrated to trade towns. The 

thousands who left the valley brought their prominently 

Buddhist culture with them. Thus, in towns 

such as (from east to west) Daran, Dhankuta, Chainpur, 

Bhojpur, Dolakha, Trisuli, Bandipur, Pokhara, 

Palpa, and Baglung, Newar Buddhists built bahas as 

branch institutions of those in their home cities. 

Therava da Buddhism 

Since the mid-twentieth century, Newars who have 

become disenchanted with their form of Mahayana 

monasticism have supported the establishment of 

Theravada Buddhist reform institutions in the Kathmandu 

valley. Inspired by teachers from Sri Lanka, 

Burma, Thailand, and India, Newars “entered the 

robes” and some founded institutions in the large 

cities that are dedicated to the revival of Buddhism 

based upon textual study, popular preaching, and lay 

meditation. 

Beginning with the A nandakut Monastery at 

Svayambhu for monks and the Dharmakrti dormitory 

for nuns in central Kathmandu, Newars have been ordained 

and have renounced the householder life to live 

in these institutions. Technically, the ancient order of 

nuns has died out in Theravada countries; the term 

anagarika is used locally, although the women conform 

to most vinaya rules, including celibacy. 

Theravada institutions have been instrumental to 

promoting the modernist “Protestant Buddhism” originating 

in colonial Sri Lanka. These institutions have 

subtly critiqued Newar and Tibetan Mahayana beliefs 

and practices, while seeking to revive the faith by promoting 

textual study and vernacular translations, 

scheduling popular preaching, and spreading the practice 

of lay meditation. Other independent meditation 

centers started by Goenka, a lay teacher from India, 

have since the early 1980s gained considerable popularity. 

Theravada monasteries and meditation centers 

are now found in most major towns of the Kathmandu 

valley of Nepal. 

See also: Himalayas, Buddhist Art in; Newari, Buddhist 

Literature in 


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N EPAL, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

Bibliography 

Dowman, Keith. “A Buddhist Guide to the Power Places of the 

Kathmandu Valley.” Kailash 9, nos. 3–4 (1982): 183–291. 

Gellner, David N. Monk, Householder and Tantric Priest: Newar 

Buddhism and Its Hierarchy of Ritual. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


Hutt, Michael. Nepal: A Guide to the Art and Architecture of the 

Kathmandu Valley. Boston: Shambhala, 1994. 

Lewis, Todd T. “Newars and Tibetans in the Kathmandu Valley: 

Ethnic Boundaries and Religious History.” Journal of 

Asian and African Studies 38 (1989): 31–57. 

Lewis, Todd T. Popular Buddhist Texts from Nepal: Narratives 

and Rituals of Newar Buddhism. Albany: State University of 


Lienhard, Siegfried. “Nepal: The Survival of Indian Buddhism 

in a Himalayan Kingdom.” In The World of Buddhism, ed. 

Heinz Bechert and Richard F. Gombrich. New York: Facts 

on File, 1984. 

Locke, John K. “The Vajrayana Buddhism in the Kathmandu 

Valley.” In The Buddhist Heritage of Nepal. Kathmandu, 

Nepal: Dharmodaya Sabba, 1986. 

Ramble, Charles. “How Buddhist Are Buddhist Communities? 

The Construction of Tradition in Two Lamaist Communities.” 

Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 21, no. 

2 (1990): 185–197. 

Riccardi, Theodore, Jr. “Buddhism in Ancient and Early Medieval 

Nepal.” In Studies in the History of Buddhism, ed. A. 

K. Narain. New Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 1980. 

Slusser, Mary S. Nepal Mandala. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1982. 

Snellgrove, David. “Buddhism in Nepal.” In Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 

Vol. 2. Boston: Shambhala, 1987. 

Toffin, Gerard. Societe et religion chez les Newar du Nepal. Paris: 

CNRS, 1984. 

TODD T. LEWIS 

NEPAL, BUDDHIST ART IN. See Himalayas, Buddhist 

Art in 

NEWARI, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN 

Beginning with Sanskrit inscriptions dating from the 

fifth century C.E., the large mid-montane Himalayan 

valley called Nepal has been a vibrant cultural center 

where both Hindu and Buddhist traditions have flourished. 

What is called “Nepal” today was formed after 

1769 when the modern Shah state expanded across the 

region, conquering the valley city-states and making 

Kathmandu its capital. The first cities and religious 

monuments of this valley were built by the Newars, the 

earliest attested ethnic group of the region. Newars 

speak a nontonal Tibeto-Burman language called 

Newari in the Euro-American world, but referred to 

by Newars as Nepal Bhasa, using Sanskritic terminology, 

or Newa: Bhay in the spoken vernacular. This language 

has been thoroughly influenced by Sanskrit 

vocabulary, especially in the technical terms imported 

from the Indic traditions that shaped Newar culture. 

Newari texts have similarly been written using north 

Indian-derived scripts, the earliest on palm leaves (tara 

patra), and from the seventeenth century onward on 

paper made from the daphne plant. In the latter form, 

the texts were written on stacked rectangular pages, or 

in the format of a folded book (thya saphu). Many such 

books were illustrated with finely rendered miniature 

paintings, some with fifty to one hundred images. 

Since this valley was from its origins a Himalayan 

trade and pilgrimage center, and later a refuge for Buddhist 

monks fleeing the destruction of north Indian 

monasteries in the wake of the Muslim conquests that 

ended in 1192 C.E., many monasteries in Kathmandu, 

Bhaktapur, and Patan became centers of manuscript 

veneration, archiving, and copying. From this era onward, 

Tibetan scholars visited Nepal to obtain Sanskrit 

manuscripts and, in some cases, to confer with 

Nepalese panditas. There have been many Newar Buddhist 

scholars—especially among the “householder 

monk” groups calling themselves śakyabhiksus and 

vajracaryas—who could read and utilize Sanskrit, 

making it an important local language for the indigenous 

Buddhist elite. Some notable panditas up through 

the modern era also composed works in Sanskrit. 

The vast holdings of Sanskrit manuscripts in the 

Kathmandu Valley have remained central to the modern 

academic study of Buddhism, beginning with the 

texts sent to Calcutta and Europe by the official British 

resident in Nepal from 1825 to 1843, Brian Hodgson. 

Many ancient Sanskrit texts survived only in Nepal. 

Though one might include these works as a literature 

used by the Newar Buddhist religious elite and other 

literati, the remainder of this entry focuses on the religious 

texts composed in the Newari vernacular. 

The Newar saṅgha’s widespread familiarity with 

Sanskrit, and especially the use of Sanskrit mantras and 

religious terminology, explains the existence of the 

many hundreds of manuscripts rendered in a bilingual 


N EWARI, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

(Sanskrit and Newari) format. While the elite ritualists, 

adepts, and scholars used Sanskrit texts to guide their 

ritual practices, tantric meditations, and philosophical 

studies, they also redacted relevant Indic works into 

their own language and composed treatises in their own 

lingua franca. The Newar literati devised over ten calligraphic 

scripts, especially for manuscripts used for ritual 

“book puja” purposes: Newa Lipi since the ninth 

century, and Rañjana since the fourteenth century. 

Vernacular Buddhist literature in Nepal Bhasa mirrors 

the distinctive cultural traditions of Newar Buddhism, 

which was centered on a saṅgha of “householder 

monks” and their focus on intricate ritual and popular 

narratives more than scholasticism, with VAJRAYANA 

practices important for the elite. Accordingly, no 

vinaya or early canonical works are extant in the bilingual 

collections and only fragments of any Buddhist 

scholastic treatises (śastra) have been identified. More 

common are MAHAYANA “classics” such as the 

Prajñaparamita-su tra (Perfection of Wisdom Su tra), 

BODHICARYAVATARA (Introduction to the Conduct That 

Leads to Enlightenment), and the LOTUS SUTRA (SAD- 

DHARMAPUN DARIKA-SUTRA). 

Especially numerous are texts devoted to the celestial 

BODHISATTVA Avalokiteśvara, such as the Karandavyu 

ha (Description of the Basket). The most locally 

influential text in this genre is the Gunakarandavyu ha 

(Description of the Garlanded Basket), a Sanskrit work 

originally composed in Nepal that has been widely 

translated into Newari. 

Several other important works were composed by 

local scholars in Sanskrit and translated into numerous 

Newari editions. First is the Bhadrakalpa Avadana (Glorious 

Stories of This Auspicious Era), a text that recounts 

the Buddha’s return to his hometown Kapilavastu. 

More important in the indigenous worldview is the 

Svayambhu Purana (The Sacred Account of Svayembhu , 

the Self-Existent). It has a curious title for a Buddhist 

text, indicating the strong influence of Hindu traditions 

in Nepal. But this text recounts the Buddhist origins of 

the valley as a hierophany of the A di-Buddha as a flaming 

lotus in a lake, one subsequently visited by buddhas 

of former ages of the world. In the current era, this lake 

is finally drained by the Bodhisattva Mañjuśr to form 

the Kathmandu Valley and opened to settlement by his 

disciples, making the Svayambhu Purana a work simultaneously 

of Mahayana Buddhology and ethnic 

origins. This text was later expanded to include the history 

of tantric teachers entering the domain and to 

discuss the history of related sacred sites. Most important 

among these is the sacred hilltop now called 

Svayambhu Mahacaitya. 

The most common manuscript genres in Newar 

Buddhist literature are popular narratives (JATAKAs and 

AVADANAs) and ritual texts. “Folklorists” in the Newar 

saṅgha collected, redacted, and “trans-created” (to use 

Kamal Prakash Malla’s term) the classical tales from the 

JATAKAMALA (Garland of Jatakas), AVADANAŚATAKA (A 

Hundred Glorious Deeds), and MAHAVASTU (Great 

Story). Some stand alone due to their popularity. These 

include the Simhalasarthabahu Avadana, the Manicu da 

Avadana, the Vlraku śa Avadana, the Kavirakumar 

Avadana, and the Viśvantara Jataka; such texts have 

been used up to the present day by pandit-storytellers 

who attract audiences for evening performances during 

the Newar Buddhist monsoon holy month, Gunla. 

Interestingly, several of these Newar avadana anthologies, 

such as the Vicitrakarnika Avadana, have no 

known classical source. 

Given the embedding of story recitations into many 

ritual texts, it is difficult to separate the genres. Newar 

panditas have typically labeled their ritual guides as 

vidhi (directive) or kriya (performance), and these span 

a vast repertoire from life-cycle rites and building construction 

rites to festival practices, temple observances, 

and tantric initiations. Special Mahayana rites called 

vratas have their own textual guides, including those 

dedicated to the beneficent Tara, the fierce protector 

Mahakala, the Buddhist earth mother Vasundhara, 

and many others. By far the most common text in this 

category is that outlining the Astaml Vrata and dedicated 

to Avalokiteśvara. Of special prominence in this 

Newar literature are guidebooks for making 100,000 

clay stupas, the Laksacaitya Vidhi, and for the old-age 

ritual (bhlmaratha kriya) for elders reaching seventyseven 

years and seven months, which includes making 

a STU PA and reciting the Usnlsavijaya dharanl. Also important 

are after-death guidebooks for utilizing the 

Durgatipariśodhana Tantra’s salvific mantra and a sand 

MAN D ALA made by a vajracarya ritualist. 

Even more numerous, and variable, are the mantradharanl 

collections. The most widespread single text is 

the Pañcaraksa (Five Protectors), which provides recitations 

and visualizations of five protectors, each with stories 

testifying to their pragmatic efficacies. Other works, 

many reflecting the compiler’s own fields of ritual expertise, 

are simply lists of recitations for specific purposes. 

These span all spheres of human experience: 

worshiping, memorizing, singing, healing, attracting 

love, rainmaking, injuring. Related to this are collections 


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N ICHIREN 

of devotional songs that can be sung by priests or by 

worshipers playing drums and other instruments. 

Modern published literature 

The printing press expanded the possibilities of Newar 

Buddhist piety, as devotees continue to make books for 

merit, memorialize the dead, pen new translations, 

and create hundreds of new magazines that disseminate 

works of scholarly interpretation and Buddhist revivalism. 

In these forums, partisans of traditional Newar 

Buddhism, as well as advocates of the THERAVADA movement, 

have sought to promote their traditions. Leading 

vajracarya priests have continued their tradition of composing 

ritual guide pamphlets and anthologies for their 

colleagues, with such publications numbering over a 

thousand since 1950. Since about 1960, Theravadin 

scholars have published Newari translations of nearly the 

entire Pali canon. Traditional panditas and private 

scholars have likewise published their own new complete 

Newari translations of the Mahayana classics, including 

the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita by Jog Muni 

Vajracarya (Kathmandu, 1968), the LALITAVISTARA by 

Nisthananda Vajracarya (1978), the BODHICARYAVATARA 

by Dibyabajra Bajracarya (1986), and the Saddharmapundarlka-vaipulyasu 

tra by Saddharmaraja Vajracarya 

(1989). Special mention should be made of Sugata 

Saurabha (The Sweet Fragrance of the Buddha), a 

book-length life of the Buddha that was written in 

Newari by Nepal’s greatest twentieth-century poet, 

Chittadhar Hridaya. Newar poets have also composed 

songs for bhajan singing that have been widely published 

and used. 

Finally, since 1950, a vast library of Newari scholarly 

publications has come into being. These works 

concern local epigraphy, texts, temples, and cultural 

traditions. Most notable among indigenous scholars is 

Hem Raj Shakya, whose monographs on the Svayambhu 

stupa (1977), the Samyak festival (1980), and other 

monuments testify to the Newars’ vigorous love of their 

own culture and the continuing high regard in Newar 

society for literary works on Buddhism. The views of 

a medieval copyist are still discernible at the beginning 

of the twenty-first century: “I have written this 

manuscript painstakingly. Try your best to protect 

and preserve this MSS from oil stains, fire, and thieves. 

Look after it as you would your own offspring because 

while writing this mss my backbone, my head, and my 

eyesight have all bent downward” (Vaidya and Kamsakar, 

p. iv). 

See also: Nepal 

Bibliography 

Lewis, Todd T. “Mahayana Vratas in Newar Buddhism.” Journal 


1 (1989): 109–138. 

Lewis, Todd T. “The Nepal Jana Jlvan Kriya Paddhati: A Modern 

Newar Guide for Vajrayâna Life-Cycle Rites.” Indo-Iranian 

Journal 37 (1994): 1–46. 

Lienhard, Siegfried, ed. The Songs of Nepal: An Anthology of 

Nevar Folksongs and Hymns. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 1984. 

Locke, John. “The Uposadha Vrata of Amoghapasha Lokeshvara.” 

L’Ethnographie 83, nos. 100–101 (1989): 109–138. 

Malla, Kamal Prakash. Classical Newari Literature. Kathmandu: 

Nepal Study Centre, 1981. 

Tatelman, Joel. “‘The Trials of Yashodhara’: The Legend of the 

Buddha’s Wife in the Bhadrakalpavadana.” Buddhist Literature 

1 (1999): 176–261. 

Vaidya, Janak Lal, and Kamsakar, Prem Bahadur. A Descriptive 

Catalogue of Selected Manuscripts Preserved at the Aśa Saphu 

Kuthi. Kathmandu: Cvasapasa, 1990. 

NICHIREN 

TODD T. LEWIS 

Nichiren (1222–1282) is regarded as the founder of 

the Hokke (Lotus) or NICHIREN SCHOOL, one of several 

new Buddhist movements that emerged in Japan’s 

Kamakura period (1185–1333). Of humble origins, 

Nichiren was ordained at age sixteen at Kiyosumi 

Temple in Awa province (now Chiba prefecture) and 

trained especially in the Tendai school’s teachings of 

the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) 

and in esoteric Buddhism. Later he studied in Kamakura, 

site of the new shogunate or military government, 

and at the great Tendai center on Mount 

Hiei, as well as at other major Buddhist temples in 

western Japan. Eventually he based himself in Kamakura 

and won followers among the eastern warriors. 

Nichiren’s early writings are critical of PURE 

LAND BUDDHISM, especially the newly popular Pure 

Land doctrine of HO NEN (1133–1212), which he saw 

as undermining traditional Tendai emphasis on the 

Lotus and esoteric teachings. Over time, however, 

Nichiren developed a doctrine of exclusive devotion 

to the Lotus Su tra, which he regarded as the Buddha’s 

highest teaching and the sole vehicle for realizing buddhahood 

now in the final dharma age (mappo ). He 

advocated chanting the DAIMOKU or title of the Lotus 

Su tra in the formula “Namu Myo ho -renge-kyo ,” and 


N ICHIREN 

S CHOOL 

he devised a calligraphic MAN D ALA, depicting the assembly 

of the Lotus Su tra, as an object of worship 

(honzon) for his followers. While defining himself in 

opposition to the established Buddhism of his day, 

Nichiren also creatively assimilated into his Lotus exclusivism 

many older elements of both exoteric and 

esoteric Buddhist thought and practice. 

Based on MAHAYANA and especially Tendai teachings 

of the profound interrelationship between persons 

and their outer world, Nichiren saw contemporary disasters, 

including famine, epidemics, and Mongol invasion 

attempts, as karmic retribution for collective 

rejection of the Lotus in favor of “inferior” teachings; 

conversely, he asserted, the spread of faith in the Lotus 

Su tra would transform this world into a buddha 

land. This conviction underlay his commitment to 

shakubuku, an assertive approach to spreading the 

dharma by directly critiquing opposing views. 

Nichiren’s repeated criticisms of the Buddhist establishment 

and of its patrons in government incurred the 

wrath of the authorities; he himself was twice exiled 

and attempts were made on his life, while his followers 

were arrested, banished, and in a few cases executed. 

Undeterred, Nichiren urged defiance of worldly 

authority when it contravenes Buddhist truth, and he 

valorized encounters with harsh trials. Undergoing 

such persecution, he taught, serves to eradicate past 

evil deeds, proves the validity of one’s practice, and 

guarantees the realization of buddhahood. Nichiren’s 

ideal of establishing the buddha land in the present 

world has inspired modern followers, who have assimilated 

it to a range of political agendas as well as 

social and humanitarian projects. Today more than 

forty religious organizations claim association with 

him, including traditional schools and new religious 

movements. 


Japan; Kamakura Buddhism, Japan; Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Habito, Ruben L. F., and Stone, Jacqueline I., eds. Revisiting 

Nichiren. Special issue of Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 

26, nos. 3–4 (1999). 

Lamont, H. G. “Nichiren.” In Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, 

Vol. 5. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983. 

Stone, Jacqueline I. “Nichiren and the New Paradigm.” In Original 

Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval 

Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1999. 

Watanabe Hoyo. “Nichiren.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, 

Vol. 10, ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Macmillan, 1987. 

Yampolsky, Philip B., ed. Selected Writings of Nichiren, tr. Burton 

Watson and others. New York: Columbia University 

Press, 1990. 

Yampolsky, Philip B., ed. Letters of Nichiren, tr. Burton Watson 

and others. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. 

NICHIREN SCHOOL 


The term Nichiren school (Nichirenshu) broadly denotes 

the entire Buddhist tradition deriving from the 

medieval Japanese teacher NICHIREN (1222–1282). It 

comprises more than forty independent religious institutions, 

including traditional temple denominations, 

lay associations, and new religious movements. 

Originally a monk of the Tendai tradition, Nichiren 

did not regard himself as the founder of a new sect, 

nor did he designate his following by any particular 

sectarian name. Because he taught exclusive faith in the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), after 

his death, his following became known as the Lotus 

sect (Hokkeshu). The name Nichirenshu came into 

broad usage from around the late sixteenth century. 

Present organization and observances 

The largest of the Nichiren Buddhist temple denominations 

takes Nichirenshu as its legal name and has its 

head temple at Kuonji at Mount Minobu in Yamanashi 

Prefecture, where Nichiren spent his last years. Other 

Nichiren Buddhist denominations include, for example, 

Hokkeshu (Shinmon, Honmon, and Jinmon 

branches), Honmon Butsuryushu, Honmon Hokkeshu, 

Kenpon Hokkeshu, Nichiren Honshu, Nichiren 

Ko monshu, Nichiren Sho shu, and Nichirenshu Fuju 

Fuse-ha. Many of these temple organizations trace 

their history back to the original monastic lineages established 

by Nichiren’s immediate disciples, which underwent 

repeated schisms during the fourteenth 

through sixteenth centuries due to geographic separation, 

institutional rivalry, and differences of doctrinal 

interpretation. The nineteenth century saw the flourishing 

of Nichiren Buddhist lay associations (ko chu or 

ko ), sometimes independent of priestly guidance, 

which were the predecessors of today’s Nichiren- or 

Lotus Su tra-based lay organizations. Of these latter 

groups, the most prominent are Reiyukai, Rissho 

Koseikai, and SO KA GAKKAI, which number among 


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A Nichiren priest paying respect to Mount Fuji from atop neighboring Mount Minobu, Japan, 1991. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. 


Japan’s largest “new religions.” To an extent not seen 

in other Buddhist sects, the religious energy of modern 

Nichiren Buddhism has shifted to lay movements. 

Despite considerable differences of interpretation 

and ritual observance, all these various groups revere 

Nichiren and the Lotus Su tra and recite the title or 

DAIMOKU of the Lotus in the formula “Namu 

Myo ho -renge-kyo ,” as Nichiren taught. (The actual 

pronunciation of the daimoku may vary slightly according 

to the particular group.) This practice, deemed 

especially suited to the present era, known as the 

“Final Dharma age” (mappo ), is said to manifest individuals’ 

innate potential for buddhahood and lead to 

positive transformation of the world. Reciting portions 

of the Lotus Su tra and chanting the daimoku are performed 

at all formal ceremonies and constitute the basic 

practice of both clergy and laity. In addition to 

annual rites conducted by temples of all Buddhist sects, 

such as New Year’s observances and memorial services 

for the dead at the equinoxes and during the summer 

Obon festival, Nichiren Buddhist temples and lay societies 

perform ritual observances on dates sacred to 

their tradition, usually transposed from the lunar to 

the Western calendar. These include Nichiren’s birthday 

(celebrated February 16); the date of his first sermon, 

said to mark the founding of the Nichiren school 

(April 28); commemorations of various persecutions 

that Nichiren faced in propagating his teachings; and 

the day of his death or NIRVAN A (October 13). 

The founder Nichiren 

Nichiren is often counted as one of the founders of the 

“new Buddhism” of the Kamakura period (1185– 

1333). He was born in Kominato in Awa Province 

(Chiba prefecture) in humble circumstances. At age 

twelve he entered a nearby temple, Seicho ji or Kiyosumidera, 

for study and was ordained four years later, in 

1237. Driven by a desire to understand the truth of the 


N ICHIREN 

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Buddha’s teachings, he spent the next sixteen years 

studying at major monasteries, including the great 

Tendai Buddhist center at Mount Hiei near Kyoto, the 

imperial capital. Later he based himself in Kamakura, 

seat of the newly established shogunate or military government, 

where he proselytized among warriors of 

middle and lower rank. Nichiren’s early teachings draw 

heavily on Tiantai/Tendai thought grounded in the 

Lotus Su tra and its commentaries, as well as on esoteric 

Buddhism. His early teachings also championed 

traditional Buddhist institutions over and against the 

growing influence of the new Pure Land sect founded 

by HO NEN (1133–1212). Over time, however, Nichiren 

increasingly stressed that only the Lotus Su tra leads to 

liberation during this Final Dharma age, and he began 

to dissociate himself from the Tendai Buddhist 

establishment, which he saw as having adulterated devotion 

to the Lotus with the practice of provisional 

teachings no longer suited to the times. Based on 

Tendai doctrines of the nonduality of persons and 

their environment, Nichiren interpreted the disasters 

of his day—including famine, epidemics, and Mongol 

invasion attempts—as karmic retribution for people 

having abandoned the Lotus Su tra in favor of lesser 

teachings; conversely, he held, the spread of faith in 

the Lotus would transform this world into the Buddha 

land. This theme informs his famous admonitory 

treatise, Rissho ankoku ron (On Establishing the Right 

[Dharma] and Bringing Peace to the Land), delivered 

to the shogunate in 1260, as well as his later writings. 

Convinced of the pressing need to communicate his 

message, Nichiren adopted shakubuku, a confrontational 

method of teaching the dharma by directly rebuking 

attachment to provisional teachings, whether 

through writing, preaching, or religious debate. 

Nichiren’s mounting criticism of other forms of Buddhism, 

and of government officials for supporting 

them, soon incurred the anger of the authorities. He 

was exiled twice, to the Izu peninsula (1261–1263) and 

to Sado island (1271–1274), and was once nearly beheaded 

during the so-called Ryuko or Tatsunokuchi 

persecution of the twelfth day, ninth month, 1271. Several 

of his followers were imprisoned or had their lands 

confiscated. Nichiren considered these trials a proof of 

the righteousness of his convictions and asserted the 

need to uphold the Lotus Su tra in the face of opposition, 

even at the cost of one’s life. His mature teachings 

were developed during his exile to Sado and his 

subsequent reclusion on Mount Minobu (1274–1282), 

where he devoted his last years to writing and to training 

successors. More than a hundred of his writings, 

including personal letters and doctrinal essays, survive 

in his own hand. 

Nichiren’s teachings 

Nichiren adopted the TIANTAI SCHOOL doctrine of 

reality as “three thousand realms in a single-thought 

moment” (ichinen sanzen) to explain the theoretical basis 

upon which ordinary people can realize buddhahood, 

and their surroundings become the buddha land. 

In terms of practice for the Final Dharma age, however, 

Nichiren understood “the single thought-moment being 

three thousand realms,” not as a formless principle 

to be discerned within one’s own mind, as in Tiantai 

meditation, but as manifested in concrete form as the 

“three great secret dharmas” (sandai hiho ). Derived 

from the “origin teaching” (honmon) or latter half of 

the Lotus Su tra, regarded as the preaching of the original 

or primordially enlightened Buddha, these three 

constitute the core of Nichiren’s teaching. They are: 

(1) The daimoku. For Nichiren, the five characters 

Myo -ho -ren-ge-kyo (in Japanese pronunciation) that 

comprise the Lotus Su tra’s title are not merely a name 

but embody the essence of all Buddhist teachings and 

are the seed of buddhahood for all beings. All the practices 

and resulting virtues of the primordial Buddha 

are encompassed in these five characters and are “naturally 

transferred” to the practitioner in the moment 

of FAITH and practice. That is, the practitioner and the 

original Buddha are identified in the act of chanting 

the daimoku. 

(2) The honzon, or object of worship. Nichiren’s 

honzon has the two inseparable aspects of the “Buddha,” 

the primordial Śakyamuni of the origin teaching, 

enlightened since the beginningless past, and the 

“dharma,” the truth of “Myo ho -renge-kyo ,” to which 

this Buddha is awakened. Nichiren gave this object of 

worship iconic form as a calligraphic MAN D ALA of his 

own devising. “Namu Myo ho -renge-kyo ” is inscribed 

down its center, while to the left and right are written 

the characters for the names of the two buddhas, 

Śakyamuni and Prabhutaratna, along with the names 

of other representatives of those present at the assembly 

of the Lotus Su tra. This man dala depicts the realm 

of the primordial Buddha, which, Nichiren taught, ordinary 

persons can enter through faith. More than 120 

of these man dalas, inscribed for individual followers 

and their families, survive in Nichiren’s handwriting. 

Various configurations of sculpted images representing 

the original Buddha and his Lotus assembly were 

also used by later Nichiren followers. 


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N ICHIREN 

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(3) The kaidan, or ordination platform. This designates 

the place of practice. Nichiren’s own writings 

do not explain it in detail, and considerable controversy 

has surrounded its interpretation. Nichiren 

himself may well have envisioned the kaidan as an actual 

physical structure, supplanting the other, courtsponsored 

ordination platforms of his day, to be 

erected by imperial authority at some future time 

when people had widely embraced faith in the Lotus 

Su tra. At the same time, the kaidan has often been 

interpreted metaphorically, to mean that wherever 

one embraces faith in the Lotus Su tra is the buddha 

land. 

Although he taught devotion to the Lotus as a selfcontained, 

exclusive practice, Nichiren understood 

that practice as encompassing all possible benefits: realization 

of buddhahood, assurance for one’s next life, 

eradication of sin, cultivation of merit, and protection 

and blessings in this world. 

Contributions to Japanese culture 

A key element of Nichiren’s legacy is his doctrine of 

rissho ankoku (establishing the right [dharma] and 

bringing peace to the land), which holds that faith in 

the Lotus Su tra can manifest the buddha land in this 

present world. This ideal supports the value of positive 

engagement with society and may have contributed 

to the growth of mercantile culture in Japan’s 

medieval cities. In the mid-fifteenth century, half the 

population of Kyoto—the majority of them manufacturers, 

tradespeople, and moneylenders—is said to 

have belonged to the Nichiren school. Since the late 

nineteenth century, Nichiren’s goal of transforming 

this world into a buddha land has been assimilated to 

a range of political and social goals. During Japan’s 

modern imperial period (1868–1945), some Nichirenist 

lay societies, such as the Kokuchukai (Pillar of 

the Nation Society), established in 1914 by Tanaka 

Chigaku (1861–1939), interpreted Nichiren’s rissho 

ankoku ideal in terms of Japanese nationalism and deployed 

it to legitimize the armed expansion of empire. 

In the post–World War II period, especially 

among the new religious movements, it has been 

interpreted as a spiritual basis for the antinuclear 

movement, efforts for global peace, and a range of humanitarian 

endeavors. Nipponzan Myohoji, a small 

Nichiren Buddhist monastic order, embraces absolute 

pacificism and engages in peace marches and civil 

protest, while Nichiren- or Lotus-based lay organizations, 

notably So ka Gakkai and Rissho Ko seikai, support 

the United Nations as NGO (nongovernmental 

organization) members and engage in relief work and 

civic projects. This side of Nichiren Buddhism lends 

itself to contemporary emphasis on Buddhist social 

engagement. 

Another, less well-recognized contribution of the 

Nichiren school lies in its history of committed individuals, 

beginning with Nichiren himself, who risked 

official displeasure for the dharma’s sake. Once well 

established, most Nichiren Buddhist institutions, both 

past and present—like religious institutions more 

generally—have tended to take a conciliatory stance 

toward existing authority and support the status quo. 

Nonetheless, Nichiren’s teaching that one must uphold 

the Lotus Su tra even in the face of persecution from 

the country’s ruler created a moral space exterior to 

worldly authority, from which that authority could be 

criticized and, if necessary, opposed. This attitude of 

defiance has periodically resurfaced, often on the part 

of those who saw themselves as reformers within the 

Nichiren school, seeking to revive the founder’s spirit. 

Medieval hagiographies celebrate the stories of those 

monks of the tradition who, in imitation of Nichiren, 

admonished high officials to take faith in the Lotus 

Su tra for the country’s welfare and were imprisoned 

or tortured as a result. A later example is the Nichiren 

fuju fuse (neither receiving nor giving) movement of 

the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whose 

monks—until driven underground—resisted official 

controls imposed on religious institutions, refusing 

to accept alms from rulers who were not Lotus devotees 

or to participate in public religious ceremonies 

for their benefit. Similarly, during the 1940s, leaders 

of both Honmon Hokkeshu and Soka Gakkai were 

imprisoned for their defiance of wartime government 

religious policy, which mandated displays of reverence 

for state Shinto. Nichiren’s intransigent spirit 

and his example of unwavering loyalty to a transcendent 

truth have also inspired individuals, linked only 

tenuously to the Nichiren tradition or even outside it 

altogether, who have faced official sanctions for their 

beliefs. These include the Christian leader Uchimura 

Kanzo (1861–1930) and the socialist activist Senoo 

Giro (1890–1961). 

See also: Engaged Buddhism; Kamakura Buddhism, 

Japan; Original Enlightenment (Hongaku) 

Bibliography 

Dolce, Lucia Dora. “Esoteric Patterns in Nichiren’s Interpretation 

of the Lotus Sutra.” Ph.D. diss. University of Leiden, 

2002. 


N INE M OUNTAINS S CHOOL OF S ŎN 

Habito, Ruben L. F. “Lotus Buddhism and Its Liberational 

Thrust: A Rereading of the Lotus Sutra by Way of Nichiren.” 

Ching feng 35, no. 2 (1992): 85–112. 

Habito, Ruben L. F., and Stone, Jacqueline I., eds. Revisiting 

Nichiren. Special issue of Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 

26, nos. 3–4 (1999). 

Lamont, H. G. “Nichiren Sect.” In Kodansha Encyclopedia of 

Japan, Vol. 5. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983. 

Murano, Senchu. “Nichirenshu.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, 


Petzold, Bruno. Buddhist Prophet Nichiren: A Lotus in the Sun, 

ed. Shotaro Iida and Wendy Simmons. Tokyo: Hokke 

Janaru, 1978. 

Rodd, Laurel Rasplica. Nichiren: Selected Writings. Honolulu: 


Stone, Jacqueline I. “Rebuking the Enemies of the Lotus: 

Nichirenist Exclusivism in Historical Perspective.” Japanese 

Journal of Religious Studies 21, nos. 2–3 (1994): 231–259. 




Tanabe, George J., and Hori, Kyotsu, eds. Writings of Nichiren 

Sho nin: Doctrine 2. Tokyo: Nichirenshu Overseas Promotion 

Association, 2002. 

Watanabe Hoyo. “Nichiren.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, 


Yampolsky, Philip B., ed. Selected Writings of Nichiren, tr. Burton 

Watson and others. New York: Columbia University 

Press, 1990. 

Yampolsky, Philip B., ed. Letters of Nichiren, tr. Burton Watson 

and others. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. 

NIKA YA. See A gama/Nikaya 


NINE MOUNTAINS SCHOOL OF SŎN 

The Nine Mountains school of Sŏn (Korean, Kusan 

Sŏnmun) is a comprehensive term referring to the nine 

monastic centers of the Korean Sŏn school (Chinese, 

CHAN SCHOOL), which were established from the 

eighth through the ninth centuries. Each of the nine 

schools takes its name from the mountain on which 

its central monastery is located: Kajisan, founded by 

Toŭi (d. 825); Silsangsan, founded by Hongch’ŏk (fl. 

826); Tongnisan, founded by Hyech’ŏl (785–861); Sagulsan, 

founded by Pŏmil (810–889); Pongnimsan, 

founded by Hyŏnuk (787–869); Sajasan, founded by 

Toyun (797–868); Hŭiyangsan, founded by Chisŏn 

Tohŏn (824–882); Sŏngjusan, founded by Muyŏm 

(799–888); and Sumisan, founded by Iŏm (869–936). 

According to tradition, Chan Buddhism was first introduced 

into Korea by the Silla monk Pŏmnang (fl. 

632–646), who putatively studied in China under the 

Fourth Patriarch Daoxin (580–651), then returned to 

Silla and transmitted the teachings to Sinhaeng (d. 

779), who also went to China, where he studied under 

Chigong (Chinese, Zhigong; 703–779), a Korean disciple 

of Puji (651–739), the second patriarch of the 

Northern Chan school. Sinhaeng thus imbibed both 

the “gradual teachings” of the Northern school and the 

“sudden teachings” of the so-called Southern school, 

passing them on to his disciples Chunbŏm (d.u.), 

Hyeŭn (d.u.), and finally Chisŏn Tohŏn (824–882), 

who founded the Hŭiyangsan school in 879. 

Though sectarian rivalries certainly existed, the underlying 

kinship of the nine schools was recognized, 

and they were referred to collectively as the Chogye 

(Tsao-hsi) school, an allusion to Caoxi mountain, the 

residence of the sixth patriarch HUINENG (638–713). 

In point of fact, the Nine Mountains school was more 

doctrinally diverse than the name would indicate. This 

is because of the traditional emphasis placed on lineage 

in Korean Buddhism: For a new school to be included 

among the mountain schools, the founder had 

to have studied in China first; if he belonged to a 

mountain school before leaving for China, he was still 

considered a member of that school on his return, regardless 

of the new doctrine he brought back. A number 

of Nine Mountains adherents brought back new 

doctrines that were taught and practiced in Korea but 

were not given separate identities as schools. 

One feature of Korean Sŏn is the dominance of the 

“sudden teachings” of the so-called Southern Chan 

school. Seven of the nine schools were founded by 

monks who studied under first generation successors 

of Mazu DAOYI (709–788), the founder of the Hongzhou 

school of Chan. Thus it was only natural that the 

“sudden teachings” became the dominant doctrinal 

feature of traditional Korean Sŏn. This orientation 

continues in contemporary Korean Buddhism. 

See also: Chogye School; Korea 

Bibliography 


and Korea: The Vajrasamadhi-Su tra, A Buddhist Apocryphon. 



599

N IRODHA 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul’s Korean 

Way of Zen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991. 

Cho, Sungtaek. “Buddhist Philosophy, Korean.” In Encyclopedia 

of Philosophy, Vol. 2. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. 

NIRODHA. See Four Noble Truths 

NIRVA N A 

SUNGTAEK CHO 

The most common term used by Buddhists to describe 

a state of freedom from suffering and rebirth, nirvana, 

is one of the most widely known Buddhist words outside 

Asia. It is found in dictionaries as an English word, 

nirvana, and has acquired a patina that makes many 

assume its meaning is obvious. Yet, it is a word about 

which Buddhists themselves have never reached 

agreement. 

The term nirva n a 

The quest for the real or original “idea of nirvana” often 

masks our preconceptions about what is reasonable 

or desirable in religious doctrine and practice, or, 

for that matter, what we expect from Buddhism (Welbon). 

It may be that when we ask: “What is nirvana?” 

we seek to answer the wrong question. Instead we need 

to ask: How have Buddhists used the term? With what 

polemical or apologetic purposes? What human aspirations 

might these uses reveal? 

The word’s etymology already reveals the concept’s 

ambiguity and polysemy. The Sanskrit term nirvana is 

an action noun signifying the act and effect of blowing 

(at something) to put it out, to blow out, or to extinguish, 

but the noun also signifies the process and 

outcome of burning out, becoming extinguished, cooling 

down, and hence, allaying, calming down, and also 

taming, making docile. Technically, in the religious 

traditions of India, the term denotes the process of accomplishing 

and experiencing freedom from the unquenchable 

thirst of DESIRE and the pains of repeated 

births, lives, and deaths. 

The word contains a problematic metaphor, an image 

of denial that only suggests what nirvana is not 

(fire, heat, ardent craving, and repeated pain), but offers 

only limited clues as to what might be the term’s 

referents or discursive contexts. Furthermore, the semantic 

overlap between “extinguishing” and “cooling 

down” does not solve the question of what are the exact 

means and the end result of putting out this fire. 

These uncertainties encapsulate much of the doctrinal 

debates over nirvana. 

The religious uses of the term nirvana perhaps precede 

the beginnings of Buddhism, and may have been 

imported into Buddhism with much of its semantic 

range from other śramanic movements. It has had wide 

currency in Indian religions as a more or less central 

concept among the Jains, the A jvikas, the Buddhists, 

and certain Hindu strands. In different religious traditions 

its meanings range from composure in calm 

detachment (or in samadhi) to liberation from suffering, 

and from “escape from this world to a world of 

bliss” to the utter “rest” of dying out (e.g., as in Jain 

ritual suicide). Nirvana can also be associated in the 

same breath with an impersonal absolute and a personal 

deity (as it is in the Bhagavadglta). 

Early definitions 

For the most part, definitions found in Buddhist scriptural 

literature emphasize the cooling down of craving, 

aversion, and unawareness (Suttanipata 4, 

251–252). In a typical scriptural passage a nun puts out 

an oil lamp and characterizes the act as a nibbana (the 

Pali equivalent of Sanskrit nirvana): “As I pull down 

the wick-pin and put out the flame of the lamp, ah, indeed, 

it is like my mind made free!” (Therlgatha 116). 

The canonical explanatory metaphor speaks of a flame 

that is blown out, or of a fire that burns out when it 

runs out of fuel or is denied its fuel. However, in this 

context extinction means relief, calm, rest, and not the 

annihilation of being. In an Indian setting, fire is 

mostly hot and uncomfortable, or it is associated with 

a raging destructive forest conflagration during the dry 

months before the monsoon; it is not a symbol of life, 

but a symbol of painful desire. 

A passage depicting an encounter between the 

Buddha and the wandering ascetic Vacchagotta explains 

that a buddha (here called a tathagata) is liberated 

when “all cogitation, all worry and rumination, 

all me-making and mine-making as well as the penchant 

to conceit are extinguished, no longer desired, 

stopped, abandoned, no longer grasped” (Majjhimanikaya 

1, 486). When someone is liberated in this 

way one cannot say that he will reappear or that he 

will not reappear after DEATH. It is like a fire that dies 

out; it does not go anywhere (Majjhimanikaya 1, 

486–487). In the same way the Buddha is free “from 

those bodily forms and sensory images which a per- 


N IRVA N A 

son seeking to characterize him would use to recognize 

[him as a] Tathagata. They are cut off at the root, 

. . . so that they will not rise again in the future. The 

Tathagata is free from any representations of bodily 

forms and sensory images, he is profound, immeasurable, 

unfathomable like the ocean” (Majjhimanikaya 

1, 487–488). Needless to say, the same is declared 

about the other four constituents of the human person: 

sensations, thoughts, habits, and consciousness 

—that is, all five SKANDHA (AGGREGATES) have been 

uprooted by the TATHA GATA. 

As is often the case, here the question is what a buddha 

is after death. The connection of nirvana to death 

is central to understanding the term, and one of the 

most common contexts for its usage. The Buddha’s 

death is one of the defining moments of his life and 

person—one of the earliest events in the biography to 

be recorded, and the signal moment in the liberation 

from REBIRTH (and redeath). Especially with reference 

to the Buddha or persons regarded as having led an 

unusually holy life, nirvana is synonymous with death, 

needless to say, a death that is peaceful and liberating. 

When a saint dies he “puts out the fire” (parinirvati or 

parinirvayati). 

In other contexts, terms expressing profound, stable 

calm or mental concentration may be synonymous 

with nirvana. In both cases the word suggests an ideal 

and desirable state of detachment and the paradoxically 

powerful presence of that which is absent: the 

dead saint or a serene demeanor. Thus, nirvana is suggested 

by both a tranquil demeanor and the presence 

or miraculous appearance of relics, or by a reliquary 

mound (STU PA). Such monuments, like images of the 

reclining Buddha that serve as models for the way a 

monk must lie—ready for death and liberation— 

remind us of how real the absence that is nirvana can 

be and how close it is to relaxed sleep. 

Within this broader context, one must locate a 

range of meanings in the metaphor of “blowing out,” 

which suggests a number of different kinds of extinction, 

cooling down, or freedom from the turmoil and 

raging fires of human existence. It is freedom from rebirth 

by virtue of the extinction of everything that defines 

the person as subject to birth, death, and suffering 

(that is, the skandhas). Yet, this extinction can be understood 

as cessation or relinquishment, or both. Additionally, 

the encounter with Vacchagotta suggests 

that it is a freedom from a way of thinking, a type of 

self-definition and self-consciousness (and freedom 

from the attitudes generated by this way of thinking). 

Hence, “extinction” could also be freedom from the 

turbulence of the mind, from the fire generated by 

churning ideas of self and possession. This conception 

of nirvana as extinguishing a form of knowing one’s 

self (the fuel) overlaps with the notion of freedom from 

desire and aversion (the heat of the fire). Finally, nirvana, 

like the extinguished fire, cannot be imagined: 

Such is the ineffable state of a liberated buddha, and 

the mysterious condition of being absent in death yet 

present as the tathagata. The tradition will waver between 

all these meanings, sometimes integrating them, 

at other times preferring one over the other. 

Some of the most important components of the 

metaphor appear in what is arguably one of the earliest 

strata of textual Buddhism, the Atthakavagga of the 

Suttanipata. Here, the preferred Pali term is nibbuti, a 

synonym for nibbana that is usually rendered in Sanskrit 

as nirvrti (extinction, perfect rest, and contentment). 

This word may be a distortion of nivrti (to put 

a lid on, to arrest), but is most likely a transformation 

of nivrtti (stop turning around, bring to rest), a form 

attested in the scholastic literature. A poem in the 

Atthakavagga (Suttanipata 915 ff.) links nibbuti to the 

state of peace (santipadam) attained by the person who 

cools down (nibbati—perhaps “blows out his own 

fire”). The poem also describes the goal as a state of 

detached solitude (viveka) in which one gains a special 

insight (Suttanipata 915), and one no longer dwells in 

or holds on to (anupadiyano) anything in the world. 

Specifically addressed at monks, the poem advises 

that they mindfully dedicate themselves to the practice 

of putting away or taming (vinaya) the thirst within, 

uprooting the conceptions and mental fabrications 

(papañcasaṁkha) that depend on one’s ideas about 

oneself (Suttanipata 916). The text describes the practice 

that leads to peace as remaining mindful and discerning 

the dharma. Significantly dharma in this poem 

is not some conception of truth or reality; it is rather 

a practice: observing with detachment common ideas 

about one’s self (being better or inferior to others, being 

equal to others) and being mindful of the life of 

the world-renouncer. 

The connection with MINDFULNESS (smrti/sati) reminds 

us not only of the close connection of nirvana 

to ideas of mental cultivation, but also signals the fact 

that nirvana is also a term for the calm demeanor of 

the awakened or of those on the way to awakening. 

The young Gautama is said to be nirvrta (nibbuto) in 

contexts describing his appearance or demeanor, and 

not his attainment of liberation. In such contexts, the 


601

N IRVA N A 

word means not only that he is “calm,” but also that 

he appears to be “serenely content.” This usage suggests 

the common Buddhist metaphor of the wild elephant 

or the elephant in rut that, once tamed, becomes 

calm and acquires the grace that derives from training. 

Tradition offers more than a definition by negation 

(i.e., what nirvana is not). Extinction is not only a state 

of absence of sorrow and absence of desire; it is bliss. 

But it is also an active process: a coming to rest, a stopping 

(nirodha), and a cooling down. Definitions by 

negation can be understood as apophatic moves, attempts 

to speak of the unknowable, the ineffable. One 

cannot speak of the Tathagata after he has left behind 

the conditions of rebirth, one can only say that he is 

not born and that he does not die, and so on. Finally, 

some descriptions come closer to telling us what nirvana 

is: It is the unchanging (Udana 80–81); it is the 

unconditioned, the true, the auspicious, the secure, the 

refuge, the pure state of health (Suttanipata 4, 369– 

373). This range of perceptions corresponds to the ambiguity 

of the original metaphor, and, needless to say, 

becomes fertile ground for much speculation. One is 

always at liberty to try to imagine in what sense any 

given human being or human activity is closer to or 

further away from nirvana. 

Theories of nirvan a 

In a constant struggle to understand the unfathomable 

state of the liberated Buddha, the tradition develops a 

number of theories. According to a classical view, 

“thirst” (trsna, the insatiable craving for existence and 

sensual satisfaction), is completely eliminated with 

BODHI (AWAKENING), and thus the root cause for future 

rebirth is destroyed. When this happens, the person 

experiences “nirvana with residual attachment 

factors” (sopadhiśesanirvana); that is, freedom from 

desire has been attained and freedom from rebirth is 

assured, but the person must still remain in the world 

of suffering until the moment of death, when he will 

be free from any possibility of further rebirth. In other 

words, awakening causes the extinction of thirst and 

thus removes the causes for future rebirth, but does 

not remove the preexistent causes that continue to propel 

the individual in his or her present existence until 

the moment of death. Some caveats apply to the idea 

that final nirvana is assured after awakening because 

one may bring a potent cause, a karmic condition that 

has not matured yet and will cause further rebirth until 

this cause bears its fruit. Hence, a person may 

achieve awakening and still be reborn once more in 

this world or in one of the HEAVENS. 

However, when death occurs for a person who has 

achieved this first level of nirvana, the nirvana with 

residual factors, it is almost a foregone conclusion that 

there will be no more rebirth—at the moment of death 

this person will attain “nirvana with no residue of attachment 

factors” (nirupadhiśesanirvana). In Western 

literature, this final state is sometimes called parinirvana, 

but this special usage of the term may be relatively 

recent (Thomas). 

Full awakening implies, by necessity, the first level 

of nirvana, yet nirvana and awakening (bodhi) are not 

exact synonyms. Although the tradition itself at times 

blurs the distinction, one may separate the two as follows. 

Nirvana is the affective, soteriological, and eschatological 

dimension of buddhahood: It is release 

from passion, desire, agitation, anger, birth and death, 

and any future rebirth. Bodhi, on the other hand, is 

the cognitive dimension of the experience: It is insight, 

perfect understanding, freedom from the veils of desire, 

aversion, and confusion, and, in some interpretations, 

omniscience. Despite their importance, 

throughout most of the history of Buddhism the concepts 

of awakening and nirvana have been neither the 

sole nor the orienting goals of Buddhist doctrine and 

practice. At times they appear as defining principles, 

in tandem or competing with each other, but often 

they occur as placeholders and signs of orthodoxy or 

as a background to complex webs of doctrines and 

practices. 

Turning provisionally to related scholastic formulations, 

one of the central concerns appears to have 

been the connection between the absolute or uncaused 

goal of nirvana and the practices that constitute the 

PATH (necessarily a chain of causes and effects). Expressed 

abstractly, if nirvana is not caused, then how 

can it be attained? If it is the absence of birth and death, 

is it the absence of life? If it is not a form of existence, 

then, how can it be bliss? The MILINDAPAN HA attempts 

to address some of the problems, arguing that there is 

no cause for the arising of nirvana (it is ahetuja like 

empty space), but its attainment is the fruit of following 

the path (Milinda 267–271). Similarly, the Abhidharmakośa 

(II.55) goes to great lengths to argue that 

nirvana has no cause and no effect: It is the saint’s attainment 

of nirvana that is caused by the practice of 

the path. 

The Abhidharmakośa (IV.8 and II.55) argues that 

liberation in nirvana is the supreme good (śubhah 

paramatah) and yet is not an entity (abhavamatra— 

“not a thing in any way”). It is a conscious or inten- 


N IRVA N A 

tional cessation, and yet it is somehow the goal of all 

the virtues and goodness of a buddha. Moreover, the 

Abhidharmakośa (II.55) seems to distinguish the cessation 

(nirodha) of dharmas that is the result of an intentional 

process (nirvana proper) from other forms 

of cessation or nonexistence (such as that of a burned 

out fire). 

The tendency to conceive of nirvana as a nonstate 

or a state that is not within the sphere of that which 

exists is also suggested by the classical Indian notion 

that a yogin in meditation can achieve a cessation of 

life (a subtle state of death, as it were) called nirodhasamapatti 

(Griffiths). Although such mental states 

are not the same as the final liberation of nirvana, they 

are considered “analogous” to nirvana (Abhidharmakośa 

II.44). This tallies well with common Indian ideas 

about the nature of samadhi as an alternative reality 

or a state that is outside the normal parameters of being 

and life. A parallel association can be seen in the 

contemporary custom of calling the tombs of Hindu 

saints their “samadhi.” 

Despite the apparent synonymy of nirvana with the 

calm of meditation, the Buddhist tradition generally 

seeks a liberation that is for all time (or timeless) and 

not only a temporary state of serenity in samadhi. 

Thus, an early distinction separates liberation of mind 

(cetovimukti—perhaps liberation [only] in the mind) 

from liberation through insight (prajñavimukti). Technically, 

the first is experienced by an ARHAT during the 

phase of traversing the path, and the second is attained 

at the moment of attaining the fruits of arhatship. This 

implies a distinction between an inner peace achieved 

during transitory states of mental recollection, and nirvana 

proper, which is only possible after complete liberation 

through insight. 

Further developments and polemical issues 

However, the neatness of scholastic speculation may 

hide the disarray of competing views of nirvana. Although 

an exact chronology is not possible, a later 

summary of conflicting concepts of nirvana is found 

in a list of “mistaken ideas” in the LAṄKAVATARA- 

SU TRA, which criticizes those who conceive of nirvana 

as: 

A state in which thought and mental states are no longer 

active because the skandhas, dhatus and ayatanas have 

ceased . . . or when one is no longer aware of past, present, 

or future, just as when a lamp is extinguished, . . . 

or when a fire runs out of fuel; others say liberation is going 

to another place or state when one stops discriminating 

sense objects, as when a wind stops blowing; others . . . 

say it is the destruction of the view that there is a knower 

and a known . . . ; others imagine nirvana to be the destruction 

of the self, the living thing, the person . . . ; others, 

the extinction of merit and demerit, the destruction of 

the afflictions by means of knowledge . . . ; others, seeing 

the true nature of things as they are in their self-nature, 

such as the many colors on the peacock, variously formed 

precious stones. (pp. 182–187, § LXXIV) 

A variety of interpretations of nirvana can be attested 

historically as well, especially in MAHAYANA. But, arguably, 

major differences appeared at an early stage in 

the development of nikaya Buddhism (the so-called 

HINAYANA schools). Buddhists advocating teachings 

like those of the Lokottaravada, for instance, assumed 

that a buddha’s nirvana not only continues to exist beyond 

or after temporary states of samadhi but that it 

exists before time and existence, in an atemporal state, 

attained as it were since beginningless time. 

Echoes of this view appear, for instance, in the socalled 

TATHAGATAGARBHA doctrine, whose proponents 

argued that the Buddha’s perfect nirvana was 

already present in every sentient being. Buddhas exist 

in a permanent state of bliss, a nirvana free from the 

self only in the sense that it lacks the negative qualities 

of selfhood. This state is the opposite of the 

impermanent, the impure, and the painful, and embodies 

the innate purity of a buddha-seed or buddhanature 

present in most (if not all) SENTIENT BEINGS 

(an important polemic being fought over the presence 

or absence of this capacity in a particular group of 

people, the ICCHANTIKA). 

Nirvana also becomes the focus of polemical attempts 

to define Mahayana by contrast to a purported 

Hnayana. Mahayana apologetes distinguished the nirvana 

of BODHISATTVAS from that of śravakas. The views 

of the latter are present in a polemical caricature to 

serve as the straw man for the promotion of Mahayana 

ideals: Śravakas are portrayed as aspiring to an imperfect 

and selfish state of peace. While they seek release 

from suffering only for themselves, the bodhisattva 

seeks awakening for the sake of all sentient beings. 

This turn is arguably the beginning of a major shift 

in the position of nirvana within the Buddhist conceptual 

edifice. One sees this shift in Śantideva’s resolution: 

“Nirvana means to renounce all things, and my 

mind is set on attaining nirvana; if I must renounce 

everything, it would be better to give it all to other sentient 

beings” (Bodhicaryavatara III.11). 

At times this polemical stance is expressed by suggesting 

that bodhisattvas value awakening and compassionate 

engagement far more than their own 


603

N IRVA N A 

liberation in nirvana. But, another formulation, perhaps 

stemming from a different polemic, states that 

in some sense SAM SARA and nirvana are the same. This 

is usually traced back to aphorisitic statements of 

NAGARJUNA (ca. second century C.E.), but it may be 

treated as another one of those background concepts 

that appear in many other formulations of Mahayana 

doctrine. The identity encapsulates both an ontology 

and a SOTERIOLOGY. As an ontology, it may be taken 

to imply that liberation from suffering takes place in 

the world (hence freedom from attachment to nirvana), 

but in a world transformed by an awakened 

vision (hence detachment from sam sara). The stage 

of such vision and freedom is liberation (hence, a 

“higher” nirvana). 

Yogacara scholastics proposed that the bodhisattva’s 

nirvana is a “nirvana that has no foothold” 

(apratisthitanirvana) in either nirvana (perfect peace, 

rest) or sam sara (the turmoil of transmigration). This 

doctrine may be historically a spin-off of early ideas of 

the bodhisattvas’ activity in sam sara or ontological reflections 

on the bodhisattva vow, but doctrinally it can 

be conceived as a development of the principle of the 

identity of sam sara and nirvana, and also it seems to 

be linked to the idea of nirvana as an act of generosity 

proposed by ŚANTIDEVA (ca. 685–763). 

The idea of nirvana with no foothold is also extended 

to buddhas, whose compassion could not conceivably 

allow them to “depart into nirvana” while 

other sentient beings continue to suffer. As expressed 

succinctly by CANDRAKIRTI (ca. 600–650) in one of the 

concluding verses to his Madhyamakavatara (XI.51): 

“With a mind to liberate those in pain, you have made 

the world the object of your compassion. Blessed, 

Compassionate One, out of love, you turn away from 

your own nirvana forsaking its peace.” The passage 

could be interpreted as an exhortation to forsake certain 

notions of nirvana: doctrinal and practical conceptions 

of peace and relief from suffering that entail 

world-denial. 

Another common, perhaps background, Mahayana 

conception, which may in fact have ancient roots in 

nikaya Buddhism, is the doctrine of “innate or natural” 

nirvana (prakrtinirvana), according to which all 

things are already, and have been since beginningless 

time, in perfect peace. The world as it is and has always 

been is not polluted or polluting, does not cause 

our attachments and fettered relationships, does not 

cause suffering. This is taken to be synonymous with 

saying “all things are empty.” This doctrine may be 

implicit in early canonical teachings about the natural 

luminescence (prakrtiprabhasvarata) of the tranquil 

mind. 

However, many of the above ideas also overlap with 

so-called mind-only theories of liberation (sometimes 

subsumed under the rubric Yogacara), with their historical 

interconnections remaining obscure. The 

mind-only approach to liberation and reality is epitomized 

in a statement of the Laṅkavatara-su tra: 

The all-knowing [buddhas] describe nirvana as a turning 

back or stopping (vyavrtti) of the functions of consciousness, 

occurring when one understands that there is 

nothing but what appears as thought itself, when one no 

longer clings to external objects, existent or nonexistent, 

. . . when one sees the condition of things as they are . . . 

with the mind dwelling in neither subject nor object. (pp. 

184–185, § LXXIV) 

The conundrum implicit in the metaphors of extinction 

has not been avoided, for the same text describes 

the Buddha’s liberation with another metaphor of the 

same family: 

[All functions of consciousness] are active (pra-vrt-) or 

cease (ni-vrt-) impelled by the wind of sense objects, 

which are appearances in thought itself, like waves on the 

ocean. Therefore, when the mind consciousness (manovijñana) 

has been turned back or stopped, all seven forms 

of consciousness are stopped. . . . When a flooded stream 

subsides and dries out, no waves arise; in the same manner 

when the multifarious manifestations of consciousness 

cease [consciousness] is no longer active. (p. 127 and 

stanza 181, § LIII) 

Mahayana doctrine in India contributed to the intellectual 

underpinnings of tantric theories of the 

process and goals of liberation. One can express the 

connection syllogistically, if not historically, by stating 

that, if all things are inherently or naturally already in 

nirvana, then the body and the passions perhaps are 

in some way expressions of liberation, embodiments 

of peace. Doctrinally, tantric views of nirvana fit within 

the range of Mahayana doctrines described above. 

Sometimes it is proposed that the bodhisattva, like a 

skillful magician, knows that the world is a magical apparition 

and hence is not tainted by the world, and, 

furthermore, can interact with the world in some way 

like a magician or wonder-worker. At other times, it is 

emptiness and compassion that define the bodhisattva’s 

and the yogin’s liberation, with compassion 

and a skillful use of liberating strategies (UPAYA) eclipsing 

the renunciation and liberation as world denial. At 


N IRVA N A 

S U TRA 

other times, the body as such is the location for nirvana, 

so that a homology between the body, speech, 

and mind of the practitioner and that of the buddha 

becomes the basis for ritual and meditation, and 

emptiness replaces concepts of the serene ineffable. 

Whether the acceptance of the world and the passions 

is seen as a skillful use of liberating strategies 

(upaya) or as a redefinition of nirvana (as the peace of 

accepting the passions without clinging to them), a redefinition 

of traditional Buddhist ascetic views of the 

body took place, and some of the older ideas of nirvana 

had to shift position within the puzzle of Buddhist 

doctrine. Such shifts in emphasis and perspective 

find expression today among a few pockets of Buddhists 

in Nepal, in Tibetan communities (in Tibet and 

in exile), and among East Asian Buddhists. 

Summary interpretation 

One may argue, by way of conclusion, that nirvana is 

one of those shifting foundations that believers see as 

solid rock, but history reveals as shifting sands. And 

yet, one must wonder how else it could have been with 

a concept that attempts to make intelligible so many 

questions about human presence and awareness, passion 

and serenity, and passion and death. Abstractly, 

one may say that the idea of nirvana has had three distinguishable, 

though overlapping, functions in the development 

of Buddhist belief and practice. First, 

nirvana appears to be the defining fulcrum for understanding 

the path as a way to peace through calm abiding. 

Second, nirvana is the placeholder for various 

attempts at understanding a liberation that is peace 

and calm as something more than a temporary psychological 

state: liberation, timeless felicity, but, above 

all a deathless state that is nevertheless often associated 

with saintly death or the last moment in the holy path. 

Last, but equally important, nirvana served as a stable 

reference point, as placeholder, for the tradition as it 

struggled to define its own identity against competing 

Buddhist and non-Buddhist communities of belief. 

Thus, even if one’s main hope is rebirth in a paradise, 

that paradise must exist to facilitate nirvana. More generally, 

nirvana is one of those words that also embody 

the struggle to understand the possibility of perfection, 

of inner peace, and of freedom from the turmoil of our 

own desires and conflicted views of ourselves. It is not 

surprising that for all the many attempts to understand 

nirvana as a psychological state or a state of body or 

mind, most traditions continue to give a special value 

to death in nirvana or nirvana in death, for the enigmas 

of full freedom and unending bliss seem to push 

imagination to a realm beyond the normal range of the 

experience of living humans. 

Bibliography 

Collins, Steven. Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias 

of the Pali Imaginaire. New York and Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


Griffiths, Paul. On Being Mindless: Buddhist Meditation and the 

Mind-Body Problem. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1986. 

Kasulis, Thomas. “Nirvana.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, 


La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. The Way to Nirvana: Six Lectures 

on Ancient Buddhism as a Discipline of Salvation. Cambridge, 


La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. “Nirvana.” In the Encyclopaedia of 

Religion and Ethics, Vol. 9, ed. James Hastings. New York: 

Scribner’s, 1927. 

Thomas, Edward Joseph. Nirvana and Parinirvana. Leiden, 


Welbon, Guy Richard. The Buddhist Nirvana and Its Western 

Interpreters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. 

NIRVA N A SU TRA 


The core text of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvan a- 

sutra was completed in Kashmir around 300 C.E., but 

over the next century additional material enlarged it 

to three or four times its original length. Today only 

fragments remain of the original Sanskrit text, but 

we have a complete Chinese translation of the extended 

sutra by Dharmaksema. Finished in 421, it 

became one of the most influential religious texts in 

East Asia. Tibetan translations appeared later (P. 788, 

D. 120), but this scripture had relatively little impact 

in Tibet. 

Echoing and at one point even citing the LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), the Nirvana 

Su tra affirms that the Buddha’s death or parinirvana 

did not mean his destruction, but occurred to illustrate 

that the true body of a buddha (buddhakaya) is 

uncreated (asam skrta) and eternal, and to provide 

relics for veneration. Arguing against the Yogacara 

categorization of SENTIENT BEINGS by their differing 

spiritual potentials, the Nirvana Su tra asserts that all 

sentient beings equally possess the same potential 

for buddhahood. Rendered in Chinese as buddhanature, 

this far-reaching doctrine implies that the 


605

N O -SELF 

core nature of each individual is that of a buddha, but 

mental afflictions (klésa) prevent most from realizing it. 

Although earlier Buddhist literature described sentient 

beings as plagued by ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE), 

DUH KHA (SUFFERING), nonself, and impurity, in this 

sutra, buddha, NIRVAN A, and by extension the buddhanature 

within everyone are all characterized by permanence, 

joy, self, and purity. Despite our experience, 

there is thus another “great self” within us, and the 

sutra even uses the term true atman. 

East Asian Buddhism was also profoundly affected 

by the Nirvana Su tra’s advocacy of vegetarianism and 

its overt inclusion of the ICCHANTIKA in its doctrine of 

universal salvation. Icchantika are individuals devoid 

of faith or morality, some of whom even slander the 

dharma. Like most other sutras, the first part of the 

Nirvana Su tra excludes them, but beginning with 

chapter nine, the Nirvana Su tra repeatedly asserts that 

icchantika also have the buddha-nature. 

Bibliography 

de Jong, J. W. “Review of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvanasutra 

Translated by Kosho Yamamoto.” Eastern Buddhist, 

Vol. 9 (new series), no. 2 (1976): 134–136. 

Matsuda Kazunobu. “New Sanskrit Fragments of the Mahayana 

Mahaparinirvana-sutra in the Stein/Hoernle Collection: A 

Preliminary Report.” Eastern Buddhist, Vol. 20 (new series), 

no. 2 (1987): 105–114. 

Ming-Wood, Liu. “The Doctrine of Buddha-Nature in the Mahayana 

Mahaparinirvanasutra.” Journal of the International 

Association of Buddhist Studies (Wisconsin), Vol. 5 (1982): 

63–94. 

Yamamoto Kosho, trans. The Mahayana Maha parinirvanasu 

tra: A Complete Translation from the Chinese Classical Language 

in 3 volumes. Oyama, Japan: Karinbunko, 1973. 

MARK L. BLUM 

NO-SELF. See Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self) 

NUNS 

Buddhist nuns, like nuns and MONKS of other religious 

orders, renounce sexual activity, marriage, and household 

life. As renunciants, they voluntarily make a commitment 

to abide by a given number of PRECEPTS, or 

rules of conduct. To regulate their involvement with 

the affairs of the world, they agree to accept a subsistence 

standard of food, shelter, clothing, and medicine. 

The lay community provides these requisites; in return, 

the nuns provide teachings, advice, and a model of discipline 

and contentment. 

To leave the household life (pravrajya) and become 

a member of the Buddhist order (SAṄGHA), a woman 

must first obtain the permission of her parents, husband, 

or guardian. There are four stages in the process 

of becoming a fully ordained nun (Sanskrit, bhiksunl; 

Pali, bhikkhunl). The first three stages of the process 

are administered by, and at the discretion of, the 

Bhiksun Saṅgha. Candidates first receive the ten precepts 

of a śramanerika (novice), then the precepts of a 

śiksamana (probationary nun), and finally the precepts 

of a bhiksunl (fully ordained nun). The purpose of the 

two-year probationary period as a śiksamana, a stage 

that is not required for monks, is twofold. First, it ensures 

that candidates for bhiksunl ordination are not 

pregnant and, second, it allows time to provide the 

candidates with thorough training. The final stage in 

the process of becoming a fully ordained nun involves 

receiving the bhiksunl precepts for a second time from 

the Bhiksu Saṅgha. It is unclear whether this second 

bhiksunl ordination indicates that bhiksus have the final 

authority for bhiksunl ordinations or whether they 

simply confirm the ordination the candidates have already 

received from the bhiksunls. 

Precepts and practice 

Bhiksunls and those in training abide by the precepts 

of the Bhiksunlpratimoksa-su tra. The first five categories 

of the precepts are common to both bhiksus 

and bhiksunls. Arranged according to the seriousness 

of the transgression, they are: (1) parajika (defeats that 

entail expulsion from the saṅgha); (2) saṅghavaśesa 

(remainders that entail suspension); (3) nihsargikapatayantika 

(abandoning downfalls that entail forfeiture); 

(4) patayantika (propelling downfalls or lapses); 

and (5) śaiksa (faults or misdeeds). An additional 

category, the pratideśanlya (offenses requiring confession), 

prohibits bhiksunls from begging for specific 

foods, unless they are ill. There are also seven 

adhikarana-śamatha (methods of resolving disputes) 

for both bhiksus and bhiksunls. 

In all schools of VINAYA (monastic discipline), there 

are considerably more precepts for bhiksunls than for 

bhiksus. Because the Bhiksu Saṅgha was already quite 

well organized by the time the Bhiksun Saṅgha was 

established some years later, the bhiksunls were expected 

to follow most of the bhiksu precepts. In addi- 


N UNS 

tion, approximately one hundred precepts were formulated 

on the basis of wrongdoings that occurred 

among the nuns. The four parajikas, which are common 

to both bhiksus and bhiksunls, are to refrain from: 

(1) sexual intercourse, (2) taking what is not given, (3) 

taking a human life, and (4) telling lies, especially about 

one’s spiritual attainments. There are four additional 

parajikas that bhiksunls are required to refrain from: 

(5) bodily contact with a lustful man; (6) arranging to 

meet a man with amorous intentions; (7) concealing 

a parajika of another bhiksunl; and (8) obeying a 

bhiksu who has been expelled from the saṅgha. (For a 

bhiksu, to touch a woman, sit in a secluded place with 

a woman, or follow an expelled bhiksu is an offense in 

the next suspension category.) In the second category 

of precepts, saṅghavaśesa, there are seventeen for 

bhiksunls in the DHARMAGUPTAKA and THERAVADA 

schools and twenty in the Mulasarvastivada. The 

saṅghavaśesas in the Dharmagupta school prohibit 

bhiksunls from such actions as matchmaking, baselessly 

accusing someone of a parajika, making an accusation 

against a layperson, knowingly ordaining a 

thief, absolving a suspended bhiksunl without permission, 

traveling alone, refusing to accept admonishments, 

creating a schism in the saṅgha, and so on. 

Bhiksunls, like bhiksus, are required to hold three 

primary ritual observances: (1) posadha, the bimonthly 

recitation of the PRATIMOKSA; (2) pravarana, the invitation 

at the end of the rains-retreat (varsa); and (3) 

kathina, the distribution of robes that concludes the 

rains-retreat. Traditionally, bhiksunls primarily devoted 

themselves to teaching, meditating, and other 

means of mental cultivation toward the goal of liberation. 

In modern times, they have also become active 

in translating, publishing, and a wide variety of other 

social welfare activities. 

The lineage of full ordination for women 

According to Buddhist accounts, the order of Buddhist 

nuns began five or six years after the order of monks 

when MAHAPRAJAPATI GAUTAMI, Buddha Śakyamuni’s 

maternal aunt and foster mother, requested admission 

to the saṅgha. After the Buddha refused her request 

three times, she and a contingent of five hundred 

noblewomen shaved their heads, donned mendicants’ 

robes, and walked barefooted to Vaiśal to demonstrate 

their determination. When the Buddha’s attendant 

A NANDA pressed their case and asked whether women 

were equally capable of achieving the fruits of the 

dharma, the Buddha confirmed that they were. He 

consequently granted Mahaprajapat’s request to join 

the order, purportedly on the condition that she agree 

to accept eight special rules (gurudharma): (1) a 

bhiksunl ordained even one hundred years must rise 

and pay respect to a bhiksu even if he was ordained 

that very day; (2) bhiksunls must not hold their rainsretreat 

in a place where there is no bhiksu; (3) bhiksunls 

must request instruction from the bhiksus twice each 

month; (4) at the conclusion of the rains-retreat, 

bhiksunls must declare the faults they have seen, heard, 

and suspected before the order of bhiksus; (5) suspended 

bhiksunls must be reinstated before a quorum 

of twenty bhiksus and twenty bhiksunls; (6) the ordination 

of bhiksunls must be conducted by both orders 

(first by ten bhiksunls and then by ten bhiksus); (7) 

bhiksunls must not revile bhiksus; and (8) bhiksunls 

must not admonish bhiksus, although bhiksus may admonish 

bhiksunls. Although it is unlikely that these 

eight rules were actually imposed by the Buddha, they 

are cited as the source of the unequal status of nuns 

and monks in Buddhist societies. 

Accounts indicate that, following Mahaprajapat’s 

ordination, thousands of women became nuns. 

Among these early nuns, many were renowned for 

their extraordinary attainments: Khema for wisdom, 

Dhammadinna for teaching, Patacara for monastic 

discipline, Kisa Gautam for asceticism, Nanda for 

meditation, Bhadda for past-life recall, and Uppalavanna 

for supernormal powers. During the Buddha’s 

time, many nuns were said to have achieved the fruits 

of practice, including the state of an ARHAT, or liberation. 

Examples of their songs of realization are included 

in the Therlgatha (Verses of the Bhiksunl Elders). 

There is evidence that the Bhiksun Saṅgha continued 

to exist in India until about the tenth century, 

though in dwindling numbers and with less support 

than the order of monks. According to the Sinhalese 

chronicle Dlpavaṁsa, the Bhiksun Saṅgha in Sri 

Lanka was established in the fourth century B.C.E. when 

Saṅghamitta, daughter of King AŚOKA, traveled from 

India especially to transmit the bhiksunl precepts to 

Queen Anula and hundreds of Sinhalese women. 

Around the eleventh century, the Bhiksun Saṅgha 

died out in Sri Lanka due to droughts and the Chola 

invasions from India. Before that time, however, in the 

fifth century C.E., the bhiksunl lineage was transmitted 

from Sri Lanka to China. Sri Lankan bhiksunls headed 

by a bhiksunl named Devasara traveled in two delegations 

to Nanjing, where they administered the ordination 

to Jingjian and several hundred other Chinese 

nuns. From China, the bhiksunl lineage was gradually 


607

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Nuns of Jamyang Choling Institute, Dharamsala, India. Courtesy of Karma Lekshe Tsomo. Reproduced by permission. 

transmitted to Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan, where it 

still thrives. 

Buddhist nuns in contemporary society 

In 2003 there were an estimated 125,000 Buddhist nuns, 

including at least 35,000 bhiksunls. Nuns in China, Korea, 

Taiwan, and Vietnam follow the Dharmagupta lineage 

school of vinaya, which is the only bhiksunl 

lineage in existence today. In these traditions, a woman 

who wishes to become a nun first requests the rite of 

leaving home (pravrajya), shaves her head, dons the 

robes, and receives the ten precepts of a śramanerika 

(novice nun). After a period of training, a śramanerika 

who is at least twenty years old may then request 

bhiksunl ordination. The two-year probationary period 

as a śiksamana is currently observed only in 

stricter monasteries. According to the vinaya, nuns are 

required to receive their novice ordination and monastic 

training under the guidance of qualified bhiksunl 

masters; in Taiwan, however, it is not uncommon for 

women to receive ordination and train under bhiksu 

masters. Ideally, bhiksunl ordination is conducted by 

a full quorum of ten bhiksunls and ten bhiksus, in rites 

supervised in the morning by the bhiksunls and in the 

afternoon of the same day by the bhiksus. Occasionally, 

bhiksunl ordinations are conducted by high-ranking 

bhiksus without the formal participation of 

bhiksunl ordination masters and such ordinations are 

accepted as legitimate, if not technically correct. 

As far as is known, the Bhiksun Saṅgha was never 

officially established in Cambodia, Japan, Laos, Mongolia, 

Thailand, or Tibet. Although there is evidence to 

document that bhiksunls existed in earlier times in 

Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, these orders unfortunately 

died out long ago. In countries where bhiksunl 

ordination is not currently available, nuns do not have 

the same status, nor do they receive the same patronage 

or access to religious education as monks. In recent 

years, inspired by an international Buddhist 

women’s movement, conditions for nuns in all countries 

have begun to improve markedly. 

In the Theravada countries of Cambodia, Laos, 

Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and in Theravada 

communities in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal, 

nuns receive eight, nine, or ten precepts. These nuns 

are celibate, shave their heads, take no solid food after 

noon, and generally maintain the lifestyle of a bhiksunl, 

but are not regarded as members of the saṅgha. Nuns 

in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand wear white robes; in 


N UNS 

Cambodia they are known as donchee, in Laos as 

maikao, and in Thailand as maechee. Nuns in Myanmar 

wear pink robes with an orange underskirt and 

brown shawl over the left shoulder, and are known as 

tila shin (possessors of morality). Nuns in Sri Lanka 

wear orange or brown robes, and are known as dasasllamata 

(ten-precept mothers). In these traditions, emphasis 

is placed on monastic discipline, meditation 

practice, and dissemination of the Buddha’s teachings. 

Recently, the standards of Buddhist education 

among Theravada nuns have improved considerably 

and the contributions that nuns have made and continue 

to make to society are being more widely recognized. 

Interest in achieving equal opportunities for full 

ordination for women has increased, both among nuns 

and laypeople. In Sri Lanka, an estimated four hundred 

nuns have become bhiksunls since 1988, first by 

attending ordinations held in Los Angeles, Sarnath, 

and BODH GAYA, and more recently in ordinations 

held in Sri Lanka itself. Many nuns in Theravada countries 

hesitate to press for bhiksunl ordination for two 

primary reasons. First, bhiksunls are prohibited from 

handling money and are expected to maintain themselves 

by a daily alms round. Thus, their survival literally 

depends on receiving sufficient support from the 

lay community. Judging by the history of nuns in India 

and Sri Lanka, where the Bhiksun Saṅgha may 

have died out due, in part, to famine, sufficient support 

for nuns is never certain. Second, according to the 

stipulations of the eight gurudharmas, bhiksunls are 

subordinate to the bhiksus in a number of ways. Some 

nuns have very legitimate fears that the independence 

nuns presently enjoy may be compromised if the 

bhiksunls are beholden to, or come under the domination 

of, the Bhiksu Saṅgha. 

In Japan, nuns receive the BODHISATTVA precepts 

of the FANWANG JING (BRAHMA’S NET SU TRA), which 

are similar to the ten precepts of a śramanerika, and 

they follow a celibate monastic lifestyle. In 590 C.E., 

three nuns named Zenshin-in, Zenzo-ni, and 

Kenzen-ni traveled from Japan to the Paekche kingdom 

of Korea, where they received the śramanerika, 

śiksamana, and bhiksunl ordinations successively. 

These nuns returned to Japan, but were unable to conduct 

a bhiksunl ordination there because they did not 

constitute the required minimum of five bhiksunl 

precept masters. When the Tiantai monk GANJIN 

(Jianzhen) came to Japan in 754 C.E., three bhiksunls 

accompanied him, but they were also too few in number 

to conduct a bhiksunl ordination. Thus, the 

Bhiksun Saṅgha was never established in Japan. Nevertheless, 

numerous nunneries and several thousand 

nuns exist throughout Japan today, primarily in the 

Jodo, Tendai, Shingon, Nichiren, Soto, and Rinzai 

Zen schools. Together with several million devoted 

laywomen, they play essential roles in preserving and 

disseminating Japanese Buddhist culture. 

In Tibet and, more recently, in Mongolia, nuns take 

thirty-six precepts, which are a detailed enumeration 

of the ten precepts of a śramanerika. Although there is 

mention of bhiksunls in Tibetan historical records, 

there is no evidence that a Bhiksunl Saṅgha was ever 

established in Tibet. In the Tibetan tradition, which is 

followed by nuns throughout the Tibetan cultural region, 

nuns wear robes identical to those of the monks. 

These nuns are recognized as members of the saṅgha 

but, as novices, they do not generally receive the same 

education, esteem, or material support as do monks. 

Nuns and devoted laywomen nevertheless receive the 

bodhisattva precepts, receive teachings on both the 

su tras and tantras, and engage in a variety of practices, 

including prostrations, meditation, MAN D ALA offerings, 

and MANTRA recitation. 

Conditions for study and practice seem to be most 

conducive for nuns in those traditions that have living 

bhiksunl lineages. In Korea, the training for a prospective 

bhiksunl lasts up to six years, and places a high 

value on sutra studies, vinaya studies, and meditation. 

The monastic year is divided into four seasons. Summer 

and winter are spent in intensive meditation and 

retreat; spring and autumn are spent cultivating, harvesting, 

and preparing the food needed during the 

meditation seasons, as well as performing other tasks 

required to maintain the monastery. Educational standards 

among Korean nuns have improved dramatically 

in recent decades and nuns are increasingly taking 

leading roles in Buddhist education, youth activities, 

and other social welfare programs. 

Nuns are also prominent in the resurgence of Buddhism 

that is currently taking place in Taiwan. Full 

ordination and a wide range of educational opportunities 

are available to Taiwanese nuns, including Buddhist 

studies programs in several hundred colleges, 

institutes, and universities. Nuns in Taiwan are active 

in social service activities, health care, and the arts. In 

addition to founding and directing numerous temples 

and institutions for Buddhist education and training, 

nuns have founded and maintain libraries, museums, 

orphanages, medical centers, care homes, and 

women’s shelters. Although nuns substantially outnumber 

monks in Taiwan, monks generally hold the 


609

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Bibliography 

Arai, Paula. Women Living Zen: Japanese So to Buddhist Nuns. 


Barnes, Nancy Schuster. “Buddhist Women and the Nuns’ Order 

in Asia.” In Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation 

Movements in Asia, ed. Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. 

King. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. 

Bartholomeusz, Tessa. “The Female Mendicant in Buddhist Sri 

Lanka.” In Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. José Ignacio 

Cabezón. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

1992. 

Bartholomeusz, Tessa. Women under the Bo Tree: Buddhist Nuns 

in Sri Lanka. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1994. 



Curzon Press, 1998. 

Dresser, Marianne, ed. Buddhist Women on the Edge: Contemporary 

Perspectives from the Western Frontier. Berkeley, CA: 

North Atlantic Books, 1996. 

Master Cheng Yen (Zhengyan), Buddhist nun and founder of the 

Tz’u-chi (Compassionate Relief) Society, the largest charity in Taiwan, 

1993. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced 


leadership positions in Buddhist organizations. Nevertheless, 

nuns in Taiwan are widely respected for the 

exemplary work they do to propagate Buddhism and 

benefit society. 

The unequal status of nuns in Buddhism has become 

a topic of concern in recent years, especially as 

Buddhist teachings gain popularity in Western countries 

and encounter modern ideals of GENDER equality. 

Although only a few hundred Western women 

have become Buddhist nuns so far, the subordinate 

status of women in Buddhist societies has stimulated 

efforts to improve conditions for women within the 

various Buddhist traditions by providing more equitable 

opportunities for religious education, ordination, 

and meditation training. With improved 

facilities, nuns will undoubtedly assume more positions 

of spiritual and institutional leadership in the 

years to come. As nuns gain greater representation 

within the various Buddhist traditions, a reevaluation 

and restructuring of hierarchically ordered institutions 

is inevitable. 

See also: Ascetic Practices; Monasticism; Women 

Falk, Nancy. “The Case of the Vanishing Nuns: The Fruits of 

Ambivalence in Ancient Indian Buddhism.” In Unspoken 

Worlds: Women’s Religious Lives in Non-Western Cultures, ed. 

Nancy Falk and Rita Gross. San Francisco: Harper, 1979. 

Findly, Ellison Banks, ed. Women’s Buddhism, Buddhism’s 

Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Boston: Wisdom, 1999. 

Grimshaw, Anna. Servants of the Buddha: Winter in a Himalayan 

Convent. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1994. 

Gross, Rita M. Buddhism after Patriarchy: A Feminist History, 

Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism. Albany: State University 


Havnevik, Hanna. Tibetan Buddhist Nuns. Oslo: Norwegian 


Hirakawa, Akira. Monastic Discipline for the Buddhist Nuns: An 

English Translation of the Chinese Text of the Mahasam ghika- 

Bhiksunl-Vinaya. Patna, India: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 

1982. 

Kabilsingh, Chatsumarn. Thai Women in Buddhism. Berkeley, 

CA: Parallax Press, 1991. 

Murcott, Susan. The First Buddhist Women: Translations and 

Commentaries on the Therigatha. Berkeley, CA: Parallax 

Press, 1991. 

Norman, K. R., trans. The Elders’ Verses II: Therlgatha. London: 

Luzac, 1966. 

Rhys-Davids, Caroline Augusta Foley, and Norman, K. R. Poems 

of Early Buddhist Nuns (Therlgatha). Oxford: Pali Text 


Tsai, Kathryn Ann. Lives of the Nuns: Biographies of Chinese Buddhist 

Nuns from the Fourth to Sixth Centuries. Honolulu: University 



N UNS 

Tsomo, Karma Lekshe. Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of 

Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women, a Comparative Analysis 

of the Dharmagupta and Mu lasarvastivada Bhiksunl 

Pratimoksa Su tras. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1996. 



Tsomo, Karma Lekshe, ed. Innovative Women in Buddhism: 

Swimming against the Stream. Richmond, UK: Curzon, 2000. 

Watkins, Joanne C. Spirited Women: Gender, Religion, and Cultural 

Identity in the Nepal Himalaya. New York: Columbia 


Willis, Janice Dean. Feminine Ground: Essays on Women and Tibet. 


NYINGMA. See Rnying ma 



611


O 

OBON. See Ghost Festival 

OM MAN I PADME HU M 

Om man i padme hum is the MANTRA of the bodhisattva 

Avalokiteśvara. In recitation, rotation, and writing, the 

six-syllable mantra, as it is popularly known, is deeply 

embedded in daily life throughout the Tibetan cultural 

sphere. It is an invocation to the bodhisattva in the 

guise of Man ipadma (the final e is a vocative case ending 

to the feminine noun). It might therefore be rendered 

“Om O [thou who] hast a jewel and lotus Hum .” 

This interpretation, though familiar to Tibetan exegetes 

since at least the ninth century, has largely 

eluded Westerners, who have commonly misconstrued 

its meaning as some variation of “Hail to the jewel in 

the lotus.” 

While multiple Avalokiteśvara DHARAN I and 

mantra were in circulation by the third century C.E., 

the six-syllable mantra seems to have first appeared in 

the Karandavyu ha-su tra. This text, composed as early 

as the fifth century C.E., offers extensive description 

of the mantra’s power, chief among them rebirth in 

the pure realms contained within the hair pores of 

Avalokiteśvara. According to legend, a copy of the 

Karandavyu ha-su tra—or alternatively simply the six 

syllables contained in a jeweled casket (karan da means 

casket)—fell out of the sky onto the roof of the semihistorical 

sixth-century Tibetan king Lha tho tho ri. 

The sutra was translated some time before 812, as it is 

included in the Ldan dkar ma catalogue of imperialperiod 

translations published in that year. Although 

comparable mantras associated with Avalokiteśvara are 

found in several DUNHUANG texts, usage of the sixsyllable 

mantra appears to have gained wide popularity 

only in the eleventh century. 

Tibetans traditionally interpret the mantra and its 

six syllables in terms of numerical correspondences, 

such as to the six realms of existence. Oral recitations 

of the mantra, commonly counted on prayer beads, are 

said to prevent REBIRTH in the six realms and purify 

even the gravest of sins. Recitation is often supplemented 

by simultaneous spinning of the well-known 

prayer wheel (mani ’khor lo, chos ’khor lo, or lag ’khor). 

This is a device that allows the practitioner to activate 

the mantra’s efficacy through spinning the wheel. 

According to tradition a single revolution produces 

an amount of merit equal to reading all of the Buddha’s 

discourses; ten revolutions purify an amount of 

sin equal to Mount Meru, and so forth. The mantra 

is also written, engraved, and painted on rocks, its 

physical presence understood to offer protection to 

those nearby. 

Western travelers to Tibet have been fascinated by 

the prevalence of the mantra since the thirteenth century, 

when the Franciscan missionary William of 

Rubruck observed the continual chanting of on mani 

baccam, as he recorded it. The mantra, and its ubiquitous 

mistranslation, Jewel in the Lotus, has over the 

centuries worked its way into the Western fascination 

with all things Eastern, engendering any number of 

mystical (including sexual) interpretations, and seeping 

into various Western countercultural movements, 

spiritual and otherwise. 

613

O RDINATION 

Verhagen, P. C. “The Mantra ‘Om mani-padme hu m ’ in an Early 

Tibetan Grammatical Treatise.” Journal of the International 


ALEXANDER GARDNER 

ORDINATION 

A trail of “mani” stones bearing sacred inscriptions along a Buddhist 

pilgrimage route in Kashmir in the Himalayas. © Hulton 

Archive by Getty Images. Reproduced by permission. 

See also: Heart Sutra 

Bibliography 

Imaeda, Yoshro. “Note préliminaire sure la formule Om manipadme 

hu m dans les manuscripts tibétains de Touenhouang.” 

In Contributions aux études sur Touen-houang, ed. 

Michel Soymié. Geneva, Switzerland: Librairie Droz, 1979. 

Kyabje Yonzin Trijang Dorje Chang Losang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso 

Pal Zangpo. “The Significance of the Six Syllable Mantra 

OM MA NI PAD ME HUM.” Tibet Journal 7, no. 4 (1982): 

3–10. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism 

and the West. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. 

Martin, Dan. “On the Origin and Significance of the Prayer 

Wheel, According to Two Nineteenth-Century Tibetan Literary 

Sources.” Journal of the Tibet Society 7 (1987): 13–29. 

Studholme, Alexander. The Origins of Om Manipadme Hu m : A 

Study of Karandavyu ha Su tra. Albany: State University of 


Ordination, the ceremony by which men and women 

accept the more than two hundred rules of the Buddhist 

VINAYA and are thus defined as clerics, has been 

immensely important throughout the entire Buddhist 

tradition, even as its definitions, functions, and 

salience have differed over time and space. Ordination 

ceremonies are roughly the same for men and women, 

except that those for women often include additional 

requirements that subordinate NUNS to MONKS. The 

ordination of women was completely halted in the 

eleventh to the thirteenth centuries in Southeast Asian 

Buddhism, and recent efforts to introduce the nun’s 

ordination from China and Taiwan have not yet been 

widely accepted. In ancient India and medieval Tibet 

and East Asia, the emergence of MEDITATION and esoteric 

(tantric) INITIATION lineages has reduced the 

salience of ordinations. Japanese Buddhism is well 

known—even infamous throughout the Buddhist 

world—as the only national tradition to have rejected 

celibacy and avoidance of intoxicants, a development 

that has had some impact on modern Korean and Taiwanese 

Buddhism as well. 

In addition to conventional types of ordination, the 

ceremony was sometimes applied (or, more often, the 

five PRECEPTS administered) to gods and spirits as 

Buddhism competed with and amalgamated native religious 

traditions during its expansion throughout 

Asia. In Japan from late medieval times on funerals 

for laypeople often included posthumous ordination, 

and in modern Southeast Asia the ordination of trees 

has been used to protect forests from logging. Given 

the diversity of attitudes and approaches, it is not surprising 

that modern Western Buddhists have generally 

interpreted the ordination ritual and the 

associated vows abstractly, and only a few Western 

Buddhist have undertaken lifetime maintenance of the 

full monastic precepts. 

Description of the ordination ceremony 

Entrance into the SAṄGHA occurs in two stages, the 

first being the novice’s ordination involving ten precepts, 

by which the novice becomes a śramanera or 


O RDINATION 

śramanerika. In Southeast Asia this step may be taken 

as early as age seven; in East Asia one may not formally 

become a novice until age nineteen, even 

though one may have lived within the monastic community 

from a very young age. Short-term novitiates 

of a few weeks or months are common in Southeast 

Asia. Short-term higher ordinations are also common; 

the term is usually a summer rains-retreat period 

or longer. There is no particular onus on those 

who do not go on to full ordination. (The ritual described 

in this section is based on the unpublished 

translation by Gregory Schopen of the ordination ritual 

found in the MU LASARVASTIVADA-VINAYA.) 

The full or higher ordination (upasampada), by 

which one becomes a bhiksu or bhiksunl, can occur 

only at or after age twenty (dated from conception). 

In the primitive saṅgha there was presumably a generally 

accepted core of about 150 rules in the monastic 

code (PRATIMOKSA), but the diversification of 

ordination lineages has led to divergences in many of 

the minor rules. Hence THERAVADA monks in Southeast 

Asia observe 227 rules (Theravada nuns once observed 

311), Tibetan monks observe the 258 rules (the 

nuns 354) of the Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya, and Chinese 

and Korean monks observe the 250 rules (the 

nuns 348) of the Dharmaguptaka-vinaya. East Asian 

monks also accept the bodhisattva vows derived from 

the FANWANG JING (BRAHMA’S NET SU TRA), a formal 

part of ordination, and in most Japanese schools these 

vows have entirely supplanted the pratimoksa rules. 

The ordination ceremony must involve all the 

monks in a given local saṅgha, and no one can enter 

or leave during the proceedings; usually a separate 

temporary boundary (slma) is established for the duration 

of the ceremony. There should be an assembly 

of ten or more fully ordained monks (or, in border regions, 

five monks) and a vinaya master to serve as preceptor. 

The ceremony begins with the ordinand paying 

reverence to the monks, then entreating the preceptor 

to confer ordination on him. The ordinand then takes 

possession of his robes, or the cloth for their making, 

declaring to the preceptor that they are of appropriate 

material and cut. If the robes have not yet been made, 

the ordinand declares his intention to wash, cut, dye, 

and sew them properly from the material provided. 

The same process occurs for the bowl. 

The ordinand then moves out of hearing range but 

stays within sight so that the officiant can ask the ordinand’s 

private instructor about his appropriateness 

for ordination. The private instructor then goes over 

Buddhist novices from a hill tribe in northern Thailand pray as 

they walk past their families during an ordination ceremony in 

Bangkok, 2001. © AFP/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

to the ordinand and, after reminding him not to be 

embarrassed by the questions, ascertains whether the 

ordinand is free from any of the impediments to 

ordination. These include questions about the individual’s 

age, gender, genital completeness, and authorization 

by his parents (if living), and his identity as 

other than slave, criminal, eunuch, hermaphrodite, or 

despoiler of nuns. The questions also confirm that the 

ordinand has not been a member of another religious 

group or suffered expulsion from another saṅgha; has 

not murdered his father, mother, or an ARHAT; has not 

caused a split in the saṅgha or wounded the Buddha; 

is not a magically created phantom or animal; is not 

in debt (beyond the ability to pay at point of ordination); 

is not suffering from any illness (giving a long 

list); and is someone who is now fully entered into the 

religious life, including the practice of chastity. 

Upon returning to the assembly the private instructor 

informs them of the ordinand’s absence of 

any obstacles. The candidate is then brought forward 

and, after reverence to the Buddha and the elders of 

the community, the private instructor entreats the 


615

O RDINATION 

assembly three times to confer ordination on him. As 

a member of the saṅgha in full standing, the officiant 

then restates this entreaty as a formal resolution to the 

community. Following this, the same questions placed 

privately are now posed to the candidate before the entire 

group, and upon his successful responses the officiant 

formally moves that the assembly ordain him. 

The time of this event is measured (using pegs of specified 

size) on a sundial, so as to determine the new 

monk’s exact seniority. 

The ordinand is then made to affirm that he can 

maintain his asceticism for the rest of his life, including 

the four supports (niśraya) of clothing, food, housing, 

and medicine. He also confirms that he can 

maintain celibacy in both mind and body, and avoid 

stealing, killing, and lying. In the text of the Mulasarvastivada 

ordination, the injunctions against such 

errors are lengthy and emphatic, with particular attention 

on the transgression of claiming false knowledge 

or attainment of spiritual truths, cosmic realities, 

meditative states or yogic powers, or achievement of 

arhatship. The ordinand affirms that he will not revile, 

offend, chastise, or deride others, even when others do 

so to him. 

After all this, the officiant finally declares that the 

ordinand has now been properly entered into the religious 

life by a preceptor, two teachers, the agreement 

of the saṅgha, and a formal action (the ceremony) involving 

three inviolable motions. The ceremony does 

not immediately end with this declaration, but continues 

with injunctions to the new monk to maintain 

his training, to treat his preceptor as his father just as 

the preceptor will treat the monk as son, to respect 

those senior to him, to strive for the direct realization 

of Buddhist truths, to learn the monastic rules not covered 

yet in the bimonthly saṅgha meeting, and to 

maintain attentiveness with all aspects of the dharma. 

Historical variations in Buddhist ordination 

Ordination was used in the early years of Buddhism 

to define the membership of the saṅgha and induce 

members to adhere to a uniform religious lifestyle, 

both differentiating the Buddhist order from other religious 

groups and inspiring its members with a 

shared sense of identity as formally accepted descendents 

of the Buddha. As the Buddhist movement 

diversified, there developed multiple ordination lineages, 

called nikayas (literally, segment or division), 

each with slightly different interpretations of the 

vinaya regulations. Since these nikayas also predominated 

in different geographical areas and developed 

sometimes very different sets of ABHIDHARMA philosophical 

texts, they functioned as separate MAIN- 

STREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS. 

There is no evidence for any variant approach to ordination 

in the early MAHAYANA vocation, but with the 

emergence of master–student initiation lineages in the 

Kashmiri meditation tradition (fourth century C.E. and 

thereafter) and the Indian tradition of TANTRA (ca. 

sixth century C.E. and thereafter), the relative significance 

of ordination declined somewhat. The Tibetan 

saṅgha maintains the use of ordination as an important 

threshold of entry into the practice of Buddhism, 

but greater emphasis is placed on tantric initiation lineages 

and the identification of tulkus (reincarnated 

sages). In an analagous fashion, local monastery relationships 

and both CHAN SCHOOL and esoteric (tantric) 

initiation lineages changed the religious salience 

of ordination in East Asia. More drastic changes occurred 

in modern Japan, where the Buddhist clergy 

have redefined ordination as a more lofty but less demanding 

dedication to Mahayana ideals not requiring 

maintenance of the rules of celibacy. 

In the early years of Buddhism in each of the cultural 

realms of East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, and 

Vietnam), there was great emphasis on proper training 

in Buddhist vinaya (monastic regulations) and the 

correct ordination of monks and nuns. DAO’AN (312– 

385) devised a set of monastic rules himself, but was 

happy that it could be displaced by portions of the Sarva 

stivada-vinaya introduced toward the end of his life. 

The entire Four Part Vinaya (Sifen lü) of the Dharmaguptaka 

school, which was to become the most 

widely used version in China, was translated in 414 by 

Buddhayaśas and Zhu Fonian; complete vinayas of 

four other mainstream Buddhist schools were translated 

during the next decade or so. The insights of the 

pilgrim and translator XUANZANG (ca. 600–664) on 

contemporary Indian practices upon his return to 

China in 649, as well as his suggestion that all Chinese 

monks needed to be ordained anew, caused substantial 

uneasiness among his peers. This was one of the 

motivations behind an ordination platform movement 

initiated by the great historian and vinaya specialist 

DAOXUAN (596–667), who in the very last year of his 

life had visions of the Buddha’s ordination platform at 

Jetavana. Although entirely contrary to Indian historical 

realities, the slma boundary of the Indian ordination 

was reinterpreted as a Chinese-style raised 

platform. Daoxuan’s example inspired other Chinese 


O RDINATION 

monks to build platforms and confer ordinations on 

the surface of what was effectively a caitya or monumental 

embodiment of the Buddha. A famous account 

of just such an ordination, or at least the sermons associated 

with it, is found in the PLATFORM SU TRA OF 

THE SIXTH PATRIARCH (LIUZU TAN JING). After a major 

rebellion in China in 755, both government and 

rebels sponsored the ordination of Buddhist monks for 

fund-raising purposes; each ordinand paid a hefty fee 

but then received a lifetime exemption from taxation. 

In the Song dynasty (960–1279) blank ordination certificates 

were sometimes traded for financial speculation, 

but the government eventually eradicated all such 

abuses. It is generally held that government control of 

ordination negatively influenced the quality and independence 

of the Chinese saṅgha. 

Several developments contributed to a change in the 

status and function of ordination in Chinese Buddhism. 

Based on the voluminous vinaya writings of 

Daoxuan, the Chinese tradition consolidated on the 

use of the Dharmaguptaka school’s Four Part Vinaya. 

It was only during the Song dynasty, though, that the 

Chinese vinaya tradition really became formalized as 

an independent “school,” and even here this word denotes 

a social reality very different from the nikayas of 

Indian Buddhism. That is, a handful of major “public 

monasteries” in China were designated as vinaya centers, 

meaning that they were the ones where most but 

not all sophisticated study of the vinaya tradition occurred, 

and where all Chinese monks and nuns were 

ordained. The official ordination process became a 

large-scale affair involving not only the ceremony of 

vow-taking and induction itself, but a lengthy period 

of preliminary training in liturgy (recitation of scriptures, 

use of bells, drums, and other ritual implements, 

etc.) and deportment (wearing of robes, monastic etiquette, 

etc.). All Chinese monks and nuns were, and 

still are, united by their experience of this rite of passage, 

but the scale and formality of the event came to 

mean a reduced significance in contrast with other 

monastic relationships. That is, monks and nuns are 

far more likely to identify with the “disciple lineages” 

based on the local monasteries and teachers where they 

initially trained in Buddhism, to which they often returned 

after the weeks-long ordination ritual. In addition, 

elite segments of the monastic population also 

identify more profoundly with Chan and MIJIAO 

(ESOTERIC) SCHOOL initiation lineages. The use of 

moxa or incense to burn marks on the heads of Chinese 

ordinands seems to have begun around the sixteenth 

century. 

There are various accounts, if only from later 

sources, describing the efforts taken by fourth- to fifthcentury 

Korean Buddhists to establish proper vinaya 

practices there. Missionaries from Koguryŏ (northern 

Korea) and Paekche (southwestern Korea) were the 

earliest ordained monks in Japan. The earliest ordained 

Japanese Buddhists were women sent to Paekche in the 

late sixth century, the choice of women perhaps deriving 

from their function as priestesses or shamanesses 

(miko) in ancient Japanese society. The quest 

for orthodox vinaya regulations and qualified ordination 

masters preoccupied early Japanese Buddhists as 

much as it had their Chinese and Korean counterparts 

in earlier centuries, although here the source of canonical 

praxis was China rather than India. A great advance 

occurred with the arrival of the vinaya specialist 

Jianzhen (Japanese, GANJIN; 688–763) in Japan in 753. 

He had been frustrated many times in his efforts to 

reach Japan, becoming blind in the process. Although 

the Japanese government installed him in a magnificent 

monastery (Toshodaiji, still one of the most beautiful 

sites in Nara) and had him lead a spectacular 

ordination ceremony at a platform on the grounds of 

Todaiji, the “Great Eastern Monastery” that housed the 

Daibutsu or Great Buddha, Ganjin was frustrated by 

the Japanese refusal to consider ordination as much 

more than an elaborate ritual. 

This tendency to disregard the 250 regulations of 

the Four Part Vinaya was carried even further by 

SAICHO (767–822), who argued that the government 

should allow his newly founded Tendai school to ordain 

monks without reference to the vinaya, which Saicho 

rejected as being “hnayana.” Saicho’s goal was to 

maintain control over the training of his own students, 

who frequently did not return from their ordinations 

in Nara; his wishes were granted just after his death, 

and the subsequent growth of Mount Hiei and the 

Tendai school as a whole meant that fewer and fewer 

Japanese clergy took vows based on the vinaya. In the 

early thirteenth century the Pure Land priest SHINRAN 

(1173–1262), who like many important Kamakuraperiod 

figures had trained for a period at Mount Hiei, 

declared himself to be “neither priest nor layperson” 

and publicly married. Although there was a short-lived 

movement to revitalize Buddhism through strict maintenance 

of the precepts at about the same time, marriage 

eventually became the norm for priests in 

Shinran’s True Pure Land school (Jodo shinshu). Although 

many Japanese priests in other schools maintained 

widely recognized but technically illicit 

marriage relationships throughout the late medieval 


617

O RIGINAL E NLIGHTENMENT (HONGAKU) 

period, it was only with the government’s disestablishment 

of Buddhism in 1872 that a broad spectrum 

of the Japanese clergy renounced celibacy. 

See also: Mahayana Precepts in Japan; Monasticism 

Bibliography 




Coleman, Mary T. Monastic: An Ordained Tibetan Buddhist 

Speaks on Behalf of Full Ordination for Women. Los Angeles 

and Charlottesville, VA: Dharma Institute, 1995. 

Dickson, J. F. “The Admission and Ordination Ceremonies.” In 

Buddhism in Translations, by Henry Clarke Warren. New 

York: Atheneum, 1963 (1896). Reprinted from Journal of the 

Royal Asiatic Society (1874): 1–16. 




Gutschow, Kim. “What Makes a Nun? Apprenticeship and Ritual 

Passage in Zanskar, North India.” Journal of the International 


187–215. 

Heirman, Ann. Rules for Nuns According to the Dharmaguptakavinaya: 

The Discipline in Four Parts. New Delhi: Motilal 


Holt, John. Discipline: The Canonical Buddhism of the Vinayapitaka. 

New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981. 

Horner, Isaline Blew. Women under Primitive Buddhism: Laywomen 

and Almswomen. London: Routledge, 1930. 

Kieffer-Puelz, Petra. “Die buddhistische Gemeinde.” In Der 

Buddhismus I. Der indische Buddhismus und seine Verzweigungen, 

ed. Heinz Bechert et al. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 

2000. 

Lévy, Paul. Buddhism: A “Mystery Religion”? London: School of 

Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1957. 

Mendelson, E. Michael. “Initiation and the Paradox of Power: 

A Sociological Approach.” In Initiation: Contributions to the 

Theme of the Study-Conference of the International Association 

for the History of Religions Held at Strasburg, September 

17th to 22nd 1964, ed. C. J. Bleeker. Leiden, Netherlands: 

Brill, 1965. 

Olivelle, Patrick. The Origin and Early Development of Buddhist 

Monachism. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Gunasena, 1974. 

Sangharakshita. Forty-Three Years Ago: Reflections on My 

Bhikkhu Ordination, on the Occasion of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary 

of the Western Buddhist Order. Glasgow, Scotland: 

Windhorse Publications, 1996. 

Seneviratne, H. L. “L’ordination bouddhique à Ceylan.” Social 

Compass 20 (1973): 251–56. 



1970. 

Thanissaro Bhikku, trans. The Buddhist Monastic Code: The Patimokkha 

Training Rules, 2 vols. Valley Center, CA: Metta 

Forest Monastery, 1994. 

Tiyanavich, Kamala. Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in 



Tsomo, Karma Lekshe, ed. Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of 

Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women—A Comparative Analysis 

of the Chinese Dharmagupta and the Tibetan Mu lasarvastivada 

Bhiksunl. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1996. 

Wachirayanawarorot. Ordination Procedure. Bangkok, Thailand: 

Mahamakut Rajavidyalaya [Mahamakut Educational Council], 

1973. 




Texts of the Theravada Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


Wijayaratna, Mohan. Les moniales bouddhistes: naissance et 

développement du monachisme féminin. Paris: Cerf, 1991. 

Yen Kiat, Bhikku. Mahayana Vinaya. Bangkok, Thailand: Wat 

Bhoman Khunnarama, 1960. 

ORIGINAL ENLIGHTENMENT 

(HONGAKU) 

JOHN R. MCRAE 

The doctrine of original enlightenment (Japanese, hongaku) 

dominated Tendai Buddhism from roughly the 

eleventh through the early seventeenth centuries and 

profoundly influenced medieval Japanese religion and 

culture. This doctrine holds that enlightenment or the 

ideal state is neither a goal to be achieved nor a potential 

to be realized but the real status of all things. 

Not only human beings but ants and crickets, even 

grasses and trees, manifest innate buddhahood just as 

they are. Seen in its true aspect, every aspect of daily 

life—eating, sleeping, even one’s deluded thoughts— 

is the Buddha’s conduct. 

Especially since the latter part of the twentieth century, 

considerable controversy has arisen over the cultural 

significance and ethical implications of this 

doctrine. Some scholars see in original enlightenment 

thought a timeless Japanese spirituality that affirms nature 

and accommodates phenomenal realities. Others 



see it as a dangerous antinomianism that undermines 

both religious discipline and moral standards. Beginning 

around the 1980s an intellectual movement 

known as CRITICAL BUDDHISM (HIHAN BUKKYO ) has 

denounced original enlightenment thought as an authoritarian 

ideology that, by sacralizing all things just 

as they are, in effect bolsters the status quo and legitimates 

social injustice. Such sweeping polemical 

claims, however, have tended to inflate the term original 

enlightenment beyond its usefulness as an analytic 

category and to ignore its specific historical context 

within medieval Tendai. 

Terms and texts 

No scholarly consensus exists as to the best way to 

translate the word hongaku. In addition to “original 

enlightenment,” the expressions “original awakening,” 

“innate awakening,” “primordial enlightenment,” and 

others are also used (for the pros and cons of various 

translations, see Jacqueline I. Stone, Original Enlightenment 

and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese 

Buddhism, p. 369, n. 1). The term original enlightenment 

has its locus classicus in the AWAKENING OF FAITH 

(DASHENG QIXIN LUN), attributed to the Indian master 

AŚVAGHOSA (ca. 100 C.E.), but was probably composed 

in China around the sixth century. There, original enlightenment 

(Chinese, benjue; Japanese, hongaku) 

refers to the potential for enlightenment even in deluded 

persons, and forms a triad with the terms 

nonenlightenment (bujue, fukaku), the deluded state 

of those ignorant of that potential, and acquired enlightenment 

(shijue, shikaku), the actualizing of that 

potential through Buddhist practice. In medieval 

Japanese Tendai literature, however, original enlightenment 

no longer denotes merely a potential but indicates 

the true status of all things just as they are. 

Original enlightenment thought as a distinct Tendai 

intellectual tradition appears to have had its inception 

around the mid-eleventh century, when hongaku 

teachings began to be passed down from master to disciple 

in the form of oral transmissions (kuden). Eventually, 

these transmissions were written down in a few 

sentences on single sheets of paper called kirikami, 

which were in turn compiled to form larger texts, attributed 

retrospectively to great Tendai masters of the 

past, such as SAICHO (767–822), ENNIN (794–864), or 

GENSHIN (942–1017). Thus the precise dating of any 

specific collection, or of the ideas contained in it, is extremely 

difficult. In the thirteenth through fourteenth 

centuries, the doctrines of these oral transmission collections 

began to be systematized; Tendai scholars also 

began to produce commentaries on traditional Tiantai 

texts and on the LOTUS SUTRA (SADDHARMAPUN DARIKA- 

SUTRA) itself, reinterpreting them from a hongaku perspective. 

It is only from about the fourteenth to 

fifteenth centuries that the dating and authorship of 

some of this literature can be established with relative 

certainty. 

Major ideas 

Original enlightenment doctrine has been described as 

a pinnacle in the development of MAHAYANA concepts 

of nonduality. In particular, it is indebted to the great 

totalistic visions of the HUAYAN SCHOOL and the 

TIANTAI SCHOOL, in which all things, being empty of 

fixed substance, interpenetrate and encompass one another. 

Another important influence on the development 

of original enlightenment doctrine was tantric 

Buddhism, particularly its claim that all phenomena— 

forms, colors, sounds, and so on—are the activities of 

a primordial or cosmic Buddha who pervades the universe. 

The noted scholar Tamura Yoshiro (1921–1989) 

observed that, in original enlightenment thought, the 

absolute realm of abstract truth or principle (ri) and 

the conventional realm of concrete actualities (ji) are 

conflated. In other words, there is no reality beneath, 

behind, or prior to the phenomenal world; the 

moment-to-moment arising and perishing of all things, 

just as they are, are valorized absolutely as the expressions 

of original enlightenment. This idea is commonly 

expressed by such phrases as “all dharmas are the buddhadharma,” 

“the defilements are none other than enlightenment,” 

and “SAM SARA is none other than 

NIRVAN A.” 

From this perspective, the buddhas represented in 

the sutras, radiating light and endowed with excellent 

marks, are merely provisional signs to inspire the unenlightened. 

The “real” buddha is all ordinary beings. 

Indeed, “he” is not a person at all, whether historical 

or mythic, but the true aspect of all things. This buddha 

is said to be “unproduced,” without beginning or 

end; to “constantly abide,” being always present; and 

to “transcend august attributes,” having no independent 

form apart from all phenomena just as they are. 

This view of the buddha is associated with the “origin 

teaching” (honmon) of the Lotus Su tra, which describes 

Śakyamuni Buddha as having first achieved awakening 

at some point in the unimaginably distant past. Reinterpreted 

from the standpoint of hongaku thought, this 

initial attainment by Śakyamuni in the remote past becomes 

a metaphor for the beginningless original enlightenment 

innate in all. 


619


Practice and enlightenment 

This reinterpretation has significant implications for 

Buddhist practice. According to conventional views, 

enlightenment is attained as the culmination of a linear 

process in which the practitioner gradually accumulates 

merit, extirpates defilements, and eventually 

reaches awakening. Original enlightenment literature 

describes this view as the perspective of “acquired enlightenment,” 

which “proceeds from cause (practice) 

to effect (enlightenment)”; it is judged to be, at best, 

an expedient to encourage the ignorant, and at worst, 

a deluded view. Original enlightenment doctrine reverses 

this directionality to “proceed from effect to 

cause.” In other words, practice is seen, not as the cause 

of an enlightenment still to be attained, but as the expression 

of an enlightenment already inherent. One 

could also express this as a shift from a linear to a 

mandalic view of time, in which practice and enlightenment 

are simultaneous. 

Original enlightenment doctrine has often been 

criticized as leading to a denial of religious discipline: 

Why practice, if one is already enlightened? While the 

danger of this sort of antinomian interpretation certainly 

exists, original enlightenment thought is more 

accurately understood as representing a transformation 

in how practice is understood. It opposes instrumentalist 

views of practice as merely a means to 

achieve something else, and instead redefines practice 

in nonlinear terms as the paradigmatic expression of 

the nonduality of the practitioner and the buddha. 

Moreover, despite its thoroughgoing commitment 

to a nondual perspective, original enlightenment doctrine 

distinguishes between the experiential state of 

knowing (or even simply having faith) that “all dharmas 

are the buddhadharma” and that of not knowing 

it. It is only on the basis of insight into nondual original 

enlightenment that such statements as “sam sara is 

precisely nirvana” can be made. Based on such insight 

or faith, however, not only formal Buddhist practice 

but all other activities of daily life can be seen as constituting 

the buddha’s behavior. 

Hongaku doctrine and medieval 

Japanese culture 

Original enlightenment teachings developed within, 

and also contributed to, a broader medieval tradition 

of “secret transmission,” deriving largely from private 

master-to-disciple initiation into the ritual procedures 

transmitted within lineages of esoteric Buddhism. In 

time, knowledge, not only of ritual and doctrine, but 

of poetry, the visual and performing arts, and also 

many crafts came to be handed down through master– 

disciple lineages. The “orally transmitted teachings” of 

original enlightenment thought were similarly elaborated 

and passed down within specific Tendai teaching 

lineages. Chief among these were the Eshin and 

Danna lineages; each had several sublineages. Despite 

conventions of secrecy, evidence points to considerable 

exchange among lineages and to individual monks 

receiving transmissions from more than one teacher. 

The premises of original enlightenment doctrine 

were also assimilated to other vocabularies and influenced 

the broader culture. One such area of influence 

was Shinto theory. From around the mid-Heian period 

(794–1185), local deities (kami) had been understood 

as “traces” or manifestations projected by the 

universal buddhas and bodhisattvas as a “skillful 

means” to benefit the people of Japan. This view clearly 

subsumed kami worship within a Buddhist framework. 

Original enlightenment thought, with its emphasis on 

concrete actualities as equivalent to absolute principle, 

set the stage for a revalorization of the kami as equal, 

or even superior, to buddhas, and thus played a key 

role at the theoretical level in the beginnings of formal 

Shinto doctrine. 

Original enlightenment thought also influenced the 

development of medieval aesthetics, especially poetic 

theory. Though the composition and appreciation of 

verse were vital social skills in elite circles, many clerics 

saw poetry as a distraction for the committed Buddhist 

because it involved one in the world of the senses 

and the sin of “false speech.” Original enlightenment 

ideas provided one of several “nondual” strategies by 

which poets, many of whom were monks and nuns, 

reclaimed the composition of verse, not only as a legitimate 

activity for Buddhists, but, when approached 

with the proper attitude, as a form of Buddhist practice 

in its own right. From this perspective, poetry, or 

art more generally, was seen, not as a second-level representation 

of a higher, “religious” truth, but as an expression 

of innate enlightenment. 


Japan; Kamakura Buddhism, Japan; Poetry and Buddhism; 

Shingon Buddhism, Japan; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) 

and Buddhism; Shugendo; Tantra 

Bibliography 

Groner, Paul. “A Medieval Japanese Reading of the Mo-ho chihkuan: 

Placing the Kanko ruiju in Historical Context.” Japanese 

Journal of Religious Studies 22, nos. 1–2 (Spring 1995): 

49–81. 


O XHERDING 

P ICTURES 

Habito, Ruben L. F. Originary Enlightenment: Tendai Hongaku 

Doctrine and Japanese Buddhism. Tokyo: International Institute 


Hubbard, Jamie, and Swanson, Paul L., eds. Pruning the Bodhi 



LaFleur, William R. “Symbol and Yu gen: Shunzei’s Use of 

Tendai Buddhism.” In Flowing Traces: Buddhism in the Literary 

and Visual Arts of Japan, ed. James H. Sanford, William 

R. LaFleur, and Masatoshi Nagatomi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


Shirato, Waka. “Inherent Enlightenment (hongaku shiso ) and 

Saicho ’s Acceptance of the Bodhisattva Precepts.” Japanese 

Journal of Religious Studies 14, nos. 2–3 (1987): 113–127. 

Stone, Jacqueline I. “The Contemplation of Suchness.” In Religions 

of Japan in Practice, ed. George J. Tanabe, Jr. Princeton, 





Sueki, Fumihiko. “Two Seemingly Contradictory Aspects of the 

Teaching of Innate Enlightenment (Hongaku) in Medieval 

Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22, nos. 1–2 

(Spring 1995): 3–16. 

Tamura, Yoshiro. “Japanese Culture and the Tendai Concept of 

Original Enlightenment.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 

14, nos. 2–3 (June–Sept. 1987): 203–210. 


to the Chinese Buddhist canon, the Xu zang jing (Supplemental 

Buddhist Canon), but they have been reproduced 

and modified on numerous occasions. Revision 

of the paintings and comments was especially popular 

in Tokugawa-era Japan, and new versions have been 

produced in the modern period as well. A well-known 

version by Kuo’an is transcribed by Nyogen Senzaki 

and Paul Reps and illustrated by Tomikichiro Tokuriki 

in a way that is similar to the originals, but with some 

interesting differences. 

The early version by Puming is titled as follows: 

1. Undisciplined. 

2. Discipline Begun. 

3. In Harness. 

4. Faced Round. 

5. Tamed. 

6. Unimpeded. 

7. Laissez Faire. 

8. All Forgotten. 

9. The Solitary Moon. 

10. Both Vanished. 

The other early series by Kuo’an is titled as follows: 

OXHERDING PICTURES 

This is a series of Chan (Japanese, Zen) school illustrations 

of a boy chasing and taming a wild ox that 

symbolizes the process of seeking and attaining enlightenment 

by means of self-discipline and selftransformation. 

Through the ten paintings that are 

titled and accompanied by verse commentaries, a narrative 

of the awakening process unfolds. The boy represents 

a seeker, and the ox represents the chaotic, 

unharnessed tendencies of the mind or ego that has 

the potential to be transformed into a vehicle for realizing 

true spiritual awareness. 

What is known as the Ten Oxherding Pictures is not 

a single collection of illustrations, but multiple versions 

of the series of pictures and poems. The best known 

are two early versions developed in the eleventh or 

twelfth century during the Song dynasty of China: one 

by Puming, which is probably the oldest, and the other 

by Kuoan. These are included in the main supplement 

1. Searching for the Ox. 

2. Seeing the Traces. 

3. Seeing the Ox. 

4. Catching the Ox. 

5. Herding the Ox. 

6. Coming Home on the Ox’s Back. 

7. The Ox Forgotten. 

8. The Ox and the Man Both Gone Out of Sight. 

9. Returning to the Origin. 

10. Entering the World. 

In both sets, subtle details in the landscape and the 

coloring of the boy, ox, trees, moon, and other background 

elements change to reflect the changing state 

of mind of the seeker, who gradually attains enlightenment. 

The main difference in the versions hinges on the 

sequence of events and the religious implications in the 


621

O XHERDING 

P ICTURES 

final outcome. In the Puming version, the boy tames 

the ox and the two coexist in a paradisiacal state, and 

then move into a mystical realm. By the penultimate 

picture, the ox is gone, and in the last, the boy also disappears, 

leaving an empty circle. In the Kuoan version, 

the empty circle appears in the seventh picture, but by 

the end the boy, without the ox, reenters the ordinary 

world to apply his enlightenment in the marketplace. 


Bibliography 

Miyuki, Mokusen. “Self-Realization in the Ten Oxherding Pictures.” 

In Self and Liberation: The Jung/Buddhism Dialogue, 

ed. Daniel J. Meckel and Robert L. Moore. New York: Paulist 

Press, 1992. 

Reps, Paul. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, collected by Paul Reps and tr. 

by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle 

Publishing, 1957. 

Suzuki, D. T. The Manual of Zen Buddhism. London: Rider and 

Company, 1950. 

STEVEN HEINE 


P 

PADMASAMBHAVA 

Active in the late eighth century, Padmasambhava (Lotus 

Born) is widely revered throughout the Himalayan 

regions under the title Guru Rinpoche. He is of particular 

importance to the followers of the RNYING MA 

(NYINGMA) school of Tibetan Buddhism, who consider 

him the “Second Buddha” and a founder of their 

school. Today Padmasambhava is the focus of many 

rituals. The tenth day of each lunar month is devoted 

to him. At monasteries of the Rnying ma school, these 

days are observed with ritual feasting, and sometimes 

religious dances (’chams) are performed to pay homage 

to the Indian master’s eight manifestations (gu ru 

mtshan brgyad). Many Buddhist monasteries are decorated 

with paintings of these same eight forms. 

The influences of this renowned master on Tibetan 

Buddhism have been both historical and inspirational. 

Initially in the eighth century he seems to have played 

a crucial role in the establishment of Buddhism in 

Tibet. Since then he has appeared to Tibetans in revelations 

and visionary encounters. As a result of the 

latter inspirational role, visionary biographies of Padmasambhava 

abound, and his historical activities have 

become heavily mythologized. 

Historically, relatively little is known of this master. 

He seems to have come from Oddiyana, a kingdom 

probably located in the northwest of India. The late 

eighth century was an unusually creative period in the 

development of tantric Buddhism. In particular, these 

years saw the arrival of the Mahayoga class of TANTRAS. 

Remarkable for their transgressive practices and imagery, 

the Mahayoga tantras taught the violent means 

for subjugating demons and harmful spirits. Padmasambhava 

seems to have specialized in these new 

Mahayoga practices. Traveling through the Himalayan 

regions of India and Nepal, his reputation was enhanced 

by his activities around Kathmandu valley, 

were he is said to have stayed in retreat for some years 

at Muratika, Yang le shod, and the Asura cave. Around 

this time, the Tibetan king, Khri song lde btsan (r. 

755–797), was working to construct Tibet’s first Buddhist 

monastery, BSAM YAS (SAMYE). On the recommendation 

of the Indian scholar Śantaraksita, the king 

invited Padmasambhava to assist with subjugating the 

indigenous Tibetan spirits opposed to the foreign religion. 

Padmasambhava accepted the invitation, and 

his activities around Bsam yas were considered crucial 

to the establishment of Buddhism as the state religion 

of Tibet. 

This basic narrative is embellished with many legendary 

details in the later visionary biographies received 

as gter ma (treasure) texts after the eleventh 

century. One early biography that was particularly influential 

was the Zang gling ma (Copper Colored Mountain) 

discovered by Nyang ral nyi ma’i ’od zer 

(1124–1192). Named after the paradise for which Padmasambhava 

is believed to have departed Tibet, this 

biography describes the master’s miraculous birth 

from a lotus blossom at the center of Lake Danakośa 

in Oddiyana. Initially raised by the king Indrabodhi, 

the youth is said to have renounced his royal trappings 

to live as a Buddhist ascetic. Various legendary adventures 

are then recounted, including Padmasambhava’s 

meeting with his first consort, the Indian Mandarava, 

at the Lotus Lake (Mtsho Padma) in Himachal Pradesh. 

While residing near Kathmandu, he is said to 

have gathered the scattered practice traditions for the 

deity Vajraklaya into a single, all-powerful system. In 

623

P ADMASAMBHAVA 

Padmasambhava, who played a crucial role in the establishment of Buddhism in Tibet in the eighth century. (Tibetan thang ka [scroll 

painting], nineteenth century.) The Art Archive/Private Collection Paris/Dagli Orti. Reproduced by permission. 


P A LI, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

Tibet, he used his tantric powers to convert the local 

spirits into protectors of the Buddhist faith. As reward 

for his work, the Tibetan king offered Padmasambhava 

a second consort, named Ye shes tsho rgyal. 

This powerful woman would eventually become a cult 

figure in her own right. Together with her, Padmasambhava 

is said to have concealed his most secret 

teachings as hidden gter ma, to be revealed by later 

generations of Tibetans at the appropriate times. The 

future revealers of these gter ma were understood to 

be reincarnations of Padmasambhava’s students, so 

that the process of revelation was, in part at least, one 

of remembering long-forgotten teachings once received 

from the great master. 

Later biographies added still more detail, and the 

places visited by Padmasambhava continued to multiply. 

Over the centuries the legend grew as Padmasambhava’s 

myth was replayed in various border 

regions. As new regions were converted to Buddhism, 

narratives would often surface describing Padmasambhava’s 

alleged visits to sites crucial to those regions. 

According to such narratives, Padmasambhava visited 

these sites to subjugate the local non-Buddhist spirits, 

thus preparing the ground for the future conversion 

of the regions to Buddhism. Many such sites have 

remained sacred and are still PILGRIMAGE destinations 

for Buddhists throughout Tibet, Nepal, India, and 

Bhutan. Thus, Padmasambhava’s primary importance 

has become twofold: as the inspirational source 

for the gter ma revelations and as a legendary tamer 

of local spirits. 

See also: Apocrypha; Tibet 

Bibliography 

Douglas, Kenneth, and Bays, Gwendolyn. The Life and Liberation 

of Padmasambhava: The bKa’ thang shel brag ma as 

Recorded by Yeshe Tsogyal, 2 vols. Berkeley, CA: Dharma, 

1978. 

Guenther, Herbert V. The Teachings of Padmasambhava. New 

York: Brill, 1996. 

Gyatso, Janet. “The Logic of Legitimation in the Tibetan Treasure 

Tradition.” History of Religions 33, no. 2 (1993): 97–134. 


Its Fundamentals and History, 2 vols., tr. Gyurme Dorje and 

Matthew Kapstein. Boston: Wisdom, 1991. 


PA LI, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN 

The term Pali, used today in both Buddhist and Western 

cultures as a designation of a language, is a relatively 

modern coinage, not traceable before the 

seventeenth century. An earlier name given to this language 

in Buddhist literature is Magadh, the language 

of the province Magadha in Eastern India that roughly 

corresponds to the modern Indian state Bihar. The 

only Buddhist school using this language is the THER- 

AVADA in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Theravadins 

erroneously consider Pali to be the language spoken by 

the Buddha himself. 

During the nineteenth century, Western scholarship 

discovered that Pali is not an eastern Middle Indic language 

and has little relationship to Magadh, which is 

known from other sources. By comparing the languages 

used in the inscriptions of AŚOKA (third century 

B.C.E.), it is possible to demonstrate that Pali, 

while preserving some very old Eastern elements, is 

clearly based on a western Middle Indic language, one 

of the languages that developed out of Vedic Sanskrit, 

which was used in India roughly until the time of the 

Buddha (ca. fourth century B.C.E.). Although Pali is 

clearly younger than the time of the Buddha, it is the 

oldest surviving variety of Middle Indic. 

The dialect used by the Buddha himself when instructing 

his disciples is unknown and irretrievably 

lost. It might have been some early variety of Magadh. 

The oldest Buddhist language, which can be traced by 

reconstruction, is Buddhist Middle Indic, a lingua 

franca that developed much later than the lifetime of 

the Buddha. Buddhist Middle Indic is the basis of Pali 

and the Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit used by the MA- 

HASA M GHIKA Lokottaravadins. 

Even though Pali, as an artificial language, was never 

actually a vernacular of any part of India, it was by no 

means a “dead” language. Changes in the phonetic 

shape of Pali, most likely introduced by Buddhist 

grammarians at various times, can be observed, although 

dating them is problematic. None of these 

changes were far-reaching, although they seem to have 

continued well into the sixteenth century, if not later. 

The oldest literature preserved in Pali is the CANON 

of the Theravada Buddhists, the only Buddhist canon 

extant in its entirety in an Indian language. Consequently, 

it is linguistically the oldest form of Buddhist 

scriptures known. This, of course, does not mean that 

other scriptures in different younger languages or 


625


translations necessarily preserve only later developments 

of Buddhist thought and tradition. Though generally 

conservative, Pali literature probably developed 

over several centuries before it was committed to writing. 

According to the Theravadins, this redaction happened 

during the first century B.C.E. in Sri Lanka, when 

various disasters decimated the number of Buddhist 

monks and threatened the oral tradition. Like the 

Vedic texts, early Buddhist literature was composed 

during a period of pure orality in India, before script 

was introduced during the reign of Aśoka. This early 

oral tradition has left obvious traces in the written literature, 

particularly in the numerous formulas typical 

of oral composition, which were used to facilitate 

memorization. 

The writing down of the Theravada canon is related 

in Theravada church history as preserved in two 

chronicles (VAM SA) composed in Pali: the Dlpavam sa 

(Chronicle of the Island, ca. 350 C.E.) and the later Mahavam 

sa (Great Chronicle, late fifth century C.E.). Both 

give a legendary history of political and religious events 

in Sri Lanka; the latter, which was extended several 

times, ends with the British conquest in 1815. 

Tipitaka (Threefold Basket) 

According to the Theravada tradition, the texts committed 

to writing comprised the complete Tipitaka 

(Sanskrit, Tripitaka), the Threefold Basket—the designation 

for the canon in all Buddhist schools. Although 

a similar name is also used by the Jains for their holy 

scriptures, the choice of the term basket for a collection 

of texts cannot be explained. The Threefold Basket 

is, however, not the oldest division of the canonical 

texts. An earlier division into nine limbs (nava aṅga) 

was abandoned at a very early date, most likely when 

the collection of texts grew into a large corpus and had 

to be regrouped following different principles. 

Vinayapitaka (Basket of Discipline). Each of the 

Tipitaka’s three parts are made up of collections of 

texts concerning three different aspects of Buddhist 

community life and teaching. The first part of the 

Tipitaka is the Vinayapitaka (Basket of Discipline), 

which is further divided into three parts. At the beginning 

is the Suttavibhaṅga (Explanation of the Sutta), an 

old commentary in which the sutta itself is embedded. 

Sutta here does not mean, as in later usage, a discourse 

of the Buddha, but a set of 227 rules (Patimokkha; 

Sanskrit, PRATIMOKSA) regulating the life of each individual 

monk. Some of these rules are among the oldest 

Buddhist texts preserved, with parallels in the 

Vinaya or monastic codes of other schools. The meaning 

of the title Patimokkha is unclear. This text must 

be recited twice each month by monks in every 

monastery. In spite of its age, an early development of 

this text can be traced. Brief rules, such as “in drinking 

alcohol, there is an offense,” eventually developed 

into much longer and legally complicated formulations. 

The original brevity reflects the original meaning 

of sutta (Sanskrit, sutra), “[set of] brief rule(s).” 

The first four rules describe offenses entailing an expulsion 

from the order (parajika, concerning a chasing 

away [of a monk from the community]). The 

offenses described in the following rules are increasingly 

less grave. The seventh and last groups of offenses 

contain rules for general civilized behavior, and an appendix 

enumerates methods to settle disputes. All the 

rules are embedded in frame stories, which describe 

the occasion that necessitates the creation of such a 

rule. The commentary explains single words of the 

rules and develops their legal applications. 

The second part of the Vinayapitaka, the Khandhaka 

(sections), contains rules governing the life of 

the community as a whole. The Khandhaka, which is 

divided into twelve parts, begins with the enlightenment 

of the Buddha and the founding of the Buddhist 

order (SAṄGHA) and ends with the reports on the first 

two councils at Rajagrha and Vaiśal, respectively. The 

tenth part of the Khandhaka is devoted to the foundation 

of the order of NUNS, to which the Buddha agreed 

only after much hesitation. 

The third and much later part of the Vinayapitaka 

is a handbook, the Parivara (ca. first century C.E.). This 

handbook comprises a collection of texts containing 

brief summaries of the Vinaya, among them an interesting 

collection of difficult legal questions called 

Sedamocanakagatha (Sweat Producing Verses). 

Suttapitaka (Basket of the Discourses). The second 

part of the Tipitaka, the Suttapitaka (Basket of the 

Discourses) is divided into four older parts, which are 

mentioned in the Vinayapitaka’s report of the first 

council, and a fifth later addition. The name Suttapitaka, 

however, does not occur in the report on the 

council describing the formation of the canon. Single 

texts were called veyyakarana (explanation) or dhammapariyaya 

(discourse on the teaching) before the name 

sutta(nta) was introduced at an uncertain date. 

The first part of the Suttapitaka is made up of twentyfour 

texts called the Dlghanikaya (Group of Long Discourses). 

The Dlghanikaya contains, among other things, 

discussions with the six heretics, and one of the most 

famous Buddhist texts, the Mahaparinibbana-sutta 



(Sanskrit, MAHAPARINIRVAN A-SU TRA; Great Discourse 

on the Nirvana), the longest text in the canon and the 

first lengthy literary composition in ancient India. 

The second part of the Suttapitaka, the Majjhimanikaya 

(Group of Middle Length Discourses), comprises 152 

texts in which different aspects of Buddhist teaching 

are explained in the form of dialogues. The last two 

groups (nikaya), the Sam yuttanikaya (Connected Discourses) 

and the Aṅguttaranikaya (Discourses Increasing 

by One), are structurally unique; the mostly short texts 

(according to the tradition about 7,500 in the Sam yuttanikaya 

and almost 10,000 in the Aṅguttaranikaya) are 

the first attempts to present the teaching in a more 

systematic form. Topics in the Aṅguttaranikaya are 

arranged by number: The first book contains items 

existing only once, the last one items existing eleven 

times. (The last two suttantas of the Dlghanikaya follow 

a similar method for arranging texts.) The first part 

of the Sam yuttanikaya, the Sagathavagga (Section Containing 

Verses), stands apart, containing some old 

views that are occasionally close to Vedic concepts. 

The Khuddakanikaya (Group of Small Texts), is an 

unsystematic collection of partly very old, partly very 

young texts. The Khuddakanikaya’s famous DHAMMA- 

PADA (Words of the Doctrine), a collection of 423 verses, 

is one of the most popular texts with Buddhist monks 

and laypersons. The Khuddakanikaya also includes one 

of the oldest parts of the canon, the Suttanipata (Group 

of Discourses), a collection of small independent texts, 

mostly in verse. It seems likely that some titles quoted 

in an inscription of Aśoka are in fact referring to texts 

of this collection. If correct, this is the oldest Indian 

epigraphical evidence for extant Buddhist texts. 

Another collection mentioned in early inscriptions 

are the JATAKA stories. Some of the 547 stories, which 

describe the former lives of the Buddha as BO- 

DHISATTVA (Pali, Bodhisatta), are illustrated and provided 

with titles in the bas-reliefs of Bharhut in India. 

Only the jataka verses are part of the Tipitaka. The 

collection of prose stories, called Jattakatthavannana 

(Explanation of the Birth Stories), is regarded as a commentary 

and was composed in its present form about 

a millennium later than the verses, which, for the most 

part, are not specifically Buddhist. The best known is 

the 547th, the Vessantara jataka (Sanskrit, VIŚVAN- 

TARA), which describes the last birth of the Bodhisattva, 

before he ascends to the Tusita heaven, from 

where he is reborn on earth to reach enlightenment. 

Among the other collections in the Khuddakanikaya 

are the Verses of the Elders (Thera- and Therlgatha), 

which are supposed to have been spoken by disciples 

of the Buddha. Those ascribed to “elder nuns” 

(Therlgatha) are the oldest literature known from ancient 

India supposed to have been composed by 

women. As such they are unique in Middle Indic as 

well as in Sanskrit literature. Some texts of the Khuddakanikaya 

are early commentaries, with one text, the 

Patisambhidamagga (Path of Discrimination), which 

would fit better into the third part of the canon, the 

Abhidhammapitaka. 

Abhidhammapitaka (Basket Concerning the 

Teaching). The title Abhidhamma is interpreted later 

by Buddhists as “Higher Teaching.” The seven texts of 

this final part of the canon comprise the Kathavatthu 

(Text Dealing with Disputes), where conflicting opinions 

on different points of the Buddhist teaching are 

discussed. According to tradition, this text was composed 

during the reign of Aśoka by Moggalliputta Tissa. 

Therefore, this is the only text in the canon with an 

author and a date. The other texts of the Abhidhammapitaka 

mostly contain enumerations of different 

dhammas elaborated by unfolding a summary 

(matika), which appears at the beginning of the respective 

text. as the frame of an Abhidhamma text. 

Parts of the Vinayapitaka, and particularly the Sam yuttanikaya, 

can be similarly condensed and are handed 

down as “skeleton texts” to be unfolded in recitation. 

The last Abhidhamma text, the Patthana (Conditional 

Relations), can be expanded in such a way that it becomes 

infinite, as the commentary says. 

Commentaries and subcommentaries 

The Tipitaka was the object of explanatory commentaries 

at an early date. According to tradition, both 

Tipitaka and commentary, the Atthakatha (Explanation 

of the Meaning), were brought to Sri Lanka by 

Mahinda during the time of Aśoka (third century C.E.). 

The commentary actually preserved is a revision of an 

earlier, now lost, explanation of the Tipitaka composed 

in old Sinhalese Prakrit. 

During the fifth century C.E., BUDDHAGHOSA composed 

his still valid handbook of Theravada orthodoxy 

for the Mahavihara in Anuradhapura. This Visuddhimagga 

(Path to Purification) is the centerpiece of 

Buddhaghosa’s commentaries on the first four nikayas. 

As stated in the respective introductions, each of the 

four commentaries comprises a full explanation of 

the Buddha’s teaching in combination with the Visuddhimagga. 

Contrary to the claims of the Theravada tradition, 

Buddhaghosa wrote, or supervised the writing, 


627


only of these texts, huge in themselves. The commentaries 

on the Vinaya-pitaka, on the Abhidhammapitaka, 

and on part of the Khuddakanikaya are anonymous. 

A commentary of uncertain date (probably between 

450 and 600 C.E.) on seven of the collections of the 

Khuddakanikaya was composed by Dhammapala (although 

Lance Cousins has recently suggested Jotipala 

as the author of this commentary). It is important to 

note that Dhammapala’s sequence of Khuddakanikaya 

texts deviates from the one common in the Mahavihara, 

and that he used a different recension of two 

texts, suggesting that he was following traditions of 

South Indian Pali literature, which probably flourished 

through the first millennium C.E., but is now almost 

completely lost. 

Subcommentaries constitute another layer of Pali 

literature. After older subcommentaries on the Abhidhammapitaka 

(ascribed to A nanda) and on Buddhaghosa’s 

commentaries (ascribed to Dhammapala), the 

next subcommentaries were written during the reign 

of Parakkamabahu I (r. 1153–1186), who reformed 

and unified the Buddhist order in Sri Lanka. Consequently, 

much weight was put on explaining the 

Vinayapitaka. This task was entrusted by the king to 

Sariputta and his disciples. 

Pa li literature in Southeast Asia 

With Theravada also firmly established in Southeast- 

Asia (Burma [Myanmar], Thailand, and Cambodia), 

new branches of Pali literature developed. During a 

short period in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth 

centuries, Pali literature flourished in Chiang Mai 

(Northern Thailand). A chronicle of Buddhist teaching 

concentrating on developments in Southeast Asia, 

the Jinakalamalinl (Garland of the Epochs of the Conquerer) 

by Ratanapañña, and subcommentaries to the 

Vinayapitaka and Abhidhammapitaka by Ñanakitti 

indicate a remarkable, but short-lived, literary activity. 

At the same time, cosmological texts such as the 

Cakkavaladlpanl (Elucidation of the World Systems), 

composed in 1520 by Sirimaṅgala, brought new elements 

into Pali literature. 

Another literary genre that flourished in this period 

(and that remains particularly popular in Thailand) is 

the jataka. Numerous apocryphal jatakas were written in 

vernacular languages, as well as in Pali. The best known 

Pali collection is the Paññasajataka (Fifty Jatakas), 

which formally imitates the canonical collection. This 

was also the time when the oldest extant Pali manuscripts 

were copied in ancient Lan Na (Northern Thailand). 

Palm leaf manuscripts are also known from Sri 

Lanka and Burma, mostly copied during the eighteenth 

and nineteenth centuries. A singular exception is a 

fragment of a Pali manuscript preserved in Kathmandu 

containing four folios from the Vinayapitaka written 

during the eighth or ninth century in Northern India. 

In Burma, a long and fruitful philological activity 

began with Aggavamsa’s Saddanlti composed in 1154. 

This grammatical treatise deeply influenced the whole 

later Pali tradition. Strong emphasis was also put on 

explaining the Abhidhammapitaka and on writing 

handbooks on Abhidhamma matters. 

Conclusion 

It is striking that the older Pali literature is almost exclusively 

confined to the canon and its commentaries. 

Handbooks on the Vinayapitaka or Abhidhammapitaka, 

such as those written by Buddhadatta, a contemporary 

of Buddhaghosa, or on HERMENEUTICS, such as the 

Petakopadesa (Instruction Concerning the Tipitaka) and 

the Nettipakarana (Guide to Interpretation), both predating 

Buddhaghosa, are rare exceptions, as are the 

chronicles. It is only after the twelfth century that Pali 

literature began to develop outside (and beside) the 

canon. However, these later literary activities, particularly 

the later literature from Southeast Asia, are comparatively 

little studied. When Pali studies began in 

Europe with the publication of a Pali grammar by 

Eugène Burnouf (1801–1852) and Christian Lassen 

(1800–1876) in 1826, emphasis was on research on 

older literature. The canon was first printed after T. 

W. Rhys Davids (1834–1922) founded the Pali Text 

Society in 1881; the society continues to publish translations 

and canonical and commentarial texts in Pali. 

See also: Entries on specific countries; Commentarial 

Literature; Languages; Sinhala, Buddhist Literature in 

Bibliography 

Gombrich, Richard. “What Is Pali? Introduction To.” In A Pali 

Grammar, by Wilhelm Geiger, tr. Bata-Krishna Ghosh, rev. 

and ed. K. R. Norman. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1994. 

Lienhard, Siegfried. A History of Classical Poetry: Sanskrit, Pali, 

Prakrit. A History of Indian Literature, vol. 3, facs. 1. Wiesbaden, 


Norman, K. R. Pali Literature: Including the Canonical Literature 

in Prakrit and Sanskrit of All the Hinayana Schools of 

Buddhism. A History of Indian Literature, vol. 7, facs. 2. 


Oberlies, Thomas. Pali: A Grammar of the Language of the Theravada 

Tipitaka. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001. 


P ANCHEN 

L AMA 

von Hinüber, Oskar. A Handbook of Pali Literature. Berlin: 

Gruyter, 1996. 

von Hinüber, Oskar. Entstehung und Aufbau der Jataka- 

Sammlung. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der 

Literatur, 1998. 

von Hinüber, Oskar. “Structure and Origin of the Patimokkhasutta 

of the Theravadins.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum 

Hungaricae 51 (1998): 257–265. 

von Hinüber, Oskar. “Lan Na as a Centre of Pali Literature 

during the Late Fifteenth Century.” Journal of the Pali Text 

Society 26 (2000): 119–138. 

PANCHEN LAMA 

OSKAR VON HINÜBER 

The Panchen Lamas are the second most powerful religious 

and secular figures in Tibet, after the Dalai 

Lamas. The word pan is a short form of the Sanskrit 

word pandita (scholar), and chen is a Tibetan word that 

means “great.” Although the institution of Panchen 

Lama, like the DALAI LAMA, is part of the DGE LUGS 

(GELUK) tradition in its origins, its power and authority 

extend beyond the confines of that particular sect. 

The line of Panchen Lamas begins with the abbots 

of Bkra shis lhun po (pronounced Tashilunpo) 

Monastery in Gzhi ka rtse (Shigatse), the largest city 

in Gtsang (Tsang) in west central Tibet. Bkra shis lhun 

po was founded by Dge ’dun grub (Gendun Drup, 

1391–1474), a student of the great scholar-saint TSONG 

KHA PA (1357–1419). Dge ’dun grub, who was posthumously 

named the first Dalai Lama, was instrumental 

in extending the influence of the fledgling Dga’ 

ldan pa (Gandenpa, later called Dge lugs pa) sect beyond 

the east central region centered around Lhasa. 

The first named Panchen Lama was Blo bzang chos 

kyi rgyal mtshan (Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen, 1567– 

1662), the teacher of the fourth and fifth Dalai Lamas 

and the force behind the coalition that in 1642 defeated 

the Karma pas and their Gtsang patrons. Following 

that defeat, the center of power moved decisively from 

Gtsang to the new government called the Tusita Palace 

(Dga’ ldan pho brang) seated in the POTALA palace in 

Lhasa. As an expression of gratitude for his help, the 

fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682) named his teacher the 

abbot of Bkra shis lhun po Monastery and bestowed 

on him the title Panchen Lama. 

As with the Dalai Lamas, a number of important 

figures were subsequently and retroactively named 

earlier reincarnations of Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal 

mtshan. The most important of them was Mkhas grub 

dpal bzang po (Kaydrub Pelzangpo, 1385–1438), one 

of the two closest disciples of Tsong kha pa. Following 

him was Bsod nams phyogs kyi glang po (Sonam 

Chokyi Langpo, d. 1504?) and Blo bzang don grub 

(Lobsang Dondrub, 1505–1566). According to this 

manner of calculation, Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal 

mtshan became the fourth Panchen Lama, and the 

present disputed child incarnation of the Panchen 

Lama, Dge ’dun chos kyi nyi ma (Gendun Chökyi 

Nyima, b. 1990), is the eleventh. 

In some early English accounts the Panchen Lamas 

are called Tashi Lamas, a confusion between the name 

of the person and Bkra bzhis lhun po Monastery; in 

Chinese publications, they are called Panchen Erdini, 

a Mongolian word that means “precious jewel.” This 

latter title was first bestowed on the fifth Panchen 

Lama, Blo bzang ye shes (Lobsang Yeshay, 1663–1737) 

in 1731 by the Manchu-Chinese emperor Kangxi. 

After the death of the seventh Dalai Lama in 1758, 

the sixth Panchen Lama, Blo bzang dpal ldan ye shes 

(Lobsang Palden Yeshay, 1738–1780) was regarded by 

the Manchus as the foremost Tibetan spiritual leader 

because of his great learning and rectitude. He was repeatedly 

invited to Beijing. He finally assented and died 

there from smallpox in 1780. 

Although the relationship between the Dalai Lamas 

and Panchen Lamas in the seventeenth and eighteenth 

centuries was cordial, the traditional antagonism between 

western Gtsang and the east central regions of 

Tibet, centered in Gzhi ka rtse and Lhasa, respectively, 

soon reappeared. The Manchus, and later the Chinese 

Communist Party led by Mao Zedong, exploited this 

tension to counter the power of the Dalai Lamas. 

The relationship between the thirteenth Dalai Lama, 

Thub bstan rgya mtsho (Tubten Gyatso, 1876–1933), 

and the ninth Panchen Lama, Thub bstan chos kyi nyi 

ma (Tubten Chökyi Nyima, 1883–1937), was severely 

strained according to Melvyn Goldstein in A History of 

Modern Tibet (1989) when the Dalai Lama attempted 

to tax the Panchen Lama’s estates to help pay for a new 

modern army. The Panchen Lama’s retainers saw this 

as a veiled attack on the institution of the Panchen 

Lama, and this in turn led the Dalai Lama’s government 

to accuse the Panchen Lama of treason. The 

ninth Panchen Lama then fled to China where he remained 

until his death. 

The tenth Panchen Lama, Chos kyi rgyal mtshan 

’phrin las rnam rgyal (Chökyi Gyaltsen Tinlay 


629

P ARAMA RTHA 

from prison in February 1981, the Panchen Lama was 

reinstated; until his death in Gzhi ka rtse in 1989, he 

worked with the central and regional authorities for 

the betterment of Tibet. Tibetans consider the tenth 

Panchen Lama a great patriot, and pictures of him, 

which are allowed by the Chinese government, are 

widely found. 

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, two 

claimants vie for the title of eleventh Panchen Lama. 

In May 1995 in Dharmasala, India, the fourteenth 

Dalai Lama announced that a six-year-old boy from 

Tibet, Dge ’dun chos kyi nyi ma, was the reincarnation 

of the Panchen Lama. He had named the boy chosen 

by Bya bral (Chadrel) Rin po che, a religious official 

from Bkra bzhis lhun po and the head of the committee 

originally constituted by the Chinese government 

to search for the Panchen Lama’s reincarnation. To 

demonstrate its sole authority over important Tibetan 

institutions, China repudiated the choice and later that 

year declared another boy, Rgyal mtshan nor bu 

(Gyaltsen Norbu), a six-year-old from Hla ri ri in Nag 

chu in northeastern Tibet, to be the true Panchen 

Lama. Since 1996 Dge ’dun chos kyi nyi ma and his 

family have been detained despite the efforts of the international 

community to secure their release. 

See also: Lama; Tibet 

In 1995 the Dalai Lama, in his Indian exile, announced that a 

boy named Dge ’dun chos kyi nyi ma was the new Panchen Lama. 

China, asserting its authority, repudiated the choice and later declared 

another boy to be the true Panchen Lama. Here the Chinese 

nominee, six-year-old Rgyal mtshan nor bu (Gyaltsen Norbu), 

is escorted into the Xihuang Monastery in Beijing in 1996. 

AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. 

Namgyel, 1938–1989), like the fourteenth Dalai Lama, 

Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho (Tenzin Gyatso, b. 1935), was 

born in ’A mdo, the far northeastern region of Tibet. 

The tenth Panchen Lama was educated traditionally 

and was given a position in the Chinese government. 

In 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled to India, the Chinese 

government urged the Panchen Rinpoche to assume 

the Dalai Lama’s position, but he declined to do 

so. He further antagonized the increasingly repressive 

Communist China government in 1962 with a seventythousand-character 

petition detailing the appalling 

conditions in Tibet and asking for an end to persecution 

and a genuine acceptance of religious freedom. 

This petition, later published as A Poisoned Arrow: The 

Secret Report of the 10th Panchen Lama, eventually led 

to his imprisonment for ten years. After his release 

Bibliography 

Goldstein, Melvyn. A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: 

Demise of the Lamaist State. Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1989. 

Panchen Lama X. A Poisoned Arrow: The Secret Report of the 

10th Panchen Lama. London: Tibet Information Network, 

1998. Available online at www.tibetinfo.co.uk/pl-opening 

.htm. 

Richardson, Hugh, and Snellgrove, David. A Cultural History of 

Tibet. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1968. 

Smith, E. Gene. “Introduction.” In The Autobiography of the 

First Panchen Lama Blo-bzang-chos-kyi-rgyal-mtshan, ed. 

Ngawang Gelek Demo. Delhi: Ngawang Gelek Demo, 1969. 

PARAMA RTHA 


Paramartha (Zhendi; 499–569) was one of the most influential 

translators of Buddhist philosophical texts in 

China. Born Kulanatha in Ujjain in north central India 

to a brahmin family, Paramartha traveled in 545 to 


P A RAMITA (PERFECTION) 

Funan (modern Cambodia), where there was active 

support for Buddhism. He was brought to Nanhai 

(modern Canton) in 546. From there he was summoned 

to the Liang capital at Jiankang (modern Nanjing) 

by Emperor Wu, a great patron of Buddhism. 

Shortly after his arrival, the capital was sacked and Emperor 

Wu was overthrown. Paramartha fled the chaos, 

traveling southeast to Fuchun in modern Zhejiang 

province, where his translation career appears to have 

begun in earnest. He translated the Shiqi di lun (Treatise 

on the Seventeen Stages [of the Bodhisattva Career]) 

in 550 with the assistance of over twenty monks. Two 

years later he returned to Jiankang, now under the 

newly inaugurated reign of Emperor Yuan, and translated 

the SUVARN APRABHASOTTAMA-SU TRA (Golden 

Light Su tra), again with the help of over twenty 

monastic assistants. A number of additional sutras 

and treatises are attributed to Paramartha and his associates, 

including the Mile xia sheng jing (Su tra on 

Maitreya’s Descent [from Heaven]), the RENWANG JING 

(HUMANE KINGS SU TRA), and the AWAKENING OF 

FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN LUN). The latter two texts are 

widely believed by modern scholars to be APOCRYPHA, 

that is, texts produced in China but claiming legitimacy 

as authentic discourses of the Buddha. 

Paramartha’s most notable contribution is in being 

the first person to widely disseminate YOGACARA 

SCHOOL thought in China. To this end he translated 

several important treatises by the Indian founders of 

this school, ASAṄGA (ca. 320–390) and VASUBANDHU 

(fourth century C.E.). These include Vim śatika (Twenty 

Verses), Trim śika (Thirty Verses), Madhyantavibhaga 

(On Distinguishing the Extremes from the Middle), and 

Mahayanasam graha (Compendium of Mahayana). 

Scholars have long noted, however, that Paramartha 

was no mere translator; by all appearances he added 

much of his own commentarial exegesis. In particular, 

Paramartha attempted to synthesize Yogacara and 

TATHAGATAGARBHA thought into a single philosophical 

system. One of Paramartha’s most notable contributions 

in this regard is the positing of a ninth level of 

consciousness (the amalavijñana, immaculate consciousness), 

which transcends the evolutionary consciousness 

and storehouse consciousness posited by 

the Yogacara school. For Paramartha, this immaculate 

consciousness is the true source of all reality, the means 

to overcome the defilements that afflict the lower levels 

of consciousness, and thus it is identified with the 

tathagatagarbha, the sine qua non for enlightenment. 

Despite a prodigious teaching and translation career, 

Paramartha deeply lamented the chaotic conditions 

of sixth-century China, culminating in a 

thwarted suicide attempt in 568. The death of his closest 

disciple later that same year further debilitated 

Paramartha; he died in February 569. Nonetheless, 

Paramartha’s work laid the philosophical foundation 

not only for the Faxiang (Yogacara) school in China, 

but for the intellectual developments of the Huayan, 

Tiantai, and Chan traditions of the Sui and Tang dynasties 

as well. 

See also: Chan School; Consciousness, Theories of; 

Faxiang School; Huayan School; Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Demiéville, Paul. “Sur l’authenticité du Ta Tch’eng K’i Sin 

Louen.” Bulletin de la Maison Franco-Japonaise 2, no. 2 

(1929): 1–78. Reprinted in Choix d’études bouddhiques, 

1929–1970. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1973. 

Paul, Diana Y. Philosophy of Mind in Sixth-Century China: Paramartha’s 

“Evolution of Consciousness.” Stanford, CA: Stanford 


PA RAMITA (PERFECTION) 

DANIEL BOUCHER 

Paramita (Pali, paraml; Tibetan, pha rol tu phyin pa; 

Chinese, boluomi) refers to the spiritual practice accomplished 

by a BODHISATTVA. The term has been interpreted 

variously as meaning, for example, 

“perfection,” “to reach the other shore,” or “to cross 

over.” In Japanese Buddhism the term has been used 

to indicate the spring and autumn equinox. The literal 

meaning of the Tibetan pha rol tu phyin pa is “to 

reach the other shore,” a meaning with which the Chinese 

translation dao bian agrees. Traditionally, the 

term paramita comprises four groups: the group of six 

paramitas; the group of ten paramitas; the group of 

four paramitas; and the perfections of esoteric Buddhism. 

However, the constituents of each grouping 

differ according to the sutra or śastra in which they 

are discussed. 

The understanding of paramita in the sense of “to 

reach the other shore” suggests that one goes from the 

ordinary world of SAM SARA (this shore) to the realm of 

NIRVAN A (the other shore). Depending on the text, this 

formula may mean, for example, that a buddha is one 

who has reached the other shore already, while an ordinary 

being is one who has not yet reached the other 

shore (Maitreyapariprccha-su tra). “Reaching the other 


631

P ARISH (DANKA, TERAUKE) SYSTEM IN J APAN 

shore” may mean that, in accordance with one’s practice, 

one attains the final goal with nothing remaining, 

or that one reaches reality-as-it-is (just as all streams 

finally return to the ocean), or that one attains the incomparable 

fruition (of awakening). 

The group of six paramitas includes DANA (GIV- 

ING), ślla (ethical behavior), ksanti (patience), vlrya 

(endeavor or effort), DHYANA (contemplation or 

meditation), and PRAJNA (WISDOM). Dana means to 

give an ordinary gift, to give the gift of the dharma, 

or to give the gift of mental peace and tranquility to 

another. Ślla means to honor and practice proper ethical 

behavior. Ksanti means to endure hardship. 

Vlrya means to strengthen one’s mind and body and 

to practice continuously the other five perfections. 

Dhyana means to focus one’s mind and make it firm 

and stable. Prajña means to awaken to the defining 

characteristics of existence. Of these, the first five can 

be understood to describe the practices manifested in 

a bodhisattva’s activities of KARUNA (COMPASSION) 

and the last a bodhisattva’s wisdom. Because prajña 

is so foundational to the other five perfections, it is 

referred to as the “mother of all buddhas.” 

When four more perfections—UPAYA (appropriate 

action), pranidhana (vow), bala (strength), and jñana 

(understanding)—are added to the former six, the 

grouping of ten paramitas is established. Upaya means 

that a bodhisattva assists SENTIENT BEINGS by means of 

utilizing his expertise (upayakauśalya). Pranidhana 

means that having become awakened, a bodhisattva 

makes the highest vow to save all sentient beings from 

the round of sam sara. Bala refers to the power to guide 

sentient beings to proper spiritual practices. Jñana 

refers to the attainment of peace that comes with awakening 

and the instruction of sentient beings to attain 

the all-inclusive wisdom. Along with perfecting one’s 

self, these ten perfections serve the purpose of benefiting 

all sentient beings. These comprise the bodhisattva’s 

spiritual practices completed on each of the 

ten stages of the Daśabhu mika-su tra. 

The group of four paramitas refers to an explanation 

of the perfections found in the Śu raṅgama 

(samadhi)-su tra and includes permanent perfection— 

a perfection that is completely everlasting; bliss 

perfection—a perfection that is completely peaceful; 

material perfection—a perfection that has the nature 

of being completely substantive; and pure perfection— 

a perfection that has the nature of being wholesome. 

These four can be understood to comprise the four 

virtues of one who has attained nirvana (the extinction 

of the cause of suffering). 

The perfections of esoteric Buddhism are focused 

on Vairocana Buddha who is located at the center 

of the Vajradhatumandala. These postulate vajraparamita 

(diamond scepter perfection) in the East, 

ratna-paramita (jewel perfection) in the South, 

dharma-paramita (doctrine perfection) in the West, 

and kama-paramita (desire perfection) in the North. 

Aside from these, THERAVADA Buddhism, in texts 

such as Cariyapitaka, Buddhavam sa, and Dhammapadatthakatha, 

postulates the following ten perfections: 

dana (charity), slla (ethical behavior), 

nekkhamma (liberation), pañña (wisdom), viriya 

(endeavor or effort), khanti (patience), sacca (truth), 

adhitthana (resolve), metta (loving kindness), and 

upekkha (equanimity). 

See also: Mahayana; Mandala; Prajñaparamita Literature 

Bibliography 

Conze, Edward, trans. The Large Su tra on Perfect Wisdom. 

Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 

1975. 

Dayal, Har. The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sankrit Literature. 

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1932. 

Dutt, Nalinaksha, ed. Bodhisattvabhu mih. Patna, India: K. P. 

Jayaswal Research Institute, 1978. 

Kawamura, Leslie, ed. The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhism. 

Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981. 

Ogihara, Unrai, ed. Bodhisattva-bhu mi: A Statement of Whole 

Course of the Bodhisattva. Tokyo: Sankibo Buddhist Book 

Store, 1971. 

LESLIE S. KAWAMURA 

PARISH (DANKA, TERAUKE) SYSTEM 

IN JAPAN 

Parish temples (alternately dannadera, dankadera, or 

bodaiji) constitute over 90 percent of Buddhist temples 

in contemporary Japan. These terms have their etymology 

in the Sanskrit word DANA (GIVING) and were 

used during the medieval period to refer to major temple 

patrons. The broader concept of a “parish” in 

Japan, however, emerged during the Tokugawa period 

(1603–1868) as the predominant Buddhist temple 

affiliation method for ordinary lay members. The 

practice of organizing Buddhist adherents into 


P ARISH (DANKA, TERAUKE) SYSTEM IN J APAN 

parishes stems from the Tokugawa government’s anti- 

Christian (Kirishitan) campaigns and ordinances of 

1613 and 1614. Christianity, which had achieved a 

foothold in certain regions during the sixteenth century 

through the efforts of Portuguese and Spanish 

missionaries, was increasingly seen by the new Tokugawa 

regime as a subversive force and a threat to their 

hegemony. The threat of Christianity, as seen from the 

perspective of government officials, lay less with its 

biblical teachings and doctrines, than with the issue of 

Christian loyalty to God and the pope rather than to 

the Tokugawa government’s secular authority. This led 

to a ban on Christianity in 1614. 

To ensure that no Japanese person remained a 

Christian, the government ordered “Investigations of 

Christians” (Kirishitan aratame) to be conducted in 

each domain. Former Christians were certified by the 

local Buddhist temple and village officials as no longer 

Christians but as parish members of a Buddhist temple. 

The first surveys of Christians, begun in 1614, were 

followed by more extensive surveys ordered by the government 

in 1659 in which not only the parish temple, 

but the village goningumi (a unit of five households 

sharing mutual responsibility) were required to attest 

that no one in their group was a Christian. By 1670 

the practice of temple investigation and registration 

(tera-uke seido) had become almost universal when 

a standardized temple registration certificate was 

adopted by Buddhist temples across all regions of 

Japan. This document certified that parishioners were 

neither Christians nor Nichirenfuju fuse members (a 

sect of Nichiren Buddhism banned by the government 

in 1669). Although the Buddhist temple held primary 

responsibility for monitoring and reporting on its 

parishioners to the village head, each village head had 

to gather these certificates in order to compile reports 

called shu mon aratamecho (Registry of Religious Affiliation), 

also known as shu mon ninbetsucho or shu shi 

aratamecho . 

These registries helped authorities monitor and 

control the populace by using Buddhist temples and 

local authorities to maintain detailed records, weeding 

out any persons who might be a potential threat to the 

government. From the perspective of the average 

parishioner, the practice of temple registration legally 

obligated them ritually and economically to their 

parish temple under the threat of being branded a 

“heretic,” which continued to have meaning even as 

the possibility of Christian subversion of the government 

disappeared. 

Temple membership was not an individual affair; 

rather, the unit of religious affiliation was the emergent 

unit of social organization, the “household” (ie). 

Thus, from the mid-Tokugawa period onward, the 

term danka (used interchangeably with danna), which 

includes the Chinese character for household, became 

the dominant term for parish households. For each 

household, the main benefit of membership was the 

funerary and ongoing memorial services that temples 

provided for all household members. Temple grounds 

also served as the location for the family gravestones. 

Thus, once a family registered as a member of a particular 

temple, that affiliation continued for successive 

generations during which sect changes were virtually 

impossible. 

Parish temples emphasized parishioners’ obligation 

toward the temple in terms of financial support and 

attendance of funerals and ancestral rites. Whether it 

be to pay for rituals or temple construction, it is clear 

that parishioners were not simply asked to support 

their parish temple, they were obligated to do so. The 

consequences of not doing so resulted in parishioners 

being branded heretics. 

In ritual terms, the parish temple also became virtually 

synonymous with “funerary Buddhism,” where 

DEATH rituals, as opposed to meditation, sutra study, 

or prayers for worldly benefits, became the main ritual 

practice. Beyond the funeral proper, Buddhist 

parish priests performed death rites throughout the 

year. Memorial services were routinely performed for 

thirty-three years following a death. Services were also 

performed for various classes of deceased people, such 

as hungry ghosts (Sanskrit, preta), ANCESTORS, and 

women and children who had died during childbirth. 

Large festivals for the dead, such as the summer Obon 

festival for ancestors or the Segaki festival for hungry 

ghosts, marked important moments in each temple’s 

annual ritual calendar. This preoccupation with ritualizing 

death was intimately tied to the emergence of 

the Buddhist parish temples during the Tokugawa period. 

Hereditary parishioners, who associated the 

parish temple with the proper maintenance of funerary 

rites and family customs, provided the ritual and 

economic backbone of Buddhist temples. The parish 

system in Japan, originally established as a method to 

monitor Christians, eventually became the basic organizational 

structure for Japanese Buddhism into the 

modern period. 

See also: Nationalism and Buddhism; Temple System 

in Japan 


633

P ARITTA AND R AKS A T EXTS 

Bibliography 

Marcure, Kenneth. “The Danka System.” Monumenta Nipponica 

40, no. 1: 39–67. 

Tamamuro Fumio. “Local Society and the Temple-Parishioner 

Relationship within the Bakufu’s Governance Structure.” 

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 28, nos. 3–4 (2001): 

260–292. 

Williams, Duncan. “Representation of Zen: A Social and Institutional 

History of Soto Zen Buddhism in Edo Japan.” Ph.D. 

diss. Harvard University, 2000. 

PARITTA AND RAKSA TEXTS 

DUNCAN WILLIAMS 

Paritta (protection) or raksa (Pali, rakka; protection) 

are protective texts that keep a person who chants them 

safe from evil spells, menacing other-worldly creatures, 

and the dangers of knives, guns, disease, betrayal, fire, 

and poison. Parittas like the Ratana, Maṅgala, Mora, 

Dibbamanta, Khandha, Dhajagga, and A tanatiya suttas 

are some of the most common texts used in Southeast 

Asian Buddhism. Raksas like the Pañcaraksa and sections 

of the Candragarbha-su tra also fall under this 

protective invocational genre and are well known by 

practitioners in India, Tibet, and East Asia. They are 

important in daily monastic and lay Buddhist life, and 

collections of these texts, such as the Pirit Pota in Sri 

Lanka or the Jet Tamnan in Laos, are found in most 

homes and monasteries. Any Buddhist who regularly 

attends monastic ceremonies, or requests monks to 

bless his or her property or endeavors is familiar with 

these Pali and Sanskrit texts, which often serve as subjects 

for sermons. Paritta and raksa literature has long 

been associated with ritual action and protective implements, 

such as sacred string, holy water, candles, 

AMULETS AND TALISMANS, incense, knives, engraved 

metal manta (Sanskrit, MANTRA) texts—rolled and 

worn around the neck (Thai, takrut)—and the like. 

Paritta and raksa literature is also the subject of decorative 

and ritual art in Tibet and East Asia. 

Primary textual sources abound for those interested 

in Buddhist protective texts. There are several 

places in the earliest Pali suttas, chronicles, and commentaries 

from the third century B.C.E. to the sixth 

century C.E. that mention how parittas were employed 

during protective ceremonies. For example, the commentary 

on Ratana-sutta mentions that A NANDA 

sprinkled water from the Buddha’s alms bowl as he 

went through Vesali reciting the sutta. Older canonical 

texts from the third century B.C.E. to the third century 

C.E. that also describe parittas being used in ceremonies 

are mentioned in the Mahavam sa (VII 14) 

when the Buddha is said to have permitted the use of 

a protective chant to cure a snakebite in the Vinayapitaka 

(II 109–110). As Peter Skilling points out, the 

A tanatiya-sutta of the Dlghanikaya is a protective 

paritta. The MILINDAPAN HA (150, 27) states that the 

Buddha himself sanctioned the use of these protective 

texts. The Dhammapadatthakatha (III 6) includes 

a story in which the Buddha recommends the use 

of a protective manta for monks who are afraid of 

tree spirits. 

Although the differences between the uses of 

paritta texts of South and Southeast Asia and their 

counterparts—the raksa texts of India, Tibet, and East 

Asia—have not been adequately explored, certain 

MAHAYANA sutras contain sections that could be called 

protective texts. Some texts that fall under this rubric 

are sections of the Siksasamuccaya and Astasahasrikaprajñaparamita, 

as well as tantric (Tibetan, rgyud) 

texts in the Tibetan Kanjur, such as the Mahasitavanasu 

tra and Bhadrakara-su tra. In East Asia, chapter 21 

of the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), 

on the supernatural powers of the tathagata, is also 

considered a protective text. 

The five goddesses of Tibetan and East Asian Buddhism 

also are the focus of protective texts known 

loosely as the Pañcaraksa. These texts are hymns that 

praise and request the protective power of the five 

goddesses (Mahapratisara, Mahasasrapramardin, 

Mahamantranudharin, Mahamantranusarin, and 

Mahamayur). The last, Mahamayur, became the focus 

of her own cult, and popular protective texts, such 

as the fourth-century Mahamayu rl-Vidyarajñl, were 

used to invoke her in ritual. These five deities are especially 

popular among Newar Buddhists in the Kathmandu 

Valley of Nepal, but they are also depicted on 

murals in the AJAN T A cave complex in India and are 

the subject of elaborate MAN D ALAs in Tibet and China. 

In the various mikkyo (esoteric) schools of Japan, Mahamayur, 

in particular, is a myo o (radiant wisdom 

ruler) and she is depicted riding on the back of a peacock 

(who has the ability to kill snakes) and holding 

two fruits that ward off evil spirits and protect against 

illness. 

In Southeast Asia parittas are part of everyday Buddhist 

monastic and secular life. In modern Thailand 

parittas are chanted at a number of ceremonies and especially 

at house, water buffalo, and even motorcycle 


P ATH 

blessings. In northeastern Thailand these ceremonies 

often involve a quorum of four monks who chant while 

holding a white cord that connects their hands to 

everyone in the room. This cord is also wrapped 

around a Buddha image and often surrounds the whole 

room or even the whole house. One end of the cord is 

submerged in a bowl of water and, after the chanting, 

a handful of leaves is placed in the water and then used 

to flick water over those objects to be blessed and the 

people who attend the ceremony. Protective yan (Sanskrit, 

yantra) are drawn with moistened white powder 

and sealed with small gold leaves and the exhalation of 

the monk who has chanted. The power of parittas lies 

in their sound and in their role in a protective ceremony, 

and less (or not at all) in their semantic meaning. 

In fact, their meaning often has nothing to do with 

their role and result in a ritual. 

The numbers of mantras (Pali, manta) in the various 

paritta collections varied widely before the printing 

of modern prayer books like the Royal Chanting 

Book of Thailand, the various Gu Meu Phra Song of 

modern Laos, and the Catubhanavara in Burma 

(Myanmar). Still, the Ratana, Maṅgala, and Dibbamanta 

parittas have remained at the core of these collections 

for centuries. The parameters of the Raksa 

genre in Tibet and East Asia are more difficult to define 

and this genre overlaps in content and function 

with that of DHARAN I. Both groups of texts play a significant 

role in the ritual life of Buddhists across the 

various schools in Asia. 

Bibliography 

Becchetti, Catherine. Le Mystère dans les Lettres: Étude sur les 

yantra bouddhiques du Cambodge et de la Thaïlande. 

Bangkok, Thailand: Edition des Cahiers de France, 1991. 

Bizot, François, and Lagirarde, François. La Pureté par les mots. 

Paris: École Française d’Extreme-Orient, 1996. 

De Silva, Lily. “Paritta: A Historical and Religious Study of the 

Buddhist Ceremony for Peace and Prosperity in Sri Lanka.” 

Spolia Zeylanica (Bulletin of the National Museums of Sri 

Lanka), 36:1 (1981). 

Khanna, Madhu. Yantra. London: Thames and Hudson, 1979. 

Nginn, P. S. Les fêtes profanes et religieuses. Vientiane, Laos: Éditions 

du Comte Litteraire, 1967. 

Saddhatissa, H., trans. The Suttanipata. London: Curzon, 1985. 

Saso, Michael. Homa Rites and Mandala Meditation in Tendai 

Buddhism. New Delhi: South Asia Books, 1991. 

Skilling, Peter. “The Raksa Literature of the Śravakayana.” Journal 

of the Pali Text Society 15 (1992): 110–180. 

Skilling, Peter. The Mahasu tras. Cambridge, MA: Wisdom, 

1994. 

Snodgrass, Adrian. The Matrix and Diamond World Mandalas 

in Shingon Buddhism. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1988. 

Spiro, Melford. Burmese Supernaturalism. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 

Prentice Hall, 1967. 

Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhism 


Terwiel, B. J. Monks and Magic: An Analysis of Religious Ceremonies 

in Central Thailand. London: Curzon, 1975. 

PATH 

JUSTIN MCDANIEL 

From the inception of their tradition, Buddhists have 

conceived of their soteriological regimens as analogous 

to a “path” (marga). Buddhists from different traditions 

invariably believed in the power of the marga to 

provide a tested and viable passage to NIRVAN A, and to 

replicate in those who followed its course verifiable 

transformative experiences. The idea that religious life 

primarily involves one’s own personal effort in walking 

an explicit path of training distinguishes the MAIN- 

STREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS from those religions that 

place pride of place on adherence to stipulated doctrines 

or the saving grace of a transcendent “other.” 

The teachings of the Buddha were often referred to 

as “traces of [the Buddha’s] footsteps or tracks” (pratipada), 

because they were seen as being deliberately left 

behind by him after he had personally traversed the 

highway to liberation. 

The path is more than a descriptive account of absolute 

paradigms of religious ideals in illo tempore; it 

also defines prescriptive parameters for religious behavior 

and spiritual attainment in mundane time, 

which allows Buddhists of different traditions to articulate 

their religious experiences in mutually intelligible 

language. The notion of path helps to organize a 

highly illusive and subjective realm of personal experience 

according to normative standards, and provides 

a heuristic model upon which Buddhist teachers could 

ground their pedagogy and claim a sense of continuity 

within the transmitted tradition. 

The notion of path contains the simultaneous implication 

of constancy and elasticity. The Buddha is 

said to have professed that he was but one of the many 

enlightened beings since time immemorial who had 


635

P ATH 

walked on this same “ancient path,” making his role 

more that of a restorer than an innovator. Ever accessible 

and enduringly relevant to human quandaries, 

Buddhists describe this path as being discoverable even 

by those in future eons who were bereft of the benefit 

of direct Buddhist instruction, seeing the periodic resurrections 

of the timeless Dharma by future BUDDHAS 

as a virtual certainty and a reassuring prospect. In this 

regard, the metaphor of path represents something 

that is unalterably reliable, a constant that will forever 

exist, whether or not it is discovered. Since the conundrums 

besetting all SENTIENT BEINGS are presumed 

to be the same throughout the ages, attributable to primordial 

nescience (avidya) and craving (trsna), the solution 

thereof is presumed to be immutable and 

eternally applicable as well. 

On the other hand, the path is also construed by 

some as elastic and open to potential elaborations and 

even modifications. It is more than the Buddha’s account 

of an unchanging, settled course of action to be 

passively retraced by future generations. The Buddhist 

path was also seen as in some way originally and ingeniously 

devised by the Buddha, who had judiciously 

and expediently plotted its guideposts with considerations 

specific to both time and individual. This utilitarian 

view of the path allows for the possibility of 

different paths with different approaches, so long as 

they lead to the appropriate goal or the general wellbeing 

and betterment of sentient beings. Many Buddhists 

therefore conceive the path as open to renewal 

and reinvention by the spiritually qualified in order to 

address changing religious needs, an approach consistent 

with the Buddhist strategy of employing diverse 

UPAYA (skillful means) in the edification of even the 

least spiritually inclined. The path as a historical reality, 

too, was never statically suspended outside the contexts 

of history, but constantly evolves in dynamic 

interaction with social and cultural changes. This intrinsic 

resilience is particularly evidenced by the new 

categories of soteriological schemata that Buddhism 

formulated as the religion was transplanted to different 

geographical regions or responded to the emergence 

of new traditions. 

This tendency to formulate marga systems as an 

afterthought to newly arisen doctrines and ideals is 

contrary to the common expectation that the path 

should exclusively provide practical guides to the realization 

of enlightenment. In actuality, the development 

of new programs of praxis has often been instigated by 

polemical agendas or by an impulse to provide a sense 

of coherence, self-containment, and legitimacy to an 

ideology that a faction was promoting. Rather than 

spiritual maps, then, path schemata could at times 

serve more as hermeneutical devices to relegate or promote, 

to exclude or incorporate, different teachings 

and traditions, like KU KAI’s ten abodes of the mind 

(ju ju shin), which subsumes the whole of Buddhism in 

a schema that privileges his own school of SHINGON 

BUDDHISM (Buswell and Gimello, p. 20), or as ceremonies 

of ritualized and formalized behavior that invoke 

and reaffirm ancient mystical paradigms, like the 

initiation procedures into the Soto Zen transmission 

of the mind (Bodiford, pp. 423–424). 

The emergence of the MAHAYANA movement led to 

a plethora of new, elaborate marga systems. Among 

these, the status traditionally assigned to the Buddha 

underwent significant upgrading as the gaping distinction 

of the BODHISATTVA path and its goal of buddhahood 

from mainstream Buddhist SOTERIOLOGY 

and its ideal of arhatship became the hallmark of Mahayana’s 

dramatic self-idealization. Correspondingly, 

the path that led to such an infinitely more elevated 

religious goal was also framed quite differently in both 

quality and projected duration. The arduous and protracted 

crucibles that a bodhisattva is supposed to endure 

are exemplified and organized in the uniquely 

Mahayana scheme of the ten stages or grounds (bhu mi) 

of the bodhisattva path: the stages of joy, immaculacy, 

splendor, brilliance, invincibility, immediacy, transcendence, 

immovability, eminence, and dharmacloud. 

In this schema, each stage is primarily defined 

by marvelous powers, transcendental wisdom, and altruistic 

qualities in increasingly mythic proportion and 

is to be completed in exponentially greater numbers 

of eons. The Mahayana tradition’s understanding of 

its soteriological objectives similarly was expanded 

immeasurably to embody the loftiest inspirational 

models, rather than strictly prescribing something 

that is readily accessible in the here and now. Buddhahood, 

the radically reenvisioned product of this 

expansively reconstituted path, stood in the most hyperbolic 

contrast to the now polemicized HINAYANA 

ideal personality of the ARHAT, in terms of a buddha’s 

near-omnipotent capacity to save all beings and his 

myriad other wondrous qualities. 

Doctrinal implications of the path 

Just as a path is delineated according to fixed coordinates, 

the Buddhists maintained that their religious 

path is based on the bedrock of certain cosmically operative 

laws that are eternal, inviolate, and efficacious. 

According to Buddhism, these laws—such as KARMA 


P ATH 

(ACTION) and its fruition, anatman (no-self) and ŚU NY- 

ATA (EMPTINESS), and PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPEN- 

DENT ORIGINATION) or the conditioned coarising of 

suffering and of psychophysical existence—are discernible 

and logical, and open to rational and meditative 

scrutiny, because they are the organizing principles 

of reality itself rather than the haphazard and fantastic 

figments of personal mystical experiences. Since the 

Buddhist spiritual path was said to pattern itself after 

these universal principles, the path is also held out to 

be fundamentally rational and logical in that it is propounded 

on the grounds of a proper diagnosis of human 

problems, the accurate pinpointing of the source 

of those problems, the prognosis of a problem-free 

condition, and the solution tending to the eradication 

of the problem—the contents of the paradigmatic Buddhist 

soteriological formula, the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. 

In distinction to non-Buddhist soteriological 

solutions—which are seen as either futile or at least inefficient 

because of their failure to properly identify 

and base their solutions on operative and governing 

natural laws—the four noble truths represent instead 

an attempt to plot religious development in accordance 

with certifiable causal relations so that the path 

is specifically and efficaciously tailored to target the 

real cause of suffering. The noble eightfold path by the 

same token is understood to be “right,” not so much 

because it stands in opposition to what is morally 

wrong but because it is proclaimed on the principle of 

the middle way—a religious attitude grounded on the 

experientially sensible, which is free from the extremes 

of such categorical assertions as eternalism and nihilism, 

dogmatism and skepticism, self-indulgence and 

self-denial, and so on (Kalupahana, pp. 121 and 152). 

Denouncing blind FAITH in hearsay, metaphysical reasoning, 

and divine revelation, the Buddha was widely 

seen by his followers not as a purveyor of arbitrary ritual 

injunctions but as one whose direct experiential insight 

conforms well to both reason and the observable 

principles of all phenomena (Jayatilleke, pp. 169–204). 

Just as the word Dharma in its Indian religious and 

philosophical context represents both the underlying 

principles governing all phenomena and the religious 

teachings deriving thereon, the term marga to a large 

extent is synonymous and connotes the same dual implication. 

The four noble truths therefore anchor personal 

religious action on external natural laws, making 

the realization of “the way things are” equivalent to the 

attainment of ultimate liberation and purification. 

Although reason and analysis were rarely presumed 

in the Buddhist tradition to be sufficient in themselves 

to engender liberating insight—in fact some schools of 

Buddhism at times saw them as impediments to be 

transcended before genuine, nonconceptual wisdom 

could set in—a consistent attempt was made to integrate 

the conative aspect of the path with its cognitive 

aspects. In other words, the four noble truths were enumerated 

in such a way so as to make them congruous 

with the Buddha’s analysis of existential realities as encapsulated 

in the scheme of, say, pratltyasamutpada, so 

that Buddhist praxis is presented as an ineluctable 

course of action deriving from the proper understanding 

of the way things are. 

These are not just “truths” in the sense that they are 

distinguished from what is rationally incoherent or incompatible 

with epistemological facts. Buddhists have 

always viewed this “proper understanding” to be more 

than just a neutral intellectual assent to what is factual: 

It actually carries a compelling ethical dimension that 

informs and structures religious behavior so that the 

latter is carried out in accordance with the ethical efficacy 

of the external natural laws. Thus, to see reality 

is to understand the imperative to walk the path, in the 

same manner that these reified Buddhist sets of truths, 

like the twelvefold chain of dependent origination and 

the four noble truths, were not intended to be metaphysical 

expositions, but instead psycho-ethical analyses 

that helped to galvanize spiritual action. This was 

the reason that the Buddha proclaimed that penetration 

into any one of the noble truths amounts to penetration 

into all four: Since the fourth noble truth is 

the prescribed praxis (conative) after the diagnosis and 

prognosis of the problem were identified in the first 

three truths (cognitive), the conative and cognitive aspects 

of the path are in this way seen to be complementary 

and mutually validating. In this framework of 

understanding, to divorce one’s religious action from 

empirical insight is to continue to allow the assertion 

of, and the search for, the wrongly posited absolutistic 

substance (svabhava) to further create delusions 

that are in turn the propelling force of wrong actions 

and SAM SARA. 

On the other hand, Buddhist soteriological programs 

often conversely posit PRAJNA (WISDOM) as the 

consummating finality of the marga rather than the 

path’s initial guiding vision. This seeming ambivalence 

on whether cognitive exercise of insight or purificatory 

practice constitutes the body of the path 

gives rise to variant explanations of BODHI (AWAKEN- 

ING) as, alternatively, the result of a gnoseological realization 

of reality, the overcoming and abandonment 

of mental defilements, or the spontaneous maturation 


637

P ATH 

of wholesome karmic seeds. Take, for example, the 

penchant of mainstream Buddhist schools to define 

spiritually accomplished people in four distinct gradations: 

the so-called four noble persons of streamenterer, 

once-returner, nonreturner, and arhat. At least 

within this scheme, the completion of the path is characterized 

as entailing both an epiphanic instant of 

insight and the extended application of explicit procedures 

of mental purification. The progression from the 

first to the fourth grades of perfection is usually 

defined in terms of the eradication of ten specific psychological 

“fetters” (sam yojanaprahana). The abandonment 

of the first three fetters—the view of an 

(abiding) personality, belief in the efficacy of rites and 

rituals (and other religious exertions that are causally 

irrelevant to the removal of suffering), and skeptical 

DOUBT—is associated with the establishment of right 

view and is said to be achieved at the very moment 

when supramundane knowledge is ignited (once the 

false view of personality is eliminated, the other two 

fetters vanish instantly). But the remaining seven fetters, 

such as lust and ill will, are generally said to be so 

deep-seated and lingering that they could only be subdued, 

attenuated, and eventually eradicated through 

the enactment of a full soteriological regimen. 

Different models of the path 

The path’s functionality can be understood structurally 

in several models. The first assumes the path 

constitutes the simultaneous cultivation of various 

mutually balanced activities, each indispensably addressing 

and governing a particular aspect of the spiritual 

life. One such soteriological program is the noble 

eightfold path (arya-astan˙gikamarga) of right view, 

right intention, right speech, right conduct, right 

livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right 

concentration. Its layout of the constituent practices 

on the path does not necessarily imply the sequential 

order in which these stages are to be cultivated, but is 

rather an indication that the Buddhist path enjoins a 

holistic lifestyle that comprehensively tends to all 

facets of an individual’s daily activity, whether mental, 

physical, verbal, or spiritual. 

The second model conceptualizes the path as a spiraling, 

self-augmenting process, with each step in the 

soteriological program being implicitly embodied and 

reinforced by subsequent steps. Each round of this spiraling 

path goes through the same constituent sets of 

practices, but with all of them becoming correspondingly 

strengthened in foundational and supportive 

power to the other sets. The rationale behind the working 

principle of the “three trainings” (trlni śiksani) is 

illustrative of this model of upwardly spiraling spiritual 

progression. The first of these trainings, morality 

(ślla, consisting of basic ethical codes like nonviolence, 

rules on the use of daily requisites, such as moderation 

in eating, and the restraint of the senses and of other 

grossly distracting and disquieting activities), is understood 

to condition one’s mental and physical states 

so that they become amenable to the second training: 

mental absorption (samadhi) or tranquility (śamatha), 

whose highly refined cultivation of concentration and 

equanimity requires a pliant and elated psychophysical 

state that is not dulled by immoderation or burdened 

with anguish. Minimizing mental hindrances 

correspondingly magnifies the mental clarity that is the 

direct result of tranquility practice; this makes possible 

the exercise of the third training: prajña (wisdom) 

or insightful discernment (VIPASSANA; SANSKRIT, 

VIPAŚYANA) of the impermanent, unsatisfactory, selfless 

nature of existential reality. The transcendent 

wisdom kindled thereby in its turn deepens the practitioner’s 

conviction to establish himself or herself on 

a firm moral foundation, rendering in him or her a 

profoundly subtle and harmonious mindset that is 

reinforcing and naturally compatible with the first 

training. This positive loop feeds on itself, building 

momentum as each of the constituent trainings conduces 

to more advanced ones and, at the same time, 

injects new vigor into, and qualitatively reorients, the 

antecedent ones. 

Since the noble eightfold path has often been organized 

and interpreted in the framework of the three 

trainings (e.g., right intention as belonging to the first 

training in morality, right concentration to training in 

tranquility, and so on), it shows that traditional Buddhist 

HERMENEUTICS sought to correlate at least some 

of these alternative marga schemata. In fact, all these 

modular understandings of the Buddhist path have 

large areas of overlap and each soteriological scheme 

could be readily classified into more than one model. 

Third, contrary to what the metaphor of a “path” 

would intuitively suggest, the Buddhist marga has been 

depicted in a “sudden,” or subitist, model by some traditions, 

entailing a momentous spiritual vision that instantaneously 

transports the practitioner beyond the 

conditioned (sam skrta) realm of gradual, deliberate exertions. 

Robert E. Buswell, Jr., and Robert Gimello describe 

several scenarios in which such an “anti-marga” 

model prevailed: 

Thus do Buddhist texts abound in such seeming selfcontradictions 

as the claim that the fruit (phala) of prac- 


P ATH 

tice is actually a prevenient cause (hetu) of its own causal 

practices, the assertion that practice and realization are 

really indistinguishable from each other, the claim that 

sudden realization precedes and enables gradual practice, 

and even the conviction that all prideful confidence in 

the sufficiency of one’s “own power” (jiriki) as exercised 

in “difficult practices” (nangyo ) must be relinquished 

humbly in the “easy practice” (igyo ) whereby one accepts 

the “other power” (tariki) of the transcendent. (Buswell 

and Gimello, p. 24) 

The final proposed model conceptualizes the path as 

a linear sequence of increasingly refined stages of 

psycho-ethical amelioration from rudimentary to more 

advanced practices, with former steps succeeded by 

those that follow and abandoned after they have served 

their purpose. This pragmatic view of the nature of religious 

practice lends itself to the traditional Buddhist 

reluctance to assign absolutistic and overriding value 

to any set of practices as an end in itself. Like the 

individual footsteps that form a track, the different 

practices suitable at different points in spiritual development 

are not to be mistaken as definitive endpoints, 

but only as onward-leading phases in a continuous 

process of development that one passes through rather 

than abides in. 

In this depiction of the path as a linear progression, 

the ultimate value of spiritual practices has little to do 

with insuperable religious ideals in and of themselves. 

Their worth lies instead in their value in producing and 

sustaining more advanced forms of cultivation. If one 

unduly clings to these transitional trainings after they 

have served their purpose, they would only become 

self-inhibiting affectations and conceptual burdens 

rather than the expedient, liberating devices they were 

meant to be—hence, the ubiquitous parable in Buddhist 

texts of the person letting go of the raft as soon 

as the river is crossed and the famous maxim “even 

what is good has to be abandoned, let alone what is 

evil” (dhamma pi ...pahatabba pageva adhamma). 

Such a model of successive advancement is found 

in the so-called five paths paradigm: the path of equipment, 

the path of preparation, the path of seeing, the 

path of cultivation, and the path of completion (alternately 

called the path beyond instruction), with each 

“path” serving as a preparatory and prerequisite step 

to its immediately subsequent path. At the most elementary 

path of equipment, one is expected to engage 

in meritorious actions that will plant the wholesome 

karmic seeds that are conducive and necessary to spiritual 

maturation. But after one has arrived at the second 

path of preparation, where one is supposed to 

apply oneself to more refined, formal trainings, such 

as mental cultivation, the actions appropriate to the 

first path would now be a distraction, rather than a 

help. Once one has entered the stage of cultivation, 

which entails the actualization and implementation of 

the proper dharma one “sees” on the preceding path, 

one need not revert back to the former stage to repeat 

the awakening experience, because the insight engendered 

thereby is generally held out to be final and not 

liable to regression. 

It is practically inconceivable to try to understand 

the Buddhist doctrinal outlook and programs of practice 

without appreciating and making reference to 

their conception of the path. Its modal varieties and 

richness in meanings were naturally the result of 

many centuries of development, reflecting the perennial 

Buddhist fascination with the theme and its diverse 

interpretations, but the basic assumptions and 

spiritual ethos it carries, as outlined previously, have 

also given Buddhism whatever degree of consistency 

it has enjoyed. 

See also: Psychology 

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Dohaku’s Reform Movement.” Monumenta Nipponica 

46, no. 4 (1991): 423–451. 


India. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993. 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr., and Gimello, Robert M., eds. Paths to 

Liberation: The Marga and Its Transformations in Buddhist 

Thought. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992. 

Gethin, Rupert. The Buddhist Path to Awakening: A Study of the 

Bodhi-Pakkhiya Dhamma. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1992. 

Gethin, Rupert. The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford and New 


Gregory, Peter N., ed. Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism. 


Gregory, Peter N., ed. Sudden and Gradual: Approaches to Enlightenment 

in Chinese Thought. Honolulu: University of 


Jayatilleke, J. N. Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge. Delhi: 


Kalupahana, David J. A History of Buddhist Philosophy: Continuities 

and Discontinuities. Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 1992. 

King, W. L. Theravada Meditation: The Buddhist Transformation 


Press, 1980. 


639

P ATIENCE 

Mahathera Henepola Gunaratana. The Jhanas: In Theravada 

Buddhist Meditation. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication 


Ñanarama. The Seven Stages of Purification and The Insight 

Knowledges: A Guide to the Progressive Stages of Buddhist 

Meditation. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 

1983. 

Ruegg, David S. Buddha-nature, Mind, and the Problem of Gradualism 

in a Comparative Perspective: On the Transmission and 

Reception of Buddhism in India and Tibet. London: School 

of Oriental and African Studies, 1989. 

Takeuchi, Yohinori, et al., eds. Buddhist Spirituality: Indian, 

Southeast Asian, Tibetan, Early Chinese. New York: Crossroad, 

1997. 

Thanissaro Bhikkhu. The Wings to Awakening. Barr, MA: 

Dhamma Dana, 1996. 

Vetter, Tilmann. The Ideas and Meditative Practices of Early Buddhism. 


PATIENCE. See Pa ramita (Perfection) 

PERSECUTIONS 

WILLIAM CHU 

Buddhism has been the object of persecution throughout 

its history. While this often involved direct religious 

persecution (e.g., persecution at the hands of 

dominant iconoclastic religions because of the devotional 

focus on the BUDDHA IMAGE), if one investigates 

the context of any particular episode, one may detect 

nonreligious factors that led to, allowed for, or exacerbated 

persecution. Such factors include the role of 

Buddhism in authorizing secular power and acting as 

the potential and actual supporter of political rivals; 

the power of Buddhist institutions as wealthy landowners, 

including the suspected and actual use of 

fortresslike monasteries as banks or armories; the involvement 

of monastic groups in warfare, including 

militarized monks and MONASTIC MILITIAS; Buddhism’s 

role as a mediator of political views at the 

grassroots level; Buddhism’s international dimension 

and potential representation of foreign rather than national 

interests, along with its emphasis on PILGRIM- 

AGE within and beyond national boundaries; the fact 

that important sacred sites, objects of devotion, or esteemed 

religious leaders could develop into rival foci 

of power or could reflect local rather than national interests; 

and Buddhism’s traditional role in EDUCATION, 

making it the source of potentially conflicting views 

and independent thinking. The fact that it is possible 

to draw selectively on aspects of Buddhism to affirm 

virtually all types of governance and political ideology 

has also contributed to its continued entanglement in 

power struggles in the huge transformations that have 

swept the modern world. 

In some cases, persecutions were aimed against the 

representatives of the religion itself—the institutions, 

texts, sacred sites, or people. At other times, persecutions 

were waged against groups with which Buddhism 

overlapped or was coterminous. 

Bamiyan 

The relative roles of religious persecution and the 

broader factors listed above can be hard to identify. 

Let us take by way of example the well-publicized 

attack on the remaining traces of Buddhism in 

Afghanistan, the demolition in BAMIYAN by the Taliban 

in March 2001 of the two colossal Gandharan 

Buddha statues from the third and fourth centuries 

C.E. Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel 

described this act as an internal religious affair, stating 

that “false idols” should be destroyed according to 

Islamic teachings. While some Islamic scholars point 

out that Islam does not prescribe the destruction of 

idols, and some demonstrate that the images of Hinduism 

and Buddhism are not idols in the sense intended 

in the Qur’an, iconoclasm within Islam can be 

based both on the injunctions on Muslims not to worship 

idols and on repeated historic precedents, starting 

with Muhammad’s destruction of the images 

around the Ka’ba. A 1996 Taliban ruling against idolatry 

prohibited portraits in public places. Nevertheless, 

since the Bamiyan statues had been standing for 

centuries in a predominantly Muslim country, since 

some Islamic powers have advocated tolerance toward 

sacred objects of other religions, and since the Taliban 

had as recently as 1999 identified the statues as part of 

the pre-Islamic heritage of Afghanistan rather than as 

current objects of idolatry, one must look for further 

causes underlying this event. 

In addition to the reactionary Islam represented by 

the Taliban, there are two other significant factors. One 

is the Taliban’s long-standing suppression of the Hazara 

community in the region of Bamiyan. The other is 

the international isolation of the Taliban—only Pakistan 

recognized the Taliban’s right to govern. In addition, 

in February 2001 the United Nations imposed 

new sanctions on Afghanistan for harboring terrorists. 

The importance of the Bamiyan statues for world her- 


P ERSECUTIONS 

A visitor in 1997 approaches one of the two giant Buddha statues 

carved from the face of a cliff at Bamiyan, Afghanistan. 

© Muzammil Pasha-Files/Reuters/Getty Images. Reproduced by 

permission. 

Taliban soldiers and visiting journalists before a niche that had 

contained one of the giant Buddha statues at Bamiyan after their 

destruction in March 2001. © Sayed Salahuddin/Reuters/Getty 

Images. Reproduced by permission. 

itage meant that they were destroyed as “false idols” in 

a political sense; the destruction served as a message of 

the Taliban’s defiance to the world. 

Premodern persecutions 

Pusyamitra. Our ability to interpret the reasons behind 

a persecution depends very much on the nature 

of our sources. The earliest recorded episode of the 

persecution of Buddhism came at the hands of the Indian 

king Pusyamitra in the second century B.C.E. The 

event is related in Buddhist literary works that reached 

their current form centuries later. Pusyamitra was a 

brahmin who murdered and usurped the position of 

the last king of the Mauryan empire. The most famous 

Mauryan king had been AŚOKA, who lived a century 

earlier. The legend of Aśoka’s patronage of Buddhism 

has been perpetuated in Buddhist traditions and continues 

to provide a role model for Buddhist rulers to 

this day. Among other great acts of piety, Aśoka had 

the relics of the Buddha redistributed throughout his 

vast empire and re-enshrined under eighty-four thousand 

new STU PAS, the commemorative funerary structures 

that form the fulcrum of the sacred landscape of 

Buddhism. Pusyamitra desired to become even more 

legendary than Aśoka. Realizing that he could not 

compete in virtue, he decided to match virtue with 

vice, and set about destroying monasteries and stupas, 

burning books, and massacring monks and nuns. 

The destruction of the glories and institutions associated 

with the royal lineage that Pusyamitra had replaced 

can be understood in terms of his wish to 

undermine rival sources of authority. Pusyamitra himself 

celebrated the horse sacrifice, the supreme ritual 

demonstration of dominion in brahmanical Hinduism, 

the dominant rival of Buddhism for much of 

its history in South and Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, 

the narrative also reflects another model—that of 


641

P ERSECUTIONS 

traditional Indian drama in which adverse events result 

from the vices of the king. According to this narrative, 

Pusyamitra is driven by jealousy, and although 

the immediate victims of his persecutions are Buddhists, 

his acts backfire. Pusyamitra sets a bounty on 

the head of all Buddhist monks, and an ever growing 

number of heads are presented to him. But the inexhaustible 

supply of heads is the product of a miracle 

rather than real beheadings, and the resulting bounty 

payouts bankrupts the royal treasury. When Pusyamitra 

later tries to destroy the bodhi tree, its protective 

spirit has Pusyamitra and his armies crushed to death 

beneath a mountain. 

This theme of the cruel but ultimately selfdestructive 

whims of kings is widely attested elsewhere 

in Buddhist literature. It is a recurrent theme 

in the JATAKA tales, which teach morals through stories 

of the Buddha’s former births. The VINAYA also 

describes the dangers for monks of associating with 

kings, an association that has proved both a source of 

Buddhism’s success and a trigger for its suppression. 

Zoroastrian persecution. The earliest persecution 

for which there is contemporaneous historical evidence 

took place under the Sassanian dynasty, which 

came to power in Iran in the third century C.E. The 

context was the centralization of power. We know 

most about Sassanian efforts to reform and unify the 

indigenous Persian religion of Zoroastrianism by establishing 

a single Avestan canon, destroying all royal 

sacred fires other than its own, establishing a new calendar, 

and replacing cult images with sacred fires. The 

iconoclasm extended to images of other religions. Although 

Zoroastrianism and Buddhism had coexisted 

peacefully in Iran since the Kushan period (first to 

early third century C.E.), the dominant Zoroastrianism 

felt increasingly threatened by other proselytizing 

religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism. 

The Sassanian high priest Kirder proudly 

records in an inscription that Buddhists, along with 

Jews, Brahmins, various types of Christians, and 

Manichaeans were being removed from the land. The 

eleventh-century Muslim historian Al-Biruni, who 

made use of Zoroastrian sources, claims that Buddhism 

was widespread in Iran until this persecution. 

The long-term result of Sassanian iconoclasm and the 

subsequent rise to dominance of Islam, heavily influenced 

by Zoroastrianism, is that the only traces of 

Buddhism in the region are cave temples and place 

names, such as Naubihar, which means “new Buddhist 

monastery.” 

The White Huns. Further pre-Islamic persecution of 

Buddhism took place under the White Huns, also 

known as the Huna or Hephthatlites. This tribe, 

thought to have originated in southwestern Mongolia, 

invaded areas of Central Asia and India during the fifth 

and sixth centuries. The invasion of Afghanistan in 515 

C.E. by Mihirakula (502–542) devastated Buddhist 

strongholds in the Gandharan region along the SILK 

ROAD. The resulting diminished state of Buddhism can 

be traced in the accounts of successive Chinese pilgrims. 

At the beginning of the fifth century C.E., the 

Chinese monk FAXIAN documents the flourishing state 

of Buddhism in the region. In 520, after the Mihirakula 

attacks, Song Yan records monasteries in ruins and 

heavy population losses, which had become total desertion 

and ruination by the time XUANZANG traveled 

that route in the seventh century. Nevertheless, finds 

of coins from later periods in stupas of the region indicate 

that patronage of Buddhism did continue beyond 

this date. 

The demise of Buddhism in India. The most famous 

persecution of Buddhism was that which led to 

its demise in India, namely, the series of Islamic expansions 

into the subcontinent from the eighth to the 

fourteenth centuries. The conquest of the remaining 

Pala and Sena dynasties of Bengal and Bihar in the 

twelfth to the thirteenth centuries brought an end to 

the last powerful Buddhist kingdoms of India and sent 

many Buddhists fleeing to safer regions in the Himalayas 

and mainland Southeast Asia. Although the 

increasing popularity of other Indian religions, such 

as devotional Hinduism, and the merging of noninstitutional 

Buddhist practice into the broader Indian 

religious milieu are important factors in the disappearance 

of Buddhism in India, several Muslim 

chronicles of the time portray the impact of repeated 

massacres, the looting of monasteries, the destruction 

of Buddhist images, and the burning of books, people, 

and libraries. 

These events had a major impact on the shape of 

Buddhism in other regions. In particular, they eliminated 

the South Asian mainland as a source of Buddhism 

for East, Central, and Southeast Asia. Tibetan 

and Newar Buddhism preserved most fully the features 

of Indian Buddhism of the medieval period. Meanwhile, 

the Sri Lankan victory over the Hindu kingdoms 

of South India, led Sri Lanka to become the dominant 

source of Buddhist authority in mainland Southeast 

Asia, while in insular Southeast Asia, Islam became the 

dominant religion. Buddhism was not completely 


P ERSECUTIONS 

eliminated from the South Asian mainland at this time. 

It has continued to maintain a presence in peripheral 

regions in the Himalayas, mostly dominated by the culture 

and Buddhism of Tibet. To a limited extent, Buddhism 

also retained a presence until the seventeenth 

and eighteenth centuries in other pockets, including 

port areas on the southeast coast, where people traded 

with THERAVADA countries. 

Premodern East and Central Asia 

In regions often regarded as the strongholds of Buddhism 

beyond India, namely Tibet, China, Korea, and 

Japan, periods of flourishing patronage of Buddhism 

have nevertheless often given way to (sometimes severe) 

persecution. 

The first diffusion of Buddhism to Tibet ended with 

the ninth-century civil war between factions loyal to 

the indigenous BON religion on the one side and Buddhism 

on the other, an episode remembered in Buddhist 

histories as the beginning of two centuries of 

persecution. 

In China, arguments against Buddhism almost always 

related to its status as a foreign religion that therefore 

undermined Confucian values, the emperor, and 

the state. The golden era of longevity of pre-Buddhist 

emperors is adduced as testimony to Buddhism’s intrinsic 

threat to stability. The first recorded Chinese 

persecution took place under Emperor Wu or Taizi (r. 

423–452) of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534). 

During the suppression of a rebellion in 446, a cache 

of arms was discovered at a Buddhist monastery, and 

Buddhism was seen as loyal to the rebels. Further discoveries 

indicative of lax monastic practices, including 

wealth banked at the monastery by locals, were cited 

as additional reasons for subsequent persecution in 

which monks and nuns were executed, as was any person 

who harbored them. Buddhist images were 

smashed, and monasteries, pagodas, and books were 

burnt. Although a gradual relaxation took place, Buddhism 

was proscribed again during the Northern Zhou 

dynasty (557–588). 

State domination of Buddhism continued under 

the Tang dynasty (618–907) and ORDINATION was forbidden 

in 845 during the so-called Huichang persecution. 

Over 260,000 monks and nuns were forcibly 

returned to lay life and hundreds of monasteries were 

destroyed. After this time, restrictions controlled the 

number of ordinations allowed and set age limits, prohibiting 

adult males under the age of forty from being 

ordained. Periodic crackdowns on monasteries 

and ordinations occurred during the twelfth century 

under the Song dynasty (960–1279). The leaders of the 

Ming dynasty (1368–1644), which imposed hard labor 

for unauthorized ordinations in the fifteenth century, 

also persecuted Tibetan Buddhists in Chinese 

territories. Successive Chinese governments from the 

fourteenth to the eighteenth century suppressed, often 

brutally, intermittent rebellions led by the White 

Lotus Society, a secret millenarian religious group that 

appealed to the poor and predicted the advent of the 

future buddha Maitreya. 

Mongol invasions of Korea in the thirteenth century 

devastated the country, destroying Buddhist 

monasteries, art, and the famous Koryŏ Buddhist 

canon. Because the wealth accumulated by the monasteries 

during centuries of state support gave them too 

strong an influence in national affairs, the Chŏson dynasty 

(1392–1910) officially promoted Confucianism. 

The dynasty’s anti-Buddhist sentiment developed into 

full-scale persecution in the fifteenth century. Buddhism 

suffered again, as did other aspects of Korea’s 

culture and economy, after the Japanese invasions in 

the sixteenth century. Further persecution occurred 

during the Japanese occupation beginning in 1910, 

during which Japanese forms of Buddhism were advanced 

to supplant Korean forms, especially in urban 

centers. 

In Japan, the militarization of monasteries and their 

participation in feudal power structures led to competition 

between schools. By the eleventh century, rivalries 

among Tendai and Nara monasteries frequently 

resulted in armed conflicts. Buddhist figures that were 

regarded as threats to national stability, including 

HO NEN (1133–1212) and NICHIREN (1222–1282), were 

suppressed or sent into exile. In further reaction to its 

militarization and political involvement, Buddhism 

was suppressed in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, 

particularly under the warlord Oda Nobunaga 

(1534–1582), who destroyed thousands of temples and 

massacred their inhabitants. 

The founding of the Tokugawa military government 

in 1603 brought stability to the Buddhist establishment 

in Japan. All families had to register with a Buddhist 

temple; affiliation became fixed and the temples administered 

taxes. This development came at the expense 

of Christian missionaries who were associated 

with European political ambitions and were thus persecuted 

as a first step in Japan’s two hundred years of 

isolationism. When the Meiji regime assumed power 

in 1868, its first act was to disestablish Buddhism and 


643

P ERSECUTIONS 

to separate the worship of local gods from Buddhist 

temples. These policies, which created Shinto as an independent 

religion, resulted in the destruction of thousands 

of Buddhist temples. 

School rivalry in Sri Lanka 

Persecution resulting from rivalries between different 

Buddhist traditions also occurred in Sri Lanka before 

the twelfth-century unification of the Mahavihara by 

Parakramabahu I. After unification, monks of rival 

schools took fresh ordination in the Mahavihara, losing 

all previous rank. The Pali canon came to be 

treated as orthodox, while the Abhayagirivihara and 

Jetavana became associated with the more inclusive 

MAHAYANA texts. 

The Nikayasaṅgraha also records the third-century 

persecution of the Abhaygirivihara by Gothabhaya, 

who burned their books and branded (marked as criminals) 

the expelled monks. The Mahavam sa records 

how Gothabhaya’s successor, Mahasena, temporarily 

reversed royal patronage in favor of the Abhayagirivihara. 

The Nikayasaṅgraha further records the decimation 

of the mysterious blue-robe sect, a form of tantric 

Buddhism, in Southern India under King Śr Harsa: 

“Pretending to be convinced, he sent for the bluerobed 

brethren and their books, and having got them 

with the books into a house, he made a fire-offering of 

house and all” (Fernando, p. 19). 

These chronicles, which are recorded in the Mahavihara 

tradition, naturally attribute persecution of 

their own tradition to evil monks, and the persecution 

of rivals as a triumph over corruption. Nevertheless, 

the process described appears to be similar in each case. 

After consecration of a king, particularly after victory 

in a major military campaign, the king sought to “purify” 

the saṅgha in emulation of Aśoka. 

European colonial period 

From the sixteenth to the twentieth century, the European 

colonial powers managed to undermine Buddhism 

through a subtle structure of institutional 

persecution. Mechanisms for the implicit promotion 

of Christianity included the establishment of secular 

and Christian education systems designed for colonial 

administration, the rewarding of conversion with promotion 

and employment, nonsupport for statesaṅgha 

interaction, and failure to set protocols for lay 

support of Buddhism. Active persecution also occurred, 

particularly in the early days of European colonization. 

These patterns were especially evident in 

Sri Lanka, beginning with the suppression of Buddhism 

by Portuguese Catholics in the sixteenth century, 

and continuing through the active and then 

implicit promotion of Protestantism, first by the 

Dutch and later by the British. 

Attitudes favoring Christians continued to influence 

events even after the colonial period. Suppression of 

Buddhism by the American-backed government in the 

former French colony of South Vietnam led to the wellknown 

Buddhist SELF-IMMOLATION protests in 1963. 

The Catholic government was in power in part because 

of Vatican pressure on the United States to prevent the 

democratic elections that would have given mandate to 

the moderate Marxist Ho Chi Minh. President Diem 

aimed to destroy rival religious groups by passing legislation 

that gave preferential status to Catholics and 

prevented the practice and teaching of other religions. 

The persecution of the majority Buddhist population, 

including the torture and murder of tens of thousands 

of Vietnamese and the incarceration in concentration 

camps of hundreds of thousands, came to a head when 

Diem prohibited the carrying of religious banners on 

the Buddha’s birthday. This restriction contrasted with 

the flying of the Vatican flag in celebration of the 

Catholic archbishop, who was Diem’s brother, only a 

few days earlier. Diem’s troops fired directly into Buddhist 

crowds, and mass hunger strikes and other 

protests followed. The self-immolation of the monk 

Thich Quang Duc in 1963 in full view of the international 

press brought the plight of Vietnamese Buddhists 

to the world’s newspapers and television screens, 

eventually forcing the U.S. government to publicly distance 

itself from Diem’s religious policies. 

Communism 

The most significant ideology affecting religions in 

twentieth-century Asia has been communism. Although 

Buddhism sometimes fared marginally better 

than other religions, the overall damage has been great 

because many of the areas affected by communism 

were traditional Buddhist strongholds. 

Some non-communist governments, such as those 

in Thailand and Indonesia, actively encouraged particular 

forms of Buddhism by way of defense against communism. 

In Thailand this entailed undermining some 

forms of Buddhist practice, including WILDERNESS 

MONKS whose traditional domain was the poor and remote 

northeast, which bordered countries with Marxist 

governments. This is an example of the persecution 

of a group within Buddhism because it was believed to 

be coterminous with a different target, namely com- 


P ERSECUTIONS 

munist insurgents. Other governments, such as that of 

China, which occupied Tibet and eastern Southeast 

Asia, have actively persecuted Buddhism. Maoist terrorists 

in Nepal have also targeted religion. 

Communist China did not initially seek to wipe out 

religion, but to wean people from it gradually as economic 

and social reforms made the prop of religion 

unnecessary. In fact, the 1949 constitution advocated 

freedom of religious belief, and Buddhist institutions 

were harnessed for welfare work and to educate society 

about new government policies. The younger 

generation of monks was particularly enthusiastic, 

given that the highest ethical value of Buddhism— 

compassion—could find expression in the ideals of 

egalitarianism and social uplift, which communism 

espoused. 

Nevertheless, this cooperation with communism 

undermined the distinctive features of most forms of 

Buddhism. Monks and nuns had to abandon their traditional 

“unproductive” roles and undertake activities 

that were traditionally prohibited for Buddhist monastics, 

such as farm and factory work. Through the land 

reform act of 1950, feudal land ownership was replaced 

by communalization, and monasteries and nunneries 

lost their sources of revenue. Monasteries were turned 

into factories, communal food halls, military bases, 

and government education centers. Furthermore, the 

government made little distinction between “religion” 

and “superstition” when attempting to suppress the 

latter. Government-controlled Buddhist organizations 

discouraged festivals, offerings to deities, and the burning 

of paper money for the deceased—all key features 

of traditional Buddhism. The policy that loyalty to the 

state was a higher value than religious belief meant that 

religious activities could be discouraged as a hindrance 

to productivity. 

Moreover, measures taken to ensure that all religious 

statements were in line with party politics eliminated 

freedom of expression. The Communist government 

monitored the recruitment of monks, and their freedom 

of movement, necessary for pilgrimage, was severely 

restricted. In a short time, Buddhism was 

effectively dismantled and transformed into an instrument 

of the state. By the commencement of the Cultural 

Revolution in 1966, any pretext of religious 

tolerance was abandoned, and all personal or material 

expressions of religion were outlawed and destroyed. 

The enactment of these policies in Tibet moved at 

a slower pace. Communist China’s 17-Point Plan, negotiated 

with Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth DALAI 

LAMA, in 1950, protected religion and monasteries 

from communalism, and China pursued a policy of 

gradual transformation from the top, with the involvement 

of highly esteemed Buddhist leaders. This 

approach changed when Mao Zedong encouraged 

rapid collectivization during the mid-1950s. Opposition 

to these reforms led to a bloody uprising involving 

monks from prestigious monasteries in Lhasa. The 

Chinese army responded with force, the Dalai Lama 

fled to India, and China abandoned its more lenient 

policy on Tibet. Religious property was confiscated, religious 

buildings were destroyed, and monks and nuns 

were imprisoned, disrobed, or put to alternative work. 

Still, it was not until the Cultural Revolution that the 

practice of Buddhism by individuals, so central to Tibetan 

culture, was banned outright in Tibet, as elsewhere 

in China. After the late 1970s, Chinese policy 

toward Tibetan Buddhism gradually softened in the 

hope of persuading Tibetans to accept Chinese rule. 

The failure of negotiations with the Tibetan government 

in exile, however, has triggered a hardening of 

control since the mid-1990s. 

The Chinese pattern of initially using Buddhism for 

its own ends, then suppressing it, has been mirrored 

in other communist countries. The saṅgha of Laos had 

already become politicized, with French encouragement, 

as part of its defense against the Japanese from 

the 1920s until the1940s. When Laos was returned to 

French colonial occupation in 1946, active members 

of the Lao Issara, the national independence movement, 

sought refuge in Thailand. The saṅgha, meanwhile, 

could promote anticolonial sentiment as an 

aspect of Buddhist teaching, while also collecting funds 

for Lao Issara under the cover of the traditional donations 

given to temples on holy days. After independence, 

the royalist government of Laos formed a 

coalition with the Marxist party, the Pathet Lao, in 

1957. The Pathet Lao then negotiated the Ministry of 

Religious Affairs as one of its portfolios, allowing the 

Pathet Lao to further politicize the saṅgha in its favor. 

Monastic teachings reach all levels of society, and 

the infiltration of the saṅgha by Pathet Lao cadres was 

relatively straightforward because of the tradition of 

unrestricted ordinations. Those seeking ordination 

often came from the same groups most susceptible to 

Marxist ideology: young men from relatively poor 

rural backgrounds, who traditionally sought ordination 

as a means of education and social advancement, 

but who were excluded from the secular education 

and economic development experienced by the urban 

elite. When the royalist government responded by 


645

P ERSECUTIONS 

instituting tighter controls on monks, the Pathet Lao 

could play the defender of religious freedom. By this 

time, it was too late for the royalist party to regain the 

authority it once had amongst the saṅgha. When the 

Pathet Lao formed its own government in 1975, it 

used the saṅgha to legitimize its increasing monopoly 

on power. Monks fled to Thailand to avoid being sent 

to reeducation camps that effectively turned Buddhist 

preaching into education in government ideology, and 

the rigorously controlled saṅgha lost credibility 

among the laity, which had traditionally supported it 

and from whom its members were recruited. 

The persecutions of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia 

were far more extreme than those of the Pathet Lao. 

As part of the Khmer Rouge goal to transform Cambodia 

into a truly socialist republic within the space of 

a few years, Pol Pot oversaw the wholesale destruction 

of Cambodian society and culture between 1975 and 

1978. People were reeducated to not give alms to 

monks, monks were forcibly laicized, Buddhist rituals 

were forbidden, and monasteries and libraries were destroyed. 

Any monk suspected of resistance was executed. 

Few Cambodian monks survived these years of 

hard labor, mass starvation, and extermination, which 

saw the death of an estimated one quarter of the Cambodian 

population. Although some monks found 

refuge abroad, more than 90 percent of Cambodia’s 

Buddhist literary heritage was extirpated. 

Religion continued to be heavily controlled under 

the Vietnamese-backed government after 1979, and it 

is only since the reinstatement of the monarchy in 

1991 that Buddhism entered a phase of revival in 

Cambodia. 

The modern world’s improved communications, 

the attendant potential for state intervention, and the 

mass availability of educational systems that embody 

an intellectual disdain toward religion, have meant 

that, to some extent, Buddhism had already begun to 

lose esteem even before communists came to power. 

Even where Buddhism is not under attack, modernity 

has undermined the dominant traditional Buddhism 

of ritual and worship in favor of philosophy and those 

aspects of Buddhism that can be mapped onto modern 

scientific thought and global ethics. To some extent 

Buddhism has been defended because of the role 

it has played as a motivating force and as a form of 

cultural identity. During the twentieth century, these 

aspects of Buddhism were harnessed both by independence 

movements that brought to an end the European 

colonial era and by nationalist governments 

that drew their mandate from an ethnically Buddhist 

majority. 

See also: Christianity and Buddhism; Colonialism and 

Buddhism; Communism and Buddhism; Decline of 

the Dharma; Islam and Buddhism; Meiji Buddhist 

Reform; Millenarianism and Millenarian Movements; 

Modernity and Buddhism; Politics and Buddhism; 

Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism; 


Bibliography 

Ball, W. “How Far Did Buddhism Spread West?” Al Rafidan 10 

(1989): 1–11. 

Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. 

London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. 

Revised reprint, 1987. 

Bush, Richard C. Religion in Communist China. Nashville, TN: 

Abingdon Press, 1970. 


The Synthetic Vision of Sŏsan Hyujŏng.” In Culture 

and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea, ed. Jahyun Kim Haboush 

and Martina Deuchler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Asia Center, 1999. 

de Groot, J. J. M. Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in 

China. Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1903. 

Fernando, C. M. The Nikaya Saṅgrahawa. Colombo, Sri Lanka: 

H. C. Cottle, 1908. 

Geiger, Wilhelm, and Bode, Mable Haynes, trans. The Mahavam 

sa or The Great Chronicle of Ceylon. London: Pali Text 


Geiger, Wilhelm, trans. (German). Cu lavam sa: Being the More 

Recent Part of the Mahavam sa, tr. C. Mabel Rickmers (English). 

London: Pali Text Society, 1929. 

Goldstein, Melvyn C., and Kapstein, Matthew T., eds. Buddhism 

in Contemporary Tibet: Religious Revival and Cultural Identity. 



Separation of Shinto and Buddhist Divinities in Meiji (Shinbutsu 

bunri) and a Case Study (To nomine).” History of Religions 

23, no. 3 (1984): 240–265. 

Harris, Ian, ed. Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia. 

London: Pinter, 1999. 

Ketelaar, James E. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism 


Press, 1990. 


to the Saka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: 

Institut Orientalist, 1988. 


P HILOSOPHY 

Stuart-Fox, Martin. Buddhist Kingdom, Marxist State: The Making 

of Modern Laos. Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus, 1996. 

Warder, A. K. Indian Buddhism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1970. 

Warikoo, K., ed. Bamiyan: Challenge to World Heritage. New 

Delhi: Bhavana Books, 2002. 

KATE CROSBY 

PERSON. See Anatman/Atman (No-Self/Self); Pudgalavada 

PHILOSOPHY 

Within the Buddhist tradition there exist enormously 

sophisticated systems of thought. Whether these systems 

should be regarded as “philosophy” or “theology” 

or something else is a difficult question and a topic of 

much debate. Philosophy is a Western word and concept, 

derived from the Greek origins of Western thinking, 

and no traditional Buddhist language had a word 

analogous to philosophy prior to the modern era. The 

Buddhist term most closely related is DHARMA, which 

means something like truths or teachings, especially 

teachings about how to live. 

It is often said that the Buddhist teachings are more 

philosophical than religious because of their open 

spirit of inquiry and their lack of a central concept of 

God. In this sense, philosophy means “overarching 

ideas about the nature of the world and the meaning 

of human life that guide daily living.” By this definition, 

much Buddhist dharma is indeed philosophy. But 

it is important to recognize that this is not what professional 

philosophers in the modern West mean by 

that term. For most contemporary philosophers, philosophy 

is concerned with logical analysis and the 

structure of human thinking. Although a few Buddhists 

have taken up these issues, especially in India, 

they have done so under the guidance of what they take 

to be larger and more important questions that are ultimately 

ethical and spiritual (e.g., What is excellence 

of human character? What is enlightenment and how 

can it be achieved?). Logic and analysis have no standing 

on their own as Buddhist concerns. One reason for 

this is that early Buddhist sutras depict the Buddha rejecting 

abstract philosophical speculation in preference 

for practical techniques of self-transformation. Another 

reason is that very early in the Buddhist tradition 

philosophers attained a high level of psychological 

sophistication. Through the rigors of meditative 

practice, they came to realize that what one considers 

to be true—no matter how good one is at logical analysis—is 

shaped and conditioned by the state of one’s 

character. What this means is that desires, intentions, 

and thoughts of a certain kind will inevitably lead a 

person to reason out the truth of the matter in ways 

that are in part preshaped by those same desires, intentions, 

and thoughts. 

Therefore, in much Buddhist thought, truth is not 

simply a matter of logic or reason, since both logic and 

reason are themselves dependent on other factors. For 

Buddhists, realizing the truth is the result of a great 

deal of internal work beyond analytical reasoning, and 

it is for this reason that philosophy in the Buddhist tradition 

is best classified as a subcategory under “means 

to awakening” or, more appropriately, under “MEDITA- 

TION.” Most analytical thinking in the Buddhist tradition 

takes place in the context of meditation, which can 

be divided into two overarching categories: śamatha 

(calming) and VIPASSANA (SANSKRIT, VIPAŚYANA; contemplation). 

Contemplation, or insight meditation, is 

a conceptual practice focusing on the analysis of the 

world and one’s internal conceptions of it. Most Buddhist 

philosophical writings are intended to be used in 

this kind of meditative practice, and most of them were 

written within a monastic setting. Buddhist philosophy, 

therefore, has a practical intention: It is meant to 

open and transform the mind of the meditator and 

lead, ultimately, to BODHI (AWAKENING). The idea of 

philosophical thinking outside of that spiritual and 

ethical setting is utterly foreign to Buddhist culture. 

Issues 

Among the many issues prominent in Buddhist “philosophy,” 

the following are most instructive for getting 

a sense of how this tradition of thought is shaped: 

No-self, change and causality, morality and ethics, and 

philosophy and truth. 

No-self. The idea for which Buddhists are perhaps best 

known is the claim that there is no self (anatman); that 

what we take to be the true inner core of a human being 

is actually an illusory process of constant change. 

This idea runs against the grain of ordinary thinking, 

not just in Western cultures but in Asia as well. The 

Buddhist critique of the concept of the self is based on 

the conclusion that in fact people never experience an 

unchanging inner core, and that their ideas about that 

core are derived from a quite natural tendency to 


647

P HILOSOPHY 

understand themselves through their desires and attachments. 

Although the idea of the self that was rejected 

in early Buddhism was quite specific—the 

concept of atman in the Hindu Upanisads, the unchanging 

core that undergirds all experience—the development 

of this critique in the history of Buddhist 

philosophy extends far beyond the specifics of that initial 

rejection. The basic anatman position is that there 

exists no controller, no possessor, no constant self behind 

experience, which means that it is not that “I” 

have a body and thoughts and feelings but that “I am” 

these elements at any given moment in the process of 

life. Rejecting the unchanging self does not mean that 

no one is here; the idea of no-self is the Buddhist effort 

to explain who or what is here, and how that person 

can best live. 

In order to clarify the rejection of self, early sutras 

posit the five SKANDHA (AGGREGATES), the five components 

that make up a person: physical body, feelings, 

conceptions, volition, and self-consciousness. 

Sutras explain how these five components of the self 

are always changing, always dependent on one another, 

and therefore not constant, not stable, and not the unchanging 

foundation that one assumes. Although languages 

posit an “I” behind these fluctuating states, no 

such background possessor is ever present to experience. 

Buddhist sutras challenge meditators to examine 

their own experience, and to locate the truth of the 

posited self. The Buddhist critique of the concept of 

the self is unique among the world’s religions, and it 

provided a powerful starting point for the history of 

Buddhist philosophy. 

Change and causality. Perhaps the most basic philosophical 

principle in Buddhist philosophy is the claim 

that all things are characterized by ANITYA (IMPERMA- 

NENCE); that is, all things are subject to change, including 

birth and death. The initial context for this 

realization was the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, where suffering 

is caused by desires for and attachments to things 

that are always changing and passing away. Failure to 

recognize the ubiquity of impermanence and failure to 

adjust one’s life accordingly lead inevitably to poor 

judgment and subsequent suffering. 

That moral context for reflection on change was just 

the beginning. Later Buddhist philosophers took the 

basic principle of impermanence as the starting point 

for a wide variety of reflections on the nature of the always 

changing world. Closely associated with the idea 

of impermanence was the concept of PRATITYASAMUT- 

PADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINATION), the Buddhist explanation 

for how it is that things change. Change is not 

random; it is caused and conditioned by other surrounding 

factors. The principle of dependent origination 

states that all things arise, change, and pass away 

dependent upon the influence of other things. Nothing, 

therefore, is self-sufficient; everything depends. 

Buddhist thinkers took this principle to be an example 

of the “middle way” between two logically unacceptable 

views—eternalism, the view that things exist permanently 

and on their own, and annihilationism, the view 

that things have no existence at all. Pratltyasamutpada 

falls between those extreme views by affirming that 

things exist within a larger process of dependence. Although 

these ideas certainly could be applied to the 

natural world, and on occasion were, their most important 

application concerned the workings of the 

mind. How is it possible, Buddhist philosophers asked, 

to live an enlightened life, in touch with the way things 

really are and free of delusion, greed, and hatred? That 

possibility, like any other, they concluded, arises dependent 

on the requisite conditions. Living your life 

in accordance with those conditions gives rise to the 

state of NIRVAN A. The principles of impermanence and 

dependent origination are the most basic ideas in Buddhist 

philosophy. 

Morality and ethics. Like all Buddhist philosophy, 

Buddhist ETHICS is articulated in the context of meditation, 

and set in the framework of the quest to eliminate 

the devastating effects of suffering by achieving 

the state of human excellence called nirvana. Suffering 

and enlightenment are the central ethical issues. Ethics 

is a practical matter of shaping one’s life in accordance 

with the wisdom of the Buddha’s realization. Far from 

making Buddhist ethics simple, this setting in the domain 

of practice gave rise to a voluminous philosophical 

literature on how it is that human life ought to be 

lived. One difference between Buddhist ethics and 

modern Western moral philosophy is the Buddhist 

focus on everyday life, on choices that people habitually 

make all of the time. The idea behind this focus is 

that one’s character is formed in every act one undertakes, 

especially in the acts that one performs over and 

over. This is where the Buddhist concept of KARMA 

(ACTION) functions most forcefully. Modern Western 

ethics has focused almost exclusively on exceptional 

situations, on perplexing moral dilemmas that arise 

occasionally in a person’s lifetime when major choices 

need to be made. As a consequence of this focus, very 

little attention has been given to how one achieves a 

state from which major decisions will be made with integrity. 

From a Buddhist ethical perspective, how one 


P HILOSOPHY 

makes major choices in life depends almost entirely 

on how one has cultivated oneself throughout one’s 

life. Buddhist enlightenment, therefore, depends on 

daily acts of morality and meditation on the virtues 

that sustain them. This focus can be seen clearly in the 

lists of virtues that function in the context of meditation, 

including, for example, the “four immeasurables” 

(loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, 

and equanimity) or the “six PARAMITA (PERFECTIONS)” 

(generosity, morality, tolerance, effort, concentration, 

and wisdom). 

Philosophy and truth. The pursuit of truth in Buddhist 

philosophy is not so much an effort to formulate 

general doctrines about the world as it is to change 

people’s lives, to enlighten. Philosophy is therefore not 

a theoretical activity abstracted from life, but rather a 

practical matter of articulating a way of living, placed 

in the service of human liberation. As a form of meditation, 

theoretical thinking is linked to other forms of 

spiritual practice. The link is important in Buddhism 

because truth is not simply the product of logical 

analysis. The quality of someone’s analysis of the world 

depends for Buddhists on the purification of their 

minds and characters. It is not possible, they reason, 

for someone entangled in personal desires and selfcenteredness 

to encounter the truth, no matter how 

intelligent they are. Truth in Buddhist meditative contexts 

is more a matter of how clearly someone can see 

the ways in which their own minds falsify reality based 

on attachments and self-absorption. Understanding 

this psychological prerequisite to truth, calming and 

insight meditation begin to open the mind to the possibility 

of truthful understanding. 

Traditions and styles 

Buddhist philosophy has unfolded over a twothousand-year 

history, and continues today, perhaps 

as strongly as ever. Over these many centuries, numerous 

traditions and styles of philosophy have 

thrived. The following are a few of the best known and 

most representative. 

Abhidharma. ABHIDHARMA, meaning higher or extended 

dharma, is an early Buddhist philosophical literature 

that has scriptural status. These texts differ 

from sutras in the same way that systematic philosophical 

analysis differs from practical religious teachings. 

Abhidharma is “extended” beyond the first 

communication of dharma by pursuing a comprehensive 

vision and analytical rigor. Abhidharma works, 

such as BUDDHAGHOSA’s famous Pali text Visuddhimagga 

(Path to Purification), attempt to lay out the 

underlying structures of the Buddhist dharma by providing 

lists, definitions, and descriptions of what might 

be encountered in meditative experience. Abhidharma 

breaks ordinary experience down into its component 

parts—dharmas—the final building blocks of human 

experience. The Abhidharma is the earliest and most 

widely known form of Buddhist philosophy. 

Madhyamaka. NAGARJUNA, the second century C.E. 

founder of the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL, is the most famous 

of all Buddhist philosophers. His philosophical 

tradition, which developed for many centuries in MA- 

HAYANA Buddhist cultures such as China and Tibet, 

began as an extension and correction of Abhidharma 

thinking. Nagarjuna’s philosophy of ŚU NYATA (EMPTI- 

NESS) is derived from a systematic thinking through of 

the earlier concept of dependent origination. From this 

point of view, the Abhidharma effort to list the ultimate 

building blocks of human experience was misguided. 

If all things lack independence, arising 

dependent on other equally dependent things, then 

nothing can be found to possess the secure and permanent 

status that earlier Buddhists had sought. In this 

sense, Madhyamaka extends the Buddhist analysis of 

existence one step further—all existing things are 

“empty” of permanent and self-constituting natures. 

Although things do indeed exist, this philosophy seeks 

to articulate the way in which they exist, and, like other 

forms of Buddhist philosophy, to use this analysis for 

the purpose of awakening. 

Yogacara. Often considered the culmination of Buddhist 

philosophy in India, the YOGACARA SCHOOL represented 

a renewed effort to accomplish a systematic 

account of experience in the style of Abhidharma, but 

now employing the Madhyamaka critique. Granting 

that all components of experience are “empty,” 

philosophers such as ASAṄGA (ca. 320–390 C.E.) and 

VASUBANDHU (fourth century C.E.) sought to explain 

how it is that impermanent and dependent factors 

come together to shape the world as it is. Their basic 

thesis was that the primary factor upon which experience 

depends is the mind; since all experience is the 

mind’s experience, understanding the complexities of 

the mind was the most important philosophical task. 

Well-known for their thesis that reality is “mind only,” 

Yogacarins based their analysis on meditative experience. 

They broke the mind down into eight types of 

consciousness and the three fundamental “natures” of 

mind, constructing what is perhaps the most sophisticated 

statement of Buddhist psychology. 


649

P HOENIX H ALL ( AT THE B YO DO IN) 

Huayan. One of several innovative philosophical 

schools that began in China and subsequently influenced 

Buddhism throughout East Asia, the HUAYAN 

SCHOOL came to prominence during the early Tang dynasty 

(618–907) as a philosophical articulation of the 

meaning of certain Mahayana sutras, most notably 

the HUAYAN JING (Avatam saka-su tra, Flower Garland 

Su tra). This sutra is unusual in communicating the 

experiences of enlightened BODHISATTVAS, rather than 

the Buddha, but the focus of the text is on what the 

world looks like from the perspective of awakening. 

Reality is “emptiness,” articulated in Huayan as the 

enormously complex interplay of all elements in existence, 

each dependent on all others. Each aspect of the 

world receives its particular shape through the influence 

of all other aspects, while its seemingly insignificant 

influence radiates out into every dimension of the 

universe. Huayan philosophy is staggering in its complexity 

and sophistication, and it is currently exerting 

a profound theoretical influence on the field of ecological 

studies. 

Kyoto school. Working under the influence of modern 

Western philosophy, a group of twentieth-century 

Buddhist philosophers in Japan has attained international 

recognition. Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime, 

and Nishitani Keiji, all former professors at Kyoto University, 

are the most famous thinkers in this school. 

Although their philosophical writings are too complex 

and diverse to summarize, all of them sought to articulate 

a philosophical vision of reality in the modern 

Western sense, while simultaneously subordinating 

this vision to the quest for spiritual awakening, as has 

been the custom throughout the history of Buddhism. 

Philosophical thinking has its goal in self-awakening, 

and its truth is the effectiveness with which it accomplishes 

that primary task. The translation of these 

works of philosophy into Western languages has provided 

non-Buddhists throughout the world with substantial 

examples of the sophistication of the long and 

impressive tradition of Buddhist philosophy. It may 

very well be that the influence of Buddhist philosophy 

on world affairs is only now in its opening stages. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Consciousness, 

Theories of; Dharma and Dharmas; Logic; Psychology 

Bibliography 



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Eckel, Malcolm David. To See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest 

for the Meaning of Emptiness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1992. 

Garfield, Jay. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: 

Nagarjuna’s Mu lamadhyamakakarika. Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 1995. 

Gethin, Rupert. The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford 


Griffiths, Paul. On Being Mindless: The Classical Doctrine of 

Buddhahood. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

1994. 

Kalupahana, David. Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis. 


Keown, Damien. The Nature of Buddhist Ethics. Basingstoke, 

UK: Palgrave, 2001. 

Nagao, Gadjin. Madhyamaka and Yogacara: A Study of Mahayana 

Philosophies. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1991. 

Williams, Paul. Buddhist Thought: A Complete Introduction to 

the Indian Tradition. London: Routledge, 2000. 

Wright, Dale. Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism. Cambridge, 


PHOENIX HALL (AT THE BYO DO IN) 

DALE S. WRIGHT 

The extant Phoenix Hall (Hoodo) of Byodoin is located 

on the west bank of the Uji River southeast of 

Kyoto. Regent Fujiwara Yorimichi (990–1074) transformed 

an inherited villa into the (now lost) Main Hall 

of Byodoin in 1051, his sixtieth year. The unprecedented 

Phoenix Hall, consecrated in 1053, was built as 

a three-dimensional representation of the depiction of 

Amida’s Sukhavat Pure Land, as found in the Guan 

Wuliangshou jing (Visualization Su tra). With its birdlike 

wings and tail, the Phoenix Hall faces east and was 

designed to be viewed from a small palace on the 

opposite shore. The hall and its central Amida 

(AMITABHA) icon served as the focus of meditation and 

as a backdrop to ceremonies. Narrative paintings depicting 

the nine stages of REBIRTH adorned the doors 

and walls surrounding the icon, each showing a seasonal 

landscape as the setting for a “descent of Amida” 

(raigo ) to recognizably Japanese devotees. Above the 

walls, fifty-two small wood-carved bodhisattvas and 

musicians complete the effect of Amida’s descent. 

Mimi Yiengpruksawan has made a convincing case 

that the Phoenix Hall was the private domain of 


P ILGRIMAGE 

Yorimichi and his descendants, rather than the quasipublic 

focus of the temple. Esoteric Tendai ceremonies 

were carried out in front of the Main Hall icon, 

Dainichi Nyorai, while the Phoenix Hall appears to 

have been Yorimichi’s private devotional chapel where 

he himself could meditate upon Sukhavat. After his 

death, his daughter Kanshi lived at Byodoin and carried 

out ceremonies on behalf of her father and other 

relatives, both at the temple’s sutra repository and at 

the Phoenix Hall. 

See also: Japan, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Akiyama Terukazu. “The Door Paintings in the Phoenix Hall 

of Byodoin as Yamatoe.” Artibus Asiae 53, nos. 1– 2 (1993): 

144–167. 

Yiengpruksawan, Mimi Hall. “The Phoenix Hall at Uji and the 

Symmetries of Replication.” Art Bulletin 77, no. 4 (1995): 

648–672. 

PILGRIMAGE 


The practice of journeying to locations of special significance 

is a common feature of many religious traditions 

and it has played a formative role in the history 

of Buddhism. Given this rich pilgrimage tradition, 

there are several ways to approach the subject of pilgrimage 

in Buddhism. These range from analytical perspectives 

that highlight the distinctive histories and 

social dynamics of individual pilgrimage sites in the diversity 

of cultures shaped by Buddhism, to perspectives 

reflecting a broader comparative framework. 

These latter approaches emphasize features common 

to a number of Buddhist pilgrimages, and to religious 

pilgrimage in general. This entry examines Buddhist 

pilgrimage from several angles and is organized in 

three sections: historical overview, pilgrimage practices, 

and contemporary perspectives. 

Historical overview 

We cannot say with assurance when pilgrimage first became 

a part of Buddhist tradition. However, the fact 

that the canonical collections of several early Buddhist 

schools include a sutra in which Gautama Buddha himself 

exhorts his followers to visit sites associated with 

his life indicates the centrality that pilgrimage came to 

have in the early centuries of the Buddhist movement. 

This passage occurs in the MAHAPARINIRVAN A-SU TRA, 

which narrates the Buddha’s last days before his final 

passing away. In the Pali version, four places identified 

with pivotal events in his life (birth, enlightenment, 

first teaching, and final passing away) are described as 

worthy of being seen and productive of strong religious 

feeling, and the passage concludes by promising that 

anyone who dies while undertaking such a journey with 

serene joy will be reborn in a blissful heavenly realm. 

The earliest archeological evidence of Buddhist pilgrimage 

comes from inscriptions commissioned by the 

Indian emperor AŚOKA in the third century B.C.E. 

There are also later textual traditions that give Aśoka 

a formative role in the creation of a Buddhist sacred 

geography through the enshrinement of Gautama 

Buddha’s relics in eighty-four thousand relic monuments 

throughout his empire. According to the Rumminde 

pillar edict in Nepal, Aśoka visited the site of 

the Buddha’s birth and erected a commemorative pillar 

there. Another inscription may refer to Aśoka’s pilgrimage 

to the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment at 

BODH GAYA, and a third, located at Nigal Sagar in 

Nepal, tells of Aśoka’s visit to and enlargement of the 

relic monument of the former Buddha Konagamana, 

suggesting that a devotional cult centered on the lives 

of previous BUDDHAS had also emerged at this time. 

The history of Buddhist pilgrimage becomes clearer 

during the Śuṅga period (second to first centuries 

B.C.E.) with the relic monuments at Bharhut and SAN CI, 

where we also find extensive donative inscriptions. 

These remains suggest the existence of well-developed 

regional pilgrimage centers supported by a wide range 

of donors, including lay and monastic men and women. 

Significantly, neither Bharhut nor Sañc is identified 

with the presence of Gautama Buddha during his lifetime. 

Instead, the sites have been rendered religiously 

powerful through the enshrinement of relics, and 

through vivid artistic representations of scenes from the 

Buddha’s biography, including his past lives. 

The sites attested in the Aśokan inscriptions and in 

the Śuṅga-era monuments point to the two primary 

means through which particular locations became the 

focus of special religious devotion: claims that the 

Buddha himself visited them during his lifetime and 

later enshrinements of physical objects that represent 

him, either through alleged historical continuity (bodily 

remains or objects he used) or visual evocation 

(sculptures and paintings). These were not mutually 

exclusive options, as many sites were associated with 

events in the Buddha’s life and with later relic and 


651

P ILGRIMAGE 

Husband-and-wife pilgrims praying on their way to a Nichiren temple in Japan, around 1925. © Hulton Archive by Getty Images. Reproduced 


image enshrinements; some were associated with the 

presence of previous buddhas, as well. As many scholars 

have noted, there was a close relationship between 

the development of a comprehensive Buddha BIOGRA- 

PHY, which was not a part of the earliest tradition, and 

the emergence of pilgrimage sites. 

Buddhism was first transmitted into China around 

the beginning of the common era. Beginning around 

400 C.E., we find the earliest surviving accounts of Chinese 

Buddhist pilgrims to India. These testify to the 

emergence of major pilgrimage routes, extending 

through CENTRAL ASIA and northwest India into the 

Ganges basin, which attracted pilgrims from distant 

lands. Among the most prominent of these monkpilgrims 

were FAXIAN (ca. 337–418) and XUANZANG 

(ca. 600–664), each of whom traveled to India through 

Central Asia and spent many years collecting texts and 

visiting important religious centers throughout the Indian 

subcontinent and beyond. Faxian’s account testifies 

to the great proliferation of places that had come 

to be associated with events in Gautama Buddha’s life, 

particularly those of a miraculous character, and to the 

number of relic monuments attributed to Aśoka’s great 

relic distribution. 

Faxian also spent two years in Sri Lanka, and he 

mentions the tradition that Gautama Buddha visited 

the island in order to pacify the nagas residing there, 

a tradition narrated in detail in the monastic histories 

of the island (e.g., Dlpavam sa, Mahavam sa). On one 

of his sojourns, the Buddha is said to have visited and 

consecrated a number of different locations around the 

island and these form the nucleus of what was eventually 

defined as an authoritative list of sixteen Sri 

Lankan pilgrimage sites. Narrative traditions of a similar 

character later developed in Southeast Asia, linking 

the movement and enshrinement of relics and 

images with locations in the region already sacralized 

by legendary visits of Gautama Buddha. 

As Buddhist traditions spread throughout Asia and 

became institutionalized through royal patronage and 

popular support, the network of Buddhist pilgrimage 

expanded in two senses. On the one hand, monks and 

nuns throughout the Buddhist world traveled back to 


P ILGRIMAGE 

the Buddhist heartland for access to texts, to places of 

religious power associated with buddhas and other 

powerful religious figures, and to centers of Buddhist 

learning (thus a centripetal force). An analogous, centrifugal 

movement drew Buddhist relics and images 

(and in some cases, Gautama Buddha himself, as recounted 

in later texts) outward to create new centers 

of pilgrimage in what had been the territorial margins 

of Buddhist tradition. In many cases these new devotional 

centers were established in places long regarded 

as religiously powerful because of the presence of local 

or regional deities, places often marked by striking 

natural features such as mountains, lakes, and caves. 

Typically, these “pre-Buddhist” beings were not simply 

replaced, but instead subdued and converted into 

guardians of Buddhist sacralia. Such centers of pilgrimage 

undoubtedly brought together devotees with 

diverse religious identities and forms of practice, thus 

facilitating the integration of Buddhist ideas and practices 

into broader religious milieux. 

The fluidity of interaction that pilgrimage so effectively 

orchestrates has contributed greatly to the expansion 

and adaptation of Buddhist traditions outside 

the land of its origins. Buddhist pilgrimages are generally 

voluntary undertakings motivated by a range of 

individual concerns, including the acquisition of merit, 

the need for purification and expiation, and hopes for 

healing, increased prosperity, fertility, and so on. They 

also commonly bring together people from diverse social 

and religious groups. As a result, they have frequently 

encouraged the interplay of different symbolic 

systems and behaviors, thus facilitating the adaptation 

of Buddhist traditions to new historical circumstances. 

In the case of Chinese pilgrimage sites, for example, it 

is difficult to determine what defines a “Buddhist” pilgrimage, 

since popular beliefs and practices were 

drawn from Daoism and Confucianism, as well as Buddhism, 

and these seemingly exclusive religious designations 

are meaningful only when referring to 

professional elites. Thus these sites have commonly enabled 

a multivocality of meanings and a diversity of 

practices to flourish side by side with varying degrees 

of integration. 

Pilgrimage practices 

Certainly the most salient feature of pilgrimage is 

movement. A minimal definition of pilgrimage is a 

journey to a place of special religious significance, and 

movement here means the movement of individual 

bodies away from the places where they typically reside 

and toward a center of intensified religious power. 

A pilgrimage is usually an exceptional undertaking, often 

involving significant disruption of the pilgrim’s ordinary 

life and frequently entailing some element of 

physical discomfort or ordeal. Among the more striking 

examples are the protracted journeys of the early 

Chinese pilgrims to India; Faxian was away for fifteen 

years, Xuanzang for sixteen. The degree of difficulty 

and danger faced by the pilgrim obviously varies 

widely; in addition, specific Buddhist pilgrimage sites 

have been more or less accessible at different historical 

periods. The availability of cars, buses, and planes 

has clearly transformed the pilgrimage experience for 

many modern participants. 

As was the case for the early Chinese pilgrims, the 

goal of the journey was often not a single site of religious 

significance, but rather the completion of a pilgrimage 

route punctuated with a succession of sites, 

each with its distinctive associations. Japanese Buddhist 

pilgrimages, such as those to Shikoku and Saikoku, 

typically involve the clockwise completion of an 

extensive pilgrimage circuit; these reflect the common 

Buddhist practice of circumambulation (Sanskrit, 

pradaksina) in which one ritually honors a person or 

object of religious authority by circling them clockwise, 

thus keeping the right side of the body facing them. 

Circumambulation of sacred mountains is a prominent 

feature of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage, with 

some pilgrims going so far as to complete an entire circuit, 

sometimes hundred of miles long, with a succession 

of full-body prostrations. 

Other forms of ritualized devotion include various 

forms of offering, such as flowers, incense, light in the 

form of candles or lamps, gold leaf, and so on, as well 

as the recitation of appropriate chants or MANTRAs. Offering 

rituals are often not limited to the Buddhist figures 

represented at Buddhist shrines; as noted above, 

other supernatural beings and forces are commonly 

believed to reside in pilgrimage sites and these are also 

venerated, sometimes in fulfillment of a special vow 

to honor the deity in return for a specified benefit. 

Finally, a broad range of Buddhist figures are deemed 

worthy of veneration by pilgrims, including buddhas, 

BODHISATTVAS, and ARHATs. In some Chinese Chan 

Buddhist communities, the miraculously mummified 

bodies of deceased teachers became the object of 

pilgrimage. 

One of the fundamental organizing principles of pilgrimage 

is the contrast between the heightened power 

and purity of the pilgrimage site and the space around 

it, and this is reflected in special modes of bodily 


653

P ILGRIMAGE 

Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims circle Kailaśa (Mount Kailash) in southwestern 

Tibet. © Galen Rowell/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

deportment. Many pilgrims wear special clothing that 

clearly distinguishes them from non-pilgrims. The hierarchical 

classification of the body according to standards 

of purity, with right favored over left and higher 

over lower (head/feet), structures much devotional behavior, 

such as circumambulation and offering rituals. 

Social hierarchy is present, as well, in the authority exercised 

by experienced pilgrims over novices, and by 

local officiants and guides who mold the behavior of 

the visiting devotees. Hierarchies of purity and sacrality 

are also commonly reflected in the spatial and architectural 

organization of pilgrimage centers; this may 

explain why mountains and other elevated locations 

are so frequently the “natural” settings for pilgrimage. 

Pilgrimage traditions in some cases also define time, 

as well, by their connections with calendars of religious 

observance. Many Tibetan pilgrimages operate 

on a twelve-year cycle, while visits to a number of Sri 

Lankan pilgrimage sites are organized around a calendar 

of full-moon-day observances. 

Contemporary perspectives 

Considerable scholarship has been devoted to pilgrimage, 

much of it focused on Christianity. Victor Turner’s 

theory of pilgrimage as a “liminoid phenomenon” has 

been the most influential general theory of pilgrimage. 

Turner asserts that pilgrimage places its participants in 

an ambiguous social status that frees them from some 

of the dominant social structures of their regular lives 

and enables particular kinds of personal transformation 

to occur. In part this transformation takes the 

form of a heightened group identification among people 

who would normally be socially distinguished. The 

“betwixt and between” character of pilgrims’ social status 

also renders them more emotionally vulnerable to 

the powerful symbolic systems that dominate pilgrimage 

sites, a vulnerability often heightened by physical 

ordeal. This model, which knits together social and psychological 

factors, and which attempts to take into account 

both the cognitive and affective dimensions of 

pilgrim’s experiences, is sufficiently flexible to illuminate 

many specific pilgrimages from various religious 

traditions. As many scholars have noted, however, this 

approach also emphasizes the commonality of pilgrims’ 

experience, and may mask the divisive social and 

political forces that often constellate around pilgrimage 

centers. 

In Sri Lanka, for example, Buddhist pilgrimage tradition 

played an important role in the nineteenth- and 

twentieth-century Buddhist revival in response to 

British colonial rule; it has also heightened conflict 

between Sinhalas and Tamils. In Tibet, the pilgrimage 

tradition centered on Mount KAILAŚA (KAILASH), 

which identifies it as Mount Meru and Śiva’s abode, 

has long drawn pilgrims from Hindu, Buddhist, and 

Jain traditions who venerate it with circumambulation. 

In the wake of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, however, 

pilgrimage was prohibited for nearly two decades 

beginning in 1962; since the early 1990s restrictions 

have been relaxed somewhat, and increasing numbers 

of Western practitioners of Buddhism are making this 

arduous pilgrimage to the “center of the world” as new 

Buddhist communities are established in Europe and 

North America. 

See also: Merit and Merit-Making; Relics and Relics 

Cults; Space, Sacred 

Bibliography 

Coleman, Simon, and Elsner, John. Pilgrimage: Past and Present 

in the World Religions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 1995. 


P LATFORM S U TRA OF THE S IXTH P ATRIARCH (LIUZU TAN JING) 

McKay, Alex, ed. Pilgrimage in Tibet. Richmond, UK: Curzon 

Press, 1998. 

Morinis, Alan, ed. Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage. 

Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992. 

Naquin, Susan, and Yü, Chün-fang, eds. Pilgrims and Sacred 

Sites in China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. 

Nissan, Elizabeth. “Polity and Pilgrimage Centres in Sri Lanka.” 

Man (New Series) 23, no. 2 (1988): 253–274. 

Reader, Ian, and Swanson, Paul L., eds. “Pilgrimage in Japan.” 


225–452. 

Turner, Victor, and Turner, Edith. Image and Pilgrimage in 

Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: 


PLATFORM SU TRA OF THE SIXTH 

PATRIARCH (LIUZU TAN JING) 

KEVIN TRAINOR 

The Liuzu tan jing (Platform Su tra of the Sixth Patriarch) 

is the capstone text of the early CHAN SCHOOL of 

Chinese Buddhism. The sutra resolves hotly contested 

issues of earlier decades in a charmingly instructive 

narrative. At its heart is a verse competition between 

Shenxiu (ca. 606–706) and HUINENG (ca. 638–713), in 

which the latter becomes sixth patriarch in spite of being 

an illiterate and socially declassé layman from the 

far south of China. The entire story is fictional— 

Shenxiu had long since left the “fifth patriarch” 

Hongren’s (601–674) monastic training center when 

the events supposedly took place—but the text’s imaginative 

dramatization of Chan spiritual training has 

been almost universally accepted. Composed originally 

around 780 (the approximate date of the DUNHUANG 

version), the Platform Su tra is an important source for 

understanding both the Chinese monastic institution 

and the state of evolution of Chan mythology at that 

time. Although the text did not remain universally 

popular throughout the medieval and premodern 

period—the Japanese Zen master DO GEN (1200–1253) 

was particularly critical of it—it is widely read and 

cited throughout East Asian Buddhism today. 

In the opening anecdote, Hongren instructs his students 

to compose verses demonstrating their understanding 

of Buddhism, with the author of the best verse 

becoming his successor. After some consternation, 

Shenxiu submits: 

The body is the bodhi tree. 

The mind is like a bright mirror’s stand. 

At all times we must strive to polish it 

and must not let dust collect. 

The response by Huineng, a menial laborer at the 

monastery for the preceding eight months, reads: 

Bodhi originally has no tree. 

The mirror also has no stand. 

The buddha-nature is always clear and pure. 

Where is there room for dust? 

The Dunhuang manuscript actually contains two 

slightly different versions of Huineng’s response. Further 

editorial adjustment is shown in later versions 

from the tenth and thirteenth centuries, which reduce 

this contribution to a single verse with a famous third 

line, “Fundamentally there is not a single thing.” 

The Platform Su tra has generally been misread as a 

clear-cut validation of a subitist “Southern school” associated 

with Huineng. However, the text actually outlines 

a three-level movement from an initial assertion 

about Buddhist practice, through a deconstruction of 

that assertion using the rhetoric of ŚU NYATA (EMPTI- 

NESS), to a profoundly nuanced restatement of the initial 

assertion. Shenxiu taught the constant or perfect 

practice of the PATH of the BODHISATTVA, by which he 

meant that one should always remain in meditation 

and always work to help other SENTIENT BEINGS. If he 

had actually used the metaphor of the mirror as given 

here, polishing the mirror would be a standard procedure 

of ethical training, not a gradualistic device for 

progressing toward enlightenment. 

Huineng’s verse contains no reference to suddenness, 

but is rather a deconstructive move implying a 

more profound understanding of Shenxiu’s initial 

“perfect teaching.” The balance of the Platform Su tra 

explains this more profound understanding using such 

expressions as the “formless precepts” and metaphoric 

reinterpretations of “sitting in meditation.” 

Bibliography 

McRae, John R. The Northern School and the Formation of Early 

Ch’an Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1986. 


655

P OETRY AND B UDDHISM 

McRae, John R., trans. The Platform Su tra of the Sixth Patriarch. 



Yampolsky, Philip B. The Platform Su tra of the Sixth Patriarch: 

The Text of the Tun-huang Manuscript with Translation, Introduction, 

and Notes. New York and London: Columbia 


POETRY AND BUDDHISM 

JOHN R. MCRAE 

The effect of Sanskrit Buddhist poetics and prosody on 

Chinese language and culture is one of the most profound 

characteristics of the introduction of Buddhism 

to East Asia. Indian Buddhist poetry formally begins 

with the poet and philosopher AŚVAGHOSA (ca. first or 

second century C.E.), who composed the earliest surviving 

examples of the kavya literary style of Sanskrit poetry, 

the BUDDHACARITA (Acts of the Buddha) and 

Saundarananda. Prior to Aśvaghosa, Buddhists employed 

Pali and other local languages in metrical 

arrangement. The Sanskrit used in Aśvaghosa’s poetry, 

however, is highly literary and displays linguistic artistry 

more in accordance with later Jaina or Hindu poets of 

the Gupta period (320–540). Sanskrit kavya poetry and 

poetics spread to Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Cambodia, 

and the Malay Archipelago before affecting the 

reception of Buddhism in China, Japan, and Tibet. 

Buddhists introduced notions of resonance, repetition, 

a system of four tones (as opposed to five or 

seven), meter, and poetic defects (Sanskrit, dosa)—all 

of which generated discussion on the mechanics of poetics 

among East Asian aristocrats. Indian and Central 

Asian Buddhist literature incorporated religious verse 

or gathas (Chinese, jie or jietuo), one of the twelve divisions 

of the tripitaka according to genre. In addition 

to gathas, geya (Chinese, qiye)—the verse summaries of 

tenets presented in su tra literature—captivated monastic 

and lay Buddhists in China because of the śloka meter, 

with four quarter verses of eight syllables each. 

Because of the difficulty in dating most Indian texts, 

it is nearly impossible to ascertain which specific Indian 

texts or figures were influential in China. But, 

scholars do know that the genre of composing poems 

of eulogy or praise (Chinese, zan or jiesong) for religious 

or secular reasons, with five to seven Chinese 

characters to a line, was instigated on the basis of Sanskrit 

gathas. 

During the period of disunion of the Wei, Jin, and 

Northern and Southern dynasties (220–589), Buddhist 

ideas and literature spread throughout East Asia as 

composing poetry became the principal literary art. 

While most East Asian poets did not study the Sanskrit 

language, many familiarized themselves with the principles 

of accurately rendering the sounds of Sanskrit 

into Chinese—using Indian Siddham (Chinese, xitan) 

script in order to chant sutras or DHARAN I. In the 

monastic estates, where lay and monastic elites assembled, 

the massive project of translating Buddhist texts 

into Chinese prompted men like the Buddhist poet Xie 

Lingyun (385–433) to work on a standardized system 

for the transcription of Sanskrit sounds. Xie’s system 

was later used by literati to compose standard rhyme 

dictionaries for composing poetry. 

Chinese literati came to write about poetics and the 

mechanics of composition in a genre of writing called 

shihua. Although it was not until the Song (960–1279) 

dynasty that the genre became pervasive, early authors 

in China based their theories on Sanskrit analogues 

transmitted through Buddhism. KU KAI (774–835), 

the famous transmitter of EXOTERIC-ESOTERIC (KEN- 

MITSU) BUDDHISM IN JAPAN, composed the most comprehensive 

treatise on both Sanskrit and Chinese 

poetics in his Bunkyo hifuron (A Treatise [Comprising] 

a Mirror for Literature and a Repository of Rare [Verses 

and Expressions]). Kukai’s mastery in languages has 

made his Bunkyo hifuron the principal reference work 

on Buddhist poetry and inspired generations of East 

Asian poets. 

The Tang (618–907) and Song dynasties are traditionally 

recognized for their poets and poetry. During 

these dynasties, Buddhist monks and lay officials like 

Hanshan, Guanxiu, Juefan Huihong (1071–1128), 

Wang Wei (701–761), and Su Shi (1036–1101) all associated 

with the emergent CHAN SCHOOL (Korean, 

Sŏn; Japanese, Zen) to make poetry a conspicuous and 

permanent aspect of Buddhist practice. 

See also: Canon; Chinese, Buddhist Influences on Vernacular 

Literature in; Japanese, Buddhist Influences 

on Vernacular Literature in; Languages; Sanskrit, 


Bibliography 

Demiéville, Paul. “Le Tch’an et la poésie chinoisie.” In Choix 

d’études bouddhiques. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1973. 

Lienhard, Siegfried. A History of Classical Poetry: Sanskrit, Pali, 

Prakrit. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1984. 


P OLITICS AND B UDDHISM 

Mair, Victor H., and Mei, Tsu-lin. “The Sanskrit Origins of Recent 

Style Prosody.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 51, 

no. 2 (1991): 375–470. 


POLITICS AND BUDDHISM 

Siddhartha Gautama was himself a prince, who 

nonetheless rejected political power, abandoning his 

royal inheritance along with his family and material 

comforts. In the biographies of the Buddha there is thus 

a strong sense of dichotomous contrast: The “world” 

(of family, wealth, and politics) must be renounced in 

the pursuit of enlightenment. MONKS and NUNS were 

instructed to refuse or minimize involvement with the 

political leadership. Nonetheless, ORDINATION was a 

political statement with political consequences, since 

the ordinand claimed to be opting out of the power 

structures of the (lay) world. Indeed one measure of the 

holiness of a Buddhist saint has been a distance from 

the centers of political power. Even monks who were 

intimately involved in political lobbying and who lived 

lives of urban comfort nonetheless retained some of the 

symbolism of the poor mountain or forest renunciant. 

There are scriptural cases of the Buddha’s dealings 

with rulers, generally in the contexts of teaching them 

the dharma and receiving donations. Bimbisara, king 

of Magadha during the Buddha’s lifetime, is remembered 

as a pious disciple and generous donor who gave 

land for the SAṄGHA and sponsored the creation of the 

first Buddha image. 

More influential was the example of King AŚOKA 

(third century B.C.E.), ruler of the Mauryan dynasty, 

who converted to Buddhism and promoted its spread 

throughout much of India. His conversion came after 

a famously bloody war campaign, and the violence of 

his earlier military career is often thought to lie behind 

his religious fervor. His policy of conquest by force 

(digvijaya) was replaced by an idea of conquest by 

righteousness (dharmavijaya). Much of the image of 

Aśoka as personally pious dates from later sources, 

which blend into hagiographic idealization. Aśoka’s official 

pronouncements are known from the extant 

edicts carved in rocks and distributed throughout his 

empire, often on display in Buddhist monasteries. He 

also sponsored religious sects other than Buddhism, 

and the dharma teachings that the edicts emphasize are 

fairly nonspecific exhortations to law-abiding social 

conduct. Aśoka did recommend sutras to read, and he 

A monk participating in a Mother’s Day protest against nuclear 

weapons testing prays at the entrance to the Nevada test site in 

2000. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. 

seems to have intervened in a schism, forcing schismatic 

monks to wear white robes and be removed from 

the orthodox saṅgha. According to traditional Sinhalese 

accounts, he took a role in the Council of 

Pataliputra (250 B.C.E.), which formalized a schism between 

the Sthaviras (elders) and the MAHASAM GHIKAS 

(Great Assembly). Aśoka became a model of the righteous 

Buddhist king, and temples to King Aśoka were 

founded throughout East Asia. 

Some kings have chosen to be ordained as monks. 

Some of the Japanese emperors lived as monk-recluses 

(in their palaces). As another example, King Mongkut 

of Siam (1804–1868) was hurriedly ordained a monk 

a week before his father’s death, and was thereby sheltered 

from succession struggles. Instead, Mongkut’s 

half-brother reigned for twenty-seven years, and upon 

his death, Mongkut disrobed and ascended the throne 

for a further seventeen-year reign. During his time as 

a monk, Mongkut founded a reform sect of Thai Buddhism, 

which has continued to enjoy royal favor. 

The ideal ruler 

The ideal ruler was described as cakravartin (wheelturning 

king or universal ruler) and dharmaraja, or as 

a bodhisattva. Cakravartins have the thirty-two marks 


657


of a great man, rule in accordance with dharma, and 

preside over an age of peace. Buddhist rulers have 

claimed the right to purify the religion and to judge 

the teachings. In China, the emperor presided over debates 

between representatives of Buddhism, Daoism, 

and Confucianism, pronouncing the winner at the end 

of the day. Various state laws provided some legal 

backing, such as tax exemptions, to monastic institutions. 

Conceding that the ruler has a legitimate role to 

play in reducing the bad karma of crime, the saṅgha 

has performed rituals to protect the ruler and the state. 

Many rulers in Asia, even pro-Buddhist rulers, 

have sought to control aspects of the saṅgha. Taking 

on the role of the cakravartin, rulers have at times 

“purged” the saṅgha of its “impurities” by enforcing 

stricter controls on entry (quotas on ordinations, or 

added stipulations), by extending secular law into the 

jurisdiction of the VINAYA (monastic code), and by 

expelling certain monks and nuns. In some cases, 

then, attacks on clerical institutions have been 

phrased in pro-Buddhist terms. In other cases, there 

was no such rationalization and the goal was simply 

the extermination of the saṅgha. Such violent anticlerical 

PERSECUTIONS have occurred sporadically 

throughout history, but perhaps the best known include 

the persecution during the Huichang period in 

China (ca. 842–845), the Communist-inspired iconoclasm 

of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966– 

1976), and the violence in Tibet since the 1950s. In 

Japan, the slaughter of monks during the civil warfare 

of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the 

anti-Buddhist movements of the early Meiji (1868– 

1870s), come to mind. 

The ideal ruler is a lavish patron, funding monastery 

construction and large publication projects. Many 

rulers in Asia have indeed donated land and other 

wealth for the establishment of monasteries, with a variety 

of motives. Undoubtedly the popular perception 

of the ruler as pious, the complicity of the monastic 

institutions in state propaganda, and the conspicuous 

displays of wealth all helped to legitimate the reign. 

The doctrine of merit (Sanskrit, punya; Chinese, 

gongde) made economic wealth religiously significant, 

as donations became the very substance of the saṅgha. 

The construction of large Buddha images, such as the 

colossal Buddha at Todaiji in Nara, dedicated in 752 

C.E., was also a powerful means of asserting political 

jurisdiction. The Todaiji image was built from donations 

gathered throughout the imperial domain, and 

in both its material contributions and its iconographic 

symbolism, consolidated the sense of a unified imperial 

nation. 

The imperial states of Asia were often intimately 

involved in the process of importing the dharma. 

Even when the state ideology was non-Buddhist or 

anti-Buddhist in orientation, rulers made donations 

out of political expediency, and many officials of the 

state were committed to Buddhism in a “private” capacity. 

Imperial women in particular were often sponsors 


Monks were sometimes desirable subjects for rulers. 

The great translator of Sanskrit texts, KUMARAJIVA 

(350–ca. 409/413), was one of the spoils of war in 

conflicts between Chinese and Central Asian states. 

Well-traveled monks lent prestige and foreign intelligence 

to a regime; they also embodied a certain magical 

auspiciousness. According to the account by 

XUANZANG (ca. 600–664) of his travels to India, rulers 

of the kingdoms he passed through often wanted him 

to stay. King Harsha (r. 606–647) paid his respects to 

Xuanzang, convened a debating tournament and declared 

him the winner, and released him only after 

much delay. When Xuanzang returned to China, he 

was welcomed by Emperor Gaozong (r. 649–683), 

who attempted to press the monk into political service. 

Failing that, he urged Xuanzang to record his 

travels. 

Buddhism as a political problem 

Buddhism has at times been perceived as a political 

danger. Various versions of millennial Buddhism have 

been seen as challenges to the state, and in some cases 

truly were. The idea of the DECLINE OF THE DHARMA 

(also known by the Japanese term mappo ) described 

the declining, or degenerating, capacity of human beings 

to achieve enlightenment as they grew increasingly 

remote from Śakyamuni Buddha. Various time 

frames were projected, with most orthodox estimates 

placing the decisive “end of the dharma” in the distant 

future. However, some popular millennial movements 

have posited the arrival or imminence of the 

end. In some cases Buddhists concluded that FAITH in 

AMITABHA Buddha was the only viable option in such 

a degenerate age, but in other cases it was believed that 

the messianic figure MAITREYA was present or soon 

would be present. 

Mappo assumed political importance both as a critique 

of government, since corrupt government was 

one indication of the decline, and also as an element 

of movements actively opposing the state. Though or- 



thodox traditions posit the arrival of the next buddha, 

Maitreya, in the remote future, the notion of a messiah 

who incarnates in a corrupt world to wash away 

the existing order has been taken more immediately at 

a popular level. In the fourteenth century, the White 

Lotus society developed expectations of the imminent 

arrival of Maitreya that required a cleansing of the evil 

political regime. The White Lotus Rebellion, which occurred 

in China from 1796 to 1805, was just such an 

attempt. Many states have been suspicious of religious 

secret societies, including those with Buddhist roots. 

In some cases Buddhist institutions openly maintained 

large standing armies; in Japan, powerful monasteries 

accumulated land holdings so large that they effectively 

became feudal domains, complete with taxation and 

militias. When Japan was unified by force in the sixteenth 

century, it was inevitable that warlords such as 

Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) came to face Buddhist 

institutions in battle, especially the Jodo shinshu. During 

the Tokugawa period (1600–1868), local monasteries 

and temples came to function as organs of the 

state, so that anti-Buddhism overlapped with nativism 

and new versions of Shinto. The strong association of 

Buddhism and the Tokugawa regime led to a persecution 

and widespread destruction of Buddhism in the 

years after the Meiji restoration of 1868. 

The relations of monk and ruler 

Although the saṅgha has had much to gain from good 

relations with political rulers, in an ideal sense monks 

are supposed to be uninterested in material wealth. 

The legendary story of BODHIDHARMA meeting Emperor 

Wu of the Liang (r. 502–550) has the great patriarch 

of the CHAN SCHOOL bluntly dismissing the 

salvific potency of all the emperor’s wealth: All the 

donations to build temples and copy scriptures produced 

no merit at all. Furthermore, the ideal monk 

was supposed to be unaffected by the threat of violence 

represented by the ruler. Lore has developed in 

which the heroic monk casually brushes aside any 

hint of fear. The monk SENGZHAO (374–414), for example, 

faced with the threat of execution, recited a 

verse to the ruler: 

The four elements originally have no master; 

The five skandhas are basically empty. 

When my head meets the white blade, 

It will merely be like beheading the spring 

wind. 

Placed in a situation of conflict with the civil authorities, 

threatened with the possibility of physical punishment 

and death, Sengzhao used his words to convey 

a simple message: The body is empty, so killing me 

would be useless and cannot even frighten me; you ultimately 

cannot kill me, because there is no “me” to 

kill. The basic trope then, is the use of the idea of ŚU NY- 

ATA‚ (EMPTINESS) during a display of virtuous bravado 

in the face of an overbearing ruler. 

This ability to speak truth to power was in part derived 

from Buddhist anthropology and the cultivation 

of nonattachment, but also from the position of the 

monk as “outside” or “beyond” the world. Indeed, at 

times the foreignness of Buddhism was embraced 

and displayed: Monks—even native-born monks— 

described themselves as fangwai zhi bin (guests from 

outside the boundaries) who come from outside the 

imperial domain. The analogy of exteriority is evident 

also in the term chujia (left the household), although 

this was also quite literally true—clerics were indeed 

absent from the home. As Stephen Teiser remarks: 

“The power of monks—their ability to enrich substantially 

the welfare of the family—depends upon 

their social placement outside of the family” (p. 205). 

The same could be said of their placement outside of 

the political realm. 

There were moments when the ritual practices of 

clerics were in direct physical contact with other, incompatible, 

systems of behavior. For example, in 

China, Confucian imperial guest ritual conflicted with 

the vinaya—as when a monk refused to bow to the 

ruler. Yet at these moments of obvious physical presence, 

we find the otherness of the monk admitted, indeed 

emphasized. The claim of belonging to some 

authority “outside the boundaries” was at the same 

time the claim to a site within the realm, from which 

to speak of the ruler as if from outside his realm. 

The strength of this assertion relied on the tradition 

of legal privileges accorded to foreign visitors (for example, 

visiting princes). Hereditary kinship with the 

ruler of a foreign state brought a number of privileges, 

such as partial noncompliance with imperial ritual, 

and partial extraterritoriality. Buddhist discourses often 

analogized monks to high-ranking representatives 

of a “ruler,” the Buddha. Monks are the Buddha’s 

“sons,” his “crown princes,” and so should, by analogy, 

have diplomatic immunity or extraterritoriality. 

Buddha is an emperor (of the dharma), and monks 

(his heirs) are princes, and thus the authoritative 

ambassadors of his words. In China, even as heaven 


659


Tibetan monks demonstrating in front of the U.S. Capitol for the cause of religious freedom in Tibet in 1998. AP/Wide World Photos. 


mandates just rulership (tianming), the just ruler receives 

Buddha’s charge or mandate for improving society 

and maintaining moral conduct: The model ruler 

is a “wheel-turner” who is responsible for law and order. 

There was a division of labor between the Buddha 

and the cakravartin, with the Buddha delivering beings 

from the world to a salvation “outside the world” 

(fangwai), and the cakravartin working “in the world” 

to reduce bad karma. 

Law and party politics 

Imperial domain requires territory and more or less 

demarcated spatial boundaries (physical or imagined), 

within which there is jurisdiction; applicable laws were 

those determined by the emperor and his ministers, 

scholars, and magistrates, and the military and police 

power needed to enforce those laws. At times the 

monastic institutions and the state contested areas of 

jurisdiction. For example, if a monk commits murder, 

the saṅgha is entitled to disrobe him, but not to send 

him to prison; the state may wait until the monk is disrobed 

before arresting him, or may claim a right to 

reach directly into the monastery. Similarly, state law 

codes have recognized the status of the cleric in a 

variety of ways, sometimes affording the ordained a 

dispensation not to perform military service, or acknowledging 

the Buddhist educational qualification as 

equivalent to secular educational degrees. In Thailand, 

degrees from Buddhist universities have gained qualified 

recognition from the government; for example, 


P ORTRAITURE 

these degrees are fully accredited for those who disrobe 

and serve as military chaplains. Thai law prescribes 

penalties on those who impersonate a monk. 

There have also been explicitly Buddhist political 

parties. SO KA GAKKAI, a Nichiren Shoshu-derived 

movement founded in 1930 in Japan, has been politically 

active, especially after World War II. In 1964 Soka 

Gakkai leader Ikeda Daisaku established the political 

party Komeito, formally unaffiliated but closely 

aligned with Soka Gakkai. Officially dissolved in 1994 

but reformed in 1998 as the New Komeito, it has remained 

small but influential. In Sri Lanka as well, Buddhist 

nationalism has become a powerful political 

force. In India, the lawyer and politician B. R. AMBED- 

KAR (1891–1956) campaigned for the rights of untouchables, 

and shortly before his death led a mass 

conversion to Buddhism. There has also been a global 

mobilization of Tibetan Buddhist adherents against the 

Chinese occupation of Tibet. These and many other 

cases show that despite elements of other-worldly 

rhetoric, Buddhism is easily enlisted in political causes. 

See also: Communism and Buddhism; Councils, Buddhist; 

Japanese Royal Family and Buddhism; Kingship; 

Law and Buddhism; Meiji Buddhist Reform; 

Millenarianism and Millenarian Movements; Monastic 

Militias; Nationalism and Buddhism; Shinto 


Bibliography 




Smith, Bardwell L., ed. Religion and the Legitimation of Power 

in South Asia. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1978. 

Smith, Bardwell L., ed. Religion and Legitimation of Power in Sri 

Lanka. Chambersburg, PA: ANIMA, 1978. 

Smith, Bardwell L., ed. Religion and Legitimation of Power in 

Thailand, Laos, and Burma. Chambersburg, PA: ANIMA, 

1978. 

Tambiah, Stanley J. World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A 



Press, 1976. 






ERIC REINDERS 

PORTRAITURE 

Representations of MONKS, NUNS, and members of the 

LAITY flourished in East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist 

traditions. In pre-Buddhist Han China, portraits of 

exemplary figures past and present derived from historical, 

biographical, and eulogistic texts. Ancient 

Chinese concepts of portrait are encompassed by the 

words xiang (Japanese, zo ), zhen (Japanese, shin), and 

ying (Japanese, ei). Where a caption named a figure, 

both words and image called to mind the larger story 

of that individual; a likeness was not essential. Yet 

most modern definitions of portraiture mandate that 

the subject be an individual, and that the representation 

be based on observed reality. Within Buddhist 

contexts, the word xiang also denotes BUDDHA IMAGES 

(foxiang; Japanese, butsuzo ), as well as representations 

of local deities (shen; Japanese, kami). Combinations 

like zhenxiang (Japanese, shinzo ), and yingxiang (Japanese, 

eizo ) stress the importance of resemblance and 

truth, not merely to appearances but also to the spirit. 

Like devotional icons, portraits consecrated in formal 

ceremonies embodied the living aura of their subjects. 

As such, they too, served as the focus of offerings and 

ceremonies. 

Lineages and patriarchs 

In China early Buddhist portraiture featured genealogies 

or lineages that trace a particular history of dharma 

transmission. At the Kanjingsi cave chapel at LONG- 

MEN (ca. 720–730), a procession of twenty-nine patriarchs 

of the “western lands” (i.e., India) carved in 

larger than life relief surround the central image of 

Śakyamuni. This artificial group, found in a text of the 

Northern CHAN SCHOOL, begins with Śakyamuni’s senior 

disciple MAHAKAŚYAPA and ends with BODHI- 

DHARMA, putative founder of Chan in China. Although 

individually lifelike and varied, these depictions recall 

the Han tradition of exemplar portraits. LINEAGE portraits, 

in both painting and sculpture, spread to both 

Japan and Tibet. In mid-eighth century Japan at 

Todaiji, the patriarchs of each of the six competing 

schools of Buddhism were painted on wooden cabinets 

holding sutras promoted by each school. Zhang 

Shengwen’s Long Roll of Buddhist Images (1173–1176, 

National Palace Museum, Taipei), painted for the 

kingdom of Dali in southwestern China, incorporated 

a succession of Chan portraits showing each master 

seated in a landscape setting. In Tibet, the founders of 

the four Tibetan orders appeared as the large central 

figure in thang kas (thanka; painted hanging scrolls), 


661

P ORTRAITURE 

surrounded by smaller depictions of their teachers and 

Buddhist deities. No matter how convincing or lifelike, 

such images were imaginary and deified representations 

of semilegendary and long-dead masters created 

to legitimize particular lineages. 

The impulse to remember and venerate the sanctity 

of one’s own teacher led to the creation of individual 

portraits from life and the writing of hagiographies. 

Numerous Chinese tales and images exemplify efforts 

to preserve the corpses of venerated saints, both 

through natural mummification and a complex practice 

of preservation by desiccation and cloth soaked in 

lacquer. Corpses encased in such a coating, placed 

within sutra-mausoleums or separate temple halls, became 

objects of veneration for both temple and pilgrims. 

The mummy of the sixth Chan patriarch 

HUINENG (ca. 638–713) is the most famous extant example, 

while the life-sized hollow dry lacquer image of 

GANJIN (Chinese, Jianzhen; 688–763) may be an example 

of a sculpted image substituted for a “failed 

mummy.” At Toshodaiji in Nara, Japan, Ganjin’s portrait 

served as a relic of the strong connection between 

a revered teacher and his surviving students, as well as 

a portrait of the temple’s founder. In the thirteenth 

century, VINAYA school revivalists venerated Ganjin as 

their patriarch and erected a portrait hall for the image. 

Many portraits of individual monks commemorate 

their leadership talents and patronage activities, as 

for instance Hongbian (late ninth century), whose clay 

portrait was installed in a small chapel at DUNHUANG. 

Not a mummy, the image contained a bag of ashes, 

while a record of his activities was inscribed in a neighboring 

chapel. 

A conflation of these strains of portraiture appears 

with KU KAI (774–835), who studied Zhenyan (SHIN- 

GON BUDDHISM, JAPAN) teachings in Chang’an from 

804 to 806. Kukai brought back to Japan seven life-size 

individually painted portraits of his immediate predecessors 

that incorporated written biographies. After 

Kukai’s death, his followers added his own portrait to 

make a set of eight Shingon patriarchs. These paintings 

were copied and disseminated to Shingon temples 

throughout Japan, where they became an essential 

component in main halls and on pagoda walls. 

Portraiture blossomed in thirteenth-century Japan 

as a result of an increased awareness of Buddhist history 

and fresh contact with Chinese teachers. Students 

of Pure Land, Vinaya, and Chan teachings brought 

back portraits of their teachers from China. These depicted 

formally dressed abbots seated in elaborate 

cloth-decorated chairs, holding attributes of their status 

and character. Often drawn from life, these paintings 

frequently bore inscriptions by the sitter. These 

individual portraits were venerated in Japanese monasteries, 

and when the subject died, they became the 

focus of memorial ceremonies. As the lineages of these 

teachers spread throughout Japan, copies proliferated. 

At some temples, separate portrait/memorial 

halls enshrined painted or sculpted images of 

founders. Perhaps the strongest manifestations of the 

lineage/memorial portrait tradition are the countless 

portraits of Chan abbots. Abbot portraits occupied 

central altar space in the various subtemples of Zen 

monasteries in Japan, where sculpted founder portraits 

replaced buddha images as the central object of 

devotion. 

Donors and lay believers 

Buddhist portraiture was not confined to representations 

of lineages, patriarchs, and abbots. In ancient India, 

famous lay patrons, both men and women, 

abound in illustrated narratives, occasionally with 

identifying inscriptions. Relief carved images of lay patrons 

also appear on the gates to stupa mounds. While 

neither of these types of representation qualify as portraiture, 

they can be seen as precursors to donor images 

of royalty and prominent families found in the 

cave-chapels of Dunhuang and Longmen in China. At 

the POTALA in Lhasa, a large ninth-century sculpted 

statue of King Srong btsan sgam po (Songtsen Gampo, 

ca. 627–649) suggests that the making of sculpted 

donor portraits may have been more common than 

extant evidence suggests. Many of the workshopproduced 

paintings found at Dunhuang depict generic 

lay donors, with space left to record names, dates, and 

vows. The genres of ancestor and commemorative 

portraits flourished in China long after Buddhism 

waned among the elite classes. 

In Japan, however, portraits of the lay elite survive 

in considerable numbers. Numerous sculpted portraits 

of Prince SHO TOKU (574–622) at different ages commemorate 

his role in establishing Buddhism. The hollow 

bodies of the sculptures often contain copies of the 

sutras he promulgated, as well as donations from patrons. 

Several pious emperors received the tonsure 

upon abdicating the throne; thus their portraits show 

them with shaven heads in monk’s clothing. Their descendants 

enshrined these portraits in private chapels 

or in temples they founded. 


P OTALA 

Throughout Japan’s medieval period, numerous 

portraits of the aristocratic and military elite were created 

at their deaths to be hung in mortuary temples 

(bodaiji). Documentary sources tell of painters summoned 

to sketch their likenesses, either before or after 

death. These sketches served as the basis for life-size 

portraits, usually painted but occasionally carved. 

Family memorial portraits also included representations 

of prominent women, retired empresses and military 

wives, and even boys who had died young. The 

portraits frequently incorporated written biographies 

or eulogies, or the Buddhist name conferred on the deceased. 

Although memorial portraits depict their subjects 

in finery appropriate to their station, such 

portraits were not secular in function or place of display. 

The families of the deceased provided material 

support, often including the personal possessions of 

the deceased, to these mortuary temples for memorial 

ceremonies as well as care of family burial sites. 

See also: Arhat Images; Bodhisattva Images; Buddha, 

Life of the, in Art; Chan Art; China, Buddhist Art in; 


Bibliography 

Guth, Christine M. E. “Portraiture.” In Japan’s Golden Age: 

Momoyama, ed. Money L. Hickman. Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum 

of Art, 1996. 

Levine, Gregory P. “Switching Sites and Identities: The 

Founder’s Statue at the Buddhist Temple Korin’in.” Art Bulletin 

83, no. 1 (2001): 72–104. 

Mori, Hisashi. Japanese Portrait Sculpture, translated and 

adapted by W. Chie Ishibashi. Tokyo and New York: Kodansha 


Phillips, Quitman E. The Practices of Painting in Japan, 1475– 

1500. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000. 

Sharf, Robert H. “The Idolization of Enlightenment: On the 

Mummification of Ch’an Masters in Medieval China.” History 

of Religions 32, no. 1 (1992): 1–31. 

Sharf, Robert H. “On the Ritual Use of Ch’an Portraiture in Medieval 

China.” Cahiers d’Extreme-Asie 7 (1993–1994): 

149–219. 

Sharf, Robert H., and Sharf, Elizabeth Horton, eds. Living Images: 



Spiro, Audrey. Contemplating the Ancients: Aesthetic and Social 

Issues in Early Chinese Portraiture. Berkeley: University of 



POTALA 

The Potala palace, one of Tibet’s largest and best 

known landmarks, is an enormous fortresslike structure 

located in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. The Potala 

served as the winter residence of the DALAI LAMAS and 

as the locus of the Tibetan government from the seventeenth 

century to the fourteenth Dalai Lama’s flight 

from Tibet in 1959. In thirteen floors said to contain 

more than one thousand rooms, the Potala encompasses 

an elaborate conglomeration of residential 

chambers, reception and assembly halls, temples, reliquary 

chapels, monastic quarters, and offices. Located 

atop a small hill called Mar po ri on the northwestern 

edge of Lhasa, the palace’s full name is the Summit 

Palace of Potala (Rtse po ta la’i pho brang). The name 

refers to Mount Potalaka in India, which is revered 

as the abode of the compassionate BODHISATTVA 

Avalokiteśvara, who is believed to manifest in the figure 

of the Dalai Lamas. 

The earliest foundations of the palace date to the 

Tibetan king Srong btsan sgam po (r. ca. 614–650), 

who moved his capital to Lhasa from the south, erecting 

an eleven-storied structure on Mar po ri in 637 that 

served as the center for his court. Some ten centuries 

later, in 1645, the fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682) began 

renovations to this structure, planning a new ecclesiastic 

residence and offices for the Dga’ ldan pho 

brang—the central Tibetan government—all to be 

moved from the nearby ’Bras spungs (pronounced 

Drepung) Monastery. These additions included the socalled 

White Palace, composed mainly of administrative 

and residential quarters, and the upper Red Palace 

containing rooms used for religious purposes, which 

now include the reliquary tombs of the fifth and seventh 

through thirteenth Dalai Lamas. Construction 

continued for many decades and was not finished until 

the close of the seventeenth century. According to 

Tibetan histories, the fifth Dalai Lama’s adroit regent 

Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653–1705) kept news of the 

hierarch’s death secret for more than twelve years in 

order to bring this monumental project to completion. 

Jesuit missionaries Albert Dorville and Johannes Grueber 

published sketches of the partially erected Potala 

palace, which they witnessed while passing through 

Lhasa in 1661. 

For nearly three hundred years, the Potala served as 

an epicenter of Tibetan religious and political power. 

The outer facade was shelled by occupying Chinese 

troops in 1959, the time of the fourteenth Dalai Lama’s 


663

P RAJN A (WISDOM) 

The Potala palace is the traditional residence of the dalai lamas in Lhasa, Tibet. © Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

flight into exile in India. Since then, much of the Shol 

village, a frequent destination of the flamboyant sixth 

Dalai Lama (1683–1707), located at the palace’s foot, 

has been systematically dismantled. Although the 

Potala’s structural damage was subsequently repaired, 

the vacant palace remains a potent symbol for the absence 

of Tibet’s principal religious and political leader. 

The Potala’s massive structure also continues to play 

a central part in contemporary Tibetan religious practice. 

It forms the northern boundary of the large circumambulation 

route around Lhasa called the gling 

skor (pronounced ling khor) or sanctuary circuit. Pilgrims 

visit the palace daily, winding through its many 

inner chambers, reciting prayers and presenting offerings 

at its many hundreds of shrines. In 1994 the Potala 

was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 


Bibliography 

Bishop, Peter. “Reading the Potala.” In Sacred Spaces and Powerful 

Places in Tibetan Culture: A Collection of Essays, ed. Toni 

Huber. Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and 

Archives, 1999. 

Larsen, Knud, and Sinding-Larsen, Amund. The Lhasa Atlas: 

Traditional Tibetan Architecture and Townscape. Boston: 


PRAJÑA (WISDOM) 


With KARUN A (COMPASSION), prajña (wisdom) is one of 

two virtues universally affirmed by Buddhists. Broadly, 

prajña is correct discernment of any object; specifically, 

it is intellectual and experiential insight into soteriologically 

significant truths, whether metaphysical 

(e.g., categories of DHARMAS, the functioning of KARMA, 

the realms of SAM SARA) or ontological (e.g., no-self, 

emptiness, the natural purity of mind). Virtually all 

Buddhist traditions affirm that wisdom is a prerequisite 

to enlightenment, and that a buddha possesses the 

maximum possible wisdom, or gnosis (jñana). 

Like many Indian religious teachers of his era, the 

Buddha apparently regarded the “sentient condition” 

(repeated, uncontrolled REBIRTH in unsatisfactory 

realms) as rooted primarily in misapprehension of 


P RAJN A (WISDOM) 

reality. For early Buddhists, ignorance (avidya) was, 

with desire and aversion, one of the three poisons that 

perpetuate SAM SARA, the cycle of rebirth; it was also 

the first of the twelve factors of PRATITYASAMUTPADA 

(DEPENDENT ORIGINATION) that account for continued 

rebirth. This ignorance misconstrues both the details 

and the ultimate nature of the world and of persons. 

In particular, the belief that one is or has a permanent, 

independent self leads to desire and aversion, thence 

to unskillful actions and unpleasant results, including 

rebirth. In fact, both philosophical and meditative investigation 

reveals that, because there is nothing anywhere 

in the conditioned world that is permanent, 

there can be no such self. The recognition of this fact 

of no-self (anatman) is the antidote to ignorance, that 

is, wisdom. When one realizes experientially, with insight 

MEDITATION founded on one-pointed concentration, 

that there is no self, one no longer creates desire 

or aversion for the sake of that self, and one begins to 

uproot defilements, becoming an arya, whose enlightenment 

is assured. 

In THERAVADA and other mainstream Buddhist 

texts, both canonical and commentarial, wisdom is, 

with morality (ślla) and concentration (samadhi), one 

of three indispensable Buddhist trainings. Wisdom itself 

is commonly divided into that gained through 

study of written and oral teachings, reflection upon the 

meaning of those teachings, and meditative internalization 

of those meanings. This list and its sequencing 

show that in most Buddhist contexts both philosophical 

and experiential wisdom were valued, but that 

experiential wisdom, gained through insight meditation, 

was considered superior. Most great Theravada and 

Śravakayana texts—from the Sutra and ABHIDHARMA 

Pitakas to scholastic masterworks such as BUD- 

DHAGHOSA’S Visuddhimagga (Path to Purification) and 

VASUBANDHU’s ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHASYA (Treasury of 

Abhidharma) (both ca. fifth century C.E.)—provided a 

more or less systematic categorization of the dharmas 

or phenomena into which Buddhists analyze reality, 

while also stressing the limitations of intellectualism 

and the necessity for meditative scrutiny of oneself and 

the world, especially so as to negate the idea of a subsisting 

self. 

Despite caveats about scholasticism, Theravada and 

Śravakayana philosophers sometimes reified dharmas 

and their categorizations, and many MAHAYANA texts 

evidently were written to counter this tendency. The 

earliest and most influential was the PRAJNAPARAMITA 

LITERATURE, which focused on wisdom as the sixth and 

culminating PARAMITA (PERFECTION) that a BOD- 

HISATTVA must master en route to full buddhahood. 

This literature described wisdom as the nonconceptual 

realization that not just the self, but the very dharmas 

that constitute the person and the world are intrinsically 

empty. The bodhisattva must also perfect such 

methods (UPAYA) as generosity, morality, patience, effort, 

and contemplation, but does so while bearing in 

mind their emptiness. Other Mahayana sutras promoted 

wisdom in other ways, seeing it as the realization 

of nonduality, sameness, lack of intrinsic nature, 

mind-only, the interpenetration of all dharmas, or the 

stainless primordial mind. However they described the 

object of wisdom, these sutras shared an emphasis on 

the ultimate inconceivability of reality and the primacy 

of experiential over intellectual approaches to wisdom. 

Far from ending philosophical debate, however, the 

Mahayana sutras spawned countless commentaries 

and treatises, which systematically analyzed both the 

subjective and objective aspects of wisdom, from YO- 

GA CA RA SCHOOL enumerations of types of consciousness, 

to Pramana school analyses of epistemic 

authority, MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL debates about the 

place of reason in arguments for emptiness, and 

TATHAGATAGARBHA-tradition evocations of a pure 

buddha-wisdom lying dormant in every sentient being. 

Scholar-monks examined the relation of wisdom 

to bodhicitta, compassion, and skillful means; the way 

to arrive at a “middle view” that avoided the extremes 

of eternalism and nihilism; the balance to be struck in 

meditation between concentration and analysis; and 

what is known by a buddha’s perfect gnosis. By the late 

first millennium C.E., north India was dotted with great 

monastic universities emphasizing a scholarly approach 

to wisdom. 

Not surprisingly, countercurrents developed. East 

Asian Chan traditions focused on direct transmission 

and nonconceptual realization of perfect wisdom. Indian 

and Tibetan tantric movements developed dramatic 

ritual and meditative practices to bring about 

a wisdom consciousness that simultaneously realizes 

emptiness, sees forms, and experiences bliss. Chan and 

tantric traditions themselves sometimes embraced 

scholasticism, and were in turn reformed by contemplatives, 

such as HUINENG (638–713) in the CHAN SCHOOL 

and Saraha (late first millennium C.E.) in TANTRA, 

who sought to return wisdom to its home in nonconceptual 

meditative experience. Meditative schools, 

however, sometimes adopted irrationalism or antinomianism, 

and so were opposed by others, including 

ZONGMI (780–841) in China and TSONG KHA PA 

(1357–1419) in Tibet, who insisted that philosophical 


665

P RAJN A PA RAMITA L ITERATURE 

training was a prerequisite to attaining experiential 

wisdom through meditation. 

Wisdom was not restricted to philosophers and 

contemplatives; it became accessible to ordinary Buddhists 

through art and ritual. Content aside, texts were 

often believed to impart wisdom and protective power 

simply by virtue of being containers of the dharma, 

and they were worshipped accordingly. Certain doctrinal 

formulas were inscribed on steles and statuary; 

for example, “Of those dharmas arising from causes, 

the tathagata has described the cause, and also their 

cessation—thus spoke the Great Ascetic.” Wisdom was 

condensed into DHARAN IS and MANTRAS, which evoked 

power and knowledge in the practitioner, and served 

as purifiers in confession rituals. Wisdom also was 

deified, sometimes as male, as in the bodhisattva 

Mañjuśr, whose widespread cult is centered at Wutaishan 

in China, but more often as female, as in Prajñaparamita, 

who is “mother of the Buddhas,” or 

Vajrayogin, who symbolizes the tantric gnosis experiencing 

emptiness and bliss simultaneously. 

Wisdom remains central to contemporary Buddhism, 

especially as Buddhist traditions enter the modern 

world. Insight meditation (vipassana) is practiced 

more widely than ever before, Buddhist views are compared 

with one another and with Western ideologies, 

and old debates continue about how to describe the 

object of wisdom, balance intellectual and experiential 

approaches to wisdom, and apply wisdom to living life 

in the world with real intelligence and freedom. 

See also: Bodhicitta (Thought of Awakening) 

Bibliography 

Buddhaghosa, Bhadantacariya. The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga, 

tr. Bhikku Ñyanamoli. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 

1976. 



Press, 1982. 

Lancaster, Lewis, ed. Prajñaparamita and Related Systems. 


Napper, Elizabeth. Dependent Arising and Emptiness: A Tibetan 

Buddhist Interpretation of Madhyamika Philosophy Emphasizing 

the Compatibility of Emptiness and Conventional Phenomena. 

London and Boston: Wisdom, 1989. 

Pettit, John W. Mipham’s Beacon of Certainty: Illuminating the 

View of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection. Boston: Wisdom, 

1999. 

Ruegg, David Seyfort. The Literature of the Madhyamaka School 

of Philosophy in India. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 

1981. 



Yampolsky, Phillip B., trans. The Platform Su tra of the Sixth 

Patriarch. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. 

PRAJÑA PA RAMITA LITERATURE 


One of the earliest records of the MAHAYANA school’s 

discourse in Indian Buddhism is to be found in the 

family of texts known as the Prajñaparamita, often 

translated as “Perfection of Wisdom.” These texts appear 

in several forms. Some were similar in content but 

were characterized by expansion. Titles were later 

added to these expansions, based on the length of each. 

The oldest of this group was designated as 8,000 lines 

and the largest as 100,000. There were those numbering 

18,000 and 25,000 lines. Another group of texts was 

formed in the opposite fashion, by contraction. The 

great length of the earlier texts created problems of 

how to preserve and use documents that covered hundreds 

of palm leaves or strips of birch bark. One 

solution was to look for ways to present the core of 

the teaching in shortened formats. Out of this grew 

the texts that are most often recited in monasteries 

and Buddhist ceremonies in East Asia, the so-called 

DIAMOND SU TRA and HEART SU TRA. One further development 

was added by the tantric movement. In this 

form, MANTRAs and DHARAN I dominated, and the 

smallest of the contractions appeared in which the 

doctrine of the Prajñaparamita was contained in the 

single letter A. 

There is very little known about the community of 

monastics who produced these texts that were to become 

a primary source for Mahayana development. 

The lack of inscriptions, archeological finds, and 

mixed reports from early Chinese pilgrims suggest 

that the documents were not the result of a large institutional 

structure. From internal evidence within 

the texts that gave high praise to the practice of making 

written copies, it may be that this discourse was 

transmitted mainly through the emerging technology 

of writing. The early years of Buddhism, after the time 

of the Buddha, was based on an oral tradition and a 

large organization of monasteries. The use of written 

manuscripts may have allowed a small group to dis- 


P RA TIMOKS A 

seminate these particular ideas without reliance on 

more traditional oral methods. 

Within the texts, the teaching is mainly done 

through the use of dialogue between well-known figures, 

including the Buddha and his major followers. 

The subject matter revolves around long established 

debates over the nature of perception and cognition. 

The list of terms seldom varies from the Matrka (seed) 

categories set up in the ABHIDHARMA groups. The innovation 

found in the Prajñaparamita is the emphasis 

given to the momentary and unique nature of each 

moment of cognition and the insights regarding this 

process achieved by a special group of adepts known 

as BODHISATTVAS. 


Bibliography 

Conze, Edward. The Prajñaparamita Literature. The Hague, 

Netherlands: Mouton, 1960. 

Conze, Edward, trans. The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand 

Lines and Its Verse Summary. Bolinas, CA: Four Seasons 

Foundation, 1973. 

Lancaster, Lewis, ed., and Gómez, Luis, assoc. ed. Prajñaparamita 

and Related Systems: Studies in Honor of Edward Conze. 

Berkeley: University of California Regents, 1977. 

Lopez, Donald S. Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart 

Su tra. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. 

PRA TIMOKSA 

LEWIS LANCASTER 

The pratimoksa (Pali, patimokkha), presumably the oldest 

section of the VINAYA, contains the disciplinary code 

that regulates the life of the SAṄGHA, the Buddhist 

monastic community. The etymology of the term 

pratimoksa is uncertain, but it denotes the highest standard 

of conduct for Buddhist monastics. In the early 

days of the Buddhist community, the pratimoksa was 

apparently a simple profession of faith in the Buddha’s 

primary teachings that was recited periodically by the 

expanding saṅgha. Later, the term came to refer to the 

corpus of disciplinary rules that developed gradually 

over time as the saṅgha grew and regulations were formulated 

in response to specific incidents of misconduct. 

The pratimoksa is recited twice a month, on the 

full moon and new moon days, at an observance 

known as saṅgha posadha (Pali, uposatha). This observance 

is a rite of confession in which the actual confession 

of faults precedes the recitation of precepts and 

declaration of purity. The Bhiksupratimoksa is recited 

by fully ordained MONKS and the Bhiksunlpratimoksa 

is recited by fully ordained NUNS in separate observances; 

novices and laypeople are not permitted to attend. 

The semimonthly obligatory recitation of the 

pratimoksa is a means of reviewing the ethical guidelines 

and rules of etiquette that the monks and nuns 

voluntarily agree to observe, and a time for them to 

reaffirm their purity with regard to the prohibitions. 

This liturgical observance, conducted within a slma 

(ritually established boundary), is a way to ensure harmony 

within the saṅgha and between the saṅgha and 

the laity. Rituals of REPENTANCE AND CONFESSION and 

specific procedures for expiating offenses are prescribed. 

The importance of the PRECEPTS is evident in 

the Buddha’s declaration that the pratimoksa would 

guide the saṅgha after he passed away. 

The pratimoksa precepts found in the vinaya 

(monastic discipline) regulate the lives of Buddhist 

monastics who have received the upasam pada (full 

ORDINATION), as well as novices and probationers who 

are in training. The precepts give detailed instructions 

that regulate ethical decision making, food, clothing, 

shelter, furnishings, and other material requisites, as 

well as the rules that govern etiquette and personal interactions. 

The extant texts of all schools of vinaya list 

five categories of precepts that are common to both 

bhiksus and bhiksunls: (1) parajika (defeats that entail 

expulsion from the saṅgha, such as killing a human 

being or engaging in sexual intercourse); (2) 

saṅghavaśesa (remainders that entail suspension, 

such as acting as a go-between or baselessly accusing 

someone of a parajika); (3) nihsargika-patayantika 

(abandoning downfalls that entail forfeiture, such as 

keeping excess robes or engaging in business activities); 

(4) patayantika (propelling downfalls or lapses, such 

as intentionally telling a lie or eating at an improper 

time); and (5) śaiksa (faults or misdeeds, such as wearing 

the robes improperly or eating in a careless fashion). 

There is one additional category for bhiksus, the 

two aniyatadharma (individually confessed downfalls), 

and one for bhiksunls, the eight pratideśanlya (offenses 

requiring confession). The seven adhikarana-śamatha 

(methods of resolving disputes) are included in the 

pratimoksas of both bhiksus and bhiksunls. These 

seven methods include assembling the parties to the 

dispute, remembering events, admitting one’s responsibility, 

resolving matters by a majority decision, and 

so forth. 


667

P RA TIMOKS A 

Diverse schools of vinaya (nikayas) developed in India 

within a few hundred years after the Buddha’s 

parinirvana, but the pratimoksa rules and procedures 

of all these schools are thought to derive from the rules 

of discipline that were originally recited at the first of 

the Buddhist councils. Although the substance of the 

precepts is fundamentally the same, the specific numbers 

of precepts vary slightly from one school to another, 

for a variety of reasons. For example, (1) local 

communities had different interpretations of monastic 

discipline and there was no central authority to adjudicate 

them; (2) the precepts were transmitted orally 

and in different languages for several hundred years 

before they were written down; and (3) as the Buddhist 

community spread to different geographical and 

cultural areas, some precepts were adjusted in accordance 

with local customs. These schools are in almost 

complete agreement concerning the precepts, exhibiting 

only minor differences. 

Of the roughly eighteen schools of vinaya that developed 

in India, three lineages of pratimoksa are still 

in existence today. The THERAVADA Vinaya is preserved 

in Pali and practiced by bhiksus in Bangladesh, Burma, 

Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Sri Lanka; although the 

Bhiksunlpratimoksa exists in Pali, there is no living 

lineage of bhiksunls in the Theravada tradition. The 

Dharmaguptaka-vinaya is preserved in Chinese and 

practiced by bhiksus and bhiksunls in China, Japan, Korea, 

Taiwan, and Vietnam. The MU LASARVASTIVADA- 

VINAYA is preserved in Tibetan and practiced by 

bhiksus in Bhutan, the Indian Himalayas, Mongolia, 

Nepal, and Tibet; although the Bhiksunlpratimoksa exists 

in Tibetan, there is no living lineage of bhiksunls in 

the Tibetan tradition. In the Theravada tradition, there 

are 227 precepts for bhiksus and 311 for bhiksunls; in 

the Dharmagupta, there are 250 for bhiksus and 348 

for bhiksunls; and in the Mulasarvastivada, there are 

258 for bhiksus and 354 for bhiksunls. 

The Bhiksunlpratimoksa-su tra exists in all three of 

these vinaya schools, but a living lineage of bhiksunls 

exists only in the Dharmagupta school. Tens of thousands 

of bhiksunls in China, Korea, Taiwan, and 

Vietnam today regulate their lives by the Bhiksunlpratimoksa 

of the Dharmagupta school. In all three 

extant vinaya schools, the number of precepts for 

bhiksunls is considerably greater than for bhiksus. The 

Bhiksu Saṅgha was quite well organized and influential 

by the time the Bhiksun Saṅgha was established 

five or six years later, so the bhiksunls were naturally 

expected to follow the majority of the bhiksus precepts, 

in addition to new precepts occasioned by specific 

misbehavior among the nuns. In the first category 

of precepts, the parajikas, there are four that are 

common to both bhiksus and bhiksunls. They are to 

refrain from: (1) sexual intercourse, (2) taking what 

is not given, (3) taking a human life, and (4) telling 

lies, especially about one’s spiritual attainments. The 

four additional parajikas for bhiksunls are to refrain 

from: (5) bodily contact with a lustful man; (6) arranging 

to meet a man with amorous intentions; (7) 

concealing a parajika of another bhiksunl; and (8) 

obeying a bhiksu who has been expelled from the 

saṅgha. Of the second category of precepts, saṅghavaśesas, 

bhiksus in all schools have thirteen, whereas 

bhiksunls in the Dharmagupta and Theravada have 

seventeen, and bhiksunls in the Mulasarvastivada have 

twenty. Some saṅghavaśesas are similar for bhiksus 

and bhiksunls (e.g., acting as a go-between, baselessly 

accusing someone of a parajika, refusing to accept admonishments, 

creating a schism in the saṅgha), while 

others are dissimilar. 

Broadly interpreted, there are eight types of 

pratimoksa precepts: bhiksu (fully ordained monk), 

bhiksunl (fully ordained nun), śiksamana (probationary 

nun), śramanera (male novice), śramanerika (female 

novice), upasaka (layman), upasika (laywoman), 

and upavasatha (one-day lay observance). There is no 

counterpart to the śiksamana (probationary nun) ordination 

for monks. The first seven categories of 

pratimoksa precepts generally entail a lifetime commitment, 

except in countries such as Thailand where 

temporary ordination is offered. The eighth type of 

pratimoksa precepts, upavasatha, is the observance of 

eight precepts for twenty-four hours by laypeople. The 

aim of all types of pratimoksa precepts is to cultivate 

restraint of the senses as a means to achieve liberation. 

See also: Councils, Buddhist; Festivals and Calendrical 

Rituals 

Bibliography 

Davids, T. W. Rhys, and Oldenberg, Hermann, trans. Vinaya 

Texts, parts 1–3. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1974. 

Dhirasekera, Jotiya. Buddhist Monastic Discipline: A Study of Its 

Origin and Development in Relation to the Sutta and Vinaya 

Pitakas. Sri Lanka: Ministry of Higher Education, 1982. 

Horner, Isaline Blew. The Book of Discipline, 6 vols. London: 

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982. 

Prebish, Charles S. Buddhist Monastic Discipline: The Sanskrit 

Pratimoksa Su tras of the Mahasam ghikas and Mu lasarvastivadins. 

University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 

1975. 


P RATITYASAMUTPA DA (DEPENDENT O RIGINATION) 


Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women, a Comparative Analysis 

of the Dharmagupta and Mu lasarvastivada Bhiksunl Pratimoksa 

Su tras. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

1996. 

Vajirañanavarorasa, Somdetch Phra Maha Samana Chao Krom 

Phraya. The Entrance to the Vinaya: Vinayamukha, 3 vols. 

Bangkok, Thailand: Mahamakut Rajavidyalaya Press, 

1969–1983. 




Press, 1990. 


TABLE 1 

The twelve links of the chain of dependent origination 

1. Ignorance 

PAST 

2. Karmic activities 

3. Consciousness 

4. Mind and matter 

5. Six sense-doors 

6. Contact 

PRESENT 

7. Sensation 

8. Craving 

9. Attachment 

10. Becoming 

PRATITYASAMUTPA DA 

(DEPENDENT ORIGINATION) 

The theory of dependent origination (pratltyasamutpada; 

Pali: paticcasamuppada), which literally means 

“arising on the ground of a preceding cause,” could 

well be considered the common denominator of all 

Buddhist traditions throughout the world, whether 

THERAVADA, MAHAYANA, or VAJRAYANA. The canonical 

texts of the Theravada tradition portray ŚARIPUTRA 

(the Buddha’s disciple) as saying that “whoever understands 

dependent origination understands the 

teaching of the Buddha, and whoever understands the 

teaching of the Buddha understands dependent origination” 

(M. i, 190–191). In the Vajrayana tradition, a 

similar view is expressed by the fourteenth DALAI LAMA 

(1935– ) who stated in his 1990 book, Freedom in Exile, 

that the fundamental precept of Buddhism is this 

law of dependent origination. No matter what the tradition, 

one can clearly see the importance attributed 

to the theory: It renders it a fundamental tenet of Buddhism, 

indispensable for realizing and understanding 

the implications of Buddhist philosophy. 

The theory of dependent origination is usually 

divided into twelve links (nidana), each of which 

conditions the following link. The order presented in 

Table 1 is traditionally refered to as the normal order 

(anuloma), which illustrates the process of the development 

of SAM SARA. The pratltyasamutpada is also 

often presented soteriologically in reverse order 

(pratiloma), which simply indicates that if one link is 

eradicated, the next is also eradicated. 

The chain of dependent origination is often approached 

as a causal theory. One usually speaks of 

11. Birth; rebirth 

12. Old age, death 

FUTURE 

causality when one says “there being this, that appears.” 

Yet it is necessary to stress that a substantial 

“cause” from which the “effect” was generated cannot 

be deduced from dependent origination. The Sam yuttanikaya 

(Connected Discourses; S.ii.87–88) explains 

that fertile soil, water, and light are necessary conditions 

for the growth of a sapling, but none of these 

factors alone will yield the expected result. Similarly, 

each of the links of the chain of dependent origination 

is necessary for the production of the next element, 

yet none can definitely be perceived as sufficient 

on its own. 

Since this complex chain of causation is always said 

to give rise to suffering, the deactivation of any of the 

twelve links of this chain is bound to break the causal 

process and to eliminate suffering. According to the 

Pali canon, both the chain of dependent origination 

and the five SKANDHA (AGGREGATE) are responsible for 

suffering. The Buddha stated repeatedly that the root 

of all suffering lies in the five aggregates, which represent 

the psychophysical constituents of the individual. 

This is further evidenced by the Mahavagga of the 

Aṅguttaranikaya (Discourses Increasing by One), where 

an intimate relation between the five aggregates and 

the theory of dependent origination is established. In 

this specific discourse, a description of the FOUR NO- 

BLE TRUTHS is offered in terms of dependent origination. 

Therein, the first noble truth follows the standard 

canonical rendering and ends with the following 

phrase: “in short, the five aggregates are suffering” (A. 

i, 177). Yet the description of the two following truths 

does not comply with the paradigmatic rendition. 


669

P RATYEKABUDDHA 

Instead, they are depicted in terms of the theory of dependent 

origination. The noble truth concerned with 

the arising of suffering is simply explained by the 

pratltyasamutpada in normal order (anuloma), while 

the noble truth of cessation of suffering is defined by 

dependent origination in reverse order (pratiloma). It 

is clear then that dependent origination, traditionally 

seen as an explanation for the arising and the eradication 

of suffering, is intimately related to the theory of 

the five aggregates. 

The Theravada tradition holds that certain links of 

the chain of causation are limited either to the past, 

present, or future. In other words, and as illustrated in 

Table 1, different links constitute different temporal 

divisions. Although this chronological division is not 

expressed explicitly in the Pali canonical literature itself, 

it is supported by the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha 

(Compendium of Philosophy) of Anuruddha, a South 

Indian Buddhist philosopher (ca. eleventh–twelfth 

century C.E.). What is unclear, however, is the delineation 

and theoretical distinction among these three 

divisions. Since the past is nothing but the aging of the 

present, and the present the actualization of the future, 

each temporal division has to be seen as the paraphrasing 

of, or a different perspective on, the two other 

divisions. Since these divisions are merely arbitrary, the 

links of dependent origination that were classified under 

a certain time period could have been easily classified 

under another. What comes under “past” could 

have been under “future” or “present,” and vice versa. 

Therefore, it becomes evident that elements belonging 

to a specific time period represent a process similar to 

the one reflected by the elements belonging to another. 

Ignorance and karmic activities operate on the same 

principles as birth and old age and death, and as the 

eight middle links. The physical and psychological elements 

at work in the individual remain the same 

whether in the past, present, or future. Stated differently, 

the theory of dependent origination could run 

thus: Within one life span (links 11–12; birth and old 

age and death), one keeps generating karmic activities 

(link 2) because of ignorance (link 1), and this generation 

of karmic activities due to ignorance is more easily 

understandable by examining the process described 

by the eight middle links. 

Equally striking is that the division of the chain of 

causation into three time periods implies the presence 

of the five aggregates in each of these periods, since an 

“individual” (composed of the five aggregates) must 

experience this process within each of the periods; this 

is the perspective put forth by VASUBANDHU (fourth 

century C.E.) in his ABHIDHARMAKÓSABHASYA (AbhK. 

iii, 20). This suggests that the theory of dependent 

origination is not merely a soteriological tool, indicating 

how the individual ought to proceed in order 

to attain liberation from the causal process of sam sara, 

but also a psychological chart mapping the working 

of the mind. 

See also: Duhkha (Suffering) 

Bibliography 

Dalai Lama XIV. Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the 

Dalai Lama. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. 

Lamotte, Étienne. “Conditioned Co-Production and Supreme 

Enlightenment.” In Buddhist Studies in Honour of Walpola 

Rahula, ed. Somaratna Balasooriya et al. London: Gordon 

Fraser, 1980. 

Macy, Joanna. “Dependent Co-Arising: The Distinctiveness of 

Buddhist Ethics.” Journal of Religious Ethics 7, no. 1 (1979): 

38–52. 

Silburn, Lilian. Instant et cause: Le discontinu dans la pensée 

philosophique de l’Inde. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. 

Vrin, 1955. 

Tanaka, Kenneth K. “Simultaneous Relation (sahabhu-hetu): A 

Study in Buddhist Theory of Causation.” Journal of the International 


91–111. 

PRATYEKABUDDHA 

MATHIEU BOISVERT 

In the early tradition of the Pali canon the paccekabuddha 

(Sanskrit, pratyekabuddha) refers to a male 

individual who has attained enlightenment or insight 

(bodhi; hence, buddha) by himself. In contrast to a sammasambuddha 

(Sanskrit, samyaksam buddha), which is 

a completely enlightened person, a pratyekabuddha 

keeps enlightenment for himself (pratyeka) and does 

not embark on a career of preaching it to others. In 

early Buddhist COSMOLOGY, buddha era and nonbuddha 

era follow each other. During a buddha era, 

an enlightened being like the historical Buddha (Siddhartha 

Gautama) is born, attains enlightenment, and 

eventually preaches the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS that he 

has discovered. He then starts a dispensation on the 

basis of his compassion for other suffering beings. A 

pratyekabuddha also attains enlightenment by his 

own effort, but does not have the energy to preach or 

establish a Buddhist dispensation because, as the 


P RAYER 

canonical texts explain, he lacks the compassion of a 

fully enlightened buddha. Even so, he is considered a 

teacher, albeit a silent one, teaching by the example of 

his life and actions. 

The figure of the pratyekabuddha may have been 

the result of integration in early Buddhist history of 

pre-Buddhist ascetics, who had been revered by the 

people as saints and sages. By incorporating them into 

Buddhist history, early Buddhist communities were 

able to establish a kind of continuity with the pre- 

Buddhist period. At the same time, they were able to 

acknowledge the possibility of enlightened persons in 

other eras and cultures. 

Pratyekabuddhas therefore have a special, but limited, 

place in Buddhist ideology. A fully enlightened 

person, a buddha, finds the eternal truths of the Buddhist 

message by himself and starts a period of Buddhism. 

A pratyekabuddha, on the other hand, will not 

preach and will have no followers. Like a pratyekabuddha, 

an ARHAT is a person who attains the highest 

state of enlightenment. However, according to 

Buddhist tradition, the arhat did not reach this stage 

by his or her own efforts, but rather came to understood 

the four noble truths and traveled the PATH as 

taught by the Buddhist tradition. In the MAHAYANA 

tradition, the paths of arhat, pratyekabuddha, and 

buddha are initially all considered as leading to NIR- 

VAN A, but the path of a buddha is believed to be the 

only worthy goal, the One Vehicle of Supreme Buddhahood, 

which will eventually be attained by all. 

See also: Ascetic Practices; Buddhahood and Buddha 

Bodies 

Bibliography 

Kloppenborg, Ria. The Paccekabuddha: A Buddhist Ascetic. Leiden, 


Wiltshire, Martin G. Ascetic Figures before and in Early Buddhism: 

The Emergence of Gautama as the Buddha. Berlin and 

New York: de Gruyter, 1990. 

which translates as “the scripture of the meditation in 

which one comes face-to-face with the buddhas of the 

present,” that is, buddhas now inhabiting other worlds. 

The principal objectives of this encounter are to hear 

the dharma from the buddha of one’s choice and to be 

reborn with him in his world after death. The text’s 

use of AMITABHA in Sukhavat as a paradigm case suggests 

links with PURE LAND BUDDHISM, but practitioners 

may seek to encounter and be taught by any 

buddha of the present. The sutra thus provides a means 

and a rationale for continuing scriptural revelation. 

After purifying themselves, practitioners meditate on 

the buddha’s virtues and visualize his physical person 

(using the standard list of thirty-two marks and eighty 

features), while seated facing the appropriate direction 

(e.g., west for Amitabha). Doing this continuously for 

up to seven days and nights, they eventually see the desired 

vision, either in the waking state or in dreams. 

Interestingly, the sutra itself undercuts an excessively 

literal understanding of the process or undue emotional 

attachment to its results by deconstructing them 

in terms of the doctrine of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS), thus 

representing a merging of various currents of Mahayana 

Buddhist thought and practice. 

Evidence for the practice in India is slim, although 

many sources extol the salvific value of such visions of 

the buddhas. In East Asia, however, the pratyutpannasamadhi 

and its derivatives are well attested elements 

in the meditative and ritual repertoire of Buddhism. 

Bibliography 

Harrison, Paul. “Buddhanusmrti in the Pratyutpanna-buddhasam 

mukhavasthita-samadhi-sutra.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 

6 (1978): 35–57. 

Harrison, Paul. The Samadhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas 

of the Present: An Annotated English Translation of the Tibetan 

Version of the Pratyutpanna-Buddha-Sam mukhavasthita- 

Samadhi-Su tra with Several Appendices Relating to the History 

of the Text. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist 


PAUL HARRISON 

RIA KLOPPENBORG 

PRAYER 

PRATYUTPANNASAMA DHI-SU TRA 

Pratyutpannasamadhi-su tra, an early MAHAYANA meditation 

text, was first translated into Chinese by 

Lokaksema in 179 C.E. The full Sanskrit title is Pratyutpanna-buddha-sam 

mukha-avasthita-sama dhi-su tra, 

Buddhists, like many other religious people, usually 

pray to someone or something, and they pray for the 

realization of certain goals. Sometimes Buddhists pray 

using their body alone (a simple bow in front of an 

altar); sometimes they use words (the recitation of a 

verse of homage or devotion, a verbal petition or a 


671

P RAYER 

supplication). Buddhist prayer can also be done in the 

mind. Buddhists pray in private, individually in public, 

or together with others as a joint activity. 

Buddhists pray to a variety of beings, both human 

and nonhuman. The object of prayer can be the historical 

Buddha, or one of a seemingly infinite number 

of transhistorical BUDDHAS or BODHISATTVAS. When 

THERAVADA Buddhists, for example, prostrate before a 

Buddha statue, this might be considered an act of praying 

with the body. If, in addition, they chant the most 

famous Pali worship formula, “Homage to the worthy 

one, the lord, the completely awakened one,” that 

might be considered to involve a verbal prayer as well. 

If this is further accompanied by thoughts of the Buddha’s 

greatness, or by feelings of gratitude or devotion, 

this might be considered to involve the mind in prayer. 

In the Chinese and Japanese Pure Land tradition, the 

practice of nenbutsu (nianfo), the recollection of the 

Buddha AMITABHA and his pure land, is quintessentially 

a mental action, but it is usually accompanied by 

the repeated recitation of a prayer-formula, “Homage 

to the Buddha Amitabha.” 

Prayers can also be directed to human beings, both 

living and not. For example, Tibetan Buddhists practice 

what is popularly called guru devotion. Mentally, 

this involves the cultivation of an attitude in which the 

teacher comes to be seen as a buddha. Verbally, guru 

devotion can be done through the simple repetition of 

the guru’s name. In more elaborate rituals, for example, 

in the “worship of the guru” (bla ma mchod pa), 

the living or deceased guru, whose presence is ritually 

invoked, becomes the object of the adept’s devotions: 

Offerings are made, the guru is requested not to forsake 

the world and to continue to teach the doctrine, 

and he or she will also be asked to impart blessings on 

the adept. 

Buddhists also direct their prayers at special things. 

For example, the widespread practice of “going for 

refuge to the three jewels” can be seen not only as a 

prayer to the buddha and the SAṄGHA, but also to the 

dharma (a holy, but inanimate, object). Sometimes a 

specific scripture will become an object of prayer and 

devotion, as in the Sino-Japanese cults of the LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). The worship 

of STU PAs or relics might also be said to be forms of 

prayer directed at something, rather than at someone. 

Besides praying to what we might call “transcendental” 

objects, however, Buddhists also pray to the 

various DIVINITIES (devas) that are believed to inhabit 

the world. These can be quite extraordinary beings, like 

the great gods of the Hindu pantheon, or the protectors 

of the dharma. They can also be lesser, though 

nonetheless powerful, spirits associated with a particular 

region or place. Tantric Buddhists developed elaborate 

prayer rituals to propitiate both dharma 

protectors and indigenous spirits. In many of these rituals 

practitioners visualize themselves in the form of 

an enlightened deity, who then demands, rather than 

requests, the cooperation of the protector. This is important, 

lest it be thought that all forms of Buddhist 

prayer requires the adept to assume a position of humility 

and submission before the object to whom the 

prayer is directed. 

Finally, Buddhists pray for a variety of things that 

range from worldly goals (e.g., a good harvest, children, 

protection from harm, health, money, erudition, 

love) to the most sublime (enlightenment). They pray 

for a better REBIRTH (e.g., as a human or god) or, as is 

widespread in Mahayana Buddhism, they pray to be 

reborn in a pure land. When one engages in prayer for 

one’s own sake, this is often conceptualized in terms 

of the dual activities of purification and the accumulation 

of merit. For example, Tibetan Buddhists spin 

prayer wheels, metal cylinders that rotate on their axes 

and that contain MANTRAs (Tibetans themselves call 

these objects mani wheels). The spinning of prayer 

wheels is often done during other activities, almost as 

a reflex, and would appear not to involve any conscious 

goal. However, Tibetans generally believe that the 

movement of sacred objects (in this case, printed 

mantras) generates merit for the mover, and so the goal 

of merit-making is at the very least implied in the spinning 

of prayer wheels. 

Buddhists also believe in the efficacy of prayers for 

the sake of others, both living and dead. The Mahayana 

in particular stresses the importance of praying for others, 

as in the practice of “dedicating one’s merits” for 

the benefit of all sentient beings, which can also be seen 

as an act of prayer. 

See also: Merit and Merit-Making; Nenbutsu (Chinese, 

Nianfo; Korean, Yŏ˘mbul); Refuges; Relics and Relics 

Cults 

Bibliography 

Griffiths, Paul J. “A Hymn of Praise to the Buddha’s Good Qualities.” 

In Buddhism in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. 


Makransky, John. “Offering (mChod pa) in Tibetan Ritual Literature.” 

In Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. José I. 

Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996. 


P RECEPTS 

Sharf, Robert. “The Scripture on the Production of Buddha Images.” 

In Religions of China in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, 

Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. 


London: Routledge, 1989. 

PRECEPTS 

JOSÉ IGNACIO CABEZÓN 

Precepts within Buddhism are rules and guidelines intended 

to properly shape the mind and its manifestations 

in physical and verbal behavior so as to facilitate 

progress on the PATH to liberation. The term precepts, 

although a valid rendering of one sense of the Sanskrit 

word ślla (Pali, slla), fails to convey the full range and 

force of that word, which properly refers to the morality 

or virtue that constitutes one of the prerequisite 

foundations for ultimate spiritual attainment. The cultivation 

of ślla in this broad sense represents one of 

three required forms of training (trlni śiksani), along 

with concentration and wisdom, that correspond to 

the noble eightfold path. Although the precepts appear 

as external prescriptions and are often couched in negative 

terms, their goal and the proper thrust of Buddhist 

morality is the natural and positive embodiment 

of right action, speech, and livelihood. The various categories 

of precepts that will be discussed below are 

therefore not to be seen as ends in themselves, but 

rather as necessary steps in training for awakening. As 

steps, these categories distinguish between the lay and 

monastic life stations, between males and females, as 

well as between different levels of progress and commitment 

in religious life. 

The five, eight, and ten precepts 

The most basic moral prescriptions in Buddhism are 

often identified with the categories of five, eight, and 

ten precepts, which are generically known as rules of 

training (Sanskrit, śiksapada; Pali, sikkhapada). The 

five precepts address the moral obligations of all Buddhist 

laypersons and are sometimes taken along with 

the three REFUGES in a formal ceremony. They are thus 

viewed, much like monastic precepts, as a set of vows 

that call for abstention: (1) from the taking of life, (2) 

from stealing, (3) from sexual misconduct, (4) from 

lying, and (5) from intoxicants. Laypersons seeking to 

express greater dedication to the Buddhist path and 

further growth in moral training can take on observance 

of the eight precepts. Besides adopting a stricter 

interpretation of the first five precepts in which observance 

of the third precept requires complete abstinence 

from sexual activity, adherence to the eight precepts 

further entails: (6) refraining from eating after 

midday, (7) avoiding singing, dancing, and music, as 

well as use of perfume, and (8) refraining from the use 

of luxurious beds. Observance of these eight rules conventionally 

takes place only for limited periods, 

often on six days each month, arranged around the 

full and new moon days that coincide with the bimonthly 

confessional ceremonies (Sanskrit, posadha; 

Pali, uposatha) in the monastic community. 

In contrast to the categories of five and eight precepts 

that pertain to the moral training of laypersons, 

the category of ten precepts sets forth a basic moral 

vision for Buddhist monastics. Those entering the 

monastic order take these ten precepts in a “goingforth” 

ceremony (pravrajya, pabbaja) through which 

they become novices (śramanera, samanera). The ten 

precepts resemble an expanded form of the eight precepts, 

which involves adherence to the five precepts, 

including a strict ban on all sexual activity, and further 

entails vowing to refrain: (6) from eating after 

midday, (7) from singing, dancing, and music, (8) 

from wearing jewelry and using perfumes, (9) from 

sleeping on luxurious beds, and (10) from handling 

gold and silver. 

The monastic disciplinary code 

Whereas the ten precepts set forth a basic moral compass 

for MONKS and NUNS, the monastic disciplinary 

code (PRATIMOKSA, patimokkha), consisting of a greatly 

enlarged number of more than two hundred precepts, 

historically has been a determining factor in shaping 

the Buddhist monastic order (SAṄGHA) as an institution. 

These precepts, which constitute the central content 

of the VINAYA-pitaka in the Buddhist CANON 

(Tripitaka, Tipitaka), function on different levels. 

On the one hand, the monastic code has an obvious 

moral dimension. Many of these precepts are simply 

a further elaboration of the moral principles laid 

out in the ten precepts, and therefore reinforce the 

continued moral training of monastics after their OR- 

DINATION. At the same time, the aim of these precepts 

has been to preserve the Buddhist saṅgha’s image as a 

model of rectitude in the eyes of the lay community. 

Thus, the Buddha is recorded as having established 

some of the precepts as a result of incidents in which 

the conduct of monks threatened to cause scandal in 

those for whom the monastic community was to provide 

moral guidance and upon whom the monastic 

community relied for its physical support. 


673

P RECEPTS 

From another perspective, these precepts have an institutional 

dimension. In practical terms, many of the 

precepts in the pratimoksa have the concrete goal of 

ensuring order and smooth functioning in the everyday 

affairs of the community. More fundamentally, 

however, the very existence of the whole Buddhist community 

is premised upon the stability of the saṅgha, 

which in turn is dependent upon the valid conferral of 

the precepts in ordination. The vinaya specifies that the 

pratimoksa are to be formally taken (upasam pada) in 

the presence of a requisite number of properly ordained 

monks. Furthermore, the candidates were required 

to fulfill conditions that were ascertained 

through a set of questions during the ceremony. Finally, 

there were specifications with regard to the site 

of ordination, which DAOXUAN (596–667), founder of 

the Chinese Vinaya school (Lüzong), developed into a 

detailed set of specifications for the erection of an ordination 

platform. Absence of these key conditions was 

thought to invalidate this crucial ceremony that marks 

the passage to status as a fully ordained monk or nun. 

Great attention, therefore, has been paid through history 

to ensure the validity of this process. A striking example 

of such concern took place in Japan in the eighth 

century when questions about proper ordination cast 

the validity of the whole Buddhist order, which had 

existed in Japan for over a century, into doubt. Consequently, 

the Chinese ordination master GANJIN (Jianzhen, 

688–763) was invited to Japan. After five failed 

attempts, he finally arrived in Japan in 754, erected an 

ordination platform according to specifications in Nara 

before the great Todaiji, and performed a properly prescribed 

ordination, thus ensuring the legitimacy of the 

saṅgha in Japan. 

The centrality of the pratimoksa for the moral discipline 

of monks and nuns and the cohesion of the 

saṅgha is symbolically expressed through fortnightly 

confessional ceremonies (posadha, uposatha) at which 

monastics in a locality are required to gather together 

(with monks and nuns meeting separately) for a recitation 

of the precepts of the pratimoksa. The recital of 

each precept is accompanied by a required confession 

before the community of any instance of transgression. 

The shared recognition and adherence to a particular 

articulation of the pratimoksa evident in these ceremonies 

has been the token of unity for communities 

of the saṅgha through history, while disagreement with 

regard to the precepts has led historically to the creation 

of new communities with their own separate 

pratimoksa. Unlike Christianity, in which doctrinal 

disagreements often inspired the rise of new groups, 

sectarian division within early Buddhism is thought to 

have been largely premised on differing approaches to 

the discipline. 

One of the historical results of these divisions was 

the production of divergent pratimoksa contained 

within different versions of the vinaya-pitaka. There 

currently exist in various languages versions of the 

vinaya from six different schools: SARVASTIVADA AND 

MU LASARVASTIVADA, DHARMAGUPTAKA, MAHASA M- 

GHIKA, MAHIŚASAKA, and THERAVADA. Of these, three 

have contemporary relevance: The Theravada tradition 

observes the precepts in its Pali version of the 

vinaya; the East Asian tradition of Buddhism has 

largely adhered to the precepts of the Dharmaguptaka 

Vinaya (Sifen lü) for over a thousand years; and 

discipline in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is based 

on the vinaya of the Mulasarvastivada. Each of these 

differs with regard to the number of precepts constituting 

the pratimoksa. For full ordination, the Theravada 

Vinaya contains 227 rules for monks (or 311 

for nuns), the Dharmaguptaka 250 (or 348), and the 

Mulasarvastivada 258 (or 354). Today only East Asian 

Buddhism continues to preserve a tradition of fully 

ordained nuns. 

The precepts of the pratimoksa are grouped in categories 

that are arranged in descending order of seriousness 

according to the gravity of an offense. The 

most serious category (parajika) contains offenses that 

require immediate expulsion from the saṅgha with no 

possibility of reinstatement in one’s lifetime. For 

monks, this category involves four major offenses: sexual 

intercourse, stealing, murder, and false claims with 

regard to one’s spiritual attainment. The pratimoksa 

for nuns legislates four more offenses in this category, 

including intimate touching of men, holding hands 

with men, hiding the serious offenses of other nuns, 

and following a censured monk. The second category 

(san˙ghavasesa) concerns offenses that call for discipline 

falling short of expulsion but requiring temporary forfeiture 

of one’s full status as a monk or nun and removal 

from the community for a period of time. This 

category contains thirteen offenses for monks that include 

sexual impropriety, erecting dwellings, slander, 

and causing dissension in the saṅgha. For nuns, this 

category in the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya holds seventeen 

precepts, including prohibition from serving as 

a marriage broker. The remaining categories of the 

pratimoksa address less serious offenses calling for 

punishments that range from confiscation of inappropriate 

items and confession before the whole community 

to confession before one person. Although the 


P RINTING 

T ECHNOLOGIES 

different versions of the vinaya listed above vary in the 

number of categories and precepts, they nevertheless 

manifest a remarkable similarity. 

Maha ya na precepts 

The MAHAYANA tradition from its inception paid great 

heed to training in morality and the observance of precepts. 

This emphasis was incorporated into the bodhisattva 

path as an essential element of the PARAMITA 

(PERFECTION) that the bodhisattva was expected to cultivate. 

The second of these perfections calls for dedication 

to morality and strict adherence to the precepts. 

This dedication has often been expressed simply 

through observance of traditional precepts. Mahayana 

monks and nuns, for example, have ordinarily taken 

and adhered to the full precepts of the pratimoksa. In 

time, however, Mahayana came to develop precepts 

that were unique to the bodhisattva vocation. The most 

famous articulation of such precepts is that found in 

the FANWANG JING (BRAHMA’S NET SU TRA), an apocryphal 

text thought to have been produced in China. 

This scripture sets forth fifty-eight precepts, dividing 

them into ten major and forty-eight minor rules that 

besides emphasizing the basic moral orientation of the 

five precepts also stress the bodhisattva’s obligation 

to care for all beings. They further call for extreme AS- 

CETIC PRACTICES, such as the burning of limbs, thus 

marking a significant departure from the discipline of 

the pratimoksa. 

These bodhisattva precepts were administered to lay 

persons and monastics alike. Monks and nuns customarily 

would take these precepts in a separate ceremony 

following the administration of the pratimoksa 

in ordination. Historically, the Mahayana tradition 

rarely called attention to the disparity between these 

“Mahayana precepts” and the “precepts” of the vinaya. 

The founder of the Japanese Tendai school, SAICHO 

(767–822), however, made just such a distinction. In 

attempting to firmly establish the Tendai teaching that 

he had brought back from China, Saicho asked permission 

of the court to build an ordination platform 

on Mount Hiei. Tendai monks ordained on this platform 

were not to receive the customary precepts but 

only the bodhisattva precepts, thereby ensuring that 

their ordination was a purely “Mahayana” one. When 

the Japanese court granted Saicho’s request shortly after 

his death, the Japanese Tendai school and the traditions 

that grew out of it adopted an approach to 

precepts that differed from that taken by the rest of the 

Buddhist world. 

See also: Councils, Buddhist; Ethics; Festivals and Calendrical 

Rituals; Mahayana Precepts in Japan; Repentance 

and Confession 

Bibliography 







Values and Issues. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 2000. 

Holt, John Clifford. Discipline: The Canonical Buddhism of the 

Vinayapitaka, 2nd edition. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1995. 

Matsunaga, Daigan, and Matsunaga, Alicia. Foundation of 

Japanese Buddhism, Vol. 1. Los Angeles: Buddhist Books International, 

1974. 

Prebish, Charles. Buddhist Monastic Discipline. University Park: 


Welch, Holmes. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900–1950. 


PRINTING TECHNOLOGIES 

DANIEL A. GETZ 

Since at least the eighth century C.E., printing technologies 

have been used to promulgate Buddhist 

teachings, preserve Buddhist literature, and protect 

Buddhist people and their sacred sites and possessions. 

Most of the techniques that will be discussed below 

were not developed originally by Buddhists, but were 

an outgrowth of the rich cultural, intellectual, and religious 

traditions of China and their spread eastward 

to Korea and Japan and, subsequently, to the West. 

Dharan l and the origin of Buddhist 

print culture 

The earliest technique employed for printing Buddhist 

texts was xylography, which used reverse-image characters 

carved on woodblocks to print pages of text. The 

exact process that led to the development of woodblock 

printing is unknown, although the earliest advances 

in print culture and technology took place in 

medieval China after the invention of paper in about 

105 C.E. Printing from blocks of wood is commonly 

considered to be the first true printing technology, although 

printing with stamps and seals (yin), from 


675

P RINTING 

T ECHNOLOGIES 

A monk holds a hand-carved wooden printing block of the Buddhist canon in the xylograph repository at Haeinsa in Taegu, South Korea. 

© Leonard de Selva/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

which the common term for printing is derived, had 

long been performed. The process leading to the development 

of xylography is presumed to be an extension 

of the practice of cutting wooden Daoist charms 

in order to make impressions on clay (early fourth century 

C.E.) and, later, covering them with the red ink of 

cinnabar or vermilion to make imprints on white paper 

(early sixth century C.E.). 

The earliest examples of Buddhist printing involve 

a type of charm or spell called a DHARAN I. To date, the 

oldest printed material that has been discovered is the 

Korean Mugu chŏnggwang taedarani kyŏng (Chinese, 

Wugou jingguang datuoluoni jing; Great Dharanl Scripture 

of Flawless, Pure Light), a scroll, nearly twenty feet 

long and three and a half inches wide, produced from 

about twelve woodblock pages printed on bamboo paper. 

Executed with great skill, it was rolled together and 

placed in the relics container of a stone pagoda at Pulguk 

Monastery in Kyŏngju, Korea, in 751, and was discovered 

in 1966. Scholars believe that it was printed 

sometime between 704 and 751 in either Kyŏngju or 

Luoyang, China. The next oldest examples of printed 

material are the remnants of the Japanese Hyakumanto 

darani (Dharanl of the Hyakuman Pagodas), which 

were printed around 770 to commemorate the end of 

a long civil war. These dharan are copies of the first 

four of the six dharan included in the Great Dharanl 

Scripture of Flawless, Pure Light. They were made from 

copper blocks printed on small scrolls of yellowish 

hemp paper. Although technically inferior to the Korean 

dharan, the Hyakuman-to darani was a great 

achievement; 3,076 of the printed dharan are preserved 

at HO RYU JI in Nara, Japan. 

Xylography 

Most Buddhist texts in traditional East Asia were 

printed using xylography or woodblock printing. 

After the dharan scriptures, the DIAMOND SU TRA 

(Vajracchedikaprajñaparamita-su tra) of 868, which was 

discovered at DUNHUANG in 1907, is the oldest known 

printed book. It was printed for merit and for everyday 

use on seven woodblock pages and pasted on a 

foot-wide scroll sixteen feet long. Other dharan texts 

and versions of the Diamond Su tra that were placed 

as relics in Buddhist sculptures and pagodas during 

the tenth and eleventh centuries have been discovered 


P RINTING 

T ECHNOLOGIES 

in China, Korea, and Japan. Pasting printed pages 

onto scrolls gave way to the folded book in the ninth 

or tenth century. Stitched books, bound with such 

materials as bamboo and horsehair, were introduced 

in the tenth or eleventh century and are still used for 

some Buddhist writings. 

The impetus for carving the entire Buddhist CANON 

on woodblocks may be traced to an imperially sanctioned 

xylographic edition of Confucian classics made 

between 932 and 953 under the auspices of the Later 

Shu state in Sichuan. During the early Song period, an 

official edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon was 

carved on woodblocks between 972 and 983 in 

Chengdu—5,048 volumes in 130,000 blocks. A dynastically 

sponsored printing revolution followed in 

Asia for the next several hundred years. The Khitans, 

Jurchens, Tanguts, and Koreans all carved and printed 

Buddhist canons either in Chinese characters or in native 

scripts. 

Lithography 

Long before the development of xylography, exact 

copies of important literature and beautiful calligraphy 

were produced by making rubbings from stone inscriptions. 

The Confucian classics were carved in stone 

in 175 C.E. The first stone carvings of Buddhist scriptures 

were made during the Northern Qi period 

(550–577) around the capital at Ye. A grand project of 

preserving the Buddhist scriptures was begun during 

the end of the Sui period (581–618) at Yunju 

Monastery on Fangshan in northern China southwest 

of present-day Beijing. In dread of the impending DE- 

CLINE OF THE DHARMA (mofa) and the corruption and 

loss of the Buddhist religion, the monk Jingwan (d. 

639) vowed to carve the entire canon of Buddhist scriptures 

onto stone as a means of preserving them for all 

time. The stone tablets were stored in mountain caves 

and underground caches near the monastery at Shijing 

shan (Stone Scripture Mountain). The project continued 

through the Tang (618–907), Liao (907–1125), and 

Jin (1125–1234) dynasties due to both imperial and local 

support. More than four thousand stone tablets 

from nine caves and ten thousand buried tablets of the 

Fangshan lithic canon have been identified. 

Movable type 

Although movable type was invented in China, Korean 

artisans perfected the techniques associated with this 

method of printing. In China, movable earthenware 

type was made in the mid-eleventh century; later, type 

made of tin was cast, but it is not known whether these 

were used by Buddhists. Movable wooden type was invented 

by the beginning of the fourteenth century (at 

the latest), but examples of printing by this process are 

difficult to differentiate from xylography. Pieces of a 

wooden Uigur-script font were found at Dunhuang 

and dated to about 1300. 

The type mold was invented in either China or Korea, 

probably during the early thirteenth century prior 

to the Mongolian invasions. The earliest reference to 

printing with movable metal type is found in the 

colophon to a woodblock print of the Korean Nammyŏng 

Ch’ŏn hwasang song chŭngdo-ga sasil (Buddhist 

Master Nammyŏng Ch’ŏn’s Laudatory Commentary on 

the “Song Verifying Enlightenment”). The colophon 

says that the text was originally printed with cast metal 

type in Korea in 1234. The oldest extant example of 

metal type printing is the Pulcho chikchi simch’e yojŏl 

(Essentials in which the Buddhas and the Patriarchs 

Point to the Essence of the Mind), which was printed 

in 1377 at Hŭngdŏk Monastery in Ch’ŏngju in central 

Korea. The type was made using the lost-wax typecasting 

method, which seems to have been the earliest 

process for making movable metal type. One drawback 

to this method is that each piece of type has a 

slightly different shape, so the printed result lacks aesthetic 

balance. 

During the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, 

a more advanced method of casting metal type 

using wooden models, called mother type (moja), was 

developed by the Chosŏn government of Korea. The 

precision of the wooden mother types was such that 

the shapes of all the pieces were alike. The technology 

of movable metal type was transmitted from Korea 

back to China and later to Japan. The first book printed 

with movable type in Japan was made in 1595. After 

the creation and promulgation of the Korean alphabet 

in 1446, some of the earliest books published with 

movable metal type in the Korean vernacular were 

episodes of the Buddha’s life and hymns honoring 

Śakyamuni written and printed in 1447 and 1448. During 

the ensuing centuries in Korea, metal type editions 

of Buddhist scriptures and illustrated vernacular expositions 

of Buddhist scriptures were produced, the 

most common being the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMA- 

PUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), the Diamond Su tra, and the Fumu 

enzhong jing (Su tra on the Profound Kindness of Parents; 

Korean, Pumo ŭnjung kyŏng). These same scriptures, 

as well as the Shiwang jing (Su tra of the Ten 

Kings), were also printed widely in contemporary 

China and Japan, usually from woodblocks, with a few 

printed from movable type. 


677

P ROVINCIAL T EMPLE S YSTEM (KOKUBUNJI, RISHO TO ) 

Computer-age print culture 

Computer technology’s coming of age at the end of the 

twentieth century has created new possibilities for preserving 

Buddhist literature, and making it accessible 

electronically over the Internet. Many web sites provide 

access to Buddhist scriptures in a variety of canonical 

languages and vernacular translations that are 

machine readable and easily searchable. The development 

of unicode fonts and digital imaging in the late 

1990s made it possible to digitize the Chinese Buddhist 

canon. The Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association 

(www.cbeta.org) has developed a searchable electronic 

text of the Taisho shinshu daizo kyo (Revised 

Version of the Canon, Compiled during the Taisho Era, 

1924–1935). The Research Institute of the Tripitaka 

Koreana (www.sutra.re.kr) has created an electronic 

font that duplicates exactly the calligraphy of the 

Koryŏ taejanggyŏng (Korean Buddhist Canon or 

Tripitaka Koreana), enabling researchers to view the 

texts of the canon as though they were original woodblock 

prints. 

See also: Canon; Merit and Merit-Making; Relics and 

Relics Cults; Scripture 

Bibliography 

Carter, Thomas Francis, and Goodrich, L. Carrington. The Invention 

of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward, 2nd 

edition. New York: Ronald Press, 1955. 

Hickman, Brian. “A Note on the Hyakumanto Dharanl.” Monumenta 

Nipponica 30, no. 1 (1975): 87–93. 

Lancaster, Lewis R. “The Rock Cut Canon in China: Findings 

at Fang-shan.” In Buddhist Heritage: Papers Delivered at the 

School of Oriental and African Studies in November 1985, ed. 

Tadeusz Skorupski. London: Institute of Buddhist Studies, 

1989. 

Ra Kyung-jun. “Early Print Culture in Korea,” tr. Richard D. 

McBride II. Korean Culture 20, no. 2 (1999): 12–21. 

Twitchett, Denis. Printing and Publishing in Medieval China. 

New York: Frederic C. Beil, 1983. 

PROVINCIAL TEMPLE SYSTEM 

(KOKUBUNJI, RISHO TO ) 


Twice in Japanese history the state has established a 

provincial temple system for the purpose of political 

unification and state legitimation. In emulation of the 

national temple network instituted in seventh-century 

China, Emperor Shomu (701–756 C.E.) set out in 741 

to enhance the state’s power through the authority of 

Buddhism. One official temple (kokubunji) was designated 

in each of the sixty-seven provinces; Todaiji in 

Nara was the network’s central temple. These were 

each to be staffed by twenty clerics who would pray for 

the state’s protection. Provincial nunneries (kokubunniji) 

were also established, each housing ten nuns to 

pray for the atonement of wrongdoing. This system declined 

when the capital was moved from Nara to Kyoto 

in 794. None of the provincial kokubunji emerged 

as temples of national importance. 

The brothers Ashikaga Takauji (1305–1358) and 

Tadayoshi (1306–1352), the founders of the second 

shogunate, implemented another system of provincial 

temples. At the urging of Zen cleric and shogunal 

adviser Muso Soseki (1275–1351), temples called 

ankokuji were designated between about 1338 and 

1350 in every province to mourn victims of ongoing 

warfare. Pagodas containing religious relics contributed 

by the imperial court were also constructed in 

each province. Called risho to , they were usually five 

stories in height and were erected at Shingon or Tendai 

(Chinese, Tiantai) temples. Ankokuji were mainly 

family temples of prominent local warriors within the 

Five Mountain (Gozan) Zen network. The conceptual 

precedent for this temple-pagoda system was the 

kokubunji, but there were also antecedents in Chinese 

and Indian Buddhist practice. The countrywide establishment 

of temples and pagodas also bespoke territorial 

control, reflecting Ashikaga political ambitions. 

With the shogunate’s decline at the end of the fifteenth 

century, the temple-pagoda system weakened; today 

twenty-eight pagodas remain, but no temples. 

See also: Horyuji and Todaiji; Japan 

Bibliography 

Collcutt, Martin. Gozan: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in 

Medieval Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 

1981. 

Tamura, Yoshio. Japanese Buddhism: A Cultural History. Tokyo: 

Kosei, 2000. 

PSYCHOLOGY 

SUZANNE GAY 

It has become so common, if not trite, to speak of 

“Buddhism as a psychology” that the idea no longer 


P SYCHOLOGY 

seems peculiar or surprising in either Asia or the 

West. The parallel is not totally spurious or devoid of 

heuristic value: Important aspects of Buddhist doctrine 

and practice may be construed as efforts at understanding 

human psychology. Yet, it would be 

imprudent to accept uncritically the accuracy of this 

parallelism. The present entry summarizes some of 

the reasons why we have come to assume that there 

are overlaps in perspective and goals that seem to argue 

for an interpretation of Buddhism as a “psychology,” 

and some of the reasons why this seeming 

parallelism can be misleading. 

Why Buddhism and psychology? 

Early in the twentieth century Buddhism became 

associated in the Western imagination with the objectives 

of Western psychology. This presumed connection 

has also been accepted by many Asian exponents 

of Buddhist doctrine. In suggesting a parallel we often 

imagine “psychology” as an idealized source of unassailable 

truths about better living and human happiness, 

and perhaps with the mythic, almost mystical, 

power that many Westerners attribute to the disciplines 

and discourses of Buddhism. The vagueness of many 

of these comparisons may also be attributed in part to 

the fact that there is no autonomous Buddhist discipline 

of psychology—that is, a discrete genre of discourse 

(let alone a scientific discourse) corresponding 

to the many meanings that the term psychology has in 

contemporary academic and popular conversation. 

Conversely, contemporary scientific discourse does not 

as yet have a language to speak reliably about the wide 

range of concepts and practices that we intuitively call 

“Buddhist psychology.” 

The temptation to link observations and normative 

conceptions about Buddhism with our ideas about psychology 

does not reflect a single view of Buddhism. 

“Buddhism as psychology” is usually grounded on 

ideas that include a number of separate, at times overlapping, 

and at times competing, conceptions about religion 

and spirituality. First, it is common to imagine 

Buddhism as a therapy, as a way to heal a sick soul— 

a mind in error or a person in pain. Second, some consider 

Buddhist theories of mind parallel to Western 

psychological inquiry—perhaps conflating somehow a 

broad spectrum of Buddhist doctrines with the equally 

diverse set of Western philosophical and empirical psychologies. 

Third, since the inception of the Western 

discipline of psychology, religion has been seen as one 

among other objects to be understood with the methods 

of scientific psychology (e.g., in both Wilhelm 

Wundt and Sigmund Freud). Yet, simultaneously, religion 

(and perhaps Buddhism in particular) has been 

regarded as somehow coextensive with many of the 

doctrines and goals of popular psychologies. Hence, as 

a fourth historical connection, one must note that several 

of the above factors have helped to anchor in our 

collective mind the otherwise imprecise modern ideal 

of an ahistorical “spirituality” that transcends the “traditional 

dogmas” of institutional religions. 

Buddhism as psychology: Traditional views 

Traditional Buddhist sources often compare the Buddha 

to a physician; his dharma is the prescription that 

cures all ills. The preferred interpretation of this 

metaphor imagines this cure as a healing of the mind— 

repairing a mind otherwise immersed in an error that 

leads to repeated, almost interminable, suffering across 

many lives. But the cure also entails a transformation 

of other aspects of the person: bodily demeanor, behavior 

toward others and care of self, emotion and desire. 

In other words, Buddhists may be suggesting that 

important parts (if not the most important or core aspects) 

of their religious practice can be seen as a project 

of comprehensive behavioral modification, with 

“behavior” including body, speech, and mind. However, 

this transformation of body and mind is also 

taken to entail the development of extraordinary powers 

that are not within the usual Western conception 

of the mental. Such special faculties include the capacity 

to transform and replicate the body, the power 

to know past lives, and so forth. 

Even if it is conceived as purely the healing of an afflicted 

human mind, the Buddha’s cure is believed to 

have the power to remove all suffering, because the total 

removal of the error, and of the mental turmoil arising 

from the error, leads to the end of REBIRTH and the 

elimination of all DUH KHA (SUFFERING) of mind and 

body. In this sense, Buddhism is primarily a psychology 

if we assume that the cure is fundamentally a mental 

cure, or if we imagine the desired state of health as 

being “psychological” in the sense that it encompasses 

the totality of the human being as a sentient being capable 

of intentional behavior. Or, one may also adopt 

the popular notion that all physical ills are ultimately 

psychosomatic, so that “psychological” mental culture 

is simultaneously a technique of the whole person. Additionally, 

the concept of “psychology” may be applied 

to Buddhism by extending the notion of mental disease 

beyond the apparent limits that death imposes on 

an individual body, and beyond the limitations of the 

mind of a single individual in a single existence. 


679

P SYCHOLOGY 

Thus, generally speaking, the Buddhist tradition 

may be interpreted as a religious tradition with a 

prominent emphasis on the mind and liberation of the 

mind, but still a tradition for which the release from 

all suffering—if not the total release from an inherently 

painful embodiment—is the ultimate goal. Significant 

exceptions are found in traditions that have 

either sidelined the schemata of rebirth or have demythologized 

it. This is the case, for instance, with the 

MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL and traditions that adopt similar 

rhetorical or dialectic understandings of the dichotomy 

between rebirth (SAM SARA) and liberation 

(NIRVAN A). In such traditions it is not at all clear that 

belief in “rebirth” is to be taken to imply the acceptance 

of a psychosomatic process existing outside of, 

or independently from, the imaginative faculties of the 

individual. The Madhyamaka school, for instance, offers 

tantalizing, yet paradoxical and baffling claims that 

rebirth and all the suffering that it brings is only the 

construction of mind or language, and that suffering 

disappears when it is shown to be a mistaken notion. 

Be that as it may, the most common normative 

principle in elite Buddhism is the belief that liberation 

is the consequence of a cognitive and affective shift, 

brought about not so much by an intellectual effort, 

but by contemplative exercises, and ascetic and moral 

training, that entail radical transformations of the person. 

In other words, changes in behavior and belief are 

understood to derive their liberating power from 

changes that can be described as “psychological” only 

in the broadest possible sense of the idea of “psychology”: 

shifts in the way in which a person perceives what 

is real, worthy, desirable, or satisfying, or changes in 

passion and affect, in behavior and demeanor, and in 

the bodily, sensory, and intellectual faculties. Such 

changes are “psychological” also in the sense that they 

are behavioral, they require modifications in the mode 

and orientation of a person’s mental, verbal, and bodily 

action. 

A certain “primacy of mind” is a common, and at 

times dominant, orientation in elite Buddhist doctrines 

of self-cultivation, soteriology, and ontology. 

One may also state with a certain degree of confidence 

that this elite characterization of the tradition has a 

mythic value even outside the small circles of monastic 

specialists who engage in the practice of MEDITA- 

TION or in formulating the theory of meditation and 

sainthood. This makes Buddhism a tradition in which 

ideals and techniques of psychological or psychosomatic 

self-cultivation play a central role as markers of 

religious identity and continuity of tradition. 

A philosophy of mind 

But the question then arises as to whether or not there 

will be any heuristic or practical value in understanding 

this psychological orientation—or, for that matter, 

explicit Buddhist theories about the structure and the 

vicissitudes of the “mental”—as significantly parallel 

to Western psychological inquiry, or as viable alternatives 

that can be compared by means of common 

criteria of truth or effectiveness. The systematic exploration 

of such parallels can take us simultaneously in 

various directions and across difficult issues of epistemology 

and the philosophies of mind and science. This 

is fertile ground for future research, but we shall explore 

in this entry only cursorily what there is in the 

Buddhist tradition, if anything, that may be called a 

“psychology.” 

Buddhism shares with other Indian systems of religion 

and philosophy an interest in how the human self 

is constituted, including the nature and origin of the 

mental and the bodily broadly understood (namaru pa), 

as well as the nature of awareness (vijñapti) and consciousness 

(vijñana). Early Buddhist speculation separated 

itself from other early śramanic systems by 

formulating unique theories about the embodied self 

(jlva and kaya) and the state of a liberated being 

(TATHAGATA), as well as by formulating critiques of 

those who denied the consequences of intentional actions 

(kriya), or of those who overemphasized the pervasiveness 

of moral causation. 

Related to these broad issues were, on the one hand, 

early theories of liberation and the PATH, and, on the 

other, structural conceptions of the mind-body complex, 

which sought to explain the origins, processes, 

and ultimate liberation of this complex by identifying 

the components and arrangement of mental states and 

processes. Some, presumably early, texts show attempts 

to reduce the sentient person to elementary 

substances, such as water, fire, earth, air, and space. 

But, among the most influential of the protoscientific 

theories are the structural theories of SKANDHA (AG- 

GREGATE), dhatu (sensory domains), and ayatana 

(sense faculties). The three theories show obvious signs 

of having originated independently from each other, 

but one can still treat them, as the tradition does, as 

three components of a single theory, which is summarized 

below. 

We may assume naively that each human person 

(pudgala) is a single living (jlva) and a sentient entity 

(sattva) that is the objective referent of the word “self” 

(atman). Buddhist introspection and inference, how- 


P SYCHOLOGY 

ever, claim that the real referent for this idea is a constellation 

of phenomenal, transient entities that can be 

summarized under five headings or “sets” (skandha). 

Strictly speaking, these sets are “aggregates” of related 

phenomena held together in the idea of a single self by 

our own persistent grasping (upadana). The five— 

matter, sensation, conceptions/perceptions, habitual 

tendencies, and awareness—include body (matter, 

sensations, habitual tendencies) and mind (sensation, 

conception, habitual tendencies, and awareness). The 

mental components can also be analyzed in terms of a 

sensorium that includes a mental sense sphere and organ 

(manas), resulting in a hierarchical system of six 

senses (ayatana), with mind as gatekeeper. The system 

is further analyzed into twelve sensory elements, each 

sense faculty being paired with an organ and an object 

(the object being internal for the mind sense). These 

twelve are called dhatu (perhaps “domain” or “basis”). 

The system of the twelve sense dhatus maintains the 

close connection between body and mind already 

noted (organ and input, in fact, appear to be placed 

on a similar ontological plane). The connections are 

further developed by proposing three faculties and 

processes of awareness (vijñana) for each domain 

(dhatu). This additional layer of analysis emphasizes 

the privileged status of the mind, insofar as mental 

awareness (consciousness proper) occupies a higher 

position in the hierarchy, serving as the center for both 

sensory and mental processes. 

Early speculations about the constitution of the self 

used these analytic categories to explain how a human 

person (sattva) could be constituted, in the absence of 

a simple, autonomous, and unitary self (atman). In 

psychological terms, this may seem to undermine our 

experience of being an autonomous agent capable of 

its own perceptions, ideas, sensation, and feelings, with 

the capacity to choose the path to liberation. But the 

tradition insists that intentionality, moral responsibility, 

and personal continuity can be explained by using 

the above building blocks. 

Attempts to explain the natural illusion of the elemental 

reality of self and will led to the creation of theories 

of mind. Such theories developed as speculation 

entered the more systematic stage of the ABHIDHARMA 

and as the Buddhist philosophical schools engaged 

other Indian philosophical systems in a centuries-long 

polemical dialogue. In the abhidharma literature the 

psychological categories of the sutra literature were organized 

according to canonical sets and analytic categories. 

Systems of terminological matrices (matrka) 

helped organize sets of terms in concepts like the 

Dhammasaṅganl and the Dhatukaya (Taisho 1540). In 

the latter work, for instance, canonical terms for mental 

states are reorganized under categories such as universally 

present states and states only present when the 

mind is confused and afflicted (klista). The universally 

present states or processes (sensation, conception, volition, 

etc.) are also organized into six groups of six 

each (so-called hexads) that correspond to the inner 

and outer spheres (ayatana) of sentience: factors of 

consciousness, of sense contact, of sensation, of perception, 

of conception, and of drive (or DESIRE, trsna). 

In the abhidharma, the apparent unity of the self is 

explained by a variety of theories, but the most common 

types (which are not necessarily mutually exclusive) 

are theories of causal continuity and theories of 

the location of awareness. The first is epitomized by 

the concept of santana—the cause and effect series of 

bodily and mental events that constitutes a human life 

and personality. The second is illustrated by the concept 

of adana or alaya (site, container, holder), according 

to which past experiences leave traces on a 

foundation or base of the personality (the aśraya), so 

that their proximity and interaction can create the illusion 

of a single person. 

Ethics and liberation as theories of mind 

Both types of theories share in varying degrees a general 

Buddhist tendency to see intentionality or will 

(cetana) as the governing force behind the causal series, 

and various levels of the mind as the locus for the 

encoding and “storage” of karma and its consequences. 

These models generate, and attempt to explain, a variety 

of problems that can be covered only briefly in 

this entry. One may mention, as representative examples, 

the doctrine of vasana (traces), the theory of unmanifest 

processes (avijñapti), and the problem of 

mentation and mental construction (prajñapti). 

The doctrine of vasana was fundamental to Buddhist 

“moral psychology” in India, and represented an 

attempt to explain both moral habits (propensities) 

and the process of karmic traces and consequences. 

The interaction between mental states and consequent 

suffering was seen as a process whereby intention and 

its behavioral manifestations left faint traces (blja, 

planted seeds) that constituted a system of habitual and 

mostly unconscious drives. The process was summarized 

in the metaphor of a cloth impregnated by a perfume 

or a dye (the technical sense of the term vasana). 

In the same way that the perfume instills some of its 


681

P SYCHOLOGY 

properties on the cloth, and that the cloth retains the 

faint aroma, intentional action leaves traces in the human 

causal chain. The predisposition as trace is known 

as anuśaya, and as manifest character and mental state 

it is known as kleśa (a term that means both “stain” or 

“dye” and “torment”). The character state and the action 

generate and maintain habitual tendencies and 

cause future karmic effects. The kleśas may be regarded 

as a psychological condition, whereas KARMA (ACTION) 

is an ostensive or behavioral cause, although it too 

generates latent or potential consequences. The two 

constitute the pervasive ruling conditions (adhipatipratyaya) 

for all suffering, and of the sentient being’s 

beginningless wandering in the realm of rebirth. 

The category of kleśa subsumes under a single rubric 

habits of emotion, intentionality, and cognition, such 

as three fundamental unhealthy mindsets: concupiscence, 

animosity, and delusion (the Dhatukaya’s inventory 

includes five: the cravings of sense desire, 

craving for nonsensuous pleasures, craving for disembodied 

bliss, animosity, and DOUBT). The idea is 

found outside Buddhism (e.g., in the Yogasu tras) and 

constitutes a common assumption of religious moral 

psychology in India: Unhealthy frames of mind are at 

the root of suffering; healthy mindsets are at the root 

of liberation. The idea presupposes a virtue epistemology 

in which attitudinal character flaws are intertwined 

with errors of cognition, and error is 

abandoned and replaced with certainty only if the 

whole person cultivates and masters the highest moral, 

attitudinal, attentional, and cognitive virtue. 

However, Buddhist philosophers often separate, at 

least theoretically, the processes that transcend the 

kleśas (meditative processes, or bhavana) from those 

that transcend error (cognitive-meditation process of 

correct seeing and discernment, or darśana). In the MA- 

HAYANA tradition, the distinction is summarized in the 

idea that rending the veil of the kleśas (kleśa-avarana) 

is only part of the process of liberation. A separate cognitive 

shift is needed, overcoming the obscuration 

caused by a veil that covers the objects of cognition (the 

veil called jñeya-avarana), a veil maintained by the habitual 

tendency to cognize by way of dualities: being/ 

nonbeing, self/object, and so forth. 

The preceding theoretical constructs sometimes 

parallel and sometimes overlap with the idea that acts 

of mentation and acts of manifest behavior generate 

bodily changes that, although unseen, are powerful 

determinants of future experience and behavior. This 

unmanifest transformation is known as avijñapti 

(“lacking the capacity to make itself noticeable,” hence, 

that which is “unnoticed, unreported, latent, not manifest”) 

and is a type of material or bodily change. Generally 

mental states are, by definition, nonmanifest, 

and Buddhist thinkers do not appear to have explored 

the possibility of unconscious conflicts or processes. 

The theory of the avijñapti and the vasanas do not 

appear to have cross-fertilized in any significantly 

productive manner. Although both theoretical constructs 

explain in part how contradictory, unexpected, 

or unwilled behavior can occur, they were not used to 

explain inner conflict or struggles between the forbidden 

and the tolerated. Nonetheless, one may argue 

that Buddhist philosophers, especially in India, struggled 

with the idea that some of the most potent determinants 

of human experience and behavior are not 

readily accessible to consciousness, much less to willful 

control. Thus, suffering in general was understood 

to be more than simply the awareness of painful states, 

cognitions, and vicissitudes: The most powerful and 

pervasive form of suffering is understood only by the 

saints, for it is the innately or inherently painful nature 

of the very construction (saṁskara-duhkhata) of 

the person’s psychosomatic makeup. It is the profound 

ache behind the conscious and unconscious, 

the ever-frustrated attempt to hold on to the false idea 

of a self. Suffering is, therefore, like desire and delusion, 

a pervasive free-floating drive, a thirstlike unquenchable 

drive that pushes us not only toward 

sense-enjoyment, but toward wanting to be and wanting 

not to be. 

These principles help explain in part the process by 

which a sentient being effects psychosomatic movements 

in the direction of either psychic health or psychic 

“dis-ease.” However, to explain the possibility of 

liberation, the scholastics had to propose explanations 

for the possibility of error. With regard to this problem, 

the fundamental question for the Buddhist 

philosopher was how one could see a self where there 

was none, or see an object of desire and pleasure in 

phenomena that were inherently undesirable and 

painful. Furthermore, if our perception of the world is 

in essence a construct of mentation (abhisam skrta), 

one needed to explain the process of verbal and mental 

reification that led to delusion and suffering. 

The theory made a common assumption that convention 

constructs, or at the very least, distorts reality 

—either through a process of discursive elaboration 

(prapañca) or conceptual imagination (vikalpa). A key 

term behind such theories was that of “conventional 


P SYCHOLOGY 

designation” or “provisional conceptual distinctions” 

(prajñapti). The idea led in some schools to the denial 

of a correspondence theory of truth and to a phenomenalistic 

theory of perception and conception. 

The idea of conventional reality as construct seems 

to have followed three distinct, but at times overlapping, 

lines of inquiry: one epistemological-linguistic, 

one phenomenalistic, and the other mentalistic (sometimes 

called idealistic). The linguistic view is relevant 

to psychology in the sense that it presupposes that 

mind itself is constructed (vikalpita), or, at the very 

least, conditioned by discursive thought (so that, for 

instance, we will perceive what words tell us to perceive 

or what the inner interplay between desire and 

mental chatter drive us to think). This is generally the 

tendency in the Madhyamaka traditions. The phenomenalistic 

view, represented by schools that have 

been identified with the SAUTRANTIKA traditions, is a 

theory of representation: Perception is an inner, mental 

process in which one becomes aware of the mental 

representation of external things (an almost natural 

derivative of the hierarchy of the six senses). From extreme 

phenomenalistic positions one can easily slide 

into an idealistic understanding of how the apparently 

real can feel real yet be an illusion: If the mind needs 

only an inner representation of the world to feel like 

it knows an external world, then all of conventional reality 

may very well exist in the mental sphere, perhaps 

only as mere mentation (vijñapti). 

Perhaps the most significant derivatives of this third 

line of speculation were the positions adopted among 

followers of the YOGACARA SCHOOL. The idea of the 

real as mere mentation (vijñaptimatrata), originally 

proposed by ASAṄGA (ca. 320–390 C.E.) and VA- 

SUBANDHU (fourth to fifth century C.E.) was developed 

by Dharmapala (sixth century C.E.), who attempted to 

explain how there could be both an ultimately real inner 

world (consciousness) and a world that is objective 

(external to the mind) and ordered (subject to 

causes and conditions). Dharmapala developed further 

the school’s idea of a consciousness that is the repository 

(ALAYAVIJNANA) of karmic traces, manifesting itself 

in eight forms of consciousness: the consciousness 

corresponding to each of the five sense organs, mental 

consciousness (manovijñana), a foundational but 

still deluded consciousness (klistamanovijñana), and 

the ground consciousness (alayavijñana). 

This eightfold division of consciousness has been 

arguably the most influential Buddhist topography of 

the mind. Its applications extend, naturally, into the 

questions of what makes the mind become pure, and 

whether or not there is an inherently pure level of consciousness 

(amalavijñana) or a mind that is inherently 

awakened. The schema was central to theories of the 

path, even among those East Asian Buddhists for 

whom the theory of karma and the doctrine of rebirth 

had lost its earlier importance—as was the case, for example, 

in the use of the theory to explain Zen SATORI 

(AWAKENING) in HAKUIN EKAKU (1686–1768). 

Also important in scholastic theories of the development 

of mind was the difficult concept of the “basis” 

(aśraya) for the action and transformations of 

karma. According to this conception, all aspects of the 

psychosomatic person are in constant transformation; 

if the person follows the path of the buddhas to its 

completion, this basis is transformed or inverted 

(aśrayaparavrtti), so that it is perfectly pure and the 

normal faculties become the special powers and knowledges 

of a buddha. 

Systematic reflections on the nature of mind overlap 

with ontological speculation, but the above three 

theories of error and true knowledge also provide at 

least part of the foundation for the ethical, contemplative, 

and soteriological dimensions of Buddhist theory 

and practice. For instance, the transformation of 

the psychosomatic basis (aśrayaparavrtti) is believed to 

result, predictably, in a radical transformation of cognition 

(jñana): body and mind become the living wisdom 

(active cognition) of a buddha. This wisdom has 

five aspects. It is perfectly and constantly aware of the 

true nature of things (dharmadhatu-jñana); it is a 

serene, mirrorlike reflection of all things (adarśajñana); 

it cognizes the semblance and equivalence 

of all things (samata-jñana); yet, it discerns clearly 

(pratyaveksa-jñana) and engages freely in the work of 

a buddha (krtyupasthana-jñana). Furthermore, this 

wisdom is all-knowing, all-compassionate, and free 

from any notion of a self. With such implications to 

be derived from at least one Buddhist theory of mind, 

the Western observer needs to be constantly aware of 

the nuances that separate the intent and underlying 

question in Buddhist speculation from those that tend 

to drive Western psychological research. 

Comparing psychological theories 

What may appear as a similar interest in the disphase 

between conscious and unconscious storage and retrieval 

is not understood in Buddhism as a question of 

psychoneurology or intrapsychic conflict, but as a distinction 

between memory and karmic causation. The 


683

P SYCHOLOGY 

contemporary reader may understand karma as a kind 

of memory—an inscription of a trace upon the self, 

which, once recovered informs consciousness of a previous 

psychic event—but one needs to note the ethical 

and soteriological meanings that the Buddhist 

discovers in such processes. One may imagine (by projecting 

on the Buddhist tradition a psychodynamic 

schema) that the process by which awareness is fostered 

and transformed to achieve awakening is some 

sort of transformation of the repressed; but even granting 

this stretching of Buddhist doctrine, the most common 

Buddhist conceptions of what is “healthy” 

(kuśala) about this process would not come close to 

contemporary views of mental health as autonomy, acceptance, 

and enjoyment of human sexual desire, and 

the like. 

Furthermore, for most traditional Buddhist elites, 

the traces left on consciousness by human action remain 

and develop as part of an inexorable law of moral 

responsibility and retribution that is only transcended 

by a path out of our imperfections, not by a simple acceptance 

of human shortcomings or a celebration of 

the body and the emotions. Moreover, the final discovery 

of the forgotten and the unraveling of its meaning 

is reached through extrasensory perception, and 

only by those who attain the yogic power of the remembrance 

of past lives (jati-smara). Most traditional 

Buddhist philosophers, unlike Western empirical psychologists, 

took it as a given that the extrasensory perception 

of a yogi (yogipratyaksa) is a valid source of 

empirical evidence—in fact, one that needs no corroboration 

and is not open to falsification when the 

cognizer is one of those deemed awakened. 

Nonetheless, one could argue that it is precisely in 

the soteriological and moral dimensions of Buddhist 

psychology that one may find avenues of thought that 

complement or challenge some contemporary views of 

mental health. Of particular theoretical and historical 

importance are those Buddhist theories dealing with 

the techniques of meditation—arguably the most typically 

Buddhist “therapeutic” techniques and the place 

where Buddhism as religion and ethical system can be 

said to become a way of overcoming “dis-ease,” and 

therefore, as perhaps a psychological cure or a therapy. 

Theories of meditation often attest to the keen psychological 

awareness of those who reflected on Buddhist 

doctrine and practice. In their application, these 

theories at times suggest the techniques of Western 

psychosocial healing practices, despite an apparent difference 

in their presuppositions and goals. 

Meditation, consciousness, and healing 

Buddhist theories of meditation are concerned with 

the transformation of rigid habits and turbulent states 

of mind that may roughly correspond to contemporary 

notions of maladaptive or dysfunctional behaviors; 

but the underlying theory and questions hiding 

behind diverging ideas of dysfunction may be disparate 

enough to make comparison difficult. The meditator 

seeks to make the mind pliable, aspiring to achieve a 

“tranquil flow of mind” (upeksa) that is effortless and 

free from the extremes of mental turpitude and excitation 

(laya and auddhatya). A mind that is in such a 

state is no longer dominated by the mind’s usual tendencies 

toward inertia (dausthulya) and unrest (kleśa). 

Nonetheless, although the goal is a state free of confusion 

and anguish, freedom from distress and dysphoria 

is not here a condition for increased autonomy and 

adaptation in negotiating inner drives and outer social 

reality, as it is generally understood in Western psychologies, 

but a condition often described as desireless, 

free of conceptual constructs, and empty (the 

three “doors to liberation,” vimoksamukha). 

Defects of thought (dosa) are superseded by cultivating 

antidotes or opposite states (pratipaksa) that 

lead to a removal of both the veils (of kleśa and of the 

object of knowledge), and hence lead to liberation. But 

such antidotes are also substitute behaviors, that is, 

they are virtues, and they transform the confused person 

into the person of serene insight. But the state of 

liberation, at least as understood by the major scholastic 

systems, is not comparable to Western ideas of individual 

autonomy, adaptive acceptance of the body 

and its drives, and resolution of intrapsychic and interpersonal 

conflict. It is liberation from rebirth, 

hence, from birth, aging, and death, as well as from desire 

and suffering. Furthermore, in systems following 

traditional Mahayana scholastic definitions, liberation 

is accompanied by the omniscience and the miraculous 

powers of a buddha, or at the very least the superior 

wisdom and wonder-working powers of the 

BODHISATTVA. 

In the classical Buddhist view of “mental health,” 

most normal desires are seen as a sort of madness, and 

as a “delusion” originating in a beginningless round of 

past lives; full health is accomplished only when one 

becomes a full buddha, or when it is approached gradually 

as one matures in the bodhisattva’s spiritual career. 

It is difficult to imagine how such a view of 

“mental health” (perhaps, better: “absence of dis-ease”) 

is commensurable with contemporary Western no- 


P SYCHOLOGY 

tions, which do not value the renunciation or the denial 

of desire. 

However, some Buddhist doctrinal positions deviate 

in varying degrees from the above characterization. Important 

currents within the Chan and Tantric traditions 

qualify their understanding of renunciation (or are 

openly critical of the denial of desire) and tend to focus 

on the problems of self-deception and the tyranny 

of conceptual constructs and dualities, including the 

duality between desire and desirelessness, holy and 

mundane. Nonetheless, even these traditions tend to 

preserve monastic institutions and practices that draw 

a boundary between the transcendence of duality of the 

religious specialist and the need to negotiate dualities 

and ambivalences in lay life. In this context, acceptance 

of desire appears to be a stepping stone in the direction 

of a different form of desirelessness, and not necessarily 

an acceptance of our instinctual drives in the sense 

that the West has come to conceive of it after the psychoanalytic 

revolution. 

An ambiguous acceptance of desire may be postulated 

in the case of the Chan tradition, where despite 

its iconoclastic rhetoric of immediacy and nonduality, 

a strict ethos of self-control and unrelenting effort 

points at least toward a transcendence of individual 

will (pace radical or mad monks like the fifteenthcentury 

Japanese Zen monk IKKYU). In TANTRA, where 

desire is to be transformed rather than abandoned, the 

transformation is framed in ritual and symbolic contexts 

that can hardly be assimilated into contemporary 

notions of the tolerance of strong affect and intrapsychic 

conflict (such framing occurs even in the radical 

antinomian rhetoric of the Caryaglti). In both traditions 

it may be more accurate to speak of a paradoxical 

inversion of the normal order of ascetic denial, but 

not of an acceptance of desire as conceived in the more 

common contemporary assumptions about psychological 

well-being. 

Nonetheless, much needs to be explored if we are 

to be able to understand the significance of the insights 

offered by Buddhist concepts of self-deception 

and delusion. Such insights include the recognition of 

a connection between suffering and misuses of language 

and conceptual labeling, as well as the obsessive 

quality of unawareness or error. These are elements 

suggested, for instance, by the speculations of the 

Madhyamaka school, where desire and unawareness 

seem to coalesce in the concept of obstinate dwelling 

in error (abhiniveśa). This idea of an inertia that favors 

a persistent dwelling in distorted perception 

seems to echo Western concepts like those of neurotic 

paradox and the repetition compulsion. 

The above digressions suggest that much remains 

to be understood, not only about the history of Buddhist 

understanding of desire and its obstinate clinging 

to imagined objects, but also about the 

implications of variations within Buddhism. It is not 

at all clear, for instance, that we are yet in a position 

to understand the psychological implications (or for 

that matter, the health valence) of the full spectrum of 

Buddhist attitudes toward cognition and emotion, and 

the role of ethical and contemplative discipline in the 

relief of distress. 

Perhaps as an attempt to circumvent some of the 

above difficulties, some researchers have looked at only 

one narrow cross section of Buddhist practice by 

studying selected meditative states. In the last quarter 

of the twentieth century, researchers investigated the 

effects of meditation practice on psychophysiological 

states. Using contemporary physiological and psychological 

measures, Japanese researchers established a 

connection between Zen meditation and neural and 

physiological states associated with rested, wakeful attention 

(Kasamatsu and Hirai 1966; Hirai 1978 and 

1989). Subsequent studies have confirmed and expanded 

on their results (summarized in Murphy and 

Donovan). 

The most interesting and robust result of these studies 

was the accumulation of evidence that showed that 

meditation is not a type of hypnosis, catalepsy, or a 

“catatonic state,” as had been proposed earlier in the 

twentieth century. By measuring the brain waves of 

meditators, these experimenters determined that the 

brain of a subject in deep meditation (especially, but 

not exclusively, an experienced meditator) emits patterns 

of alpha and theta waves that are distinct from 

those emitted by subjects that were anxious, under 

hypnosis, or in deep sleep. This result of electroencephalographic 

(EEG) measurements suggests that the 

meditator is in fact in a state of “calm awareness,” as 

claimed by Buddhist tradition. Subsequent MRI and 

SPECT studies suggest similar conclusions (Newberg 

et al.). 

These investigations suggest that meditation techniques 

affect the body as well as the mind, lowering, 

for instance, blood pressure and galvanic skin pressure. 

The studies also confirm something noted by the tradition: 

The obvious importance of the body does not 

diminish the importance of the mind; a particular way 


685

P SYCHOLOGY 

of controlling the body is a precondition of, and perhaps 

entails, a particular state of mind. 

For the tradition, even for those branches that give 

the body an explicit central role, the mind is paramount; 

and yet, paradoxically, the goal of Buddhist 

meditation is often presented as an experience of nomind. 

Something about the presumed psychological 

makeup of the meditator is lost, erased, or shown to 

be an error or an illusion. Hence the theme of “extinction” 

or “cessation” that is so common to many 

theories of meditation. One attains a serene and clear 

awareness of a state that may be legitimately described 

as “mindless.” Yet, different Buddhist traditions understand 

the “mindless” in different ways—from a literal 

absence of thought (P. J. Griffiths) to various 

notions of freedom from speech in speech (as in the 

Chan and Tantric traditions). And even in the latter 

traditions there is much room for variation, from the 

early Chan notion that the arising of a single thought 

generates a world of conceptual constructs and confusion 

to the acceptance of a higher form of discrimination 

that gains new value after one awakens to 

nonduality—as in the Yogacara’s five buddha-jñanas or 

in the MAHAMUDRA stage of noncultivation (sgom med). 

However, these studies have not looked at a number 

of potential sources for disconfirming evidence or 

falsification. For instance, it is not clear that they have 

considered the significance of failure to progress in 

meditation (who succeeds and when) or cases of psychological 

distress or physical illness due to meditation 

(phenomena that are amply documented in Buddhist 

literature), or the significance of differences among expert 

meditators regarding the meaning and content of 

the experiences that correspond to the brain measurements 

and readings. In fact, it is not at all clear that 

even expert meditators agree on the significance of various 

states of mental concentration or samadhi (Sharf 

1995 and 1998). One may argue that the psychological 

significance or goals of meditation point to using 

body and mind to re-create a new self; one assumes a 

specific bodily and mental posture, persisting in it until 

the mind is serene and focused, or one focuses the 

mind on what appears at first to be the self, in order 

to dissolve misconceptions about the self, including the 

misconception of imagining that who we are is identical 

to this self whom we hold so dear. But this summary 

of traditional understandings raises a number of 

questions regarding the significance of neuropsychological 

and physiological studies of meditation. First, 

where in these studies do we find any evidence about 

self and conceptions of the self? Second, the tradition 

itself is not in complete agreement as to what it is that 

remains or comes to light once the delusions of self are 

removed. 

Furthermore, the neurological focus still needs to 

explain what to the Buddhist is paramount: Transformations 

of mind and self have significant ethical and 

soteriological implications. Such implications include 

a vast and complex path theory explaining how one 

becomes a buddha, and, for instance, acquires the three 

modes of wisdom described above. These expectations 

cannot be dismissed or demythologized by assuming 

an objective cerebral or psychological referent. 

Buddhism and scientific psychology 

As a corollary to the above, one returns to the question 

of what in Buddhism may be considered parallel 

to Western ideas about how one heals intrapersonal 

and interpersonal distress—and to the related question 

of whether or not there is a Buddhist tradition similar 

to Western clinical psychology and psychiatry. Despite 

the existence of medical traditions in Buddhist countries 

(T. Clifford), little was done until recent times to 

create a dialogue between medicine and Buddhist practice, 

let alone a systematic study of mental diseases and 

the Buddhist goal of relieving all “dis-ease.” There are 

multiple cultural and institutional reasons for this apparent 

lack, including the fact that the very notion of 

mental disease is a relatively recent Western creation. 

Nonetheless, some Buddhist practices and systems of 

belief may be considered parallel to Western techniques 

for healing through the modification of thought 

and behavior, and conversely, Western specialists have 

adapted Buddhist ideas with greater or lesser open acknowledgment 

of their depth. 

Historically, one should mention the Swiss psychiatrist 

Carl G. Jung (1875–1961) as the pioneer. Despite 

certain ambivalence about “the Orient” (Gómez 

1995), Jung borrowed generously, especially in his 

analysis of “mandala symbolism,” which combined 

traditional Buddhist and Hindu understandings 

about the significance of the MAN D ALA with keen clinical 

observations. 

In recent times we have seen the development of 

biofeedback and behavioral techniques that involve 

ideas of self-monitoring (Rokke and Rehm) and 

mindful reassessment of experience (Smyth), and of 

relaxation as a natural response to specific stimuli 

(Benson and Klipper), techniques that echo, explicitly 

or implicitly, Buddhist serenity and MINDFULNESS 

techniques (de Silva 1984, 1985, and 1986). These ef- 


P SYCHOLOGY 

forts go well beyond some of the soft formulations 

found in the literature of self-help, spirituality, New 

Age, and pop psychology. In fact, the implicit and the 

avowed recognition of the influence of Buddhist ideas 

and attitudes extends beyond associations with contemporary 

popular expectations. We now count several 

systematic, and successful attempts to integrate 

aspects of Buddhist theories of cognition and meditation 

into empirically testable clinical theory. The most 

explicit use of Buddhist models is seen in Zindel Segal’s 

mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression 

(Segal et al.). This technique incorporates both 

the behavioral and the cognitive aspects of mindfulness 

meditation into the treatment of depression, 

including the practice of mindfulness of breath 

(anapanasati) as a way to refocus or shift attention 

away from distorting patterns of cognition and emotion 

toward adaptive schemas. 

Less explicitly linked to Buddhist practice, but now 

amply tested as an effective therapy is Marsha Linehan’s 

dialectic cognitive-behavioral therapy or DBT 

(Linehan 1993a and 1993b). This system is a subtle integration 

of empirically based cognitive-behavioral 

strategies and a number of elements of Buddhist theory 

of knowledge and meditation. Linehan, for instance, 

conceives the processes of dysfunction and 

therapy in part through the lens of her own experience 

with Zen practice, but also through her own nontraditional 

understanding of the practice. The process is 

a dialectic because it assumes and relies on the “fundamental 

interrelatedness or wholeness of reality” and 

the placement of individual experience within a whole 

of relationships. This means, on the one hand, that 

the client needs “to accept herself as she is in the moment 

and the need for her to change” (1993b, pp. 

1–2), but also that change requires the cultivation of 

“core mindfulness skills” through which the client 

learns to observe and accept without judgment even 

those behaviors or interpersonal deficits that need to 

be changed. 

Jeffrey Schwartz, who was also inspired in part by 

his Buddhist practice, has adapted similar mindfulness 

techniques into the treatment of obsessive-compulsive 

disorder. In this particular technique, one may posit 

that Schwartz’s behavioral strategy is a variant of Buddhist 

uses of attention and selective inattention, including 

the confrontation of disgust and negative 

emotions while in a serene state. Here Buddhist techniques 

may be understood as equivalent to Western 

systematic desensitization, and exposure with response 

prevention. Yet, although both traditions follow similar 

paths in reorienting the suffering individual toward 

a revaluation of the causes of distress and 

disgust, Schwartz highlights the Buddhist practice of 

detached, nonjudgmental awareness, rather than the 

purposeful increase in anxious tension built into exposure 

techniques. 

Unlike attempts to link Buddhism to psychology by 

demanding a softening of the strictures of scientific 

research, these applications respond to a critical reflection 

on Buddhist conceptions followed by systematic 

clinical trials and empirical testing. But they also 

represent a willingness to follow the theory and technique 

in whichever direction is required to achieve effectiveness, 

including the use of techniques and belief 

systems that would have been totally foreign to traditional 

Buddhists. 

However, one should note that the danger of missing 

a valid parallel is as great as the danger of accepting 

spurious correspondences. An important 

component of Linehan’s technique called “distress 

tolerance skills” (1993a) parallels psychodynamic 

concepts of affect tolerance and affect dysregulation 

(Riesenberg-Malcolm). One would be tempted to regard 

these principles as unrelated (at least genetically) 

to any Buddhist technique of self-cultivation, except 

that a wide range of Buddhist practices pursue similar 

goals. One may mention, in passing, the contemplation 

of objects of disgust (corpse meditation or 

aśubhabhavana), as well as the use in the TIANTAI 

SCHOOL of repentance rituals that both move away 

from distress and remorse by contemplating emptiness 

and approach emptiness by contemplating the 

passions and their effects. 

Commensurability and dialogue 

The use of Buddhist techniques or beliefs as points of 

departure for contemporary psychologies or as a partner 

in scientific dialogue raises issues of commensurability: 

Are Buddhist psychological conceptions in some 

way commensurate with Western ideas of psychology 

and can there be a fruitful dialogue between the two? 

An obvious risk is to read psychological (scientific) literature 

the same way one reads religious literature: as 

statements of eternal truth. But equally tempting is the 

tendency to read psychological studies as confirmations 

or equivalents to Buddhist doctrinal speculation 

and religious practice. 

Psychological “conclusions” are essentially provisional 

heuristic tools, with two functions: prediction 


687

P SYCHOLOGY 

and explanation, which are in turn validated (the probability 

of their disconfirmation reduced) when they 

themselves set the direction for further research and 

observation. There are, of course, good reasons to 

doubt their total independence from culture and the 

sociology of knowledge, but one risks misunderstanding 

their scope if one chooses to ignore the research 

protocols that underlie scientific statements about human 

psychosomatic processes. 

Similarly, religious discourse and practice has its 

own protocols, and these must be thoroughly understood 

before one draws comparisons. Even today, 

practicing Buddhists tend to reject an interpretation of 

their beliefs and practices that may feel “reductionistic.” 

As already noted, a psychoneurological explanation 

may ring true, but for it ultimately to have 

heuristic value or applicability beyond its conceptual 

conclusions it must account for the belief systems (the 

truths and myths of tradition) and the actual practices 

(ritual and contemplative patterns and events) cherished 

by the believers themselves. 

Nonetheless, one may begin to consider, speculatively 

at this point in our understanding of the issue, 

ways in which Buddhist traditions may be seen to contain 

insights or techniques that may help illuminate 

contemporary problems of psychology. As suggested 

above, such illumination could be in a number of areas 

of philosophical and psychological inquiry: theories 

of consciousness and the unconscious, such as the 

theories of perception, emotion, and mental health. 

Some of these issues have been discussed in an ongoing 

series of symposia involving Western scholars, scientists, 

and the fourteenth DALAI LAMA. 

The discussions point toward interesting possibilities 

for the future, and the participation of the Dalai 

Lama also reminds us of the frame of reference within 

which Buddhist psychological theories have developed 

—and arguably will continue to develop. Buddhist theories 

of mind speak of health and “dis-ease,” but they 

also have ethical concerns that do not always overlap 

with the concerns of Western psychologists. The Buddhist 

may, for instance, be concerned with total liberation 

from the bonds of desire that have enslaved us 

for millions of rebirths, whereas the Western psychologist 

may be seeking an adaptive compromise in this 

single life. The Buddhist meditator may value unquestioned 

acceptance of a teacher’s wisdom, whereas the 

Western psychologist may be interested in the matter 

of power differentials and authority in the relationship 

between therapist and client. 

Most likely the majority of scientific psychologists, 

whatever their theoretical leanings, would not want to 

describe Buddhist doctrine and practices as equivalent 

to any one of the Western psychologies. Conversely it 

is difficult to imagine how a person committed to Buddhism 

in belief, practice, or both would want to reduce 

his or her preferred set of beliefs and practices to anything 

similar to what is considered scientific or empirical. 

And yet, if history is an effective teacher, we 

may expect to find an increasing cross-fertilization between 

both styles of studying and healing the human 

being as a unity of body and mind. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Chan School; 

Consciousness, Theories of; Sentient Beings 

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26–30, 84. 

PUDGALAVA DA 


The Pudgalavada was a group of schools sharing the 

doctrine that the person (pudgala) or self (atman) is 

real. The earliest Pudgalavada school was the 

Vatsputrya; from the Vatsputrya came the Dharmottarya, 

Bhadrayanya, Sam mitya, and Sannagarika. 

Of these schools, the Vatsputrya and 

Sam mitya were the most important. 

Very little of their literature has survived. This circumstance, 

together with their apparent denial of the 

Buddhist doctrine of nonself, has created the impression 

that they were an eccentric minority on the fringe 

of Buddhism. But in fact they were in the mainstream; 

XUANZANG (ca. 600–664) tells us that roughly a quarter 

of the monastic population in India in the seventh 

century C.E. was Pudgalavada. 

They agreed with other Buddhists that the self is neither 

the same as the five SKANDHA (AGGREGATES) nor 

separate from them, but affirmed the self as “true and 

ultimate.” They thought of the self as conceptual yet 

real, real because for the purposes of kindness and 

compassion the self was not reducible to the skandhas, 

and apparently because the self was a reflection of the 

timeless reality of NIRVAN A in the flux of the skandhas. 

As a fire can exist locally only through its fuel, so the 

self can exist as a particular person only through the 

skandhas. As the fire vanishes when the fuel is exhausted, 

but cannot be said to be either existent or 

nonexistent, having “gone home” to its timeless 


P URE L AND A RT 

source, so the self that has attained nirvana, vanishing 

at death, cannot be said either to exist or not to exist. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Mainstream 

Buddhist Schools 

Bibliography 

Priestley, Leonard C. D. C. Pudgalavada Buddhism: The Reality 

of the Indeterminate Self. Toronto, ON: Centre for South 

Asian Studies, University of Toronto, 1999. 

Thien Chau, Thich. The Literature of the Personalists of Early 

Buddhism, tr. Sara Boin-Webb. Delhi: Motilal Barnasidass, 

1999. 

PURE LAND ART 

LEONARD C. D. C. PRIESTLEY 

Visions of PURE LANDS are premised upon the Mahayana 

COSMOLOGY of multiple worlds in “ten directions,” 

each presided over by one buddha and each 

constituting a blissful alternative to the Saha world of 

impurity in which we live. The Western Land of Bliss 

(Sukhavat) associated with AMITABHA Buddha epitomizes 

the notion of the pure land. The term pure land 

is thus used in a narrow sense to refer to Amitabha’s 

Land and in a broader sense to refer to domains associated 

with BUDDHAS of other directions. Visual representation 

of pure lands, a major theme in the 

Buddhist art of East Asia, takes three major forms: (1) 

sculptural representations of Amitabha Buddha with 

his retinue; (2) BIANXIANG (TRANSFORMATION 

TABLEAUX) showing paradise scenes or pictures of the 

descent of Amitabha to usher the deceased to the Land 

of Bliss; and (3) landscape and architectural simulation 

of the Western Paradise. 

Western Pure Land evoked through the 

Amita bha image 

The Amitabha image, with its evocation of the Western 

Pure Land, dates back to at least the fourth century 

in China, culminating in its veneration by 

HUIYUAN (334–416) and his followers on Mount Lu. 

There was a remarkable lack of doctrinal coherence underlying 

the early practice, which took its cues largely 

from sutras tangential to Amitabha’s Pure Land. Chief 

among them is the PRATYUTPANNASAMADHI-SU TRA, 

which emphasizes the role of BUDDHA IMAGES, including 

images of Amitabha, as an expedient agency for 

achieving the state of contemplation, rather than as 

cultic icons in their own right. In early cases involving 

Amitabha images, stone chambers were chosen as the 

topographic setting for such meditative activities, as a 

means of “traveling,” in the words of a devotee named 

Liu Yimin around 400 C.E., “to the most distant region 

(of the Western Paradise) . . . to settle for the great repose 

(of Nirvana) as the final term.” 

Such pure land aspirations gained momentum during 

the fifth and sixth centuries in China. However, the 

majority of buddha icons made during this period 

depicted Śakyamuni, MAITREYA, and the Śakyamuni/ 

Prabhutaratna pair. A new trend emerged in northern 

China in the 460s: Of the variety of buddha images 

made by lay commoners, about 17 percent were 

Amitabha icons, which received little patronage from 

monks and nuns. It was not until a century later that 

the SAṄGHA’s interest in Amitabha icons overrode their 

interest in icons of Śakyamuni and Maitreya. The 

change suggests that the pure land cult associated with 

Amitabha was a movement that began from the bottom 

up. It largely tallied with the early indifference 

shown by the learned Buddhist community during this 

period toward Amitabha Pure Land sutras, as indicated 

by the initial absence of scholarly commentary regarding 

them. Early donors of Amitabha images were 

unclear about the location of Amitabha’s Pure Land in 

the Buddhist cosmological scheme. Amitabha images 

were often integrated into the imagined afterlife encounter 

with Maitreya, the future Buddha. In southern 

China, Amitabha images were cast in gilded 

bronze, with the largest statues reported to be sixteen 

feet tall. In the north, stone was the favored medium. 

Transformation tableaux of the Western 

Pure Land 

It is not clear when pure land pictures first appeared 

in China. A mural in cave 169 at Binglingsi, executed 

in 420, contains the earliest painted icon of Amitayus, 

but shows no topographic features of the Western Paradise. 

The earliest surviving example of a pure land 

picture in China is a set of topographic tableaux carved 

on the back of the nimbus of icons from the Wanfosi 

at Chengdu. The oldest of these survives in an ink rubbing, 

dated 425, with the pure land scene largely missing. 

A sixth-century relief carving, similar in design, 

on the back of double bodhisattvas from the same site, 

preserves a complete composition. It is based on the 

“Life Span” and “The Universal Gateway” chapters of 

the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). In 

the middle is the assembly gathered at the bird-shaped 

Vulture Peak, where Śakyamuni announces that, at the 


693


end of a kalpa, fire and terror engulf the human world, 

while his pure land remains intact, where halls, pavilions, 

gardens, and groves are “adorned with gems,” 

and “jeweled trees abound in flowers and fruit, and living 

beings enjoy themselves at ease.” The composition 

is thus divided into two contrasting parts: below, 

scenes of calamities; above, the pure land. Human figures 

appear in the lotus pond, a scene of rebirth associated 

with a pure land. The carving is often hailed as 

a precursor to later representations of the Western 

Pure Land. The composition also anticipates pictures 

of the “White Path to Paradise,” which are typically divided 

into two realms: Below is the impure mundane 

world of the east, teeming with suffering beings from 

the six REALMS OF EXISTENCE; above is the Western Pure 

Land. In between is a symmetrically divided river. To 

the left and south is the pool of fire of anger and violence; 

to the right and north is the river of greed and 

desire. Flanked by these two engulfing rivers is a thin 

white path that leads to the Western Paradise. Śakyamuni, 

on one side of the river, urges the devotee to 

cross, while Amitabha and his retinue beckon on the 

other shore. Shandao’s commentary on the Guan Wuliangshou 

jing (Contemplation of the Buddha of Limitless 

Life Su tra) presents a matching textual account. 

However, pictures of this kind are found only in surviving 

Japanese hanging scrolls of the Kamakura period 

(1185–1333). 

Another notable early painting of a pure land, executed 

around the early seventh century, appears in cave 

420 at DUNHUANG. Based in part on the Lotus Su tra, 

the mural shows Vulture Peak on the right and Śakyamuni 

passing into nirvana in the middle. Issuing from 

the foot of Vulture Peak is a winding river dotted with 

lotuses, with a boat and numerous ducks crossing to 

the other shore. Flanking the river are an array of nine 

buddhas and various buddha-lands. The scene draws 

on the “Life Span” chapter of the NIRVAN A SU TRA, 

translated by Dharmaksema in 423 C.E., which describes 

an “Eastern world named Joy and Beautiful 

Sound,” a pure land. Both the Wangfosi carving and 

the Dunhuang mural demonstrate the tenuous relationship 

between early pictures of pure lands and the 

Amitabha sutras. The pictures arose out of a topographic 

imagination that was driven by soteriological 

interest and cued by scriptures. 

As the cult of the Amitabha Pure Land gained currency 

during the second half of the sixth century, its 

pictorial representation took more definitive shape. 

Two compositional prototypes emerged during the 

Northern Qi period (550–577). The first is the 

“Amitabha with Fifty Bodhisattvas,” a picture allegedly 

acquired by the five bodhisattvas of the Kukkutarama 

Monastery from the Western Paradise, and dubiously 

claimed to have been transmitted by the Indian monk 

Kaśyapa-matanga (d. 73 C.E.) to China. Cao Zhongda 

of the Northern Qi is said to have specialized in pictures 

of this type, which continued to appear into the 

seventh century. A painting on the east wall of cave 

332 at Dunhuang shows a gigantic tree dominated by 

the Amitabha triad. Fifty reborn souls appear as bodhisattvas 

perched on various tree branches; two other 

figures are each wrapped in a lotus bud. 

The second compositional prototype represents the 

more popular model. It is exemplified by a large spread 

of relief sculpture from cave 2 of South Xiangtangshan, 

now at the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. The 

composition contains all the key elements of subsequent 

Western Paradise tableaux. Three haloed 

deities—Amitabha in the middle, with Avalokiteśvara 

and Mahasthamaprapta on each side—constitute the 

Western triad. In front of them are three ponds. In the 

middle pond, four human figures emerge respectively 

from a lotus—the extent to which they break out of 

the lotus bud indicates the ranking order of their 

classes in the merit-based three-tiered hierarchy of rebirth, 

as described in the Larger SUKHAVATIVYU HA- 

SU TRA. Each of the two side ponds shows a figure— 

either a bodhisattva or a Buddha disciple—bathing in 

the “jeweled ponds” to cleanse the impurities of the 

world of transmigration before entering the Land of 

Bliss. The pond motif has since become a distinctive 

feature of Amitabha’s Pure Land. This design grew into 

a major compositional form in the seventh century, as 

exemplified by the Amitabha tableau in cave 220 at 

Dunhuang, dated 642 C.E., and in the Golden Hall of 

Horyuji in Japan. 

Western Pure Land pictures developed new forms 

in the seventh and eighth centuries. The threefold gradation 

of rebirths in the pure land based on the Larger 

Sukhavatlvyu ha-su tra evolved into a ninefold scheme 

—three grades, each subdivided into three degrees— 

as pure land tableaux incorporated the Guan Wuliangshou 

jing. An early example is a seventh-century 

wall painting in cave 431 at Dunhuang, which contains 

vignettes of the descent of Amitabha or his delegates 

to fetch the dying person to the Western Paradise. In 

its early phase, the composition took the form of a horizontal 

band measuring 1 by 15.4 meters, a form apparently 

adapted from the hand scroll format, and it 

emphasizes narrative actions rather than pure land 

scenes. In the early eighth century, a triptych form took 



A bas-relief in limestone representing Amitabha’s Western Paradise. (Chinese, Northern Qi dynasty, sixth century.) Freer Gallery of Art 

Library. Reproduced by permission. 

shape. The two side panels depict the story of 

Ajataśatru, a prince who puts his father, King Bimbisara, 

and his mother, Queen Vaideh, under house arrest. 

In response to the queen’s appeal, the Buddha 

appears and teaches her sixteen ways of visualization. 

This royal family drama and the scenes of visualization 

often occupy two side columns that flank the central 

paradise scene in triptychs. The side vignettes set the 

Guan Wuliangshou jing tableau apart from the 

Amitabha tableau. Their identification on the basis of 

sutra(s) is in fact tenuous since the Guan Wuliangshou 

jing does not include the description of the Western 

Pure Land that appears in the Amitabha sutras. 

Other pure lands 

Pure land tableaux are not limited to the Western 

Paradise. In MAHAYANA cosmology, there are “pure 

lands of ten directions.” Tableaux depicting other 

pure lands include those of the Medicine Buddha 

(Bhaisajyaguru) of the East; Maitreya, often associated 

with north; and those described in sutras not pertaining 

to particular pure lands. There is even a 

tableau of pure lands of the ten directions as identified 

by its cartouche in cave 158 at Dunhuang. The 

tableau of the Pure Land of the Bhaisajyaguru of the 

East features scenes of lamp-lighting, “Nine Violent 

Deaths,” and “Fulfillment of Twelve Great Vows” 


695


FIGURE 1 

Pure land tableaux 

North: Tableau of Maitreya's Pure Land 

West: Tableau of Amitabha's Pure Land 

East: Tableau of Bhaisajyaguru's Pure Land 

i 

South: Tableau of Sakyamuni's É Buddha Land 


made by the Bodhisattva Bhaisajyaguru before he becomes 

a buddha. The tableaux of Maitreya Pure Land 

(a somewhat misleading term since Maitreya’s domain 

is considered by some scriptures as an impure 

land) are of two types: Maitreya’s ascent to Tusita 

Heaven, and Maitreya’s descent into Jambudvpa to 

preach under the dragon-flower trees. Gaining popularity 

in the Tang dynasty, the tableau of Maitreya’s 

descent includes miracle scenes, such as “Seven Harvests 

after One Sowing,” “Clothing Growing Out of 

Trees,” “Five-Hundred-Year-Old Women Getting 

Married,” and so on. Regardless of the kind of pure 

land being depicted, most of the tableaux largely follow 

the compositional model of Amitabha’s Pure 

Land, with the exception of certain distinctive features 

associated with a particular buddha realm. 

Pictorial programs of pure land tableaux 

During the seventh and eighth centuries, tableaux of 

pure lands were integrated into larger pictorial programs. 

The documented set of pure land tableaux in 

the five-story pagoda at the Kofukuji in Japan is a typical 

example current in the eighth century (Figure 1). 

A temporal scheme, mapped out by way of spatial opposition, 

underlies the iconographic program. The 

Bhaisajyaguru tableau suggests the present, the 

Amitabha tableau the future (afterlife); the Śakyamuni 

land signals the present, the Maitreya land the future 

(afterlife). Thus, the entire program maps out a symbolic 

cosmos for the spirit of the deceased to cross the 

boundary between this and the other world. The topographic 

continuum may also underlie the spatial opposition 

between different pure land tableaux. Placing 

the Lotus Su tra tableau opposite the Western Pure 

Land scene may imply a progressive transition from 

the wilderness of the earthly terrain to the order of the 

afterlife domain. It is therefore misleading to identify 

these pure land tableaux on the basis of the sutras they 

appear to “illustrate.” 

Pictures of the Buddha’s welcoming descent 

A significant detail of the Guan Wuliangshou jing 

tableau forms the basis of a new development. The last 

three of the sixteen visualizations, as exemplified by 

seventh-century vignettes in cave 431 at Dunhuang, 

show the descent of the Buddha or his delegates to dying 

devotees to escort their spirits to the Western Paradise. 

These vignettes anticipated the pictures of the 

Buddha’s welcoming descent (raigo ), which became 

popular in Japan beginning in the twelfth century. The 

early descent paintings, exemplified by a set of three 

hanging scrolls in Juhakka-in at Mount Koya, show the 

frontally seated Amitabha, surrounded by his entourage 

on a swirl of clouds, descending toward the 

implied viewer. A compositional variation of this image 

gained popularity, especially in the Kamakura period. 

In this variation, Amitabha and his heavenly 

attendants on streaming clouds sweep down diagonally 

from the upper left to the lower right toward the 

dwelling of the dying devotee. Their swift movement 

is dramatized by sharp-angled trailing clouds blazing 

through space, often set against precipitous peaks, as 

shown in a scroll at Chion-in. Amitabha’s seated posture 

also changes to an upright stance to reinforce the 



The Phoenix Hall at the Byodoin, Kyoto, Japan. Built in 1053, it was intended as a three-dimensional representation of the Sukhavatl 

Pure Land—the Western Paradise—of Amitabha. © Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

sense of his instantaneous arrival. Amitabha in such a 

composition may also be replaced by other buddhas, 

such as Maitreya. 

Related to the descent pictures in the Kamakura period 

is a new type of design known as “Amitabha 

Crossing the Mountains.” The composition shows the 

radiant bust-length Amitabha trinity towering over 

mountain peaks in the horizon. Premised upon the association 

of Amitabha Pure Land with the west, the radiant 

icon evokes the setting sun. Standard textbook 

accounts correlate the development of the descent pictures 

to the doctrinal lineage of Pure Land school 

teaching laid out by Shandao and explicated and propagated 

in Japan by GENSHIN (942–1017), HO NEN 

(1133–1212), and SHINRAN (1173–1262). It is more fitting 

to see teachings by Genshin and his followers not 

as the determining source for image-making, but as 

collaborative testimony to the collective aspiration that 

finds different channels of expression. 

Spatial installation of pure lands 

Both sculptures and paintings are often integrated into 

spatial simulation of pure lands. An early-seventhcentury 

Chinese monk named Zhenhui is said to have 

built a “pure land” dominated by a square high altar 

overlooking a ground of lapis lazuli with crisscrossing 

paths bounded by golden ropes. An elaborate surviving 

example of a pure land simulation is the PHOENIX 

HALL (AT THE BYO DO IN) near Kyoto, built in the mideleventh 

century. Its interior houses an Amitabha 

statue in the center, surrounded on four sides with 

wooden panels depicting painted scenes of the nine degrees 

of rebirth. In front of the hall is a pond, a key 

feature of the topography of the Western Paradise. 

Moreover, the architectural design of the Phoenix Hall 

itself evokes a winged bird, another feature associated 

with the Amitabha land. 

As the general trend of Buddhist art gradually 

turned more toward esoteric charms and invocations, 

Amitabha Buddha was increasingly assimilated into 

MAN D ALA designs; written characters invoking prayer 

formulae replaced iconic images and visionary 

tableaux. With the loss of its topographic character, 

pure land art also lost its distinction. 


Art in; Horyuji and Todaiji; Japan, Buddhist Art 

in; Korea, Buddhist Art in; Pure Land Buddhism; Pure 

Land Schools 


697

P URE L AND B UDDHISM 

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Wu Hung, and Ning Qiang. “Paradise Images in Early Chinese 

Art.” In The Flowering of a Foreign Faith: New Studies in Chinese 

Buddhist Art, ed. Janet Baker. New Delhi: Marg, 1998. 

PURE LAND BUDDHISM 

EUGENE Y. WANG 

Pure Land Buddhism signifies a wide array of practices 

and traditions within MAHAYANA Buddhism directed 

to the Buddha AMITABHA (Amitayus) and his 

realm, Sukhavat (Land of Bliss), which came to be 

referred to in Chinese as the Pure Land (jingtu; Japanese, 

jo do). Mahayana recognized the existence of innumerable 

BUDDHAS and even BODHISATTVAS who 

presided over their own buddha-fields (buddhaksetra), 

realms that they had purified or were in the 

process of purifying. Early on, some of these buddhas 

and their pure lands were singled out as the objects of 

particular scriptural and liturgical distinction. For example, 

the Asksobhyavyu ha-su tra suggests that AKSO- 

BHYA and his buddha-field Abhirati in the eastern 

quadrant of the universe achieved a significant cultic 

status in Mahayana’s early period. It was, however, 

Amitabha and his buddha-field in the west that ultimately 

came to attract the overwhelming preponderance 

of attention, particularly in East Asia, and to a 

modified extent in the VAJRAYANA Buddhism of the 

Tibetan cultural area. It is to this tradition, focused 

on Amitabha and his paradise Sukhavat, that the term 

Pure Land Buddhism conventionally applies. 

Pure Land and Maha ya na Buddhism 

The Buddha Amitabha and his Land of Bliss were already 

amply attested to in early Mahayana scriptures. 

The story of Amitabha as found in the Longer 

SUKHAVATIVYU HA-SU TRA rehearsed elements that 

were fundamental to the Mahayana vision: the bodhisattva 

vocation with its initial set of vows and subsequent 

accumulation of merit through austerities, 

the attainment of supreme enlightenment, and the 

creation of a land through stored merit for the salvation 

of all SENTIENT BEINGS. Consequently, the practices 

affiliated with the Pure Land tradition were 

reflective of Mahayana values and were inextricably 

embedded within a complex of cultivational and liturgical 

regimens that prevailed throughout the Mahayana 

tradition. 

Mahayana contains a soteriological paradox that 

historically led to wide disparities with regard to Pure 

Land practice, as well as to contrasting views on the 

nature and function of that practice. On the one hand, 

Amitabha’s Pure Land itself was the result of cultivation 

of the bodhisattva PATH, thus serving as an example 

that encouraged emulation in all of those 

seeking the Pure Land. They too were expected to assiduously 

follow that path, rigorously engaging in the 

requisite spiritual disciplines and austerities, all the 

while attending to the welfare of all sentient beings. On 

the other hand, the Pure Land as a place of refuge and 

liberation was a creation of Amitabha’s beneficent 

vows to save all sentient beings and as such became a 

goal for those seeking liberation not through their own 

effort but through faith in Amitabha’s salvific power. 

Strengthening this latter view was the belief that grew 



up in some Mahayana circles that the dharma had entered 

into an age of decline in which the diminished 

capacities of adherents were no longer adequate to 

meet the rigorous demands of the traditional bodhisattva 

path. Thus, only through easier practices and 

through Amitabha’s assistance could people hope to 

attain liberation. While the sectarian Pure Land movement 

that developed in Japan embraced the latter perspective, 

an overall examination of Pure Land tradition 

reveals that both of these seemingly contradictory perspectives 

have prevailed alongside each other for most 

of the tradition’s history, and therefore both must be 

taken into account for a balanced approach to Pure 

Land developments. The requirement for an evenhanded 

historical view in Pure Land also necessitates 

avoiding the facile distinction between monastic and 

lay practice that associates members of the monastic 

community with the rigors of the bodhisattva path and 

lay adherents with an easier course. Indeed, the very 

argument for easier practice came from members of 

the monastic community, while, conversely, we find 

laics in history emulating liturgical and meditative 

practices that had monastic origins. 

Mindful recollection of the Buddha 

Pure Land practice was initially predicated on the aspiration 

common throughout Mahayana to achieve 

proximity to a buddha either through a meditative vision 

or through REBIRTH in his Pure Land. This aspiration 

derived from a latent sense of regret frequently 

voiced in Buddhist scriptures with regard to Śakyamuni’s 

departure and subsequent absence from this 

world, as well as from the abiding hope that liberation 

could be more easily achieved in the presence and under 

the tutelage of a buddha. This goal of seeking access 

to a buddha was thought to be best achieved 

through a practice known as “mindful recollection of 

the Buddha” (BUDDHANUSMRTI), a discipline that had 

roots in early Buddhism and became a common feature 

in Mahayana scriptures. This meditative discipline 

most simply refers to the practice of calling to 

mind and concentrating on the qualities of a buddha, 

but in reality it embraces a wide range of contemplative 

objects and techniques. In the Pure Land tradition, 

the practice sometimes entailed concrete 

visualization of the Buddha Amitabha, his attendant 

bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mahasthamaprapta, 

or the Land of Bliss. Then again, in contrast to these 

tangible visualizations, the practice at other times required 

a meditation on the formless and empty nature 

of the Buddha’s ultimate reality, the dharmakaya. 

Meditative concentration was achieved by such diverse 

practices as fixing the mind on one or many aspects 

of the Buddha Amitabha’s appearance, concentrating 

on the name of the Buddha, or vocally intoning that 

name through chant or speech. Furthermore, the practitioner 

could engage in the process through a variety 

of postures including sitting, standing, walking, or lying 

down. 

The practice of buddhanusmrti was accorded a 

central cultivational role in sutras that dealt with 

Amitabha and his Pure Land. An early Mahayana 

scripture, the PRATYUTPANNASAMADHI-SU TRA, called 

for an uninterrupted meditation on the Buddha 

Amitayus for seven days and nights, promising that 

the Buddha would appear before the adherent at the 

end of that period. The previously mentioned Longer 

Sukhavatlvyu ha-su tra, in presenting the conditions for 

rebirth, set forth the exclusive recollection of the Buddha 

of Measureless Life (Amitayus), if even for ten 

moments of thought, as a requirement for all levels of 

spiritual capacity. Another scripture of non-Indian 

provenance, the Guan Wuliangshou jing (Contemplation 

of the Buddha of Limitless Life Su tra), had as its 

main content the explication of thirteen different visualizations 

on various attributes of the Buddha and 

his Pure Land. 

Meditative practice in East Asia and Tibet 

The Chinese translation of the Sanskrit word buddhanusmrti 

was nianfo (Japanese, nenbutsu), a term 

burdened with ambiguity as to the form of practice it 

denotes. In many contexts, nianfo commonly signifies 

a mental recollection of a Buddha’s attributes. This discipline 

was also called nianfo sanmei (the samadhi of 

buddhanusmrti), an expression that reinforced a contemplative 

emphasis by alluding to the meditative 

trance in which the Buddha would appear. In yet other 

contexts, the term nianfo came to refer to invoking the 

Buddha’s name vocally. Despite this seeming contrast, 

it must be kept in mind that the recitation of the name, 

whether voiced or silent, chanted or spoken, was originally 

but one method of several in the mindful recollection 

of the Buddha. Steering away from this 

contemplative emphasis, the sectarian traditions of 

Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, Jodo shu and Jodo 

Shinshu, appealed to a distinction made by the Chinese 

monk Shandao (613–681), assigning recitation of 

the name a separate and superior status among the various 

practices. This recitation conventionally expressed 

as Namo Amituo Fo (Japanese, Namu Amida Butsu), a 

formula that was drawn from the Guan Wuliangshou 


699


jing, therefore came to eclipse all other practices within 

the sectarian Pure Land traditions. Western scholarship 

until recently has focused largely upon these traditions 

and therefore has tended to overlook the 

ongoing importance of the meditative tradition in East 

Asia, as well as in Tibet. Since the centrality of the vocal 

invocation as a distinct practice within the sectarian 

traditions is treated in other entries, the discussion 

below will avoid the bifurcation of the two practices 

and assume that the invocatory practice constituted 

one method of several within the practice of mindful 

recollection. 

In China the practice of recollecting the Buddha was 

present from the outset of Pure Land belief. The 

scholar-monk HUIYUAN (334–416), whom the Chinese 

Buddhist tradition came to regard as the initiator of 

the Pure Land movement and therefore its first patriarch, 

founded a society of monks and elite gentry in 

402 C.E. that adopted the buddha recollection of the 

Pratyutpannasamadhi-su tra as its core practice. More 

than a century later, ZHIYI (538–597), the founder of 

the TIANTAI SCHOOL, incorporated the same sutra’s 

practice into his four-fold system of meditative practice. 

Zhiyi’s system, which had as its goal the contemplative 

apprehension of ultimate reality, integrated the 

meditations into liturgical regimens performed in daily 

ritual cycles. These performances often included 

preparation of the ritual site, personal purification, offerings 

of flowers and incense, invitation and invocation 

of the deities, physical obeisance, confession of 

sins, and application of merit. In the Constantly Walking 

Samadhi, the second of the four practices, Zhiyi 

structured the Pratyutpannasamadhi-su tra’s practice 

of mindful recollection around a strenuous ordeal that 

required the practitioner to continuously circumambulate 

an image of Amitabha in a dedicated hall 

throughout a period of ninety days, leaving the 

premises only to attend to bodily functions. 

Zhiyi’s liturgical and contemplative regimens continued 

to exert influence on the development of Pure 

Land in the Tiantai school in China, as well as its Japanese 

counterpart, the Tendai school. Zhiyi’s ninety-day 

retreat was promoted by such prominent Tangdynasty 

(618–907) figures as Chengyuan (712–742) 

and Fazhao (d. 822), who also created a musically 

based ritual for the community on Mount Wutai. During 

the Song dynasty (960–1279), the Tiantai monk 

Zunshi (964–1032), emulating the liturgical patterns 

established by Zhiyi, developed a number of rites and 

practices dedicated to Amitabha and to the achievement 

of rebirth in his Pure Land. Zunshi’s rituals, 

which included a longer and a shorter penitential ceremony, 

came to hold a place of honor in subsequent 

ritual practice that has survived into the modern era. 

During the aforementioned historical developments 

within the Tiantai school, the practice of recollection 

on Amitabha shifted in focus from the 

Pratyutpannasamadhi-su tra to emphasis on the Guan 

Wuliangshou jing. Members of the Tiantai school in 

the Song dynasty consequently constructed retreats 

called Sixteen Visualization Halls that were based on 

the Guan Wuliangshou jing and consisted of a central 

hall at the middle of which stood an image of 

Amitabha. Around this cultic focal point were 

arranged a series of cells for retreatants dedicated to 

extended periods of ritual and contemplative practice. 

The Tiantai school was not alone in promoting the 

practice of recollecting the Buddha as a Pure Land discipline. 

Members of the Huayan and Chan traditions 

also contributed to the understanding of the practice. 

Common to all these traditions, however, was a hierarchical 

ranking of the various practices signified by 

the term nianfo. Characteristic of this type of ranking 

was the fourfold distinction set forth by the great 

Chan–Huayan scholar ZONGMI (780–841), who assigned 

the recitation of the name to the lowest position, 

with contemplation of a sculpted or painted 

image, visualization either of a single attribute or of the 

whole body of the Buddha, and contemplation of the 

truly real (that is, apprehension of the dharmakaya) following 

in ascending order. Implicit in this categorization 

and others like it in other traditions is the notion 

that what is ultimately apprehended in contemplation 

is the identity of Buddha and his field with one’s own 

mind. This identity constituted part of a comprehensive 

idealistic philosophical system embraced by some 

members of the Tiantai, Huayan, and Chan traditions. 

These philosophers saw all reality as ultimately reducible 

to mind, and in some cases applied this idealistic 

approach to Pure Land. One of the most famous 

of such articulations of mind-only Pure Land was that 

produced by the Chan scholar YANSHOU (904–975). 

Members of the Chan school sometimes adopted this 

view as the basis of a polemic that argued for the superiority 

of the goals and practices of Chan over the 

aspiration to rebirth and its attendant practices found 

within Pure Land. 

In Tibetan Buddhism, although the devotion to 

Amitabha did not acquire the same degree of prominence 

as in East Asia since his cult coexisted alongside 

practices dedicated to other buddhas and their pure 



lands, the contemplation of Amitabha and his realm, 

nevertheless, historically has come to occupy a significant 

position in tantric practice. During the twelfth to 

the fourteenth centuries, Sukhavat figured prominently 

in visions of RNYING MA (NYINGMA) masters 

among whom Dam pa Bde gshegs (1122–1192) developed 

a tantric sadhana for visualizing Amitabha, along 

with a prayer for rebirth in his land. The BKA’ BRGYUD 

(KAGYU) tradition accorded special significance to a 

tantric technique called “transference” (‘pho ba), in 

which consciousness at the moment of DEATH could 

be projected to a desired realm of rebirth. Later in history 

this goal was explicitly linked to the attainment of 

Sukhavat. Yet another type of Pure Land contemplation 

is found in a “sleep exercise” (nyal bsgom), made 

popular by the SA SKYA (SAKYA) order. In this practice, 

the adept before sleep visualizes himself as a deity in 

Sukhavat before a seated Amitabha. The visualization, 

which culminates in a dissolving of Amitabha into the 

adept, is practiced with the belief that it will lead to 

eventual rebirth in Sukhavat. 

Other practices 

The various meditative disciplines described above 

have occupied a significant but by no means exclusive 

position in the tradition of Pure Land practice. Sometimes, 

general Buddhist merit-gaining activities, such 

as the strict observance of PRECEPTS, the chanting or 

copying of scriptures, the commissioning of carved 

images, and other forms of donative activity, have 

been imbued with Pure Land significance. Also 

throughout Mahayana traditions are found prayers 

and, in Vajrayana, the recitation of DHARAN I that seek 

rebirth for oneself and members of one’s family. More 

proper to the original Mahayana vision, Pure Land 

practice has often been integrated into the larger context 

of the bodhisattva vocation with its concomitant 

host of activities aimed at the acquisition and transference 

of merit as well as at the aiding of all sentient 

beings. In Pure Land accounts, we find devotees taking 

the bodhisattva precepts and engaging in bodhisattva 

acts, such as the building of bridges and the 

digging of wells, the releasing of living creatures destined 

for slaughter, the conversion of people from taking 

of life, the eating of meat, the providing of hostels 

for travelers, and the burial of the dead. On a more 

extreme note, some Pure Land adherents undertook 

the physical austerities (dhu ta) enjoined in the bodhisattva 

precepts and Mahayana scriptures, such as the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). Practitioners 

burnt fingers, limbs, and sometimes even 

their entire person both as acts of devotion to the 

Lotus Su tra and as deeds done in the hope of rebirth 

in Pure Land. Beyond these acts of SELF-IMMOLATION, 

religious suicide within Pure Land found expression 

in Kamakura Japan when devotees drowned themselves 

in expectation of rebirth. 

The goal of rebirth in the Pure Land made the period 

directly preceding and that immediately following 

death a critical time fraught with both danger and 

opportunity in the determination of one’s future destiny. 

This resulted in the creation of deathbed and funerary 

practices that aided the dying and the newly 

deceased in the attainment of Pure Land. The content 

of one’s last thoughts were thought to be the crucial 

factor in determining one’s next rebirth, and thus 

deathbed rites were designed to assist the dying in forging 

a karmic link with the Pure Land by fixing their 

mind on Amitabha. Depending on the dying person’s 

disposition, deathbed rituals might involve repentance, 

the chanting of sutras, or, most importantly, 

mindful recollection of Amitabha (nianfo, nenbutsu), 

deriving largely from the promise of the Guan Wuliangshou 

jing that ten uninterrupted thoughts on the 

Buddha would lead to rebirth even for those who had 

accumulated a lifetime of evil karma. Increasingly, this 

latter practice was interpreted in terms of vocally reciting 

the Buddha’s name. The dying person was encouraged 

to intone the Buddha’s name, and, if that was 

no longer possible, it was done for him or her by assistants. 

He or she would be often placed in front of 

an image of Amitabha and given a cord to hold that 

was attached to Amitabha’s right hand. This symbolic 

link portended both the aspirant’s hope for rebirth and 

the grace and power of the Buddha flowing through 

the connection. Funeral rites in East Asia and in the 

Tibetan cultural area have often attended to the theme 

of rebirth in Sukhavat through liturgical expression 

and prayers. 

Underpinning deathbed and funeral practices was a 

promise articulated in Amitabha’s nineteenth vow that 

at the moment of death Amitabha and his attendant 

bodhisattvas would appear before the devotee. In 

Japan, this belief inspired the creation of artistic and 

ritual representations of this crucial event signifying 

the attainment of rebirth. Raigo zu, paintings depicting 

Amitabha and his retinue descending on a white cloud 

to meet the dying devotee, became popular during the 

Heian period. The same period also witnessed the 

widespread enactment of mukaeko , a ceremony in 

which the Buddha’s coming was recreated in song and 

dance accompanied by verbal chanting of the nenbutsu. 


701


The focus upon the events surrounding a devotee’s 

death similarly gave rise to prognosticatory practices 

aimed at discerning evidence confirming the successful 

attainment of rebirth. Among the numerous signs 

accompanying the death of a devotee, deathbed and 

postmortem accounts report apparitions, DREAMS, the 

presence of fragrances or auras at the moment of death, 

the preservation of the devotee’s body, or the discovery 

of relics (śarlra) in the ashes of the adherent’s cremated 

body. The narration of these auspicious signs 

became a central element in collections of Pure Land 

biographies that proliferated in China and Japan with 

the development of Pure Land belief. 

These compendia offer windows through time on 

Pure Land adherents from a wide range of religious 

and social positions. The biographical collections include 

hagiographies of monks and laity, men and 

women, elite and poor. Besides their edificatory role, 

the collections were historically instrumental in creating 

a sense of Pure Land as a unified tradition, a perception 

that was reinforced by the Chinese Pure Land 

biographical collections of the Song period, which constructed 

a patriarchal lineage for the tradition. 

Pure Land societies 

Although the meditative practices enumerated above 

could be understood as suited for solitary cultivation, 

it is equally important to emphasize the communal settings 

in which Pure Land came to flourish. Chinese 

Buddhists traditionally traced the origins of Pure Land 

in China back to the aforementioned Huiyuan, who in 

402 C.E. on Mount Lu organized a society of 123 members 

drawn from the monastic community and the 

gentry elite. The members of this society took a solemn 

vow before an image of Amitabha that whoever 

achieved the Pure Land first would aid those remaining 

behind in attaining rebirth. This association, which 

was later named the White Lotus Society (Bailian she), 

became a paradigm in the formation of societies 

(jieshe) that proliferated particularly during the Song 

dynasty. Many of these later societies differed from 

Huiyuan’s confraternity in a number of significant 

ways. Their membership was drawn not from the elite 

alone but from a wider societal spectrum, including 

women and people of the lower classes. The size of 

these societies was sometimes in the thousands, far 

exceeding the modest size of Huiyuan’s society. Furthermore, 

these associations often engaged in practices 

that did not always explicitly or exclusively address 

Amitabha and the Pure Land or that differed from the 

meditative emphasis in Huiyuan’s group. Lastly, some 

of these societies were founded and led by lay people 

rather than monks. This is notably the case of the 

White Lotus movement founded by Mao Ziyuan (d.u.) 

in the twelfth century. 

This period in which Pure Land associations multiplied 

in China also witnessed a proliferation of similar 

associations in Korea and Japan. The Korean monk 

CHINUL (1158–1210), who is best known for the Koryŏ 

period (918–1392) revival of the Sŏn (Chan) tradition, 

is credited with initiating a movement of 

religious societies (kyŏlsa; Chinese, jieshe) that drew inspiration 

from the Chinese movement of the same era. 

In Heian Japan, the scholar Yoshishige Yasutane (d. 

1002), who is famous for compiling the first Japanese 

collection of Pure Land biographies, and the Tendai 

monk Genshin (942–1017), renowned for his seminal 

work on Pure Land, the O jo yo shu (Essentials of Rebirth), 

were active in establishing and participating in 

societies such as the Kangakue (Society for the Advancement 

of Learning) and the Niju gozammaie 

(Twenty-five [Member] Samadhi Assembly) that had 

a Pure Land orientation. Besides regular gatherings in 

which the name of Amitabha was recited, the Nijugozammaie 

also provided support for sick and dying 

members, adopting many of the deathbed practices 

discussed above. In contrast to these associations with 

elite membership, groups with members from all social 

strata were enlisted by the itinerant holy men (hijiri) 

who spread Pure Land practice among the masses. 

Perhaps the most famous of these was Kuya (903–972), 

who proclaimed the vocal recitation of the Buddha’s 

name from street corners. 


Decline of the Dharma; Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; 

Korean, Yŏmbul); Pure Lands; Pure Land 

Schools 

Bibliography 

Dobbins, James C. “Genshin’s Deathbed Nembutsu Ritual in 

Pure Land Buddhism.” In Religions of Japan in Practice, ed. 


Press, 1999. 

Foard, James; Solomon, Michael; and Payne, Richard M., eds. 

The Pure Land Tradition: History and Development. Berkeley: 

Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University 

of California at Berkeley, 1996. 

Getz, Daniel A. “T’ien-t’ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation 

of the Pure Land Patriarchate.” In Buddhism in the Sung, ed. 

Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz. Honolulu: University 



P URE 

L ANDS 

Gómez, Luis O., trans. The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the 

Buddha of Measureless Light: Sanskrit and Chinese Versions 

of the Sukhavatlvyu ha Sutras. Honolulu: University of 





Press, 1986. 

Stevenson, Daniel. “Deathbed Testimonials of the Pure Land 

Faithful.” In Buddhism in Practice, ed. Donald Lopez. Princeton, 


Stevenson, Daniel. “Pure Land Buddhist Worship and Meditation 

in China.” In Buddhism in Practice, ed. Donald Lopez. 



London: Routledge, 1989. 

Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China, 2 vols. Leiden, 


PURE LANDS 


The English term Pure Land is used as a handy equivalent 

for the East Asian notion of a purified buddhafield, 

a large extent of space made pure and beautiful 

by the presence of a BUDDHA or BODHISATTVA. In its 

specific usage the phrase “the Pure Land” is one such 

purified world, the buddha-field of the Buddha 

AMITABHA. The English term has no Indian antecedent 

and is a direct translation of Chinese jingtu (pure field, 

pure land), or its Japanese equivalent jo do. 

Buddha-fields, pure and impure 

Buddhist cosmology depicts a universe formed of multiple 

worlds (lokadhatu) of varying sizes and characteristics. 

Some of these worlds have never had a 

buddha, but others are the special fields of practice 

(ksetra) of individual bodhisattvas, who, upon attaining 

awakening, will make this territory the field within 

which they exert their saving power and share their 

immeasurable merit in their role as perfect buddhas. 

Called buddha-fields (buddhaksetra), these worlds 

are made beautiful and perfect by the meritorious 

power of the buddhas that inhabit them and by the 

power of that buddha’s solemn bodhisattva vows. 

However, buddha-fields may have varying spiritual climates 

or degrees of perfection, and they are accordingly 

classified as pure or mixed. Worlds where the 

saving action of a buddha has not yet had its effect, or 

those that lack a buddha and are therefore technically 

not yet buddha-fields, are sometimes known as impure 

worlds. The world we inhabit, known as the Saha 

World, is considered one such imperfect world, 

despite the effects of Śakyamuni’s awakening and ministry. 

Other worlds have been completely “purified” 

by various buddhas and bodhisattvas, and are held as 

models of what a fully purified world, a pure land, 

would be. 

As long as a bodhisattva is still seeking full awakening, 

his “field” is not a “pure land”; thus, pure or purified 

denote the result of a long process by which the 

bodhisattva transforms a common world into a paradise 

or an ideal and marvel-filled world. This realm 

is “pure” in the sense that evil, disease, and suffering 

have been eliminated by the bodhisattva’s vows and 

actions; but it is also said that the field is “adorned” 

because it is made rich and beautiful with extraordinary 

marvels and treasures (jewel trees, charming 

ponds, spiritually uplifting music, etc.). Such a perfect 

world is a paradise-like place in which believers hope 

to be reborn after they die at the end of their present 

life of suffering. 

Those pure lands are places of maximum bliss (Chinese, 

jile; Japanese, gokuraku), paradisiacal lands, but 

they must be distinguished from other Indian notions 

of heavenly and earthly paradises. The imagery used to 

describe pure lands is indeed similar to the language 

used to describe the heavenly blissful realms of the gods 

(devaloka), the royal cities of universal monarchs, and 

the carefree life in the mythical land of Uttarakuru. 

However, unlike a pure land, these other paradisiacal 

realms are not completely free from the pains of RE- 

BIRTH, nor are they places favorable to the attainment 

of the final rest of NIRVAN A. 

Buddhist paradises 

The conception of a pure land is also different from 

Western notions of paradise: A pure land is not technically 

a place of pristine innocence before “the Fall,” 

nor is it the place or time for the souls or resurrected 

bodies of the blessed to dwell with a creator after death 

or after the restoration of the original paradise at the 

end of time. Pure lands are worlds parallel to ours, existing 

at the same time as our world, but perfected for 

the express purpose of allowing living beings the opportunity 

to pursue liberation in a favorable environment. 

They are places where one can escape from (in 

fact one will dwell outside of) the six REALMS OF EXIS- 

TENCE described in Buddhist COSMOLOGY. Perhaps one 

point of similarity to some Western conceptions of 


703

P URE 

L ANDS 

heavenly glory is the idea that pure lands are communities 

of saints, and that their inhabitants may influence 

the course of life in our world—primarily through 

the saving power of the buddha presiding over the pure 

land, but also because, as bodhisattvas, the inhabitants 

of a pure land may descend upon our lowly world or 

travel outside the pure land to worship buddhas and 

save SENTIENT BEINGS in many faraway universes. 

Although the purification of a world system is the 

work of only one bodhisattva, and there can be only 

one buddha presiding over a pure land, the number of 

pure lands in the universe is as great as many times the 

grains of sand in the Ganges River. Scriptural texts, 

however, usually mention only ten pure lands by name, 

one for each of the main and intermediate points of 

the compass, and at the zenith and the nadir. But a 

more common number of pure lands is four, one for 

each of the main directions of the compass. 

Only a few of these lands seem to have a clear 

mythology associated with a system of worship and belief. 

Among the purified fields associated with specific 

myths and texts or connected to special practices one 

must mention above all the western Pure Land of Buddha 

Amitabha, called Sukhavat (Blissful). But also of 

historical significance are the eastern Pure Land of 

AKSOBHYA, Abhirati (Enchantment), and the eastern 

land of Bhaisajyaguru, Vaiduryanirbhasa (Shining like 

Beryl). Still, the most famous is unquestionably Amitabha’s 

Sukhavat; it is the most common referent of 

the phrase “the Pure Land” (Chinese, jingtu; Japanese, 

jo do, or for that matter, jile and gokuraku). Thus, the 

hope of being reborn in Amitabha’s Pure Land is often 

synonymous with “Pure Land belief.” 

The Buddha Amitabha (Japanese, Amida) obtained 

this pure land as the result of the solemn vows (in East 

Asia traditionally counted as forty-eight) he made 

when, as the bodhisattva Dharmakara, he promised to 

seek enlightenment in order to create a paradise where 

those who heard his name and believed in him could 

be reborn. The hope of rebirth in Sukhavat and faith 

in Amitabha’s saving grace, like beliefs and practices 

associated with other pure lands, is firmly grounded in 

generalized MAHAYANA beliefs such as the bodhisattva 

vows, the saving powers of buddhas and bodhisattvas, 

the theme of bodhisattvas traveling to visit distant 

buddha-fields where they worship myriad buddhas, 

and the power of the transfer of merit. 

Sukhavat is depicted as a paradise, that is, a gardenlike 

enclosure, the inhabitants of which know nothing 

but beauty and bliss. In marvelous gardens and groves, 

birds and plants preach the dharma, and the presence 

of the Buddha Amitabha is accessible to living beings 

in varying degrees and guarantees the effortless attainment 

of nirvana. Living beings from impure lands who 

hear the name of the Buddha Amitabha and have faith 

in his vows will be reborn in his pure land immediately 

after they die in their own world. 

In some cases the mythology allows for pure lands 

that are not technically purified worlds—thus, MAI- 

TREYA, the buddha of the future, transforms the place 

he inhabits into a pure land by virtue of his presence. 

Yet his place of dwelling forms part of our world, for 

it is the heaven of the deities known as Tusita, located 

among the heavenly planes that rise above Mount 

Meru; once reborn in this world Maitreya will inhabit 

a royal city, Ketumat, that also shares some features 

with conceptions of the pure lands. East Asian Buddhists 

have identified other locations in our world as 

technically pure lands; this is the case, for instance, of 

the Vulture Peak near Rajagrha, where it is said that 

Śakyamuni preached the Mahayana sutras, or of 

Avalokiteśvara’s mythic island dwelling called Potalaka. 

Additionally, the literature mentions many more abstract 

notions of purified worlds, such as Vairocana’s 

Lotus Pure Land. 

Imagining pure worlds 

Of course, even pure lands presumed to be outside our 

world are given a concrete, if mythical, location 

(Sukhavat is trillions of worlds away), and they have 

very concrete topographic and material characteristics 

(Sukhavat is completely flat, Abhirati has mountains). 

Yet, this does not preclude metaphoric or atopic understandings 

of the reality of the pure land. Many Buddhists 

have rejected or qualified the notion of a distant 

pure land, or at the very least have emphasized the importance 

of “purifying” or transforming our own 

world. Some equate the purification of one’s own mind 

with the purification of society at large, so that this, 

our world of suffering and conflict, can or should become 

the pure land. These views were particularly important 

in the development of traditions fusing 

meditation with FAITH in the pure land, but the idea 

of the pure land as a state in this life rather than, or in 

addition to, being a distant place recurs throughout 

the history of Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhists have argued 

at times that our world can be a pure land, either 

by virtue of the power of a pure mind (a key concept 

in the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa), or because the practice of 

the dharma can transform a human society into a holy 

land (a common theme in the mythology of Buddhism 


P URE 

L ANDS 

Amitabha in the Western Paradise, from a painting at Dunhuang. (Chinese, ca. 618–907.) © Pierre Colombel/Corbis. Reproduced by 

permission. 

generally). The first of these ideas is not only an anagogic 

understanding of the concept, but also a psychological 

or epistemological understanding of the 

ideals of purity, beauty, and perfection. The second 

conception has social implications and may overlap 

with millenarian hopes that have appeared throughout 

the history of Buddhism. 

The idea of a “pure land of the mind” pervades the 

CHAN SCHOOL tradition even among those who do 

not adopt pure land practices. In his Zazen wasan 

(Hymn in Praise of Zazen) the Japanese Zen Master 

HAKUIN EKAKU (1686–1768) states that “the pure land 

is near at hand” for one who practices dhyana, and 

that for one who experiences no-mind, “this very 

world is the Pure Lotus Land.” In a more systematic 

way the idea appears in Tiantai theological writings, 

and even among the Chinese founders of pure land 

theology and practice. Thus, Shandao (613–681) explains 

that even while still in this world one is reborn 

in the pure land the moment one recites the nianfo 

(Japanese, nenbutsu). Such conceptions may resurface 

under favorable social conditions, as may have been 

the case among the reformers of Buddhism during the 

Chinese Republican period, or some of the Meiji and 

Taisho Japanese Pure Land thinkers, and perhaps in 

the myo ko nin movement of the same period of rapid 

modernization and rising nationalistic fervor. 

The East Asian concept of the pure land does not 

have an exact equivalent in the Buddhist literatures of 

Tibet and Southeast Asia. However, one may speak of 

a pan-Asian Buddhist belief in a purified and beautified 

paradise that offers ease of life, freedom from suffering, 

and the opportunity for a long life dedicated to 

spiritual pursuits in the presence of a buddha. In Tibet 

this belief is generally firmly set in the scholastic 

edifice of Mahayana and tantric ritual practice, and 

does not take the independent life that it took in East 

Asia. The pure land figures prominently in appeals to 

Amitayus (Amitabha’s alter ego) for long life, and for 

a sojourn in the pure land as a respite from the sorrows 

of this world. 

Graphic representations of different pure lands 

played an important role in East Asian iconography 

and religious architecture, such as on the murals at 

DUNHUANG. Similar motifs appear as MAN D ALAS 

(Japanese, mandara) or schematic representations of 


705

P URE L AND S CHOOLS 

the pure land, be it Amitabha’s land, as in the Taima 

Mandara (based on the Guan Wuliangshou jing, Contemplation 

of the Buddha of Limitless Life Su tra), or 

one of the representations of mythic geographies, as 

in the Kumano Mandara. The practice of using images 

of Amitabha for making believers at the moment 

of their death mindful of their hope of being reborn 

in his pure land also resulted in a variety of representations. 

The most famous among these are depictions 

of Amitabha’s descent with his retinue of 

bodhisattvas “coming to meet” (raigo ) and welcome 

believers who are on their deathbeds. 

The idea of a pure land plays a symbolic and iconic 

role that goes well beyond the technical theological 

sense of the concept. The concept has a more general 

manifestation: a paradisiacal or utopic place in which 

bliss and enlightenment are possible through the 

beneficent agency of a supremely enlightened and virtuous 

being, namely a buddha. In this broader sense, 

earthly locations and religious monuments may be 

seen as equivalents or embodiments of pure lands. For 

instance, the temple of Byodoin in Uji, Japan, represents 

a pavilion in Amitabha’s Pure Land. The POTALA 

in Lhasa represents the pure abode of Spyanras gzigs 

(Chenresik; Avalokiteśvara); the Potala is itself reproduced 

in the summer palace of the Manchu emperors 

in Jehol. A combination of several of these themes is 

seen in the temple complex of Joruriji, near Nara, 

Japan, a Shingon temple named after Bhaisajyaguru’s 

Pure Land. In this complex, two buildings arranged 

around a pond represent the pure lands of Amida 

(Amitabha—to the west) and Yakushi (Bhaisajyaguru— 

to the east); believers position themselves on the eastern 

bank of the pond, which represents our impure 

world, and look across to the Amida temple (iconically 

representing the pure land as depicted in the Guan Wuliangshou 

jing. Additionally, specific topographic configurations 

may be understood as pure lands. This is 

the case in Japan where, for instance, the Jodosan peak 

in Tateyama and the three mountains of the Kumano 

shrine are regarded as literal and ritual pure lands. 

The great variety of conceptions and representations 

of the concept need not be interpreted as an 

overflowing of the narrow boundaries of the more 

technical conception of a purified buddha-field. In 

earthly or iconic representations the idea of a pure 

land retains its mythic and metaphoric sense of a place 

made pure and beautiful by the saving presence of extraordinary 

holiness, especially the marvelous effects 

of the sacred presence—in person, icon, or memory— 

of a buddha or a bodhisattva. One may nevertheless 

summarize the above themes within five categories of 

pure land: (1) extraterrestrial pure lands of the future, 

objects of faith and goals of hope for rebirth—today 

the most common conception of the pure land; (2) 

cosmographic pure lands, that is, adorned extraterrestrial 

fields of the many buddhas and bodhisattvas 

of the universe; (3) topographic pure lands, which 

form part of concrete locations within mythic geographies; 

(4) millenarian, utopic, or ideal pure lands 

requiring a radical transformation of the present 

world in which we live; and (5) metaphoric or psychological 

pure lands, which are summarized by the 

phrase “a pure mind is the pure land.” 

See also: Dhyana (Trance State); Heavens; Hells; Pure 

Land Art; Pure Land Buddhism; Pure Land Schools 

Bibliography 

Fujita, Kotatsu. “Pure and Impure Lands.” In The Encyclopedia 

of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade, Vol. 12. New York: Macmillan, 

1987. 



of the Sukhavatlvyu Su tras (1996), 3rd printing, corrected 


Kloetzli, Randy. Buddhist Cosmology, from Single World System 

to Pure Land: Science and Theology in the Images of Motion 

and Light. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983. 

Lamotte, Étienne, trans. and ed. L’enseignement de Vimalaklrti. 

Louvain, Belgium: Institut Orientaliste, 1962. English translation: 

The Teaching of Vimalaklrti, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. London: 


MacCulloch, J. A. “Blest, Abode of the (Japanese).” Encyclopaedia 

of Religion and Ethics, 2 (1927): 700b–702a. 

Rowell, Teresina. “The Background and Early Use of the Buddhaksetra 

Concept.” Eastern Buddhist 6 (1933): 199–246, 

379–431; and 7 (1936): 131–145. 

Sadakata, Akira. Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins, tr. 

Gaynor Sekimori. Tokyo: Kosei, 1997. 

PURE LAND SCHOOLS 


The MAHAYANA sutras developed considerable lore 

based on the idea of different buddhas and bodhisattvas 

dwelling in buddha-fields (buddhaksetra). It 

is common for practitioners to meditate on, make offerings 

to, chant sutras about, and recite the name or 

MANTRA of a particular BUDDHA or BODHISATTVA. These 



Mahayana expressions developed out of the darśana 

complex, which is well documented in the earliest materials, 

and were seen as part of the overall institutional 

fabric of Indian Mahayana. (Buddha darśana refers to 

“seeing” the buddha and entering his nirvanic power, 

which leads to spriritual progress.) The core Mahayana 

idea is to cultivate a darśanic relationship with the buddha 

and thus gain awakening, or one could aim at future 

birth in the buddha-field. The genre of Mahayana 

literature that developed these ideas was instrumental 

in the formation of the tantras. AMITABHA Buddha and 

his accompanying bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara and 

Mahasthamaprapta, are the focus of the Pure Land tradition 

in East Asia. 

Pure Land teachings in China 

In China, the institutionalization of the Pure Land 

teachings and the first line of transmission began with 

the founding of the White Lotus Society by HUIYUAN 

(334–416) on Mount Lu. This society’s practice was 

based on the PRATYUTPANNASAMADHI-SU TRA. The lead 

devotee was Liu Yimin, one of the eighteen sages of 

Mount Lu, who wrote the society’s manifesto and a 

collection of chants. The area became a center of Pure 

Land teachings. 

The Larger SUKHAVATIVYU HA-SU TRA, a major text in 

the tradition, had been translated twice by the midthird 

century. In 402 the Amitabha Su tra (also called 

the Amida Su tra or Smaller Sukhavatlvyu ha-su tra) and 

later the Daśabhu mikavibhasa (Treatise on the Ten 

Stages), attributed to NAGARJUNA (ca. second century), 

were translated by KUMARAJIVA (350–409/413). The 

Guan Wuliangshou jing (Contemplation of the Buddha 

of Limitless Life Su tra) is claimed by tradition to have 

been translated between 424 and 453, though it is 

probably a Chinese or Central Asian composition. 

Once these three major sutras and one main commentary 

became available, the Pure Land teachings 

moved away from being solely based on the Pratyutpannasamadhi-su 

tra. 

Tanluan (476–542) became interested in Pure Land 

teaching through the influence of Bodhiruci (sixth century), 

who translated the Jingtu lun (Discourse on the 

Pure Land) attributed to VASUBANDHU (fourth century) 

in 531. Tanluan wrote an extensive commentary 

to this work, as well as Zan Amitofo ji (Verses in Praise 

of Amida Buddha) and Lüe lun anlejingtu yi (An 

Abridged Discourse on the Pure Land of Peace and Bliss). 

Tanluan accepted the Daśabhu mikavibhasa’s distinction 

of the difficult PATH (the path of sages) and the 

easy path (the Pure Land path). He believed that 

Amitabha’s Pure Land was the ultimate reality; that 

reciting Amitabha’s name (Chinese, nianfo; Sanskrit, 

buddhanusmrti) eliminates negative karma; and that 

the practice of nianfo requires a mind of true “confidence.” 

He also described how an accumulation of 

positive karma aids rebirth and is distributed when returning 

to aid sentient beings, and he accepted the divisions 

of the dharmakaya into a dharma-nature aspect 

and an expedience aspect. Tanluan coined the term 

other power, meaning not relying on one’s false notion 

of a self and its abilities but on the nirvanic power of 

Amitabha, a refinement of the Mahayana concept of 

adhisthana (base, power, approach, establish). According 

to Japanese sources, this constitutes a second 

transmission lineage. 

One of the greatest successors in Tanluan’s line is 

Daochuo (562–645), who, inspired by Tanluan’s writings, 

wrote Anle ji (A Collection of [Passages Concerning 

Birth in the Land of] Peace and Bliss), and 

promoted the idea of the DECLINE OF THE DHARMA and 

the idea that the nianfo samadhi was the highest samadhi. 

Shandao (613–681) was the most influential 

master in this lineage. At first he studied on Mount 

Lu and achieved some success practicing according to 

the Pratyutpannasamadhi-su tra. He later became 

Daochuo’s disciple and was able to attain the nianfo 

samadhi. Shandao reaffirmed Tanluan’s and 

Daochuo’s positions while developing further the 

overall doctrine. Although he discussed many Pure 

Land practices, he placed great emphasis on nianfo; he 

taught that nianfo was sufficient for rebirth in the Pure 

Land and that Amitabha was a sam bhogakaya buddha. 

Shandao delineated three types of confidence: sincere 

confidence, deep confidence, and confidence that 

seeks rebirth. Shandao also taught visualization methods 

and repentance, and developed the famous parable 

of the two rivers (fire-anger and water-greed) and 

the white path (the Pure Land path leading from 

SAM SARA to NIRVAN A) over the rivers. On the near side 

Śakyamuni stands, indicating that we should cross. On 

the far side, Amitabha stands, indicating that we 

should come. 

A third line of Pure Land began with Cimin (680– 

748), who had traveled in India and began spreading 

Pure Land teachings after his return. Cimin composed 

Jingtu cibei ji (The Pure Land Compassion Collection; 

partially extant), Xifang zan (Western Quarter Chant), 

and Pratyutpannasamadhi Chant. His teachings emphasized 

meditation, study, recitation, and precepts. 

The line that developed from the Pratyutpannasamadhisu 

tra also become part of the TIANTAI SCHOOL as ZHIYI 


707


(538–597) incorporated it into his system of practice. 

Zhiyi was a devotee of Amitabha (and other buddhas). 

In addition, he worked on the problem of classifying 

the different types of Pure Lands and developed the 

constant walking samadhi, which is focused on 

Amitabha, a core practice for Tiantai. 

From the Tang dynasty on, Tiantai forms of Pure 

Land practice were influenced by developments both 

within the school and from outside. Tiantai followers 

helped make Pure Land part of daily life during the 

Song dynasty (960–1279) and thereafter by forming 

White Lotus societies and engaging in other activities 

to spread the tradition. 

The Pure Land teachings were also influential in 

the CHAN SCHOOL. The Tiantai form influenced the 

fourth Chan patriarch Daoxin (580–651). Xuanshi, a 

disciple of the fifth patriarch, Hongren (688–761), 

founded the Southern Mountain Chan of the Nian Fo 

Gate school. Baizhang (749–814) incorporated Pure 

Land practices into his Chan rules, which are the behavioral 

code for Chan monasteries. YANSHOU 

(904–975) was influenced by Cimin’s line. Of particular 

note is Yinyan Longqi (1592–1673), who became 

the founder of the O baku Zen school in Japan. The 

idea of Pure Land practice even becomes the KO AN, 

“Who recites the nian fo.” 

There were many significant figures in Chinese 

Buddhist history who, although masters of different 

teachings such as Huayan and Sanlun, were influential 

in the overall development of Pure Land thought and 

practice. In fact, Pure Land teachings became so ubiquitous 

in Chinese Buddhism that to speak of them as 

a school is a misnomer. 

Pure Land teachings in Japan 

Gyogi (668–749), while cultivating donations for the 

building of Todaiji in Nara, spread the Pure Land 

teachings to the populace by publicly reciting the nenbutsu 

(Chinese, nianfo) and teaching people about the 

Pure Land in their homes. Chiko (709–780), a resident 

of Nara’s Gangoji, wrote a now lost commentary to 

Vasubandhu’s Discourse and had a MAN D ALA painted 

after his vision of the Pure Land. These are the major 

Pure Land activities during the early period. 

SAICHO (767–822), the founder of Tendai (Chinese, 

Tiantai) in Japan, introduced the teachings on 

Amitabha associated with this line of transmission. EN- 

NIN (794–864), Saicho’s main disciple in addition to 

those mentioned above, learned the “nianfo in five 

movements” while in China. Upon his return to Japan, 

he blended the “constant walking samadhi” with the 

“five movements” and created the nonstop (fudan) 

nenbutsu. He also seems to have known some esoteric 

aspects of Amitabha lore. With these beginnings 

Tendai became the fountainhead of Pure Land teachings 

in Japan for many centuries with masters like 

Ryogen (912–985), Ryonin (1072–1134), and many 

more. Of special distinction is the great master and 

prolific writer GENSHIN (942–1017), who composed 

some twenty works on Pure Land teachings, including 

the celebrated O jo yo shu (Essentials for Birth). 

The Heian period witnessed Amitabha sages who 

helped spread the teachings to the general population. 

Several of these are historically significant. Koya (903– 

972), a Tendai monk, performed many good works and 

taught the nenbutsu in the Nagoya, Kyoto, and northern 

Japan. Senkan (918–983), Koya’s disciple, wrote 

Gokurakukoku Mida wasan (Sukhavatl Realm Amida 

Chant) and many other works. Koya strictly observed 

the PRECEPTS and established eight rules and ten vows 

for his disciples. In addition, masters associated with 

many other schools of Japanese Buddhism also practiced 

and promoted Pure Land teachings. 

The Kamakura period saw an emphasis on finding 

the one primary practice that was sufficient for awakening, 

an effort that brought theretofore exclusive 

practices to the fore and led to a simplification of considerable 

lore throughout Japanese Buddhism. The 

first major figure to address this effort as it related 

to Pure Land teachings was HO NEN (1133–1212), a 

learned Tendai priest. He wrote a commentary to Genshin’s 

work, which became the standard of interpretation. 

In 1198 Honen wrote Senchaku hongan nenbutsu 

shu (Passages on the Selection of the Nenbutsu in the 

Original Vow), which explained the essentials of the 

nenbutsu way, including exclusive recitation, theory of 

the Pure Land lineage, emphasis on the three sutras, 

and welcoming by Amitabha at the time of death. 

Honen’s writings generally accepted the interpretation 

of the Shandao line. He also transmitted the bodhisattva 

precepts, and his teachings formed the basis 

of the Jodo school. 

Among Honen’s important disciples, SHINRAN 

(1173–1262) is of particular note. Like Honen, Shinran 

was first trained as a Tendai scholar-practitioner. 

He lived as an openly married priest and propagated 

Pure Land teachings near eastern Tokyo. He wrote a 

number of works including Kyo gyo shinsho (Teaching, 

Practice, Faith, and Attainment). A new sect (Jodo Shinshu) 

was based on his interpretations of the Pure Land 



teachings. Shinran considered Amitabha to be the Adi 

Buddha, and he emphasizes “other power,” exclusive 

nenbutsu, crosswise transcendence (instant and gradual 

attainment of awakening with Pure Land birth), the 

disadvantages of the path of sages, and the advantages 

of the Pure Land path. He also emphasized one vehicle 

(the nenbutsu), the dharma ending age, and that 

“confidence” or “faith” is endowed by the Tathagata, 

is Buddha-nature, and is the key to liberation. 

The last great Pure Land master of the Kamakura 

period was IPPEN CHISHIN (1239–1289), who studied 

under a second-generation disciple of Honen. Ippen 

had an awakening while in retreat at Kumanojin-ji and 

afterward spread the “dancing nenbutsu” teaching, 

which expresses the joy of the liberating power of 

Amitabha. The Ji school is based on his teachings. 

Although Chinese and Japanese practices and interpretations 

have developed along different lines, 

taken as a whole they help form a rich fabric for the 

tapestry of the greater Pure Land tradition. 


Horyuji and Todaiji; Kamakura Buddhism, 

Japan; Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, Yŏmbul); 


Bibliography 

Foard, James; Solomon, Michael; and Payne, Richard K.; eds. 

The Pure Land Tradition: History and Development. Berkeley: 

Regents of the University of California, 1996. 

Haar, B. J. ter. The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious 

History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992. 

Inagaki, Hisao. The Three Pure Land Su tras. Kyoto: Nagata Bunshodo, 

1994. 

Ono, Gemmyo. “On the Pure Land Doctrine of Tz’u-Min.” 

Eastern Buddhist 5, nos. 2–3 (1930): 200–210. 

A. W. BARBER 


709


R 

RA HULA 

Rahula was the son of Siddhartha Gautama, the 

Buddha-to-be. On hearing the news of Rahula’s birth, 

according to paracanonical literature, Siddhartha Gautama 

immediately decided to renounce the world and 

go forth into homelessness, considering the birth of a 

son an obstruction in his search for truth. The name 

Rahula literally means “little Rahu”; Rahu is the demon 

formerly believed to obstruct the sun and the 

moon and thus cause eclipses. When the Buddha visited 

his hometown for the first time after his realization 

of buddhahood, his former wife sent Rahula to 

his father to ask him for his inheritance. Not receiving 

any response, Rahula followed the Buddha, repeating 

his request, until eventually the Buddha had his son 

ordained by his chief disciple ŚARIPUTRA. 

As a monk, Rahula proved extremely conscientious, 

well-behaved, and eager to put into practice what he was 

taught. The Pali canon contains a number of important 

discourses addressed to Rahula, and it was while listening 

to the Buddha’s Cu la-Rahulavadasutta (Shorter Discourse 

of Advice to Rahula) on not-self (anatman) and 

disenchantment (nirvida) that Rahula realized arhatship. 

The account of his winning ultimate freedom that 

is given in the Chinese version of the Ekottaragama (Discourses 

Increasing by One) differs: Having received from 

the Buddha the decisive advice, Rahula practiced MIND- 

FULNESS of breathing, experienced DHYANA (TRANCE 

STATE), and obtained the three kinds of ABHIJNA (HIGHER 

KNOWLEDGES), culminating in penetrating insight. Thus 

his mind was freed from all malign influences. 

Tradition has it that Rahula died before his father. 

In his lifetime, he was esteemed foremost among the 

Buddha’s disciples in his eagerness to train. 


Bibliography 

Huyên-Vi, Thich; Bhikkhu Pasadika; and Boin-Webb, Sara. 

“Ekottaragama (XV): Translated from the Chinese Version 

(Taisho, Vol. 2, 581b29 ff.).” Buddhist Studies Review 10, 2 

(1993): 213–222. 

Malalasekera, G. P. “Rahula Thera.” In Dictionary of Pali Proper 

Names, Vol. 2. London: Indian Text Series, 1937–1938. 

REALMS OF EXISTENCE 

BHIKKHU PA SA DIKA 

The Sanskrit term gati (literally “manner of going”) 

refers to the different “destinies” or realms of existence 

that await beings at death and into which they will be 

reborn as a result of the particular KARMA (ACTION) that 

has dominated their lives. The older Buddhist texts (followed 

by the exegetical texts and manuals of such 

schools as the THERAVADA and Sarvastivada) preserve a 

list of five basic realms: HELLS, hungry ghosts, animals, 

human beings, and gods. But it was always recognized 

that these five—and especially the last—represented 

broad categories. Thus we find different hells listed and 

different types of hungry ghosts distinguished, as well as 

a whole hierarchy of gods (deva). 

Some Buddhist schools and some MAHAYANA sutras 

speak of six basic realms of existence, adding the asuras 

(jealous gods) to the list. Other schools, although in 

effect also recognizing rebirth as an asura as a significant 

and distinctive form of existence, refused to allow 

an actual list of six gatis on the grounds that such a list 

was not given in the earliest sutras. 

711

R EBIRTH 

There is an old tradition (continued now especially 

in Tibetan Buddhism) of representing the six realms 

graphically as forming six segments of a wheel of existence: 

at the top, the heavenly realms of the gods, and 

moving clockwise, the jealous gods (separated by the 

wishing tree), animals, hells, hungry ghosts, and humans. 

The outer rim of the wheel is formed of the 

twelve links of PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPENDENT ORIG- 

INATION). At the hub, driving the whole process, are a 

cock (greed), a snake (hatred), and a pig (ignorance). 

Origins of the doctrine 

Scholars have long debated the origins of the theory of 

rebirth among the religions of India. Some trace the 

belief to the ritual models inscribed in the ancient 

literature of the Vedas and Brahmanas, which rested 

firmly on belief in the efficacy of ritual sacrifice as a 

means to secure a place in heaven. To guarantee positive 

future results these sacrificial acts were required 

to be perpetually reenacted. The conceptual parallels 

in this ancient model of a continuous cycle of ritual 

action have led some scholars to suggest that the mechanics 

of Vedic ritual should be seen as the precursor 

to later Indian theories of karma, sam sara, and rebirth. 

Other more controversial suggestions have been 

that rebirth doctrine originated among the ancient 

non-Aryan tribal groups of India. Still others theorize 

that the doctrine was formulated by followers of 

the sam nyasin (renouncer) traditions affiliated with 

the broad-based śramana (mendicant) movement that 

began to emerge in India around the sixth century 

B.C.E., a movement that included the early Buddhists 

and Jains. 

See also: Cosmology; Divinities; Ghosts and Spirits; 

Heavens 

Bibliography 






REBIRTH 

RUPERT GETHIN 

Rebirth (Sanskrit, punaravrtti, punarutpatti, punarjanman, 

or punarjlvatu), also called transmigration and 

reincarnation, is the belief common to all Buddhist traditions 

that birth and death occur in successive cycles 

driven by ignorance (avidya), DESIRE (trsna), and 

hatred (dvesa). The cycle of rebirth, termed SAM SARA, 

is beginningless and ongoing, and it is determined by 

the moral quality of a person’s thoughts and KARMA 

(ACTION). The effects of good moral actions lead to 

wholesome rebirths, and the effects of bad moral actions 

lead to unwholesome rebirths. 

Rebirth and the problem of no-self 

The Buddhist doctrine of rebirth differs fundamentally 

from the idea generally upheld in Hinduism and Jainism, 

both of which accept the existence of an eternal 

and substantial self or soul (atman in Hinduism, jlva 

in Jainism) that transmigrates from life to life. Buddhism, 

by contrast, rejects the notion of an absolute 

self. Fundamental to its understanding of rebirth is 

the doctrine of no-self (anatman)—the idea that in 

sam sara, which is forever in flux, impermanent, and 

constantly changing, there can be no permanent, unchanging, 

independent self or soul. 

But if there is no absolute self, how does Buddhism 

resolve the problem of transmigration and of the continuity 

of karma between one life and the next? The 

early Buddhist schools in India offered a variety of responses 

to this conundrum. One school, the Vatsputrya 

(also known as the PUDGALAVADA), went so far 

as to propose the concept of an inexpressible personal 

entity (pudgala) that traveled from life to life, a concept 

that seemed to contradict the fundamental tenet 

of anatman. Other schools, such as the Sarvastivada, 

posited the existence of an ethereal entity (called a 

gandharva) composed of subtle forms of the five 

SKANDHA (AGGREGATES) that passed through an IN- 

TERMEDIATE STATE (antarabhava) between death and 

the next birth. In the early period of Buddhism in India, 

concepts like pudgala and antarabhava were subjects 

of much controversy. 

Not all of the schools accepted such ideas. The 

THERAVADA, for example, denied the existence of an 

intermediate state and argued instead for the existence 

of an inactive mode of deep consciousness (bhavaṅga) 

that forms a causal link (Sanskrit, pratisandhi; Pali, 

patisandhi) between one life and the next. In this view, 

the first moment of consciousness in a new birth is 

simply the direct conditioned effect of the final moment 

of consciousness of the immediately previous 

existence. 


R EBIRTH 

Rebirth and cosmic causality 

In basic Buddhist doctrinal terms, an answer to the difficult 

question of rebirth in light of the cardinal teaching 

of “no-self” is to be located in how Buddhism 

understands causality, the way one thing leads to another. 

One Buddhist formula describes it as follows: 

“When this exists, that exists; from this arising, that 

arises. When this does not exist, that does not exist; 

from this ceasing, that ceases.” Technically speaking, 

this principle of causality is explicated by the formal 

doctrine of PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPENDENT ORIGI- 

NATION), which holds that all phenomena, including 

the “self” and the surrounding world, arise out of a network 

of relationships dependent upon other causes and 

conditions. The self, therefore, is not to be understood 

as an essential, independent entity moving from one 

life to the next, but rather as a manifestation of a complex 

of causes and conditions, both mental and physical, 

themselves interdependent and continually in flux. 

The doctrine of dependent origination is graphically 

depicted as a circular chain consisting of twelve conditioned 

and conditioning links (nidana): (1) ignorance, 

the inability to perceive the truth of ANITYA (IMPERMA- 

NENCE) and dependent origination, conditions (2) 

karmic formations, from which comes (3) consciousness, 

which leads to (4) mind-and-body (name and 

form) and then (5) the six senses (sources); the gateway 

of the six senses leads to (6) sensory contact that creates 

(7) sense impressions or feelings; these lead to (8) attachment; 

attachment leads to (9) grasping, which in 

turn gives rise to (10) becoming; becoming culminates 

in (11) birth, from which follow (12) aging and death, 

and the cycle begins again. In sequence, these twelve 

links generate life cycles within the perpetual process of 

sam sara driven by karma. In this way, the twelvefold 

chain of dependent origination describes the process of 

rebirth. Birth and death, then, are to be understood as 

nothing more or less than oscillating links in the ongoing 

chain of cause and effect. Rebirth is a configuration 

of a new cluster of causes and conditions propelled by 

previous karmic impulses. The process is compared to 

lighting one candle with the flame of another; the former 

flame is not the same as the latter and yet there is 

still a transfer of the flame. Like lighting a new candle, 

rebirth is simply the movement of a continuum of everchanging 

mental and physical complexes from one 

physical support to another. It is this particular notion 

of causality that lies at the heart of the Buddhist understanding 

of rebirth. 

The engine of rebirth is karma, the good and bad 

actions of body, speech, and mind that have been performed 

not only in the immediately preceding life but 

also many lifetimes ago. The cumulative moral quality 

of a person’s karma determines the quality of each 

successive life. There is widespread consensus among 

Buddhists everywhere, however, that the state of a person’s 

mind at the moment of death can actually be the 

most significant factor in setting the course for the future 

rebirth. It is usually the case that the mind at death 

tends to be occupied by whatever habitual thoughts 

and actions were most familiar in life or by whatever 

actions are performed just prior to death. For this reason, 

Buddhism recommends the cultivation of proper 

mindfulness and the performance of virtuous activities 

at the time of dying, which are all designed to insure 

a favorable rebirth. To be sure, the concern of the 

vast majority of ordinary Buddhists is less about the 

achievement of liberation from the cycle of sam sara 

and more about the attainment of a better position 

within that cycle. A good rebirth, according to Buddhism, 

is birth in one of the three higher realms of 

sam sara, that of gods (deva), demigods (asura), and 

human beings (manusya), with human birth deemed 

the most precious. Rebirth in the other three realms, 

of animals (tiryak), ghosts (preta), and hell beings 

(naraka), is regarded as terribly unfortunate. In all 

Buddhist cultures, certain merit-enhancing actions are 

performed at death to assure favorable circumstances 

in the next life. In the most general terms, these actions 

include the dedication of merit, almsgiving, and 

the recitation of Buddhist scriptures. 

Methods for ensuring a wholesome rebirth 

In China and Japan, much emphasis is placed on rebirth 

in a buddha’s pure land, such as AMITABHA’s 

pure land of Sukhavat, the Land of Bliss. Although 

there are multiple explanations for how best to ensure 

rebirth in one of these pure lands, in general it 

requires faith and a sincere aspiration to be reborn 

there. The repeated chanting of the name of the particular 

buddha of that realm or the recitation of his 

scripture at the moment of dying is also recommended. 

In addition, Chinese Buddhists at the time 

of death sometimes offer ritual paper money, popularly 

called “spirit money,” to the postmortem bureaucrats 

and executive officers who are believed to 

abide in the afterlife. It is thought that this monetary 

offering will lessen the deceased’s karmic debts and 

secure passport to a more favorable rebirth. The 

burning of such “hell notes” as an offering for the 

benefit of the dead is also practiced among Buddhists 

in Burma (Myanmar) and Vietnam. 


713

R EFUGES 

In Japanese Buddhism, posthumous ORDINATION, 

the monastic ordination of the dying on their deathbed, 

is commonly practiced as a means to guarantee 

salvation and a better rebirth. In this way it can be said 

that all Buddhists in Japan die as MONKS or NUNS. 

Tibetan Buddhism also recognizes the value of virtuous 

actions and proper MINDFULNESS at the moment 

of death. In Tibet, special rituals are performed to actually 

guide the deceased’s consciousness through the 

perilous pathways of the intermediate state (Tibetan, 

bar do) and into the next life. These funerary rituals 

are inscribed in specific Tibetan Buddhist liturgical 

manuals, some of which have achieved notoriety in 

Western-language translations, such as the TIBETAN 

BOOK OF THE DEAD. 

In all of these Buddhist deathbed practices an underlying 

principle is at work. Virtuous actions performed 

at the moment of death by the dying and by 

surviving relatives can positively affect a person’s future 

destiny. In other words, a good death leads to a 

good rebirth. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Cosmology; 

Death; Hinduism and Buddhism; Intermediate States; 


Bibliography 

Jamgon Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé. Myriad Worlds: Buddhist Cosmology 

in Abhidharma, Kalacakra, and Dzog-chen, tr. and ed. 

by the International Translation Committee founded by the 

V.V. Kalu Rinpoche. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1995. 

O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger, ed. Karma and Rebirth in Classical 

Indian Traditions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 

1980. 



Teiser, Stephen F. The Scripture of the Ten Kings and the Making 



Tenzin Gyatso (Dalai Lama XIV). The Meaning of Life: Buddhist 

Perspectives on Cause and Effect, tr. and ed. Jeffrey Hopkins. 


REFUGES 


At the beginning of virtually every Buddhist ritual performed 

in South and Southeast Asia, whether public 

or private, the following Pali invocation is chanted: 

Buddham saranam gaccham i. 

Dhammam saranam gacchami. 

Sangham saranam gacchami. 

The translation is: 

I go to the Buddha as a refuge. 

I go to the dhamma as a refuge. 

I go to the saṅgha as a refuge. 

Taking refuge in the triratna (triple gem) is usually 

first chanted by a monk and then repeated by the laity. 

It is a collective confessional statement in which the 

three “jewels” of the śasana (tradition or teaching) are 

publicly affirmed, a declaration that the Buddha discovered 

the truth and made it known to the SAṄGHA, 

who have preserved and embodied it. 

Taking refuge in the triratna is often a prelude to 

the acceptance of basic PRECEPTS. Observing the pañcaślla 

(fivefold morality) is regarded as normative for 

all pious Buddhists. Indeed, it is an ancient moral formula 

shared with other Indian religious śramana (renunciant) 

and Brahmana (priestly) traditions and 

comprises the cardinal principles encoded within the 

monastic Vinayapitaka (Book of Discipline). This code 

includes prohibitions against taking life, against taking 

what is not given, against lying about spiritual achievement, 

against engaging in sexual misconduct, and 

against imbibing intoxicants—five basic precepts for 

Buddhists. Atthaślla, the taking of eight precepts by 

laity on full-moon days, includes observing the five 

precepts plus three more: not taking solid food after 

noon, wearing only white clothes without ornamentation, 

and sitting and lying only on mats. 

See also: Ordination; Vinaya 

Bibliography 

Carter, John Ross. On Understanding Buddhists: Essays on the 

Theravada Tradition in Sri Lanka. Albany: State University 



in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 

1971. 

JOHN CLIFFORD HOLT 


R ELICS A ND R ELICS C ULTS 

RELICS AND RELICS CULTS 

Relic veneration has been virtually ubiquitous in the 

history of Buddhist traditions. The reputed remains of 

the historical Buddha, as well as those of other BUD- 

DHAS, BODHISATTVAS, and even DISCIPLES OF THE BUD- 

DHA, have been the objects of WORSHIP in a variety of 

locations and eras. Such remains have usually taken 

the form of granulated ashes or bones, and have often 

been seen as possessing a sheen similar to, if not identical 

with, JEWELS. In some contemporary Buddhist traditions, 

believers search for relics among the cremated 

remains of deceased masters; if found, such remains 

will sometimes be divided for distribution among affiliated 

monasteries. 

Meaning and early historical context 

The term that is usually used to refer to relics in Sanskrit 

Buddhist literature is śarlra, which refers to the 

body. Less frequently, dhatu, a word with multiple and 

complex senses, is used. Relics have been a focus of 

veneration for Buddhists since, it would seem, the 

passing of the historical Buddha Śakyamuni himself. 

The MAHAPARINIRVANA-SUTRA (Pali, Mahaparinibbanasutta; 

Great Discourse on the Extinction) depicts the 

relics of the Buddha as remaining at his cremation 

pyre. Monarchs of northern India vied to obtain the 

relics for enshrinement, leading to a dispute that was 

prevented only by a Brahman named Drona, who divided 

the remains into eight portions for distribution. 

Archaeological investigations at reliquary sites, such as 

Vaiśal and Piprahwa in northern India, have further 

confirmed that the practice of relic veneration existed 

prior to the time of King AŚOKA (third century B.C.E.). 

According to the Pali Kalin˙gabodhi-jataka, funerary 

mounds housed three types of relics of the Buddha: 

bodily relics (sarlrika-cetiyam), use or contact relics 

(uddesika-cetiyam), and commemoration relics (paribhogika-cetiyam). 

In general, Buddhist traditions have 

interpreted the bodily relics to be granulated ashes, as 

well as remains of teeth, hair, and flesh. Use or contact 

relics were objects believed to be associated with 

the Buddha, such as his begging bowl and staff. The 

relics of commemoration, a category that presumably 

developed later than the others, consisted of images of 

the Buddha. 

Relics were signs that simultaneously represented 

DEATH and the conquest of death. As emphasized by 

Peter Brown in the context of the veneration of saints’ 

relics in Western Mediterranean Christendom of the 

third to sixth centuries, the reputed remains of saints 

provided believers with hope; the presence of the relic, 

as an instantiation of the “special dead,” provided a 

kind of proof of existence beyond death and alleviated 

anxieties concerning what seemed to be radical finitude. 

For Buddhists, relics, especially those of the historical 

Buddha, served as a sign of death and the 

subjugation of death. 

On the one hand, the Buddha was subject to the 

universal law of ANITYA (IMPERMANENCE), like all other 

beings. Moreover, relics, like the living community of 

MONKS, constituted a “field of merit,” so that making 

offerings to relics and reliquaries enabled believers to 

accumulate great merit (punya). Indeed, a conceptual 

relationship existed in Buddhist literature between 

relic veneration and the actions of the Buddha during 

previous lives as a BODHISATTVA. In particular, JATAKA 

tales describe acts of giving on the part of the bodhisattva, 

such as the offering of his body or other 

valuable objects on behalf of other beings, which 

served as a model of ideal giving. Thus, sites associated 

with the offering of the bodhisattva’s body became locations 

for construction of relic STU PAs, and Buddhist 

literature depicted the construction of reliquaries in response 

to such actions. In fact, homilies that invoked 

tales of the Buddha’s sacrifice were probably made at 

stupas in order to encourage believers to give lavish offerings 

to reliquaries. 

On the other hand, relics represented the Buddha’s 

conquest of death through his attainment of parinirvana; 

they were an index of his former presence. Indeed, 

as Gregory Schopen has noted, the relics and the 

reliquary constituted a “legal person” because the Buddha 

was viewed as a living entity on the site and the 

rightful owner of objects offered at the stupa. One Buddhist 

text forbade the appropriation of even a robe 

given to a reliquary, warning against its exchange for 

money, because no object of the stupa could have a 

price. Other writings went so far as to identify the theft 

of reliquary property with the five acts of immediate 

retribution within the Buddhist community (Schopen 

1987, pp. 206–208). 

In addition, the transfer of relics to increasingly disparate 

locations made it possible for Buddhists to venerate 

holy figures without going on long-distance 

pilgrimages. Buddhists throughout Asia were clearly 

concerned about their access to sites associated with 

the historical Buddha, and remains reputedly of him 

or those close to him were highly valued. Through the 

local veneration of relics, Buddhists could gain merit 


715


A monk carries a miniature stupa containing a tooth believed to have been the Buddha’s. It was put on display in Taiwan in 1998. 

Here it is escorted from the airport by an official party led by the Taiwanese prime minister. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by 

permission. 

equivalent to that accrued through PILGRIMAGE to sacred 

sites like BODH GAYA and Lumbin Garden. Thus, 

the presence of reputed relics bridged the temporal gap 

between contemporary believers and the historical 

Śakyamuni, whose life grew increasingly distant with 

the passage of time. 

In fact, for Buddhists, the mobility of relics offered 

a new mode of relationship with Śakyamuni, the early 

disciples, and later Buddhist saints. Insofar as relics 

could be easily transported across long distances, these 

objects (like the images and amulets studied by Stanley 

Tambiah in contemporary Thai Buddhism) were 

“repositories of power.” They constituted the burning 

energy (tejas) manifested in the body of the Buddha 

and other holy beings, as well as in images of them. Indeed, 

the transfer of relics to, and their discovery in, 

Southeast Asia and East Asia became so common that 

one might argue, as Brown has noted in the context of 

Christendom, that “Translations—the movement of 

relics to people—and not pilgrimages—the movement 

of people to relics—hold the center of the stage in lateantique 

and early-medieval piety” (pp. 89–96). 

Throughout the history of early Buddhism, as well as 

later MAHAYANA and TANTRA Buddhism, relics of one 

form or another were venerated in a vast variety of locales, 

and constituted a form of veneration that complemented 

efforts at pilgrimage. 

The increasing dissemination of śarlra 

The categories of Buddhist relics include not only 

bodily remains of the historical Buddha and other 

saints, but a variety of other objects. For example, image 

consecration in Buddhism included the common 

practice of inserting relics inside of the images. 

In works associated with the rise of Mahayana Buddhism, 

the words of the Buddha as embodied in sutras 



were represented as śarlra or dhatu. As the Mahayana 

came to prioritize worship of “the book” as manifesting 

the presence of the Buddha, sutras as relics came 

to be considered superior to physical remains. Moreover, 

insofar as the practice of venerating bodily relics 

had developed earlier and was historically dominant, 

the discussions of relics in sutras of the early and middle 

Mahayana were ambivalent, both antagonistic toward 

the practice and modeling it. Scriptures such as 

the early Astasahasrikaprajñaparamita-su tra (Perfection 

of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines) thus stressed the fundamental 

importance of relic veneration, while at the 

same time emphasizing that because sutras are the 

dharma of the Buddha, their veneration is, ultimately, 

superior to that of physical remains. 

In this context, such “dharma” relics came to be inserted 

in stupas throughout Asia by the early centuries 

of the common era. In most cases, only portions of the 

scripture were included. The verse most often enshrined 

described PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPENDENT 

ORIGINATION): “Those dharmas which arise from a 

cause: the Tathagata has declared their cause, and that 

which is the cessation of them; thus the great renunciant 

has taught.” Thus, the words of the Buddha, 

when inserted in reliquaries, revivified his presence, 

and works such as the Pratltyasamutpada-su tra described 

the great merit of inserting such verses even 

into miniature stupas. 

By roughly the middle of the first millennium, the 

emergent Mahayana DHARAN I sutras (incantatory formulae 

scriptures) proclaimed that dharan should be 

deposited in stupas and interpreted as relics. Indeed, 

as noted by Yael Bentor, the contents of scriptures such 

as the Guhyadhatu equate their very presence with that 

of the Buddha and his relics (p. 252). The practice of 

inserting dharan in stupas occurred in parts of China, 

Tibet, Korea, and Japan, in addition to the Indian subcontinent. 

The Shingon school of the Japanese tantric tradition, 

which inherited the practice of venerating relics 

from Chinese Buddhism, stressed the importance of 

the bodily relics that the founder KU KAI (774–835) 

brought back from China. Over time, the Shingon 

school developed innovative interpretations of relics. 

The so-called Last Testament (Go-yuigo ) of Kukai, 

from roughly the tenth century, describes how Buddha 

relics and a variety of precious substances and 

herbs can be combined to produce a wish-fulfilling 

“jewel” (Japanese, nyoi ho ju; Sanskrit, cintamani). 

Likewise, some scriptures describe how, in the event 

that “authentic” relics cannot be obtained for ritual 

use, relics can be constructed from a variety of precious 

stones, pebbles, or medicines. 

Buddhist kingship and the ritual use of relics 

As noted above, Buddhist tradition told of the efforts 

of monarchs to obtain relics of the Buddha on the occasion 

of his cremation. Moreover, King AŚOKA’s construction 

of reliquaries, and the wealth of literature 

describing him constructing eighty-four thousand 

stupas throughout the Indian subcontinent, consolidated 

the narrative foundations for a long history of 

royal patronage of relics, as well as for a wide variety 

of ritual uses. 

The Aśokavadana (Legend of Aśoka) had the greatest 

influence on the development of Buddhist traditions 

concerning the ideal of the wheel-turning king 

(cakravartin) and his relationship with relics. In particular, 

the motif of the ruler’s construction and protection 

of reliquaries arose out of Aśoka’s effort to give 

exhaustively to the Buddhist community, and the centerpiece 

of his actions is his construction of stupas. As 

a wheel-turning king, Aśoka is the chief supporter of 

the “wheel of dharma,” the teachings of Buddhism; to 

fulfill that duty, he cares for the body of the Buddha 

in the form of relics. In symbolic terms, as suggested 

by Paul Mus, when a king constructs stupas to house 

relics, he and his kingdom become a kind of living reliquary. 

To the extent that stupas constitute mesocosms 

(cosmic centers for the ritual invocation of the absent 

Buddha), the Buddhist king may also be conceived of 

as a symbol of the Buddha. 

The construction of stupas and their veneration by 

rulers and aristocrats continued with the spread of 

Buddhism. Rulers in China, especially those of the Wei 

of the mid-fifth to sixth centuries, gave elaborately to 

the Buddhist community, a relationship epitomized by 

the sponsorship of the construction of stupas and images. 

Emperor Wen (r. 581–604) of the Sui dynasty 

took imitation of Aśoka’s patronage to great lengths, 

going so far as to sponsor the construction of multiple 

stupas enshrining Buddha relics for distribution to 

monasteries throughout the land. 

Imperial patronage of relic veneration in China, Sri 

Lanka, and other areas of Asia constituted both a 

demonstration of the rulers’ largess and a response to 

the fervor of local Buddhists. For example, the writings 

of Chinese pilgrims such as FAXIAN (ca. 337–418) 

indicate that the Chinese were aware of the practice 

among Asian rulers of conducting relic processions to 


717


The Buddha’s finger relic, in a miniature gold pagoda. In 2002 it was taken from Famensi in Xi’an, China for display in Taiwan. 


bolster their authority, and the large crowds that attended 

such processions gave evidence of faith among 

the populace. Indeed, a famous tract by Han yu 

(768–824) argued forcefully against welcoming the 

relic of the Buddha’s finger from FAMENSI into the Chinese 

imperial palace in 819. Han yu demonstrated in 

his criticisms of believers’ behavior the extent of their 

devotion, whereby some burned their heads and fingers, 

and discarded clothing and large numbers of 

coins. On the occasion of another procession of Buddha 

relics in 873, worshippers variously offered their 

arms, fingers, and hair in acts that symbolically 

matched the bodily sacrifices that Śakyamuni as a 

bodhisattva had made in the jataka tales. 

In Japan, the royal government, in a gesture similar 

to that of Emperor Wen, sponsored the presentation 

of Buddha relics throughout the land. In this case, 

however, the offerings were made to celebrate royal accession 

to shrines of the native deities (kami), with relic 

veneration being incorporated directly into cults associated 

with royal authority. Moreover, clerics of the 

Shingon school held an annual royal rite in the palace 

Shingon’in chapel in veneration of the relics brought 

back by Kukai, suggesting that monastic Buddhists, together 

with the royal family and aristocracy, saw the 

veneration of relics as key to the annual renewal of the 

ruler’s body and of the realm. At the same time, possession 

of the relics legitimized the Shingon lineage internally 

and vis-à-vis the royal family. By at least the 

thirteenth century, the relics of Shingon were seen as 

indispensable to royal authority; by the fourteenth century, 

clerics of both the Shingon and Tendai tantric 

traditions identified the wish-fulfilling jewel with the 

regalia of the sovereign. 

See also: Merit and Merit-Making; Printing Technologies; 

Reliquary; Self-Immolation 

Bibliography 

Bentor, Yael. “On the Indian Origins of the Tibetan Practice of 

Depositing Relics and Dharanls in Stupas and Images.” Journal 

of the American Oriental Society 115, no. 2 (1995): 

248–261. 

Boucher, Daniel. “The Pratltyasamutpadagatha and Its Role in 

the Medieval Cult of the Relics.” Journal of the International 



R ELIQUARY 

Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in 

Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 

1981. 



Press, 1991. 

Mus, Paul. Barabadur: esquisse d’une histoire du bouddhisme 

fondée sur la critique archéologique des textes, 2 vols. Hanoi, 

Vietnam: Imprimerie d’Extreme-Orient, 1935. Reprint, New 

York: Arno Press, 1988. 




Schopen, Gregory. “Burial ‘Ad Sanctos’ and the Physical Presence 

of the Buddha in Early Indian Buddhism: A Study in 

the Archaeology of Religions.” Religion 17 (1987): 193–225. 




1997. 



Press, 1983. 


the Cult of Amulets: A Study of Charisma, Hagiography, Sectarianism, 

and Millennial Buddhism. New York: Cambridge 



Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition. New 

York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 

RELIQUARY 


As the focus of worship in early Buddhist monasteries, 

every STU PA or pagoda had a foundation deposit, usually 

sealed within a stone casket or small chamber beneath 

the central mast, and hence inaccessible once the 

stupa was raised above it. 

Reliquary deposits were placed either in a vault 

centrally located in the foundations of a pagoda or 

higher up in a chamber within the structure. Such deposits 

were made at the time of construction, but 

those in the foundation vault would be recovered and 

reconsecrated whenever it became necessary to rebuild 

the structure above them (e.g., when a pagoda 

built of wood burnt down and was rebuilt). Exceptionally, 

as at FAMENSI, the vault would be accessible 

on other occasions. 

Many deposits have been revealed through excavation 

and conservation projects in the second half of the 

twentieth century. The earliest examples, like the earliest 

pagoda (Songyuesi ta at Dengfeng in Henan 

province, dated 520) are from the Northern Wei dynasty 

(386–534). At this date, the reliquary container 

is a cubical stone chest, no more than thirty centimeters 

in height, with a chamfered stone lid. The relics or 

sheli (the Chinese rendering of the Sanskrit śarlra) are 

tiny crystalline grains, usually enclosed in a very small 

glass bottle. This in turn is enclosed within other containers, 

and accompanied by wrappings of silk and offerings 

of various kinds, including precious objects and 

coins. Among the latter it is common to find coins 

minted a decade or so earlier in Byzantium or the Sassanian 

empire, which had come to China through trade 

along the SILK ROAD. 

In the seventh century, the shape of the reliquary 

was changed into the form of a Chinese coffin, with 

arched lid, higher at one end than the other, a Sinicized 

form that was to persist until the end of the twentieth 

century, when clear plastic containers of this form 

were used to reconsecrate the four relics found in the 

Famensi pagoda deposit. 

The most recently discovered reliquary deposit was 

recovered during excavation of the Leifengta, on the 

shores of the West Lake in Hangzhou, the brick core 

of which collapsed in 1924. Excavated in 2001, the 

foundation chamber contained an iron chest (the 

domed and flat-sided one-piece cover extending to the 

flat square base with raised inner flange) with its contents 

intact. The relics inside were contained in a 

miniature one-story stupa of silver, dedicated by the 

ruler of the eastern state of Wu-Yue in the tenth 

century, set on a gilt-bronze circular tray with floral 

decoration. A seated bronze image of Śakyamuni supported 

on a dragon, bronze mirrors, coins, and exquisite 

jade carvings were also found inside the iron 

chest. The rulers of Wu-Yue are said to have dedicated 

eighty-four thousand such miniature stupas. One reliquary 

deposit, the Wanfosi at Jinhua in Zhejiang 

province, contained no fewer than twenty-one of them. 

Relic deposits, often dated and containing, besides 

the relic grains themselves, Buddhist images and scriptures; 

wooden, lacquered and inlaid containers; and 

countless objects made of precious materials, provide 

some of the most fascinating evidence of Buddhist devotion. 

In the eyes of Buddhist devotees, relics were of 

equal if not greater importance than scriptures and images. 

The great traveler and translator XUANZANG (ca. 


719

R ENNYO 

600–664) brought 150 relic grains, as well as seven images 

and 657 chapters of Buddhist scriptures, from his 

sixteen-year journey to India. 

See also: Relics and Relics Cults; Ritual Objects 

Bibliography 

Wang, Eugene Y. “Of the True Body: The Famensi Relics and 

Corporeal Transformation in Tang Imperial China.” In Body 

and Face in Chinese Visual Culture, ed. Wu Hung et al. Cambridge, 

MA: Harvard Asia Center and Harvard University 

Press, 2003. 

Whitfield, Roderick. “Buddhist Monuments in China: Some 

Recent Finds of Śarra Deposits.” In The Buddhist Heritage: 

Papers Delivered at the Symposium of the Same Name Convened 

at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University 

of London, November 1985, ed. Tadeusz Skorupski. Tring, 

UK: Institute of Buddhist Studies, 1989. 

RENNYO 


Rennyo (1415–1499) was the eighth head of the Honganji 

temple of the Jodo Shinshu tradition of PURE 

LAND BUDDHISM in Japan. The Shinshu, which originated 

in the teachings of SHINRAN (1173–1263), 

emerged during Rennyo’s period as the largest and 

most powerful Buddhist movement in Japan. Rennyo 

is largely credited with the Shinshu’s expansion and 

success in the fifteenth century and with building Honganji 

from a minor temple in Kyoto into a formidable 

institution. 

Early in his career Rennyo’s initiatives incensed rivals 

at the Tendai monastic complex on Mount Hiei 

outside Kyoto, which dominated religious affairs in the 

region. Its agents attacked and destroyed Honganji in 

1465, and sent Rennyo fleeing into the provinces, 

where he spent the next decade and a half proselytizing. 

Gradually, he built up a massive following, especially 

among peasants, and he popularized Shinshu 

teachings though his ofumi (pastoral letters), which 

were circulated and read aloud in congregational meetings. 

The message he proclaimed was that faith in 

Amida (AMITABHA) Buddha assures birth in the Pure 

Land where Buddhist enlightenment is certain. Rennyo 

also taught that the nenbutsu, the Pure Land practice 

of reciting Amida’s name, was a palpable 

expression of coalescence with the Buddha and indebtedness 

to him. People in this religious state, he 

claimed, live a life of peace and assurance, and are inspired 

to follow rules of upright conduct. This message 

lay behind the popularization of the Shinshu 

throughout Japan. In the early 1480s Rennyo fulfilled 

his dream of rebuilding Honganji as a magnificent 

temple complex on the outskirts of Kyoto. It became 

the site of a huge annual memorial service on the anniversary 

of Shinran’s death, in which Shinshu pilgrims 

came from around the country to participate. 

See also: Nenbutsu (Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, Yŏ˘mbul); 


Bibliography 


Japan, (1989). Reprint, Honolulu: University of Hawaii 

Press, 2002. 

The Rennyo Shonin Reader. Kyoto: Jodo Shinshu Hongwanjiha, 

1998. 

Rogers, Minor L., and Rogers, Ann T. Rennyo: The Second 

Founder of Shin Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities 

Press, 1991. 

Weinstein, Stanley. “Rennyo and the Shinshu Revival.” In Japan 

in the Muromachi Age, ed. John Whitney Hall and Toyoda 

Takeshi. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. 


RENWANG JING (HUMANE KINGS 

SU TRA) 

The Renwang jing (Humane Kings Su tra) is one of the 

more influential of the East Asian “apocryphal” scriptures—texts 

that purported to be translations of Indian 

works, but were actually composed in China and 

Korea. Although its full title indicates that it is a transcendent 

wisdom (prajñaparamita) text, it is better 

characterized as a blend of transcendent wisdom, YO- 

GACARA SCHOOL, and TATHAGATAGARBHA teachings. 

The Renwang jing is unusual in that its target audience 

is the rulership, rather than lay practitioners or the 

community of monks and nuns. Thus, whereas the interlocutors 

in most scriptures are ARHATs or BOD- 

HISATTVAs, the discussants in this text are the kings of 

the sixteen ancient regions of India. The foregrounded 

teachings, rather than meditation and wisdom, are humaneness 

and forbearance, these being the most applicable 

religious values for the governance of a 

Buddhist state. 


R EPENTANCE AND C ONFESSION 

A second “translation” was supposedly carried out 

a few centuries after the appearance of the original 

version by the monk Amoghavajra (Pukong, 705–774), 

one of the most important figures in the Chinese 

MIJIAO (ESOTERIC) SCHOOL. But this new version was 

actually just a rewrite, since there was no original Sanskrit 

version. This second version of the text (T 246), 

while based mostly on the original version (T 245), 

contains new sections that include teachings on 

MAN D ALA, MANTRA, and DHARAN I. In the same way that 

other apocryphal works, such as the FANWANG JING 

(BRAHMA’S NET SU TRA), came to hold a special authoritative 

position in the subsequent development of 

Buddhism in Korea and Japan, as well as China, the 

Renwang jing became the standard model text in these 

East Asian countries for Buddhist-based state protection 

and statecraft. 

See also: Apocrypha; Kingship; Politics and Buddhism; 


Bibliography 

Orzech, Charles. Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture 




REPENTANCE AND CONFESSION 

Repentance and confession have been a part of the 

practice of Buddhism from its beginning, and several 

distinctive forms have evolved for different contexts. 

Indian Buddhism developed at least three forms: (1) 

communal repentance and confession within the 

monastic SAṄGHA; (2) metaphysical repentance of 

one’s karmic past to a supramundane buddha; and (3) 

meditational repentance of incorrect attachments and 

understanding. Chinese Buddhists developed public 

and elaborate forms of repentance and confession; 

these have cosmic dimensions to relieve the suffering 

of both the living and the dead. 

Indian Buddhism 

When disciples of the Buddha first left their family lives 

for full-time practice, they adopted a set of guidelines 

that were recited in a twice-monthly ceremony called 

posadha (Pali, uposatha). During this gathering, monks 

recited the rules of discipline (PRATIMOKSA) as a check 

and support for their individual practice. Participation 

in the group recitation required purity, so prior confession 

and restitution were required by monks and nuns 

if they had violated any rules. Although expulsion resulted 

from violation of the more serious parajika rules 

(no killing, stealing, sexual intercourse, or lying about 

one’s spiritual achievements), lesser rule violations 

could be remedied by confession and other supportive 

behavior. 

When san ghadisesa (Sanskrit, saṅghavaśesa) rules 

were broken, for example, recovery required confession 

to a community of at least twenty monastics, plus 

a probationary two-week seclusion for reflection and 

reform. San ghadisesa rules set prohibitions against disruptive 

behaviors, such as failing to accept admonitions, 

speaking in envy, gossiping about another, or 

repudiating the Buddha, dharma, and saṅgha. Violation 

of the nissaggiya pacittiyas (Sanskrit, naihsargikaprayaścittika) 

rules also required confession, but only 

to a minimum of five monastics, plus forfeiture of an 

article that had been wrongly obtained, such as a robe, 

bowl, or rug. Confession was required to only one or 

more monastics for breaking rules against telling laity 

about the misbehavior of monks, bad manners, carelessness, 

not keeping an accepted invitation, or abusing 

others by scolding, tickling, or degrading them. 

Similarly, violations of a fifth category of rules dealing 

with food required only confession. Lesser rules dealing 

with ETIQUETTE did not require confession at all. 

Confession did not excuse the violator from the 

penalties of rule breaking; rather, confession was a 

matter of truth-telling and of inviting appropriate 

penalties for rectifying the situation. A monk or nun 

could confess only to other monastics, and confession 

was not a public event open to the laity. By contrast, 

the rite of pavarana, which occurred after the annual 

rainy-season retreat, publicly examined the wrongs 

that monks and nuns had committed during the threemonth 

retreat. The confession and public repentance 

involved in pavarana differed from the private whispered 

confession of the pratimoksa. Thus, repentance 

and confession within the Buddhist monastic community 

served not only to support individual practice, 

but also to maintain the unity of the monastic community 

and its good reputation with the laity. 

A second form of repentance and confession arose 

as a way to cope with bad KARMA (ACTION) and had a 

very different goal from maintaining monastic purity. 

These confessions referred to unexpiated guilt resulting 

from unknown or unremembered past wrongs, 

and were a plea for forgiveness to alleviate suffering 


721

R EPENTANCE AND C ONFESSION 

and harm in the present life. The goal was not merely 

to escape the social penalties of rule breaking, but to 

avoid the larger karmic consequence of wrongful actions, 

thoughts, and attitudes. Such a confession of 

karmic wrongs is given a mythological framework in 

the “Chapter on Confession” in the Mahayana SU- 

VARN APRABHASOTTAMA-SU TRA (Su tra of Golden Light). 

According to this chapter, during the vision of a shining 

drum, verses came forth that proclaimed the power 

of the drum to suppress many woes, and a confession 

of all previous wrongs was uttered to supramundane, 

compassionate buddhas. Even the name Survarnaprabhasa 

(Golden Light) was believed to destroy all evil 

deeds done over thousands of eons. But the most 

striking feature of this form of Buddhist confession 

was the theistic function of the buddhas, who were 

asked to give protection and to forgive all evil deeds. 

This text presents an endless time span, the recognition 

of possible unexpiated guilt, a request for forgiveness, 

supramundane compassionate buddhas as 

sources for forgiveness, and the use of the name of the 

Suvarnaprabhasa to destroy all evil actions and their 

consequences. 

The worldview expressed by this ritual extends beyond 

the present social world of the monastery to invoke 

karmic history and draw on supramundane 

powers, such as the force of compassionate buddhas 

and the magical power of dharan, to rectify a harmful 

situation. In this worldview, wrongs from previous 

rebirths not only affect one’s present REBIRTH, but also 

relate directly to the Buddha, who can intercede and 

offer relief and support. Repentance is not primarily 

communal, but rather devotional and directed to a cosmic, 

transhistorical figure, and thus it can be called 

“metaphysical repentance.” It was this kind of repentance 

that later evolved into large public rituals in 

China. 

A third form of repentance and confession is based 

on the Su tra of Meditation on Bodhisattva Samantabhadra. 

In this text, the wrongs to be eliminated are 

from both the remembered and the unknowable past, 

but the method of repentance and confession goes 

beyond pleading for mercy and help. Instead, the text 

offers instruction for visualization of the Bodhisattva 

Samantabhadra, and leads to instruction about all the 

karma and wrongs of former lives that can then be confessed. 

In addition, the devotee systematically reviews 

the functioning of each of the sense organs, followed 

by a recitation of ritual repentance (said three times) 

for all inner attachment and external wrongdoing. 

Samantabhadra’s “law of repentance” says that attachment 

to phenomena perceived by the senses causes one 

to fall into the cycle of birth and death. 

Whereas meditative inspection of the sense-fields is 

the main basis for regretting and rectifying past 

wrongs, the final dimension of personal transformation 

is the development of a new understanding based 

on contemplating the “real mark of all things,” namely, 

their emptiness of enduring distinguishing attributes 

(laksana). This contemplation of the emptiness and 

signlessness of dharmas is the locus classicus for the 

idea of “formless repentance” found in Chinese CHAN 

SCHOOL texts like the PLATFORM SU TRA OF THE SIXTH 

PATRIARCH (LIUZU TAN JING). Since this contemplation 

removes bad karma and frees one from past 

wrongs and present attachments based on exposure to 

enlightened awareness, just as “the sun of wisdom disperses 

dew and frost,” then this could be called insight 

repentance. 

Insight repentance differs from the confessional 

model of early Buddhism to correct wrong actions in 

the present through penance, exclusion, probation, 

restitution, or confession. Instead, for Chan Buddhists, 

wrongs are to be “cast aside by your own true Buddha 

nature” through an inner change, and inner transformation 

by enlightenment corrects all “past, future, and 

present” wrong actions and thoughts. As a result, many 

Zen practitioners in the West daily recite: “All the evil 

karma ever created by me since of old, on account of 

my beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance, I now 

confess openly and fully.” 

Chinese Buddhism 

All three forms of Indian repentance were adopted in 

China. The great Chinese vinaya master DAOXUAN 

(596–667) grouped the causes of repentance into three 

categories: violations of monastic codes, violations of 

phenomena (immoral behavior), and violations of 

principle (wrong attitudes, perceptions, and understanding). 

The Tiantai monk ZHIYI (538–597) was influential 

in developing the metaphysical and insight 

repentance methods. In his Fahua sanmei chanyi (Lotus 

Samadhi Techniques), Zhiyi presents the Lotus Samadhi 

ritual as a dialectic between the Meditation on Samantabhadra 

Su tra and the “Chapter on Peaceful Practices” 

in the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). 

The first text instructs practitioners to repent sins from 

the six senses, whereas the second text states that bodhisattvas 

do not make distinctions, nor do they practice 

any dharmas. Zhiyi argues that these two texts 

complement one another, and he shows how they 

switch positions, with the second advocating remem- 


R ITUAL 

bering, reciting, and explaining the scriptures, while 

the first advocates “formless repentance,” as in the 

statement “Since one’s own mind is void of itself, there 

is no subject of demerit or merit.” This “formless repentance” 

not only became popular in Chan Buddhism, 

but also led to a reduction of repentance in 

Japanese Buddhism to the single act of recognizing the 

emptiness of all things—doer, deeds, and karma. 

Zhiyi emphasized, however, that both “practices of 

form” and “formless practice” are preliminary, but at 

the time of realization, both methods are discarded. 

Instead, based on the statement in the NIRVANA SU TRA 

that “In the mind that is ‘one moment of thought’ one 

is able to name and evaluate each of the incalculable 

birth-and-deaths,” Zhiyi asserts that at every moment 

one is to understand three truths: emptiness, the value 

of provisional worldly truth that includes precepts and 

repentance, and an inclusive middle path. As a result, 

one empathizes with the pain of all beings and causes 

them to cross over to unboundedness. 

This inclusion of others into one’s repentance 

caused a dramatic increase in repentance rituals in 

China. Shioiri Ryo do (1964) observed the remarkable 

fact that the Chinese pilgrims who traveled most extensively 

in India—FAXIAN (ca. 337–418), XUANZANG 

(ca. 600–664), and YIJING (635–713)—reported only 

two public Buddhist repentance rituals in India and 

Southeast Asia. By comparison, Chinese Buddhist repentance 

rituals are prominent as regular public ceremonies, 

so that more than one-fourth of the ritual texts 

collected among contemporary Chinese Buddhist 

practitioners by Kamata Shigeo (1986) are repentance 

texts. These ceremonies pervade the Chinese Buddhist 

liturgical year and constitute a major bond between the 

monastic elite and the laity, and between the world of 

Buddhism and Chinese society. 

The Chinese transformed Buddhist repentance 

practices because they believed that the sufferings of 

the dead can be visited upon the living, and the actions 

of the living can transform the sufferings of the 

dead. Chinese Buddhists also assumed that a conspicuous 

public display of regret and anguish over 

previous wrongs would influence cosmic powers to 

show mercy. As a result, public repentance during the 

GHOST FESTIVAL to relieve the suffering of deceased 

family members became a major ritual in Chinese society 

from medieval times to the present (Teiser, 

1988). 

See also: Festivals and Calendrical Rituals; Precepts 

Bibliography 

De Visser, M. W. Ancient Buddhism in Japan: Su tras and Ceremonies 

in Use in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries A.D. and 

Their History in Later Times, Vol. 1. Leiden, Netherlands: 

Brill, 1935. 

Eberhard, Wolfram. Guilt and Sin in Traditional China. Berkeley: 


Eckel, M. David. “A Buddhist Approach to Repentance.” In Repentance: 

A Comparative Perspective, ed. Amitai Etzioni and 

David W. Carney. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997. 

Kamata Shigeo. Chu goku no Bukkyo girei (Chinese Buddhist 

Ceremonies). Tokyo: Daizo shuppan, 1986. 

Kuo Li-ying. Confession et contrition dans le bouddhisme chinois 

de V e au X e siècle. Paris: L’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 

1994. 

Prebish, Charles S. Buddhist Monastic Discipline: The Sanskrit 



1975. 

Rhys Davids, T. W., and Oldenberg, Hermann. Vinaya Texts, 

Part I: The Patimokkha, The Mahavagga I–IV. Sacred Books 

of the East, Vol. 13. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1996 (reprint 

of the Oxford University Press edition, 1885). 

Shioiri Ryodo. “Chugoku Bukkyo ni okeru raisan to butsumei 

kyoten” (Repentance Rituals and Scriptures of the Buddha’s 

Name in Chinese Buddhism). In Bukkyo shiso ronshu : 

Yu ki Kyo ju shoju kinen. Tokyo: Daizo Shuppan, 1964. 



Teiser, Stephen. The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making 

of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University 



Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women. Albany: State University 


RITUAL 

DAVID W. CHAPPELL 

In the Pali nikayas there are four stages to final liberation: 

(1) stream-enterer (sotapanna), who has 

glimpsed NIRVAN A and will attain full liberation in no 

more than seven rebirths; (2) once-returner (sakadagamin), 

who will be reborn only once more; (3) nonreturner 

(anagamin), who will have at most one more 

lifetime in a celestial pure abode; and (4) ARHAT, who 

is fully liberated in this life. Each of these stages is associated 

with the elimination of progressively more 


723

R ITUAL 

subtle fetters (sam yojana). The three lower fetters are 

removed upon entering into the stream: (1) wrong 

view in the reality of the self (sakkayaditthi); (2) 

doubt concerning the Buddha and his teaching; and 

(3) attachment to rules and observances (Pali, sllabbataparamasa; 

Sanskrit, śllavrataparamarśa), whether 

ritual or ascetic, in the belief that these themselves are 

liberative. 

During the nineteenth century, modernizing apologists 

emphasized the rational and ethical qualities of 

Buddhism and, in keeping with assumptions common 

to Western religious culture, focused on issues of belief 

and doctrine. This version of Buddhism interpreted 

the elimination of the fetter of attachment to rules and 

observances as a comprehensive rejection of ritual 

practices. Based on this selective reading of Pali 

sources, Buddhism was portrayed as a tradition in 

which ritual played no role. Claiming that Śakyamuni 

Buddha rejected all ritual practice, this interpretation 

of Buddhism gave privileged position to MEDITATION, 

so much so that today Buddhism is often simply identified 

with meditation. The distinction of meditation 

and ritual as mutually exclusive categories, however, is 

an artificial one that has its roots in Western religious 

culture rather than in Buddhism. 

Rather than rejecting ritual, however, Śakyamuni 

appears to have rejected animal sacrifice, which forms 

the core of Vedic ritual and the religious authority of 

the brahman priests who perform such sacrifices. 

Historically, many Buddhist activities, such as the 

pratimoksa recitation, were ritualized early in the history 

of the tradition. By the third through sixth centuries 

C.E. ritual practices were well established among 

Indian Buddhist practitioners. 

While use of the term ritual seems to indicate a specific 

category, such that there ought to be a clear way 

in which one can identify what is and what is not a ritual, 

scholars still do not agree on a general definition 

of ritual. It is instead more useful to think in terms of 

ritualization, that is, a process by which certain activities 

are regularized both in performance and periodicity. 

Rather than a bounded category, or a simply 

stipulative definition, ritualization suggests a range of 

degrees to which activities have been regularized. Over 

the course of Buddhist history, important activities, including 

individual religious practices (sadhana), have 

been ritualized. 

Basic model for Buddhist rituals 

Elements of what became known as the unexcelled 

worship (anuttarapu ja) are found as early as the late 

second century C.E. The other name for this is the 

seven-limbed puja (saptaṅga puja), since rituals of this 

kind often employed seven elements. This latter name 

is somewhat misleading in that the number of possible 

elements was more than seven, and the number of 

elements in particular rituals might be more or less 

than seven. The standard elements from which rituals 

could be constructed include: praise (vandana), 

WORSHIP (pu jana), confession of faults (deśana), rejoicing 

in the merits of others (modana), requesting 

the buddhas to teach (adhyesana), requesting the buddhas 

to remain in this world (yacana), transfer of 

merit (parinamana), arising of bodhicitta (bodhicittotpada), 

taking refuge (śaranagamana), making vows 

(pranidana), and sacrifice of oneself (atmatyaga). 

Another kind of ritual organization is found in 

many tantric Buddhist rituals. These rituals are constructed 

symmetrically around the symbolically central 

action of ritualized identification between the 

practitioner and the deity evoked; this is called deity 

yoga. The five steps of these rituals are: 

• purification—preparation of the practitioner 

• construction—preparation of the ritual site 

• encounter—inviting, greeting, and feasting the 

deity 

• identification—meditative union, or ritual identification 

• dissociation—recapitulates the first three steps: 

• departure of the deity: corollary of encounter 

• dissolution of the ritual site: corollary of construction 

• departure of the practitioner: corollary of purification 

A number of different categories of ritual practice 

are known. Early eighth-century translations into 

Chinese by Bodhiruci list three categories: śantika, for 

protection; paustika, for increase of benefits; and 

abhicaraka, for domination. By the end of the ninth 

century, an additional two categories are evidenced: 

vaślkarana, for attraction; and aṅkuśa, for acquisition. 

These categories inform both the Indo-Tibetan and 

East Asian traditions. In Tibetan ritual traditions, a 

set of four appears to have become the standard 

grouping, while in East Asia the standard grouping 

comprises all five. These categories establish a complex 

set of associations for ritual performance: for ex- 


R ITUAL 

A Shingon priest performs a homa ritual ceremony at Takamuruin, Koyasan, Japan. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced 


ample, the time of day for performing the ritual, the 

color of the practitioner’s clothing, and the kind of 

altar to be employed. 

An exemplary ritual: homa 

Originating in the Vedic tradition, homa, or fire ritual, 

is found in both Hindu and Buddhist tantra. Within 

the Buddhist world homa is found wherever the tantric 

tradition has taken root, including Mongolia, China, 

Tibet, Japan, and Bali. The ritual comprises a series of 

offerings made into a fire built on the altar. The mouth 

of the altar hearth is homologized to the mouth of the 

deity and to the practitioner’s mouth, while the fire is 

the deity’s digestive fire and the fire of wisdom 

(prajña) that purifies defilements (kleśa). 

The homa ritual demonstrates the way in which rituals 

are organized according to a basic metaphor. 

Homa is a feast for the deities who are evoked in the 

course of the ritual. This ritual metaphor is found in 

many tantric Buddhist rituals, and evidences the connection 

between them and their Vedic sources, which 

also serve as ritual feasts. 

In addition to the ritual metaphor and homa’s organization, 

specific elements within the ritual highlight 

the continuity of practice across more than three millennia 

and multiple religious cultures. These include 

an opening offering to Agni, the Vedic god of fire and 

sacrifice; implements used (e.g., two ladles for making 

offerings); and the varieties of materials offered, most 

emblematically, clarified butter (ghee). The processes 

of cultural adaptation are reflected in the use of various 

substitutes, such as sesame oil (Japanese, goma 

abura) for ghee. The widespread practice of the homa 

ritual indicates the central place that ritual holds in 

much of the Buddhist tradition. Rather than being 

purely rational and ethical, Buddhism has therefore always 

maintained a crucial role for ritual in its religious 

culture and practice. 

See also: Initiation; Ordination; Ritual Objects; Tantra 

Bibliography 

Aune, Michael B., and DeMarinis, Valerie, eds. Religious and 

Social Ritual: Interdisciplinary Explorations. Albany: State 



725

R ITUAL 

O BJECTS 

Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York and 


Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York 

and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 

Bentor, Yael. Consecrations of Images and Stu pas in Indo-Tibetan 

Tantric Buddhism. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1996. 

Bentor, Yael. “Literature on Consecration (Rab gnas).” In Tibetan 

Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. José Ignacio Cabezón 

and Roger R. Jackson. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996. 


Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978. 

Cabezón, José Ignacio. “Firm Feet and Long Lives: The Zhabs 

brtan Literature of Tibetan Buddhism.” In Tibetan Literature: 

Studies in Genre, ed. José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger 

R. Jackson. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996. 

Cozort, Daniel. “Sadhana (sGrub thabs): Means of Achievement 

for Deity Yoga.” In Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. 

José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson. Ithaca, NY: 


Egge, James R. Religious Giving and the Invention of Karma in 

Theravada Buddhism. Richmond, UK: Routledge Curzon, 

2002. 

Gombrich, Richard F. How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned 

Genesis of the Early Teachings. London and Atlantic Highlands, 

NJ: Athlone, 1996. 

Kohn, Richard J. Lord of the Dance: The Mani Rimdu Festival in 

Tibet and Nepal. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

2001. 

Makransky, John. “Offering (mChod pa) in Tibetan Ritual Literature.” 

In Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. José 

Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson. Ithaca, NY: Snow 

Lion, 1996. 

Payne, Richard K. The Tantric Ritual of Japan: Feeding the Gods, 

The Shingon Fire Ritual. Delhi: International Academy of Indian 

Culture, 1991. 

Payne, Richard K. “The Tantric Transformation of Puja: Interpretation 

and Structure in the Study of Ritual.” In India and 

Beyond: Aspects of Literature, Meaning, Ritual, and Thought, 

ed. Dick van der Meij. London and New York: Kegan Paul, 

1997. 

Payne, Richard K. “Tongues of Flame: Homologies in the 

Tantric Homa.” In The Roots of Tantra, ed. Katherine Anne 

Harper and Robert L. Brown. Albany: State University of 


Wallis, Glenn. Mediating the Power of Buddhas: Ritual in the 

Mañjuśrlmu lakalpa. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 2002. 

Weber, Claudia. Buddhistische Beichten in Indien und bei den 

Uiguren: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der uigurischen 

Laienbeichte und ihrer Beziehung zum Manichäismus. Wiesbaden, 


RICHARD K. PAYNE 

RITUAL OBJECTS 

The VINAYA relates that the historical Buddha permitted 

his ordained mendicants only four possessions— 

three robes and a begging bowl. These simple, 

functional objects served as the first Buddhist ritual 

implements since they were the primary material 

means to clearly distinguish the members of the 

monastic community from the laity. Initiates could not 

be ordained until they had properly received them. 

Over the succeeding centuries, as Buddhism was transmitted 

throughout Asia, the number of permissible 

possessions increased to six—three robes, a begging 

bowl, a stool, and a water strainer—and then to eighteen, 

including a censer and staff. Moreover, as the rituals 

of the religion became increasingly elaborate, 

greater numbers of implements were required. Although 

different regions frequently interpreted the 

forms of these objects in culturally specific ways, implements 

often had their origins in secular Indian 

modes of veneration and ornamentation. 

Implements of ornamentation 

Indian Buddhists correlated sacred adornment with 

the manifestation of the supernatural. In decorating 

the interior of halls that housed the object of WORSHIP, 

they hoped to realize the appearance of the paradises 

in which the deities were believed to dwell, as described 

in the sutras. Thus, elaborate decoration and exquisite 

craftsmanship came to characterize the implements 

that adorned the halls. 

As images of the Buddha and other members of the 

Buddhist pantheon became the focus of worship, implements 

were employed to demarcate the sacred space 

in which they were enshrined. For example, canopies, 

which derived from the parasols used by the ancient 

Indian elite, were suspended over the deity. Garlands 

of flowers that likewise had been used by the South 

Asian nobility for personal adornment were draped 

over images. In northern climates the festoons were 

reinterpreted in openwork plaques of fabric, leather, 

or metal, and ornamented with semiprecious stones. 

Today in Japan these symbolic floral offerings, which 

are known as keman, continue to be hung from the 

beams of the interiors of image halls. In addition banners 

known as ban, which had been adapted in luxurious 

textiles or gilt bronze from ancient battle 

standards signifying victory over one’s enemies, fly 

from dragon-headed poles both in the interior and exterior 

of the halls. 


R ITUAL 

O BJECTS 

A monk holds prayer beads at the Rumtek Monastery near Gangtok, 

Sikkim, seat of the Bka’ brgyud (Kagyu) school of Tibetan 

Buddhism. © Ric Ergenbright/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

practice in Japan, which closely follows that on the 

continent in earlier centuries, reveals that most sectarian 

differences ultimately are outweighed by fundamental 

similarities. The ceremonies begin with a call 

to worship, marked by the striking of a large bronze 

bell. During the procession of monks into the hall, the 

chief officiant holds a long-handled censer—an emblem 

of his authority. In the CHAN SCHOOL (Zen) the 

chief officiant may alternatively wield an animal-hair 

wisk or a scepter with a foliate end. After making obeisance 

to the deity, he seats himself on a raised, square 

ritual platform (raiban). To his left and right are two 

small tables, generally crafted from lacquer, which hold 

ritual implements and texts. 

During the introductory section of the service, stylized 

chanting is accompanied by the shaking of a 

monk’s staff (shakujo ) and the strewing of flower petals 

from openwork baskets (keko ) in order to purify the 

ritual space. During the main part of the ceremony the 

deity is summoned, praised, and hosted, after which 

prayers are made. Expressions of appreciation are then 

communicated to the deity and the celebrant then 

promises that the benefits accrued from the ritual will 

be shared with others. During the service the celebrant 

frequently strikes a metal chime (kei), which is suspended 

from a lacquer stand to the right of the raiban, 

to punctuate the different sections of the liturgy. This 

percussion instrument generally takes the form of an 

inverted chevron with a raised lotus boss. 

Vessels for offerings 

In India the primary offerings made to the Buddha and 

stupas were incense, flowers, and candles. The Japanese 

Darani jikkyo (Su tra of Collected Dharanl) explains 

that incense and perfumed water were used to purify, 

flowers to pay homage, and light to illuminate the 

darkness of ignorance. Offerings of food symbolized 

the giving of alms. In East Asia a set of three metal vessels 

for these offerings—a candlestick, incense burner, 

and flower vase—were placed on the main altar in 

front of an image. In some Buddhist sects the set of 

three was replaced by a more elaborate set of five, including 

two candlesticks, two flower vases, and an incense 

burner. 

Ritual implements in the Japanese 

liturgical context 

The great diversity in the practice of Buddhism in Asia 

has resulted in a great variety of rituals and of ritual 

implements. Study of contemporary Buddhist ritual 

Esoteric ritual implements 

Implements are essential to the performance of esoteric 

Buddhist rituals. Derived in form from ancient 

Indian weapons, esoteric ritual implements are believed 

to imbue the officiant with extraordinary powers 

and thus assist the individual in the quest to join 

Buddhist deities in the quest for enlightenment. 

As in MAHAYANA ritual, the practitioner sits on a 

ritual dais, but esoteric ritual employs a ritual platform, 

on which are placed a great variety of implements 

and which in turn is placed in front of the 

painting or sculpture that is the focus of the rite. In 

India this platform would have been formed from 

earth over a seven-day period and then later destroyed. 

In China and Japan it took a more permanent form in 

wood. The implements used in esoteric rituals can 

generally be divided into four categories: those for 

protecting the practitioner, those for purifying the deity 

and officiant, those for holding offerings, and those 

for providing musical accompaniment. The most 


727

R ITUAL 

O BJECTS 

Monks rotate prayer wheels at the Ivolginski Datsan Temple in Buryatiya, eastern Siberia. © Oleg Nishikin/Getty Images. Reproduced 


important are those that protect and empower the 

practitioner and the ritual space. These are placed on 

the ritual altar and include the various forms of vajra, 

the vajra spikes placed at the four corners to support 

a five-colored rope, the cakra placed in the center, and 

crossed vajra at the four corners. 

Most frequently composed of clawlike opposed 

outer prongs and a sharply notched profile, vajra resemble 

stylized thunderbolts. The most common form 

is one with three prongs on each end, said to symbolize 

the three mysteries of body, speech, and mind. 

Other vajra include the five-prong form, symbolizing 

the five wisdoms of the five buddhas, and the singleprong 

form, symbolizing the universal truth. The implements 

are usually fashioned from gilt bronze, but 

esoteric texts specify that they may also be made from 

gold, silver, copper, iron stone, rock crystal, acacia, 

sandalwood, and purple sandalwood. 

The cakra was believed to be one of the seven treasures 

of a cakravartin or universal monarch. Said to 

miraculously precede him into battle, conquering foes 

in the four directions, the cakra resembles a wheel. Different 

texts mention cakra with a varying number of 

spokes. Those with four spokes symbolize the FOUR 

NOBLE TRUTHS and those with six symbolize the realms 

of existence. In Japan, where it is called a rimpo , the 

wheel most often takes an eight-spoked form that was 

thought to symbolize the eightfold PATH. The crossed 

vajra (known in Japanese as katsuma) resembles two 

intersecting three-pronged vajra. Based upon an Indian 

weapon that was hurled, this metal implement is 

believed to provide protection in the four directions. 

The second category of implements used in esoteric 

rituals are those that hold various materials used in 

the ritual to purify the deity and the officiant. Most 

often they consist of a set of covered containers for 

water and powdered incense, which are placed near 

the ritual dais. A third category includes vessels for 

holding the offerings to be made to the deity. These 

consist of a censer for burnt incense offerings and the 

six vessels, which hold offerings of sacred water, floral 

garlands, powdered incense, and light. Generally made 

from gilt bronze, they are placed in sets along the four 

sides of the ritual dais. Vases for offerings of flowers 


R NYING MA (NYINGMA) 

ceremony. Usually a single-pronged vajra, a threepronged 

vajra, and a five-pronged vajra surround a 

vajra-handled bell, but the arrangement of the implements 

and the placement of the tray itself vary according 

to sect and to school. 

Bibliography 

Morse, Anne Nishimura, and Morse, Samuel Crowell. Object as 

Insight: Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual. Katonah, NY: Katonah 

Museum of Art, 1995. 

Reynolds, Valrae. From the Sacred Realm: Treasures of Tibetan 

Art from the Newark Museum. New York and Munich, Germany: 

Prestel, 1999. 

Yamasaki Taiko. Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, translated 

and adapted by Richard Peterson and Cynthia Peterson. 


ANNE NISHIMURA MORSE 

RINZAI ZEN. See Chan School 

RNYING MA (NYINGMA) 

A monk holding a vajra rings a small bell as an aid to ritual chanting 

at a monastery in Bhutan. © Hulton/Archive by Getty Images. 


and vessels for offerings of food are positioned in the 

four corners. 

The final group includes various musical implements 

such as bells and cymbals used to gain the attention 

of the deity, entertain it with sound, and then 

to provide it with melodious accompaniment upon its 

departure. Bells are also used to awaken the enlightened 

mind of the practitioner. Although single examples 

are frequently used in rituals, handheld bells also 

occur in sets of five, consisting of a single-pronged 

vajra-handled bell, a three-pronged vajra-handled bell, 

a five-pronged vajra-handled bell, a jewel-handled bell, 

and a pagoda-handled bell. The five bells are placed on 

the ritual altar, along with vajra of similar forms. The 

five vajra represent the samaya form of the five wisdom 

buddhas and their secret wisdom, while the five 

bells represent their outwardly directed teachings. 

A metal ritual tray, frequently raised, is placed on 

the ritual altar in front of the practitioner. On it is 

placed a set of implements to be utilized during the 

The Rnying ma (ancient) school is one of the four 

main schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the other three 

being the BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU), the SA SKYA (SAKYA), 

and the DGE LUGS (GELUK). According to the Tibetan 

historical tradition, Buddhism arrived into Tibet in 

two waves. The “early spread” (snga dar) arrived over 

the seventh to the ninth centuries, during the height 

of the Tibetan empire, and the “later spread” (phyi 

dar) came after the late tenth century. Adherents of 

the Rnying ma school trace their roots back to Buddhism’s 

early spread, while followers of the three 

newer (gsar ma) schools adhere to those traditions 

that arrived during the later spread. In this way, the 

Rnying ma school is defined in juxtaposition to the 

other schools of Tibetan Buddhism; Rnying ma as a 

term only began to be used in the eleventh century, 

after the later spread had begun. 

From an early date, criticisms were leveled against 

the tantric traditions of the Rnying ma pa (adherents 

of the Rnying ma school). The period that separated 

the two waves of Buddhism (roughly 842–978 C.E.) 

witnessed the collapse of the Tibetan empire and a 

subsequent breakdown of any centralized authority. 

Buddhist monasteries throughout Tibet lost their official 

patronage and were closed down. Traditional 


729

R NYING MA (NYINGMA) 

Tibetan histories unanimously portray these years as 

a “dark period,” a time of degeneration for Buddhism 

when, freed from the watchful eye of authoritative 

Buddhist institutions, the scattered local communities 

went astray. The response among the new schools was 

to reimport Buddhism from India, while the Rnying 

ma pa claimed that their Buddhism was a pure strand 

that had survived intact since the glory days of the Tibetan 

empire and Buddhism’s earlier spread. In the 

competitive atmosphere of Buddhism’s later spread, a 

TANTRA’s legitimacy depended on its being a translation 

from an Indian original. Many Rnying ma tantras 

came under suspicion for being Tibetan APOCRYPHA. 

A fair number of new works were certainly composed 

in Tibet, particularly during the creative disorder of 

the dark period. 

Perhaps the most successful of the post-tenthcentury 

Rnying ma pa responses to these accusations 

was their development of the “treasure” (gter ma) revelation 

system. Received in visionary encounters or 

discovered hidden in the physical landscape, these revelations 

were timely teachings attributed to the legendary 

(usually Indian) masters of the early imperial 

period. In this way, new Rnying ma works could surface 

under the protection of a canonical Indian origin. 

The Rnying ma school shares the system of treasure 

revelation with the non-Buddhist BON religion of Tibet, 

but generally speaking, none of the other schools 

made use of this strategy. 

Also unique to the Rnying ma school and Bon is 

their highest category of Rnying ma teachings, called 

Atiyoga or Rdzogs chen (Great Perfection). This was the 

highest of the Rnying ma school’s nine vehicles (theg 

pa dgu), a hierarchical schema for organizing Buddhist 

teachings according to the sophistication of the view 

each advocated. After the eleventh century, the Rnying 

ma pa focused increasingly on the Atiyoga class of 

teachings, and the writings from this period are some 

of the most creative in Rnying ma literature. The development 

of Rdzogs chen culminated in the systematizing 

works by KLONG CHEN PA (LONGCHENPA) 

(1308–1363). This fourteenth-century master was also 

instrumental in sealing a new relationship between 

Rdzogs chen and PADMASAMBHAVA, the eighthcentury 

tantric master who was instrumental in bringing 

Buddhism to Tibet. Since the eleventh century, the 

Rnying ma pa had looked to Padmasambhava as their 

principal founding father, but this master does not appear 

to have enjoyed a particularly close association 

with Rdzogs chen until the fourteenth century. Before 

that, the most influential Rdzogs chen works were usually 

attributed to two other masters of Tibet’s early imperial 

period, Vairocana or Vimalamitra. By the end 

of the fourteenth century, however, Padmasambhava 

reigned supreme in the minds of the Rnying ma pa, 

over almost all aspects of their school. 

In the seventeenth century the Rnying ma school became 

embroiled in the political turmoil that led to the 

fifth DALAI LAMA’s takeover of Tibet. The family of the 

fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682) had maintained close 

contacts with the Rnying ma pa, particularly with the 

followers of the Northern Treasures (byang gter). As the 

Dalai Lama rose to power in the mid-seventeenth century, 

he brought his Rnying ma pa associates with him. 

Under his patronage, the period witnessed a sudden 

surge in large, new Rnying ma monasteries being 

founded throughout central and eastern Tibet. 

This proliferation of monasteries engendered a shift 

in the character of the Rnying ma school toward largescale 

monastic institutions and elaborate public festivals. 

The changes were spearheaded by a close associate 

of the Dalai Lama, Gter bdag gling pa (1646–1714), the 

founder of Smin grol gling Monastery. This master, together 

with his brother, Lochen Dharmaśr (1654– 

1717), conducted extensive historical research into the 

Rnying ma school’s past; on the basis of his findings 

he formulated a new ritual tradition that could be 

shared by all of the new monasteries. 

With the death of the fifth Dalai Lama and his regent, 

the Rnying ma pa lost their protection, and in 

1717 the Mongolian Dzungars, themselves dogmatic 

supporters of the Dalai Lama’s own Dge lugs school, 

invaded central Tibet. During their short time there, 

the Dzungars looted the new Rnying ma monasteries 

of Rdo rje brag and Smin grol gling, executing the head 

lamas. But the work accomplished at Smin grol gling 

survived this blow, and the Rnying ma pas’ resolve to 

consolidate their school only strengthened over the 

next two centuries. An important element in this trend 

came with the late-eighteenth-century revelation of the 

Klong chen snying thig treasure cycle by ‘Jigs med gling 

pa (1730–1798). ‘Jigs med gling pa came from Khams 

in eastern Tibet, and his teachings were quickly 

adopted by all of the large new monasteries throughout 

this region. 

The Klong chen snying thig (Seminal Heart of the 

Great Expanse) also inspired many of the great nineteenthcentury 

lamas of eastern Tibet who were involved in 

the new nonsectarian (ris med) movement. This movement 

was based in Sde dge, the cultural capital of the 


R OBES AND C LOTHING 

region. In reaction to the growing sectarianism 

throughout Tibet, those involved sought out common 

ground between the schools and developed massive 

new literary collections that could be shared by all the 

schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The Rnying ma philosophy 

of Rdzogs chen played a particularly important 

role in this movement. The shape of today’s Rnying 

ma school derives directly from the efforts of these 

nonsectarian masters of the nineteenth century. 


Bibliography 

Germano, David. “Architecture and Absence in the Secret 

Tantric History of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen).” Journal 


2 (1994): 203–335. 


Its Fundamentals and History, tr. Gyurme Dorje and Matthew 

Kapstein. Boston: Wisdom, 1991. 

Smith, E. Gene. Among Tibetan Texts: History and Literature of 

the Himalayan Plateau. Boston: Wisdom, 2001. 

Thondup, Tulku. Masters of Miracles and Meditation: The 

Longchen Nyingthig Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Boston: 

Shambala, 1996. 

ROBES AND CLOTHING 


Buddhist robes (kasaya; Chinese, jiasha; Japanese, 

kesa) originally reflected the ideals of a life of poverty 

and simplicity. The VINAYA or monastic codes permitted 

a monk only three rectangular pieces of cloth 

of different sizes for use as religious robes. The small-, 

medium-, and large-sized robes were worn alone or in 

combination with each other. These rectangular mantles 

had no tailoring and simply wrapped around the 

body. They resembled the clothing of ordinary people 

and therefore used distinctive colors, materials, and 

fabrication to distinguish the wearer as one who had 

left the ordinary world to embark upon the path to enlightenment. 

As Buddhism spread throughout Asia, 

the robes delineated in greater detail such things as 

rank and sectarian affiliations through further variations 

in color, materials, and fabrication. The robes 

also came to be regarded as merit-making objects 

themselves, requiring special treatment, much like any 

other ritual object. 

Regulations for early Buddhist robes 

To differentiate Buddhist robes from the ordinary 

white robes of common people, the robes were dyed. 

Texts do not concur on the exact colors to be used, but 

most prohibit the use of undiluted primary colors. 

However, there is consensus that the preferred color is 

kasaya, which literally means impure, and came to refer 

to a reddish-yellow or brownish-yellow saffron or 

ocher color. THERAVADA monks still regularly wear this 

color; MAHAYANA monks wear it less often. The actual 

shades vary, but the use of impure or mixed coloring 

is essential and emphasizes the teaching of nonattachment 

and nonpreference even for the color of one’s 

robes. The use of impure or muddied color was such 

an important characteristic that the word, kasaya, became 

the common name for the robes themselves. 

According to the PRECEPTS, the actual material for 

Buddhist robes was not as important as the humble 

origins of the material. The best material was that 

which had no value to others, such as unwanted and 

soiled rags. The precepts urged monks to be wearers 

of robes taken from the dust heap. While acceptable 

materials included silk, cotton, wool, hemp, and even 

fur, the most important characteristic was that they be 

tattered and defiled in some way, such as having been 

charred by fire, gnawed by rats, used as a shroud for 

the dead, or stained with menstrual blood, mucus, 

urine, or feces. Texts also caution against the use of 

embroidery and ornate weaving, a proscription later 

ignored. Plain, common materials are best, but the 

primary requirement is that they should not engender 

covetousness or attachment. 

The third distinguishing feature of Buddhist robes 

is that they should be sewn from many pieces. Against 

charges that robes of whole cloth might reflect sensual 

enjoyment, the Buddha announced that robes made of 

uncut cloth should not be worn. Although in later passages 

of the Vinaya the Buddha allowed two of the 

three robes to be made of whole cloth, the standard 

kasaya was a patchwork marked by horizontal and vertical 

divisions. The Vinaya reference to patterns of rice 

fields bordered by embankments inspired the patchwork 

design of the kasaya. 

Robes were patched together in vertical columns, 

always odd in number, and edged by a binding. The 

smallest of the three regulation robes had five columns, 

each comprised of one long and one short panel; the 

medium-sized robe had seven columns, each comprised 

of one short and two long panels; and the largest 

and most formal robe either had nine columns, each 


731


made up of two long and one short panel, or twentyfive 

columns, each comprised of four long and one 

short panel. Figure 1 shows the pattern for a sevencolumned 

medium-sized kasaya. Variations based on 

odd numbers of columns between nine and twentyfive 

also exist, and there are legends of unusual robes 

with more columns. Small square patches reinforce the 

material at the four outer corners and at spots where 

cords are attached. Buddhist robes did not have any 

kind of fastening until the disciple A NANDA’s robes 

were blown by a breeze, and in order to maintain modesty 

the Buddha permitted the use of cords and buckles 

of wood, bone, or shell. Braided cords and buckles 

were common in East Asia, but not in Southeast and 

South Asia. 

The precepts also reinforce the idea of the robe as 

ritual object regulated in size, shape, and methods of 

stitching. Moreover, various texts recommend that 

each stitch be accompanied by a bow or a MANTRA (incantation), 

and advise that robes be cleaned with purified 

water and stored on high shelves surrounded by 

flowers and incense. Before Japanese Soto Zen monks 

don their robes, for example, they make three prostrations, 

place the folded robe on top of their heads 

and chant a verse in praise of the robe as a garment of 

liberation. Clearly the color, materials, and fabrication 

transform common robes into mantles of piety that 

represent humility and require respect. 

Buddhist robes as insignias of status, occasion, 

and sectarian affiliation 

Despite the Buddha’s exhortations, changes occurred. 

One of the most noticeable was the East Asian practice 

of bordering the patched panels with a dark material, 

forming a robe of striking contrasts. Most 

significantly, the colder climates and customs of dress 

in East Asia led to the use of tailored garments worn 

beneath the kasaya. Established by the sixth century in 

China, these underrobes consisted of an upper garment 

that had neckband sleeves falling to the wrist, and 

a piece of pleated cloth used for a skirt, which Indian 

Buddhists had also used. In East Asia these two pieces 

eventually were sewn into a single kimono-like garment. 

In Japan a culotte type of skirt was also worn. 

The use of these underrobes changed the function of 

the kasaya in East Asia. Kasaya were no longer needed 

for warmth and modesty, but rather were used to convey 

rank, status, occasion, and sectarian affiliation. 

The colors of a kasaya distinguished rank, status, 

and the level of formality of the occasion. To move 

from white to saffron robes signaled the advance from 

layman to monk in Thailand, just as the first level of 

novices in Japan today wear black and are permitted 

ocher robes only after receiving the formal transmission. 

East Asian Buddhists created complex systems of 

ecclesiastical ranks and offices modeled after those 

used at the imperial court, and they assigned certain 

colors to specific ranks. Martin Collcutt in Five Mountains 

(1981) describes the ranks and titles within 

medieval Japanese Zen monasteries. He notes that ordinary 

monks wore black underrobes and kasaya, but 

abbots wore robes of color. These colors depended not 

just on the individual’s rank but also on the status of 

the particular monastery. For example, only abbots of 

the senior monastery of the highest status were permitted 

to wear deep-purple robes. 

The propriety of colorful robes was debated at various 

times. However, religious leaders as divergent as 

PARAMARTHA (499–569), an Indian monk and translator 

of the sixth century, and DO GEN (1200–1253), the 

founder of Soto Zen Buddhism in thirteenth-century 

Japan, affirmed that while muddy ocher may be best, 

robes of blue, yellow, red, black, purple, or a combination 

of these colors were permissible. Occasion also 

governed the selection of the robe’s color. For example, 

in 1561 the New Pure Land sect decreed that 

henceforth their monks would wear white underrobes 

for happy events such as weddings, black underrobes 

for solemn occasions such as funerals, and colored 

underrobes for other ceremonial functions. 

Another indication of a monk’s rank was the quality 

of the kasaya material. Many kasaya for highranking 

monks in East Asia were made of exquisite 

brocades decorated with gold leaf, gold threads, and 

embroidery. These refinements were justified as marks 

of respect appropriate for robes that were devotional 

objects rather than ordinary garments. The precepts 

themselves also permit the use of donated materials, 

which could be refined, and this led to greater diversity 

of materials. The Vinaya relates the story of Jvaka, 

who received an especially beautiful cloth from a king. 

When he asked the Buddha if it were permissible to 

wear such a cloth, the Buddha approved, saying that 

the monks were free to wear rag robes or to accept 

householders’ garments, although it would be best to 

cut them. The status and fervor of the donor as well as 

the rank of the recipient were reflected in the quality 

of the donations, and thus donors contributed the 

most valuable materials they could afford. During the 

seventeenth through nineteenth centuries in Japan, for 

example, believers donated fragments of bright and 

richly decorated theatrical garments for monks to 



FIGURE 1 

Seven-columned kasaya 

i 

SOURCE: Adapted from Kyuma (1994), p. 48. 


733


patch together for robes. In modern times, Japanese 

congregations sometimes solicit funds to provide their 

monks with beautiful and expensive kasaya, which can 

cost up to $100,000. Even these fabrics, however, are 

still cut or overstitched to resemble the patchwork required 

by the Buddha’s directive. 

Other indications of rank and formality of occasion 

include the number of columns in the kasaya, five 

columns for ordinary monks and occasions, and seven 

and nine columns for high-ranking monks and more 

formal events. Even the fastening cords were color 

coded to rank. Certain accessories also emphasized 

rank. The head scarf or hood that was worn initially 

by important Tiantai monks, for example, originated 

from the story that ZHIYI (538–597), the Chinese 

founder of TIANTAI SCHOOL Buddhism, received a gift 

of a sleeve from the emperor to wear on his head for 

protection against the severe cold as he administered 

the PRECEPTS. Recalling this legend, the Japanese emperor 

also gave a sleeve for use as a hood to SAICHO 

(767–822), who introduced Tiantai (Japanese, Tendai) 

Buddhism to Japan. Later, other sects adopted the 

sleevelike headdress. 

Sectarian regulations were complex and underwent 

many revisions in the twentieth century. Japanese underrobes, 

for example, often have crests that symbolize 

particular sects, and sometimes kasaya incorporate 

scenes from the life of the sect’s founder. Also in Japan, 

the abbreviated, folded kasaya forming long narrow 

bands vary in style according to sect. They are worn 

across the chest in the NICHIREN SCHOOL or sect, and 

as circlets around the neck in the New Pure Land sect, 

while Zen sects retain the use of a biblike abbreviated 

kasaya. Laypeople also wear the abbreviated kasaya 

around their necks as badges of affiliation and piety. 

While Buddhist robes convey shared ideals and meanings, 

it is clear that the color, materials, and fabrication 

can also distinguish the wearers from one another. 

Buddhist robes as devotional objects 

Kasaya are also objects of spiritual charisma that function 

as devotional objects and amulets. The robes of 

great religious teachers are passed down to disciples as 

evidence of transmission of the teachings, and they 

function as proof of spiritual LINEAGE. DO GEN, in the 

chapter on “The Merits of the Buddhist Robe” in his 

Sho bo genzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye), argues 

that kasaya are more important than Buddhist relics. 

The association of robes with relics is suggested too by 

the occasional deposit of robes within Buddhist sculptures 

along with sutras and other valuable objects. 

Dogen further argues that the Buddha himself told his 

monks to think of their robe as a STU PA, that is, as a 

reliquary. And, in fact, relics and other precious objects 

were sometimes sewn into the backs of the robes. 

Kasaya were also visualized as altars, with the patches 

in the four corners representing the four Heavenly 

Kings that protect the four corners of the altar. The 

central patch was considered the seat of the Buddha, 

and the two patches on either side as the attendants to 

the Buddha. 

The kasaya derives its spiritual worth from its ability 

to induce enlightenment and create merit. Tales of 

its power abound from India to Japan. Two famous 

examples include the story of Utpalavarna, a prostitute 

in a previous life, who had once dressed herself in a 

kasaya as a joke. Despite her many sins, this action, 

even though it was in jest, produced sufficient merit 

to eventually lead her to enlightenment. Similarly, a 

JATAKA tale tells of the Buddha’s previous life as a lion 

that was tricked into allowing a hunter to approach because 

the hunter had disguised himself and hid his 

weapons within a kasaya. Realizing the ruse, the lion 

nevertheless sacrificed himself rather than hurt a person 

dressed in Buddhist robes. In short, the kasaya produced 

merit and provided protection, and laypeople 

sometimes made miniature kasaya to carry with them 

as amulets at all times. 

The Buddhist robe is layered with meanings. It can 

symbolize simplicity or splendor and can convey identities 

of place and position. As Dogen suggested, its essential 

importance lies in the fact that wearing this 

humble robe plants the seed of enlightenment and destroys 

the poisonous arrows of delusion. 

See also: Etiquette; Merit and Merit-Making; Relics 

and Relics Cults 

Bibliography 

Collcutt, Martin. Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic 

Institution in Medieval Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Council on East Asian Studies and Harvard University 

Press, 1981. 

Dogen Zenji. Sho bo genzo , 

Nakayama Shobo, 1988. 

tr. Nishiyama Kosen. Tokyo: 

Faure, Bernard. “Quand l’habit fait le moine: The Symbolism 

of the Kasaya in Soto Zen.” Cahiers d’Extreme-Asie 9 (1995): 

335–369. 

Griswold, A. B. “Prolegomena to the Study of the Buddha’s 

Dress in Chinese Sculpture.” Artibus Asiae 26, no. 2 (1963): 

85–131. 


R YO KAN 

Kennedy, Alan. Manteau de Nuages: Kesa Japonais. Paris: Reunion 

des Musée Nationaux, 1992. 

Kyuma, Echu. Kesa no hanashi. Kyoto: Hozokan, 1994. 

Till, Barry, and Swart, Paula. Kesa: The Elegance of Japanese 

Monks’ Robes. Victoria, BC: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 

1996. 

RYO KAN 

WILLA JANE TANABE 

Ryokan (Taigu, 1758–1831) was the eldest son of a 

prosperous family in a port town of northwest Japan. 

He was ordained at the age of seventeen as a Soto Zen 

monk. After ten years of monastic training and five 

years of wandering Ryokan returned to his home district, 

where he lived alone in a mountain hermitage. 

He maintained no ties to the Buddhist institutions, 

preferring a life of simplicity and poverty, writing poetry 

and practicing solitary meditation. He supported 

himself by the traditional practice of begging for alms, 

often stopping to play with children or to drink with 

the farmers. Gradually his fame spread and he became 

widely known as a poet and calligrapher. Scholars and 

writers traveled from far away to see him. The last 

three years of his life he became close friends with 

Teishin, a beautiful young nun who was an accomplished 

poet. 

Ryokan’s poetry describes the fleeting details of his 

rural life with both joy and sadness, adding occasional 

references to Buddhism and classical allusions. He 

wrote in both Japanese and literary Chinese, often 

bending or ignoring rules of composition in favor of 

common speech. Beneath this surface of transparent 

simplicity is Ryokan’s great erudition in the most ancient 

classics of both Japanese and Chinese poetry. His 

unparalleled popularity in contemporary Japan comes 

both from his poetry and from the ideal of his life. 

Ryokan is seen as one who achieved religious awakening 

in the midst of ordinary events, living a life that 

embodied the ideal of the unity of the mundane and 

transcendent. 

See also: Japanese, Buddhist Influences on Vernacular 

Literature in; Poetry and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Abé, Ryuichi, and Haskel, Peter. Great Fool, Zen Master Ryo kan: 

Poems, Letters, and Other Writings. Honolulu: University of 


Yuasa, Noboyuki. The Zen Poems of Ryo kan. Princeton, NJ: 


DAVID E. RIGGS 


735


S 

SAHA WORLD. See Cosmology 

SAICHO 

Saicho (767–822), posthumously known as Dengyo Daishi, 

was the founder of the Japanese Tendai (Chinese, 

Tiantai) school. He was a prolific scholar, and is best 

known for his efforts to reform monastic regulations 

and to create a new system of ordination for monks. 

Soon after he was ordained in the capital city of 

Nara, Saicho began studying and meditating at Mount 

Hiei, just northeast of Kyoto, in 785. When the capital 

moved to Kyoto in 794, Saicho was no longer distant 

from the political center. Enryakuji, which he built 

atop of Mount Hiei, became the training ground for 

Japan’s most illustrious Buddhist monks for the next 

four centuries. Although Enryakuji was a Tendai 

monastery, Saicho’s original interests, as well as later 

developments, incorporated a diverse body of Buddhist 

practices, including Japanese Zen and Pure Land, 

and a strong emphasis on tantric Buddhism. Saicho’s 

initial vision for a monastic center was motivated by 

his desire to purify and strengthen the spirit of Buddhist 

practice in Japan. He eventually proposed that 

Tendai monks be exempted from the government requirement 

to be ordained in Nara and, moreover, that 

Mount Hiei should house a center where monks could 

be ordained under Mahayana precepts that traditionally 

made no distinction between monastic and lay 

practitioners. His criticism of the doctrine and practice 

of the Nara Buddhist schools, particularly Hosso, 

resulted in strong opposition to his proposals. Nonetheless, 

the new ordination center was built shortly after 

his death. As a result, the Tendai school became a 

sectarian institution independent from Nara, and its 

monks became free from the vinaya. 

See also: Mahayana Precepts in Japan; Nara Buddhism; 


Bibliography 

Abé, Ryuichi. “Saicho and Kukai: A Conflict of Interpretations.” 


103–137. 

Groner, Paul. Saicho and the Establishment of the Japanese 

Tendai School. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. 

Weinstein, Stanley. “The Beginnings of Esoteric Buddhism in 

Japan: The Neglected Tendai Tradition.” Journal of Asian 

Studies 34, no. 1 (1974): 177–191. 

SAKYA. See Sa skya (Sakya) 

DAVID L. GARDINER 

ŚA KYAMUNI. See Buddha(s); Buddha Images 

SAMA DHI. See Meditation 

SAM DHINIRMOCANA-SU TRA 

Probably originally composed sometime around the 

fourth century B.C.E. in India, the Sam dhinirmocanasu 

tra (Discourse Explaining the Thought or Su tra on 

737

S AMGUK YUSA (MEMORABILIA OF THE T HREE K INGDOMS) 

Unfurling the Real Meaning) is today extant only in 

Chinese and Tibetan versions (Chinese, Jie shenmi jing; 

Tibetan, Dgongs pa nges par ’grel pa’i mdo). As its title 

indicates, the text claims to provide definitive explanations 

for contradictory statements in earlier sutras. 

It is divided into ten chapters, each of which has a main 

interlocutor who asks the Buddha to explain the intentions 

behind earlier statements attributed to him. 

All of the interlocutors are identified as BODHISATTVAS 

on the tenth stage (bhu mi), and the discourse is set in 

a heavenly realm. These tropes are apparently intended 

to establish the text as the definitive statement on contentious 

doctrinal issues. 

The first four chapters focus on a discussion of the 

ultimate truth (paramartha). The fifth contains a seminal 

description of the storehouse consciousness (ALAYA- 

VIJNANA), and the sixth explains the notion of the three 

characteristics (trilaksana) of phenomena (imputational, 

other-dependent, and thoroughly real). The seventh 

chapter is mainly concerned with outlining principles of 

Buddhist HERMENEUTICS, and the eighth focuses on 

MEDITATION theory and practice. The ninth chapter describes 

the bodhisattva PATH, and the final chapter is 

concerned with the characteristics of buddhahood, the 

culmination of the practices the text describes. 

The Sam dhinirmocana-su tra became the main 

scriptural source for the YOGACARA SCHOOL, one of the 

two main philosophical traditions of Indian MA- 

HAYANA Buddhism (the other being Madhyamaka). It 

figures prominently in the thought of ASAṄGA (ca. 

320–390), VASUBANDHU (fourth century C.E.), and 

their commentators, and inspired a voluminous literature 

in Tibet that is based on TSONG KHA PA’s Legs 

bshad snying po (Essence of Good Explanations). 

Bibliography 

Powers, John. Hermeneutics and Tradition in the Sam dhinirmocana-su 

tra. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1993. 

Powers, John, trans. Wisdom of Buddha: The Sam dhinirmocanasu 

tra. Berkeley, CA: Dharma, 1995. 

SAMGUK YUSA (MEMORABILIA OF 

THE THREE KINGDOMS) 

JOHN POWERS 

The Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms) 

is a collection of myths, anecdotes, and short stories 

from ancient Korea, mostly from the kingdom of Silla. 

The text was compiled around 1285, after the Mongol 

subjugation of Korea, by the Buddhist monk Iryŏn 

(Kim Kyŏnmyŏng, 1206–1289) and contains at least 

one later insertion by his disciple Mugŭk (d.u.). Little 

is known about the text prior to 1512. The title word 

yusa (Chinese, yishi) suggests that the text was meant 

to serve as an unofficial supplement to an official work, 

perhaps the Samguk sagi (Historical Records of the Three 

Kingdoms), compiled by Kim Pusik between 1136 and 

1145. Samguk yusa is roughly modeled after the Lidai 

fabao ji (Record of the Dharma-Jewel over Successive 

Generations, ca. 780) and the Taiping guangji (Expanded 

Tales of the Taiping Era, compiled 977–978) in 

form and content. 

The Samguk yusa is comprised of five chapters. The 

first chapter begins with a dynastic chronology and follows 

with the foundation myths of the native Korean 

kingdoms and other traditional narratives dating from 

before Silla’s conquest of the other kingdoms. The second 

chapter contains tales from the peninsular wars 

for unification, as well as postunification dynastic and 

other tales. The third chapter is comprised of two sections 

subtitled “The Flourishing of the Dharma” and 

“Stupas and Images,” which present the Buddhist perspective 

of the transmission of the religion to the 

peninsula and tales about the miraculous founding and 

history of particular sacred or cultic sites. The fourth 

chapter, “Exegetes,” contains hagiographies of eminent 

Silla scholastic monks. The fifth chapter is divided 

into four subsections titled (1) “Divine Spells,” hagiographies 

of Buddhist monks who specialize in working 

miracles through chanting DHARAN I and sutras; (2) 

“Thaumaturges,” stories of individuals, particularly 

Buddhist monks, who possess magic powers; (3) “Escape 

and Seclusion,” stories of people who escaped this 

mortal realm; and (4) “Filial Piety and Virtue,” traditional 

narratives of filial sons and virtuous daughters. 

See also: Korea; Korean, Buddhist Influences on Vernacular 

Literature in 

Bibliography 

Ha, Tae-Hung, and Mintz, Grafton K., trans. Samguk Yusa: Legends 

and History of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea. 

Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1972. 

SAM SA RA 


Sam sara (wandering) is a term referring to the beginningless 

cycle of birth, DEATH, and REBIRTH and a 


S A N CI 

process characterized by mental and physical DUH KHA 

(SUFFERING). This ongoing series of lives is determined 

by the moral quality of an individual’s thoughts and 

KARMA (ACTION) in this life and in previous lives. It is 

generally postulated that within sam sara the effects of 

good moral actions lead to wholesome rebirths, while 

the effects of bad moral actions lead inevitably to unwholesome 

rebirths. Liberation (NIRVAN A), release 

from the cycle altogether, is achieved only by those individuals 

who gain correct insight and realization of 

the truth of the Buddha’s teachings. 

Sam sara is divided cosmologically into five (sometimes 

six) distinct realms of existence, within which 

living beings are reborn in dependence upon their 

karma. These places of rebirth include the realms of 

DIVINITIES (deva), human beings (manusya), animals 

(tiryak), spirits of the dead or hungry ghosts (preta), 

and the hells (naraka). When the list of five realms is 

expanded to six, the place of demigods (asura) is added 

below the god realm. Life in any one of these realms 

is never eternal and never free from the prospect of 

suffering. Whether wandering temporarily in the 

higher realms of gods and humans or in the lower 

realms of animals, ghosts, and the denizens of hell, all 

living beings experience the sufferings of birth, death, 

and rebirth. Sam sara and the realms of rebirth are depicted 

in paintings of the wheel of life (bhavacakra), 

which are especially common in Tibet. 

Liberation from the cycle of sam sara is not always 

the immediate goal of Buddhism. In some Buddhist 

traditions, particularly in East Asia, greater emphasis 

is placed on rebirth in a buddha’s pure land (Chinese, 

jingtu; Japanese, jo do). The pure lands are purified 

buddha-fields (Sanskrit, buddhaksetra) or paradises, 

which are free from mental and physical suffering and 

watched over by a particular buddha. Dissenting opinions 

exist about the exact location of the PURE LANDS. 

Some place them within the realms of sam sara, and 

others place them outside the cycle altogether. Rebirth 

in one of the pure lands is determined less by karma 

and more by sincere FAITH and aspiration to be reborn 

there. The compassionate assistance of the buddha 

who resides in the pure land is also a decisive factor in 

securing rebirth in such an auspicious realm. Among 

the most popular pure lands are AMITABHA’s Land of 

Bliss (Sukhavat) and AKSOBHYA’s Land of Delight 

(Abhirati). 

See also: Cosmology 

Bibliography 

Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé. Myriad Worlds: Buddhist Cosmology 

in Abhidharma, Kalacakra, and Dzog-chen. Ithaca, 




SAMYE DEBATE. See Bsam yas Debate 

SA ÑCI 


Sañc’s extensive monastic complexes occupy a hilltop 

near the prosperous Indian town of Vidisa, where 

major road and river routes intersect. Its many freestanding 

pillars, STU PAS, temples, assembly halls, and 

monastic residences (viharas) date from the reign of 

King AŚOKA (third century B.C.E.) to around 1200 C.E., 

making it one of the oldest and most constantly occupied 

extant Buddhist sites. A small flat-roofed Gupta 

temple (ca. fourth century C.E.) is probably the earliest 

extant stone temple in South Asia. Many structures 

were erected on the foundations of earlier ones. Begun 

during Aśoka’s rule, an apsidal temple complex (no. 

40) was enlarged in Śuṅga times (ca. second to first 

centuries B.C.E.) and again later. Four quadrangular 

dry-masonry viharas belong to the seventh century C.E. 

Two of these were double-storied, while another incorporated 

a stone-faced temple with a northern-style 

tower in its eastern wall. As at AJAN T A, Sañc’s early 

stupas are unadorned and austere, while a Buddha image 

graces its Gupta stupa. Here too, Buddha images 

do not replace stupas; rather the two coexist. 

Dominating the hilltop, the Great Stupa’s core of 

Mauryan bricks and the edict pillar beside it suggest 

Aśoka may have built it as part of his legendary redistribution 

of the Buddha’s bodily relics (śarlra). 

During the Śuṅga period, the stupa was doubled in 

size to its present diameter of thirty-six meters. A 

railed berm accessed by a double staircase was also 

added to the dome, and an identical but more massive 

stone railing with openings at the cardinal directions 

enclosed the sacred precinct. These unadorned 

railings defined circumambulatory passages where 

Buddhist devotees could perform the basic rite of worshiping 

their lord’s relics. 


739

S AṄGHA 

In the Śatavahana period (ca. 150 C.E.), towering 

gateways consisting of two pillars bearing three architraves 

were erected at each railing opening. Every surface 

was carved with tumultuous and naturalistic 

reliefs that constantly threaten to break free from their 

architecturally defined, linear frames and the rock matrix. 

In comparison with Bharhut (first century B.C.E.), 

Sañc has proportionately more narrative scenes of 

Aśoka and of animals worshiping the Buddha’s living 

presence in relics such as the bodhi tree and the stupas, 

as well as more scenes from the Buddha’s life and far 

fewer JATAKAS. Sañc’s narratives typically include 

scenes of worshiping crowds moving freely in space. 

Style and meaning cohere in expressing the unselfconscious 

and unrestrained joyousness that often characterizes 

devotional worship (bhakti). Loaded up with 

auspicious actions, motifs, and figures, Sañc’s gates 

simultaneously honor the sacred precinct and protect 

its liminal openings against negative powers seeking to 

enter. What better way to do so than by representing 

and invoking the power of worship? 

The Great Stupa’s six hundred short inscriptions in 

Prakrit attest to a pattern of collective, multiple donation 

typifying early Buddhist patronage. Accounting 

for a third of all donations, monks and nuns form the 

largest donor group. Next come merchants crisscrossing 

the subcontinent. Donors include a guild of ivorycarvers 

and the Śatavahana king’s chief artisan. 

See also: Cave Sanctuaries; India, Buddhist Art in; 

Monastic Architecture; Relics and Relics Cult 

Bibliography 

Cunningham, Alexander. The Bhilsa Topes; or, Buddhist Monuments 

of Central India (1854). Reprint, Varanasi, India: Indological 

Book House, 1966. 

Dehejia, Vidya, ed. Unseen Presence: The Buddha and Sanchi: 

Bombay: Marg, 1966. 

Maisey, Fredrick Charles. Sanchi and Its Remains: A Full Description 

of the Ancient Buildings, Sculptures, and Inscriptions 

(1892). Reprint, Delhi: Indological Book House, 1972. 

Marshall, John Hubert. The Monuments of Sañchl. London: 

Probsthain, 1940. 

Marshall, John Hubert. A Guide to Sanchi, 3rd edition. Delhi: 

Manager of Publications, 1955. 


SAṄGHA 

The saṅgha (community) is the third of the three Buddhist 

REFUGES, or JEWELS (triratna), of BUDDHA, 

DHARMA, and saṅgha. The word saṅgha literally means 

“that which is well struck together”; it derives from a 

Sanskrit root, han (to strike), with the prefix sam conveying 

a sense of togetherness and completeness. The 

idea is that the true Buddhist community is well hammered 

together, impervious to schism, and in perfect 

harmony. From the very earliest period the undisputed 

focus of Buddhist WORSHIP has been the saṅgha, together 

with the Buddha and dharma, and the statement 

buddham śaranam gacchami, dharmam śaranam gacchami, 

saṅgham śaranam gacchami (I go for refuge to 

the Buddha, I go for refuge to the dharma, I go for 

refuge to the saṅgha) has been the primary, shared affirmation 

of Buddhists. 

Idealized community 

The traditional explanation of saṅgha describes it not 

as a community of ordinary monks and nuns belonging 

to a Buddhist order, but as a special community of 

eight noble beings called aryas (Pali, ariyas) who carry 

in their hearts the liberating dharma. They are described 

in the Ratana-sutta of the Cullavagga of the 

Sutta Nipata (II.1.6–7), one of the very earliest Buddhist 

teachings: “The eight persons praised by the virtuous 

are four pairs. They are the disciples of the 

Buddha and are worthy of offerings. Gifts given to 

them yield rich results . . . free from afflictions they 

have obtained . . . the state beyond death. This is the 

precious saṅgha jewel.” 

The first pair of noble beings are those who have 

reached, or are on their way to, the state of the ARHAT 

(one worthy of praise and offerings). The arhats, like 

the Buddha, have found liberation from unending 

SAM SARA (the cycle of birth and death). The three other 

pairs of noble beings are those who, if not arhats, have 

reached, or are on their way to, the state of anagamin; 

that is, they are nonreturners to this ordinary world, 

which is dominated by sense gratification. If they are 

not yet at that stage of development, they have reached, 

or are on their way to, the state of sakrdagamin (oncereturners), 

and they will return once more to this ordinary 

world. The fourth pair of noble beings are 

srota-apannas, stream-enterers, who have obtained, or 

are on their way to obtaining, a state where they may 

return to this ordinary world up to seven more times 

before they reach the goal of liberation at the end of 


S AṄGHA 

the PATH. They are called stream-enterers because the 

stream of the dharma, the understanding of the FOUR 

NOBLE TRUTHS that systematize the content of the Buddha’s 

liberating teaching, has become one with the 

stream of their minds. In this traditional understanding 

of the saṅgha, the Buddha, as an arhat, is a member 

of the saṅgha, and embodies the dharma as well. 

The salvific function of the saṅgha has been much 

discussed. Traditional explanations liken it to a nurse 

who helps a patient take the medicine (the dharma) 

that is prescribed by the Buddha, who is likened to a 

perfect doctor. Early Indian Buddhism (Majjhimanikaya 

75, 105), perhaps drawing on ancient Indian medical 

theory (e.g., Caraka-sam hita 9.19), claims that the 

Buddha or TATHAGATA (one who knows things as they 

are) can only teach disciples the path to the end of suffering, 

he cannot “wash away the sufferings of others 

by hand” (Udanavarga). The suffering person effects 

his or her own cure by putting into practice the eightfold 

path to freedom taught by the Buddha. Salvific 

power resides in the dharma, not in the Buddha or in 

the saṅgha, and according to early Buddhist texts, not 

in monks or nuns, either as individuals or as a group. 

History of the early community 

The earliest parts of the Buddhist canon extant in Pali 

suggest that the original historical community consisted 

of those engaging in ascetic endeavors as śramanas 

(Pali, samana) and pravrajika (Pali, pabbajita; 

those gone forth into homelessness). Buddhist ascetics 

were distinguishable from other similar groups of 

mendicants primarily by their dislike of intellectual 

disputation, their avoidance of extreme asceticism, 

their shared admiration for Gautama Śakyamuni, and 

a commitment to mental cultivation or MEDITATION 

(Sutta Nipata 2). Whereas the very earliest members 

of the community had no fixed monasteries, and sheltered 

under trees or in caves, the difficulty of traveling 

during the rainy season soon led members to take shelter 

in permanent buildings. It is likely that householders 

and wealthy patrons who originally gave alms 

without discrimination to all religious mendicants, be 

they Jainas, A jvikas, or orthodox followers of the 

Veda, over time began to favor the followers of Gautama 

Buddha and to understand themselves as responsible 

for their sustenance and well-being. This led 

to the basic division of the community into bhiksu 

(Pali, bhikkhu; MONKS) and bhiksunl (Pali, bhikkhunl; 

NUNS), words that literally mean “beggars,” and upasaka 

and upasika (male and female LAITY). According to tradition, 

A NANDA, the personal attendant of Gautama, 

asked that women be admitted into the community, 

and the first Buddhist nun was MAHAPRAJAPATI GAU- 

TAMI, the Buddha’s aunt. 

Entrance into the community was originally earned 

simply by answering the Buddha’s call to come forward. 

When charismatics like ŚARIPUTRA and MAHA- 

MAUDGALYAYANA, with considerable followings of their 

own, became Gautama’s disciples, the community 

grew considerably larger. Even before Gautama’s 

demise it is probable that senior members of the community 

were allowed to induct new members by having 

them recite the refuge formula (I go for refuge to 

the Buddha, etc.) three times. Gradually a more complex 

upasampada (ritual ordination) came into being. 

By that time, ORDINATION meant ordination as a monk 

or nun, and for practical purposes the Buddhist community 

became equivalent to the community of monks 

and nuns, though the community of the four assemblies 

(monks, nuns, and male and female laity) was also 

recognized. 

The history of the community of Buddhist monks 

and nuns over its first five hundred years is primarily 

a history of sam glti (councils) and nikaya (ordination 

lineages or schools). Immediately after the death of 

the Buddha, members of the fledgling community met 

in what was later called the First Council to record the 

Buddha’s teachings. Probably the earliest codification 

of community rules, the PRATIMOKSA, was formulated 

at about that time. Pratimoksa may originally have 

meant “anti-dissipatory,” and its recitation was the 

main factor connecting the various nikayas, which 

were already growing separate because of geography, 

loyalty to particular charismatic monks, and minor 

disagreements over discipline. 

The Second Council took place about a hundred 

years after the death of the Buddha. By that time the 

basic constitution of the community of monks and 

nuns, and most of the rules and rituals relating to 

monastic discipline and procedure, had already been 

codified. The texts in which this codification is found 

are together called the VINAYA (discipline). These texts 

comprise the first of the three sections of the tripitaka 

(the Buddhist CANON). The Vinaya Pitaka consists of 

three main sections: (1) the Vinaya-vibhaṅga, a list of 

personal rules for the different levels of ordination 

along with stories about how they came into being; (2) 

the Skandhaka (Pali, Khandhaka), an explanation of 

the rules governing community procedures, such as 


741

S AṄGHA 

admission to the order and the conducting of the rainsretreat; 

and (3) the Parivara, a compendium of additional 

materials. 

The vinaya texts list seven different sets of rules for 

junior and senior members of the community. Besides 

the rules for the bhiksus and bhiksunls (fully ordained 

monks and nuns), there are also sets of rules for male 

and female novices. The further special set of rules for 

probationary nuns probably reflects a stage in the gradual 

elimination of the female component of the community. 

The bhiksunl component of the community 

eventually died out in India, though it has continued 

in China and Korea to the present day. 

The morality expected of all members of the monastic 

community is given in the pratimoksa. At its core 

are four basic rules of defeat (parajika): to refrain from 

taking life, from taking what is not offered freely, from 

sexual activity, and from lying about spiritual attainments. 

Transgression of any of these rules entails expulsion 

from the order. The different nikayas list 

slightly different totals for the number of rules, ranging 

from about 350 for the full bhiksunl down to about 

thirteen for novices. Among these rules are some that 

enjoin on members of the community the yellow-, maroon-, 

or blue-colored robes, the begging bowl, the 

kuti (monastic cell), and dietary habits such as not eating 

in the afternoon and not keeping food overnight. 

The first major split in the saṅgha occurred between 

the MAHASAM GHIKAS (the Great Assembly, or Majorityists) 

and the Sthaviras (elders). Since most of what 

we know about the early history of the Buddhist order 

comes from the Mahavam sa (Great Chronicle), a history 

written in Pali from the particular viewpoint 

of monks of the ancient Mahavihara monastery in 

Sri Lanka (the nikaya from which the present-day 

THERAVADA school understands itself to originate), 

there has been a tendency to overemphasize the differences 

between different Buddhist nikayas, and to see 

them as sects fundamentally opposed to each other, 

rather than as different saṅghas, each connected 

through the same basic pratimoksa. 

The community of Buddhist monks and nuns has 

never been a monolithic entity. It is possible that its 

basic decentralized structure, characterized by the absence 

of a strong central ruler in favor of consensual 

assemblies, reflects the customs of the Śakyas, part of 

the Vrji (Pali, Vajji) confederation in the area of northcentral 

India where Śakyamuni (“the sage of the 

Śakyas”) was born. Although diversity was an integral 

part of the Buddhist community from an early period, 

the early nikayas were careful to formulate themselves 

in ways that avoided formal schism. Even after the 

Mahasam ghika/Sthavira schism, there was no fundamental 

split in the saṅgha, and it is an error to imagine 

that the split into HINAYANA and MAHAYANA 

Buddhism was based on irreconcilable differences between 

these early nikayas. 

There were at least eighteen early Buddhist nikayas, 

some of which give their names to later schools of Buddhist 

practice and philosophy. Many, if not all, recited 

the pratimoksa in their own vernacular language, and 

it is likely that each also had a vinaya, and perhaps an 

entire tripitaka. The complete tripitaka of the Mahavihara 

nikaya, or Theravada school, written in Pali, 

became available to European-language scholars in the 

nineteenth century. 

Although the original versions of the Vinaya Pitaka 

of many of the other schools have been lost, except 

for occasional texts and fragments, some are extant in 

Chinese and Tibetan translation. Among them, the 

Dharmaguptaka-vinaya in particular was followed in 

China and countries strongly influenced by Chinese 

Buddhism, and the MU LASARVASTIVADA-VINAYA was 

followed in Tibet and the regions influenced by it. 

Each saṅgha was (and still is to a great extent) defined 

by a shared recitation of the pratimoksa at a bimonthly 

posadha (Pali, uposatha; confession or restoration-ofmorality 

ceremony) carried out while scrupulously following 

karmavacana (Pali, kammavaca; prescribed 

formula) and ritual action dictated by tradition. Also 

defining of a community are two other ritual activities: 

setting up the slma (established boundaries) for 

the varsavasa (rains-retreat; Pali, vassavasa) and the ritual 

crossing of those boundaries at the end of the retreat. 

This custom probably dates back to the original 

followers of Gautama and to the places where buildings 

were located for groups of monks and nuns to 

spend the rainy season. A minimum of ten, or in some 

cases five, fully ordained members of a saṅgha constitute 

the required quorum. The presence or absence of 

these defining acts of a saṅgha is the basic criterion for 

deciding whether or not the śasana (Pali, sasana; Buddhist 

teaching) is or is not present in a particular region. 

Members of different communities keep basically 

the same rules, but they do not attend each others’ ceremonies 

and they do not form a single saṅgha, except 

in the sense that they symbolize, through their clothes 

and adherence to the rules in the pratimoksa, the community 

of noble beings described above. 


S AṄGHA 

Tibetan monks sitting together during a ceremony at a monastery in Himachal Pradesh, India. © Lindsay Hebberd/Corbis. Reproduced 


Maha ya na and Tantric saṅ˙ ghas 

We can see clearly in Edward Conze’s translation of 

the Large Su tra on Perfect Wisdom (p. 66 ff.) that the 

idealized Mahayana community is based on the eight 

noble beings. In addition to the eight noble beings 

of earlier Buddhism, however, the Mahayana community 

also includes BODHISATTVAS and buddhas. 

These are theoretically infinite in number, but best 

known amongst them are the eight bodhisattvas, including 

Mañjuśr, Avalokiteśvara, Ksitigarbha, and 

so on, and the buddhas AKSOBHYA, AMITABHA, and 

Vairocana. These noble bodhisattvas and buddhas 

are sometimes called “celestial” because they are located 

not in this ordinary world, but on a bhu mi 

(high spiritual level) or in a fabulous buddhaksetra 

(buddha-field or pure land). 

Mahayana tradition holds that bodhisattvas and 

buddhas are not motivated by NIRVAN A, the partial 

freedom from REBIRTH attained by the eight noble beings. 

They instead produce BODHICITTA (thought of 

enlightenment), attain samyaksam bodhi (right and perfect 

enlightenment), become buddhas, and work for 

countless ages for the benefit of the world. Noble bodhisattvas 

are on their way to attaining, and buddhas 

have actually attained, an everlasting enlightenment 

that shows itself in manifold ways appropriate for the 

benefit of the world. The Mahayana scriptures therefore 

claim that the Buddhist community is present in 

the world to a much greater degree and in many different 

forms compared to the community of the eight 

noble beings that is described in the scriptures of the 

MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS. 

In Buddhist TANTRA, the idealized community is 

understood to be pervaded by the nature of the guru 

and further augmented by VIDYADHARA (knowledge 

holders or sorcerers). Vidyadhara are said to be highly 

motivated bodhisattvas who utilize esoteric meditation, 

including sexual pleasure, to quickly attain high 

spiritual goals. Also given importance in the idealized 

tantric community are wrathful female figures 

(D AKINI), personal meditation deities (istadevata), and 

dharma protectors (dharmapala). 

The differences between actual historical Mahayana 

and pre-Mahayana communities have not been conclusively 

determined. The records of early Chinese 

travelers in India suggest that both functioned equally 


743

S ANJIE J IAO (THREE S TAGES S CHOOL) 

as communities of monks, sometimes even including 

members of the same nikaya. As for the historical 

tantric communities, they are also largely an object of 

speculation. Ronald Davidson has suggested tribal origins 

for some of them. It is likely that some tantric 

saṅghas formed around charismatic tantric masters 

(vajracarya) and held ritual meetings (ganacakra) and 

other rites as a group. David Gellner has shown that 

such groups still exist amongst the Newar Buddhists 

of Nepal. 

Modern Buddhist communities 

There has been a tendency in European writing since 

the end of the colonial period to associate Buddhist 

saṅghas with the emergence and legitimization of the 

nation-state. Thus it is customary to talk about the 

Thai saṅgha, Burmese saṅgha, Tibetan Buddhists, Chinese 

Buddhists, and so on. While this approach clearly 

has some descriptive value, it is misleading if it suggests 

a basic change from earlier nikaya structure. For 

example, in modern Sri Lanka the three nikayas are divided 

on the basis of caste and do not cross each other’s 

boundaries; in Tibet nikayas are divided on the basis 

of regions, monastic colleges, or sects that may have 

strong antipathy to each other. Nevertheless, it is clear 

that for the majority of Buddhists in those countries 

such differences do not preclude the various communities 

from being perceived as equally authentic Buddhist 

saṅghas; taken together in an undifferentiated 

manner, each saṅgha is esteemed as highly as the idealized 

community of the eight noble beings itself. 

Among new converts to Buddhism in Western 

countries there are widely differing views about what 

a Buddhist saṅgha entails. It is probably best understood 

as any group that meets together and that is 

joined by a shared Buddhist faith, or any group linked 

by its members’ devotion to a particular Buddhist 

teacher. The British founder of the Friends of the Western 

Buddhist Order is particularly insistent that his 

group’s Aristotelian friendship between members of 

the same sex is what makes his an authentic Buddhist 

community. Groups strongly influenced by Western 

Christian notions define the saṅgha as a group with a 

shared level of commitment to social action. 

See also: Councils, Buddhist 

Bibliography 

Conze, Edward, ed. and trans. The Large Su tra on Perfect Wisdom, 

with the Divisions of the Abhisamayalaṅkara. Berkeley 


Davidson, Ronald. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of 

the Tantric Movement. New York: Columbia University 

Press, 2003. 

Gellner, David N. Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest: Newar 

Buddhism and Its Hierarchy of Ritual. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 


Horner, I. B., trans. The Book of the Discipline (Vinaya Pitaka), 

6 vols. London: Pali Text Society, 1938–1966. 

Prebish, Charles. Buddhist Monastic Discipline: The Sanskrit 



1975. 


SANJIE JIAO (THREE STAGES SCHOOL) 

The Sanjie jiao (Three “Levels” or “Stages”) movement 

begun by the Chinese monk Xinxing (540–594 C.E.) is 

perhaps best known because its teachings and practices 

were suppressed as heretical numerous times over the 

two-hundred-plus years of its history. Banned from the 

official scriptural canon as apocryphal (weijing), Sanjie 

writings were lost until discoveries of numerous 

manuscripts at DUNHUANG and elsewhere in the early 

twentieth century. In spite of opposition, the movement 

remained popular for several centuries, attracting 

the aristocracy as well as throngs of commoners. 

The movement takes its name from its central 

teaching, which divides SENTIENT BEINGS into three 

levels of spiritual capacity: the “wise, the in-between, 

and the stupid,” as the Wei-Shu (eighth century) put 

it. Xinxing taught that the people of his era were entirely 

of the third level, blinded by prejudice and hatred 

and therefore incapable of a correct understanding 

of the Buddha’s teachings. Whereas sentient beings of 

superior capacity could benefit from the varied teachings 

of the different schools (biefa), the degenerate beings 

of the third level needed to rely on the universal 

teachings (pufa) of ultimate truth that transcend distinctions 

of truth and falsity, purity and impurity. 

Xinxing was also influenced by the doctrine of the DE- 

CLINE OF THE DHARMA, according to which people’s capacity 

for practice decreases as the time from the 

historical Buddha increases. 

Equally important for Xinxing was the doctrine of 

universal buddha-nature or TATHAGATAGARBHA. This 

teaching asserts that all sentient beings are fundamentally 

of the same nature as the fully awakened buddha 

and will one day realize that nature. From these doctrines 

came the Sanjie practice of “recognizing the evil” 


S ANSKRIT, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

in oneself while cultivating “universal respect” for the 

inherent buddhahood of all other sentient beings. 

The Sanjie community was headquartered at Huadu 

and four other monasteries in the capital city of 

Chang’an, though it had communities throughout 

China. In their monastic life, members followed a typical 

regimen that included a wide variety of contemplative 

practices, penitentiary rituals, veneration of the 

buddhas, devotional liturgies, chants, the seeking of 

alms, and the like. Perhaps reflecting their emphasis 

on recognizing the evil in oneself, Sanjie communities 

were extremely rigorous in these practices and punished 

even small infractions. The best-known Sanjie 

institution was the charitable Inexhaustible Storehouse 

(Wujinzang), which lent goods free of interest to the 

poor and needy. 

In spite of its popularity, Sanjie was suppressed five 

times between 600 and 725. It is hard to know the exact 

reasons behind the suppressions, for there was 

nothing particularly radical or socially dangerous 

about Sanjie teachings, practices, or institutions— 

indeed, they were typical of many other groups of the 

time. There was also no common theme linking the 

suppressions: Some edicts banned Sanjie texts from the 

canon, others aimed at its institutional base at Huadu 

Monastery, and others attacked unspecified practices. 

The reign (684–705) of Empress Wu saw both imperial 

support for the Inexhaustible Storehouse and suppression 

of Sanjie scriptures, though none of the 

attacks ever actually eliminated the movement. The 

treatment Sanjie received does show the political nature 

of religious institutions and the important yet 

ephemeral nature of orthodoxy. 

See also: Apocrypha; China; Persecutions 

Bibliography 



Hubbard, Jamie. Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood: The 

Rise and Fall of a Chinese Heresy. Honolulu: University of 


JAMIE HUBBARD 

SANSKRIT, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN 

Buddhist literature in Sanskrit is a large and diverse 

category. It consists of both canonical and noncanonical 

materials, the latter ranging from anonymous 

narrative collections and ritual manuals 

through technical treatises, poetry, and plays written 

by known individuals. Two distinct languages are used 

in this category: Sanskrit and so-called Buddhist Hybrid 

Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the ancient prestige language 

of Indian culture, first known through collections of 

hymns called Vedas dating from the second millennium 

B.C.E., and later systematized in a generative 

grammar by Panini (fourth century B.C.E.). In brahmanical 

Hindu religion, Sanskrit is seen as the natural 

language, that which would be spoken by any person 

if not trained in a vernacular as a child, and as such 

represents reality more closely than external phenomena 

perceived through the senses. The ability to 

compose in Sanskrit—requiring precise control of its 

complex inflectional system, and in verse the capacity 

to reproduce artfully a variety of metrical patterns— 

was seen as the epitome of educated civilization. Buddhist 

Hybrid Sanskrit (hereafter BHS) is the language 

of a text called the MAHAVASTU and of most MAHAYANA 

sutras, that is, discourses attributed to the Buddha. It 

has been denoted by this name since the publication of 

a dictionary and grammar of the language by Franklin 

Edgerton, but has also been called “Buddhist Sanskrit,” 

“mixed Sanskrit,” and “the gatha dialect” (reflecting the 

fact that it is most commonly found in the verses, gatha, 

of Mahayana discourses). The origin and nature of 

BHS is disputed, Edgerton preferring to view it as the 

result of an incomplete process of translation into Sanskrit 

of materials originally composed in a vernacular, 

prakrit. This was not a formal attempt at translation 

but a gradual process of influence reflecting the prestige 

of Sanskrit proper in the broader community 

(Edgerton, sect. 1.34). BHS texts vary in character, particularly 

in the degree to which they employ vernacular 

grammatical forms. Later BHS texts are identified 

as such largely through their vocabulary, their grammar 

being that of standard, if simple, Sanskrit. In the 

eyes of traditionally trained pandits and even some 

Western scholars, BHS has appeared to be a highly incorrect, 

even barbaric, language requiring correction. 

The work of defining BHS continues, as texts are edited 

anew with greater sensitivity. 

Canonical literature 

Whereas for the MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS, the 

CANON was defined in terms of an exclusive tripitaka, 

both the Mahayana and VAJRAYANA traditions utilized 

a more flexible, inclusive concept of canon that allowed, 

alongside the tripitaka, the incorporation of a 

large number of texts claiming to be BUDDHAVACANA, 


745


(WORD OF THE BUDDHA). This is indicated by their 

opening with the phrase evam maya śrutam (“Thus 

have I heard”), indicating that each text is understood 

to have been recited by the Buddha’s disciple A NANDA 

at the First Council. Modern scholarship situates these 

texts as new if anonymous compositions, the chronology 

of which tracks the evolution of Mahayana and 

Vajrayana, respectively. The inclusiveness of later Indian 

Buddhism regarding canonicity also means that 

it is difficult to know the precise total extent of the literature. 

The Pali canon by tradition has been fixed 

since the first century B.C.E. and the exact content is 

well known, as revealed in the fifth-century C.E. commentaries 

attributed to BUDDHAGHOSA and others. 

There is no comparable clarity for the Mahayana or 

Vajrayana, and even now there exists no comprehensive 

catalogue of works for either tradition. The nearest 

we have are the ancient CATALOGUES OF SCRIPTURES 

of the Chinese and Tibetan translated canons, none of 

which are exhaustive. This situation makes it difficult 

to write with conclusive authority on many aspects of 

this literature as a whole. 

This situation is further complicated in that the major 

portion of canonical Buddhist literature in Sanskrit 

has been lost since the time of Muslim depredations 

in northern India (eleventh through twelfth centuries 

C.E.) and is now known only through ancient translations 

made into Tibetan, Chinese, and other languages. 

The exceptions to this have come from two sources: 

archaeological or antiquarian recovery of ancient manuscripts 

or their active preservation through copying 

in Nepal. Notable among the former are numerous 

manuscripts recovered from the oases of Central Asia, 

the small library of about fifty texts found in Gilgit in 

the 1930s, Rahula Saṅkrtyayana’s photographs made 

in the 1930s in Tibet of very early Sanskrit manuscripts 

originally transported there in the medieval period to 

assist translation work, and the recovery in the 1990s 

of very early manuscripts from Afghanistan, such as 

those in the collection of Martin Schøyen in Oslo 

(Braarvig). Typical of the latter category from Nepal 

are numerous manuscripts of nine canonical texts 

called the navadharma (the nine teachings), along with 

a wide range of tantric ritual texts. The bulk of Buddhist 

Sanskrit literature known today has been preserved 

in Nepal (Mitra). 

A gama collections. The agama collections are the 

functional equivalents of the nikayas of the Pali canon— 

thus there were long (dlrgha), middling (madhyama), 

thematic (sam yukta), incremental (ekottara), and miscellaneous 

(ksudraka) collections in Sanskrit. The 

agama collections contain Sanskrit versions of many 

of the texts found in the Pali collections, and are understood 

to have been the śravaka canon as utilized on 

the Indian subcontinent by śravaka lineages other than 

that of the THERAVADA school. Overall the agamas contained 

a larger number of texts than the nikayas and 

arranged them in a different sequence. Unlike other 

Buddhist literature in Sanskrit that has no śravaka parallels, 

this category offers enormous potential for comparative 

study to differentiate the ideas and concerns 

of the śravaka schools. Regrettably, the agamas do not 

survive in their entirety and are largely known through 

translations of them made into Chinese (Lamotte, pp. 

153 f.). Until recently the only exceptions to this were 

individual sutras—for example, the MAHAPARINIR- 

VAN A-SU TRA (Waldschmidt) and fragments recovered 

from long abandoned Buddhist sites in Central Asia— 

but this has changed with the discovery in Afghanistan 

in the late 1990s of an almost complete manuscript of 

the Dlrghagama, probably belonging to the Mulasarvastivada 

school (Hartmann). 

Vinaya and abhidharma. Although there were 

seven canonical ABHIDHARMA texts in Sanskrit belonging 

to the Sarvastivada school, these are now lost in 

their original language. The Sanskrit VINAYA collections 

have fared better, and two works in particular 

warrant mention. The first of these is the MU LASAR- 

VASTIVADA-VINAYA, which has mostly survived in a single 

manuscript discovered at Gilgit. This massive text 

is a compilation of narratives and case law offering numerous 

insights into the preoccupations and realia of 

monastic life in medieval India (Panglung). With this 

we can compare the Mahavastu, a wonderful collection 

of narratives and lore built around a biography of 

the Buddha that describes itself as belonging to the 

vinaya of the Lokottaravada branch of the MA- 

HASAM GHIKA SCHOOL (Jones). This too contains interesting 

and important parallels to material found in the 

Pali canon. 

Maha ya na. Mahayana sutras form a diverse body of 

literature produced between the first century B.C.E. and 

the fifth century C.E. The earliest examples are thought 

to be the perfection of wisdom texts, Astasahasrikaprajñaparamita 

and Ratnagunasam caya-gatha, in prose 

and verse, respectively. These expound a critique of the 

abhidharma and the teaching of the real existence of 

dharmas and promote the BODHISATTVA as the ideal 

Buddhist. While many Mahayana sutras are now only 

known in Tibetan and Chinese translations, we are well 



endowed with manuscripts of the navadharma, which 

includes the following sutras: Saddharmapundarlka 

(Lotus Su tra), Astasahasrika-prajñaparamita, LAṄKA- 

VATARA-SU TRA, Daśabhu miśvara, Gandavyu ha, Samadhiraja, 

and SUVARN APRABHASOTTAMA-SU TRA; plus 

the LALITAVISTARA, a śravakayana biography of the 

Buddha that is built around guides to the main pilgrimage 

sites of the Buddha’s life (Foucher), and the 

Guhyasamaja-tantra, a Vajrayana work. These texts 

and others express a range of doctrinal views and a 

number of them were among those considered authoritative 

and thus expounded by Mahayana doctrinal 

traditions, such as the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL and 

the YOGACARA SCHOOL. 

Vajraya na. From the middle of the first millennium 

C.E. until the demise of institutional Buddhism in India 

in the twelfth century, there began to appear Buddhist 

tantric works, written in Sanskrit, employing 

instrumental magic and ritual to achieve specific goals. 

Retrospectively these have been assigned to four 

classes: kriya or “action” TANTRAS; carya or “conduct” 

tantras, dominated by the Mahavairocanabhisam bodhi 

Tantra (Tantra on the Perfect Awakening of Maha- 

Vairocana); yoga or “meditation” tantras, dominated 

by the Sarvatathagatatattvasam graha (Compendium on 

the Essence of all the Tathagatas); and the anuttarayoga 

or “supreme meditation” tantras, among which is included 

the Guhyasamaja Tantra (Tantra on the Secret 

Assembly). The last tantra composed in India before 

the final demise of institutional Buddhism there was 

the eleventh-century Kalacakra Tantra, a major work 

seeking not just soteriological goals but also offering a 

defense against contemporary Muslim domination. 

Texts in the higher classes of tantra tend toward asserting 

feminine representations of the ideal, employing antinomian 

practices (e.g., consumption of forbidden 

substances, sexual transgression of monastic rules and 

caste boundaries), and, although written in relatively 

normal Sanskrit, employ a secret or allusive vocabulary 

called sandhyabhasa, in which actual referents are 

disguised by euphemisms and elaborate symbolism. A 

minor example of this appears in the opening phrase 

of the Guhyasamaja Tantra, which forgoes the familiar 

formula and asserts instead that the Buddha delivered 

the tantra while residing in the “vagina of the 

Vajra Lady,” which is understood to mean “while residing 

in the wisdom of enlightenment.” 

Commentaries. This entire body of canonical material 

inspired COMMENTARIAL LITERATURE usually composed 

by known historical individuals, although this 

too has fared badly and relatively little survives in its 

original language. There is no definitive catalogue of 

Sanskrit commentaries, but it has been estimated in relation 

to the Tibetan canon that, of 120 commentaries 

translated into Tibetan, only ninety remain current; allowing 

for duplications, these offer comment on only 

thirty-four, or 10 percent, of the sutras extant in the 

same canon (Schoening). Commentaries vary widely 

in length, from single folios to several volumes, and 

some sutras have attracted much more attention than 

others—the HEART SU TRA, a short Perfection of Wisdom 

text, having seven commentaries. There are also 

subcommentaries on primary commentaries, the 

Abhisamayalam kara apparently inspiring something in 

excess of twenty. 

Noncanonical literature 

Canonical materials alone do not exhaust Buddhist literature 

in Sanskrit. In fact, the larger part of the field 

is made up of noncanonical materials, which are even 

more diverse than their canonical counterparts. In the 

following survey, the subcategories employed are by no 

means exclusive, merging in some cases with each 

other and with canonical materials. 

Narrative. Narrative is a, if not the, dominant genre 

of Buddhist literature, and happily many examples 

have survived into the present day. The canonical literature 

already reviewed is replete with narrative materials 

that were redacted to form new compilations of 

pure narrative, such as the AVADANAŚATAKA (One Hundred 

Stories of Edifying Deeds) and the DIVYAVADANA 

(Divine Stories of Edifying Deeds), the latter probably 

redacted from the Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya. The 

Avadanaśataka subsequently inspired further cycles of 

verse renderings of sets of its stories, which were composed 

probably in the second half of the first millennium 

C.E. These texts, clearly the result of a concerted 

attempt to revise the entire Avadanaśataka by what was 

probably a tradition of specialists in this kind of narrative 

literature, were termed mala (garlands), and typically 

employ a frame story involving a dialogue between 

the emperor AŚOKA and a monk named UPAGUPTA 

(Strong). 

Ritual texts. The Nepalese community has preserved 

a host of ritual texts of a variety of kinds. Many of these 

are transmitted from Indian originals and include compendia 

of meditation texts giving guidance on the visualization 

and worship of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and 

various tantric figures, such as the Sadhanamala and 

Nispannayogavall. There are also more miscellaneous 


747


collections covering a range of activities, such as building 

monasteries (e.g., the Kriyasam graha). 

Treatises. Often attracting attention before the more 

extensive narrative and ritual materials, there are important 

treatises, śastras, compiled by known historical 

individuals in order to expound specific doctrinal 

positions, sometimes doctrines voiced in sutra sources. 

Among these we should note the encyclopedic ABHI- 

DHARMAKOŚABHASYA (Treasury of Higher Teaching) of 

VASUBANDHU, which sets out a survey of Sarvastivada 

doctrine, which it then critiques from a SAUTRANTIKA 

viewpoint in an autocommentary. Some treatises offer 

exegeses of the work of earlier scholiasts; thus CAN- 

DRAKIRTI’s Prasannapada is effectively a commentary 

on NAGARJUNA’s Mu lamadhyamakakarika (Foundational 

Verses on the Middle Way), both being core textual 

authorities in the exegesis of Madhyamaka 

doctrine. By contrast, Vasubandhu’s Vim śatika and 

Trim śika (Twenty Verses and Thirty Verses) expound 

doctrine de novo. ŚANTIDEVA’s BODHICARYAVATARA 

(Introduction to the Conduct of a Bodhisattva) systematically 

outlines in evocative poetry the nature of a 

bodhisattva’s practice and exemplifies the crossover 

into material that we might otherwise classify as purely 

poetic (Crosby and Skilton). 

Poetry and drama. Sometimes undeservedly attracting 

less attention are splendid works of self-consciously 

high literary merit. These include AŚVAGHOSA’s secondcentury 

C.E. BUDDHACARITA, a verse biography of the 

Buddha, and Saundarananda, the earliest examples of 

Sanskrit kavya (high poetry) that have survived. Regrettably 

we have lost Aśvaghosa’s dramas, which included 

an account of the conversions of ŚARIPUTRA and 

MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA, and they are known now only 

through manuscript fragments from Central Asia. 

Similar to these are the prose and verse kavya JATAKA- 

MALA of A RYAŚU RA (fourth century C.E.), a retelling 

of thirty-four jataka stories in elegant court style. His 

Paramitasamasa (Compendium of the Perfections) is an 

important parallel to Śantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara 

(Meadows). Another important work is the Nagananda 

of Harsa, a seventh-century king, a complete drama 

that retells the story of the bodhisattva as Jmutavahana. 

This last is notable in that its author was not 

a Buddhist, a distinction shared with the Avadanakalpalata, 

a cycle of 108 Buddhist stories retold in 

verse by the eleventh-century Kashmiri poet Ksemendra. 

All these examples are characterized by the reworking 

of existing narratives from canonical sources, 

but this crossover can also be seen in the elegant kavya 

meters sometimes employed in the composition of 

some canonical literature. Numerous original compositions 

in verse survive mainly in translation. Often 

concerned with praise, they are called stotra (hymns), 

chief among which must be the works of Matrceta 

(second century C.E.), two of which were memorized 

by all monks in India, according to the Chinese pilgrim 

YIJING (635–713). 

Nepalese Buddhist literature in Sanskrit. While 

the composition of Buddhist literature died out in India 

after the Muslim conquests of the twelfth century 

C.E., it continued in Nepal, where cultural continuity 

was retained and in fact heavily augmented by refugees 

from the Buddhist homelands in northeastern India. 

Of later composition in Nepal are various parajika 

texts, describing ritual means whereby one might avoid 

the negative consequences of various kinds of killing, 

and demonstrating a Hindu-Buddhist syncretism. Of 

greater literary merit are seven large verse compositions 

that retell materials familiar from Indic sources, 

such as the Avadanaśataka and Mahavastu, but which 

also borrow heavily from śastra-type material, such as 

the Bodhicaryavatara. These include the Svayambhu - 

purana, Bhadrakalpavadana, Vicitrakarnikavadana, 

and the Gunakarandavyu ha. These all reuse the frame 

story of Upagupta and Aśoka, familiar from the Indian 

avadanamalas, but supplement it with a further framing 

device involving two monks, Jinaśr and Jayaśr. 

These texts also incorporate values of Nepalese Buddhism, 

while the Svayambhu purana goes so far as to 

localize the Buddhist sacred landscape and mythology 

in Nepal. 

See also: A gama/Nikaya; Languages; Pali, Buddhist 

Literature in 

Bibliography 

Braarvig, Jens; Harrison, Paul; Hartmann, Jens-Uwe; Kazunobu 

Matsuda; and Sander, Lore; eds. Buddhist Manuscripts of the 

Schøyen Collection, 2 vols. Oslo: Hermes, 2000 and 2002. 

Crosby, Henrietta Kate, and Skilton, Andrew, trans. The Bodhicaryavatara. 


Edgerton, Franklin. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary. 

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1954. 

Foucher, Alfred. La vie du Bouddha, d’après les textes et les monuments 

de l’Inde (1949). Paris: Maisonneuve, 1987. 

Hartmann, Jens-Uwe. “Further Remarks on the New Manuscript 

of the Drghagama.” Journal of the International College 

for Advanced Buddhist Studies 5 (2002): 98–117. 


ŚA RIPUTRA 

Hodge, Stephen, trans. The Maha-Vairocana-Abhisambodhi 

Tantra: With Buddhaguhya’s Commentary. London: Routledge 

Curzon, 2003. 


1949–1956. 

Lamotte, Étienne. History of Indian Buddhism from the Origins 

to the Śaka Era (1958), tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain, Belgium: 


Meadows, Carol. A rya-Śu ra’s Compendium of the Perfections: 

Text, Translation, and Analysis of the Paramitasamasa. Bonn, 

Germany: Indica et Tibetica Verlag, 1986. 

Mitra, Rajendralal. The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal 

(1882). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981. 

Panglung, Jampa L. Die Erzälstoffe des Mu lasarvastivada-Vinaya 

Analysiert auf grund der Tibetischen Übersetzung. Tokyo: 

Reiyukai Library, 1981. 

Schoening, Jeffrey D. “Su tra Commentaries in Tibetan Translation.” 

In Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. José I. 

Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996. 

Skorupski, Tadeusz. Kriyasamgraha: Compendium of Buddhist 

Rituals. Tring, UK: Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2002. 

Strong, John. “The Buddhist Avadanists and the Elder Upagupta.” 

Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 22 (1985): 862–881. 

Waldschmidt, Ernst. Das Mahaparinirvanasu tra, 3 vols. Berlin: 

Akademie Verlag, 1950–1951. 

Wayman, Alex. Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra: The Arcane Lore 

of Forty Verses, a Buddhist Tantra Commentary. Delhi: Motilal 

Banarsidass, 1977. Reprint, 1991. 

Winternitz, Maurice. A History of Indian Literature (1933), Vol. 

2: Buddhist and Jain Literature, tr. V. Srinivasa Sarma. Delhi: 

Motilal Banarsidass, 1983. Reprint, 1999. 

ŚA NTIDEVA 


The MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL philosopher and poet Śantideva 

is generally thought to have lived some time between 

685 and 763 C.E., although this is by no means 

conclusive. The claim that he was a prince from North 

India who fled royal consecration repeats a traditional 

Buddhist theme and has no independent support. Śantideva 

adhered to the MAHAYANA tradition. His spiritual 

poem the BODHICARYAVATARA (Introduction to the 

Conduct That Leads to Enlightenment) indicates that he 

was particularly devoted to the bodhisattva Mañjuśr. 

His other great work is the Śiksasamuccaya (Compendium 

of Doctrines), which consists in the main of 

valuable quotations from many Mahayana Buddhist 

scriptures (sutras) arranged to illustrate aspects of the 

Mahayana PATH. The Śiksasamuccaya is an important 

Sanskrit source for sections of sutras that no longer 

survive in their Sanskrit originals. 

In the traditional (mainly Tibetan) hagiographies, 

Śantideva appears to be quite ordinary although actually 

a figure of advanced spiritual attainment. One 

story goes that he seemed to the monks of Nalanda 

Monastery simply to laze around doing nothing. They 

asked him to give a recitation before the monastery, 

then tried to erect the teacher’s seat so high that Śantideva 

could not reach it. With one hand he magically 

lowered the seat, sat on it, and asked what they wanted 

him to recite. At the request for something new (for a 

change) Śantideva began to create spontaneously his 

Bodhicaryavatara, undoubtedly the single greatest Indian 

poem about cultivating the Mahayana spiritual 

life. When he had nearly reached the end he ascended 

into the air and disappeared, although his voice could 

still be heard. 


Bibliography 

Bendall, Cecil, and Rouse, W. H. D., trans. Śiksa Samuccaya: A 

Compendium of Buddhist Doctrine. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 

Reprint of 1922 edition. 



Ruegg, David S. The Literature of the Madhyamaka School of Philosophy 

in India. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1981. 

Tsonawa, Losang Norbu, trans. Indian Buddhist Pandits from 

“The Jewel Garland of Buddhist History.” Dharamsala, India: 

Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1985. 

Wallace, Vesna A., and Wallace, B. Allan, trans. A Guide to the 

Bodhisattva Way of Life (Bodhicaryavatara). New York: Snow 

Lion, 1997. 



Williams, Paul, with Tribe, Anthony. Buddhist Thought: A Complete 

Introduction to the Indian Tradition. London and New 


ŚA RIPUTRA 

PAUL WILLIAMS 

Śariputra (Pali, Sariputta), a disciple of Śakyamuni 

Buddha, attained the enlightened status of an ARHAT, 


749

S ARVA STIVA DA AND M U LASARVA STIVA DA 

or saint. Śariputra is renowned for his wisdom and his 

expertise in ABHIDHARMA. 

Because of his reputation for wisdom, Śariputra frequently 

appears in Mahayana sutras as a prime representative 

of the HINAYANA. The Buddha predicts 

Śariputra’s future buddhahood in the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), a famous Mahayana 

scripture. Originally Śariputra and his childhood friend 

MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA were students of Sañjayin, a 

non-Buddhist teacher. Śariputra and Mahamaudgalyayana 

promised each other that whoever attained 

knowledge of liberation first would inform the other. 

One day Śariputra met a Buddhist monk named 

Aśvajit (or Upasena in some texts). Attracted by Aśvajit’s 

serene countenance and flawless comportment, 

Śariputra converted to Buddhism. Śariputra attained 

the dharma-eye when Aśvajit recited a four-line verse 

summary of Buddhist teachings on ANITYA (IMPERMA- 

NENCE). Mahamaudgalyayana converted to Buddhism 

upon seeing a physically transformed Śariputra, exclaiming: 

“Venerable One, your senses are serene, 

your face is at peace, and the complexion of your 

skin utterly pure. Did you reach the deathless state?” 

(Catusparisatsu tra, quoted in Strong, 2002, p. 50). 

At Śariputra’s and Mahamaudgalyayana’s ordination, 

the Buddha proclaimed that they would be his 

two chief disciples in accordance with a prediction 

made to that effect many eons ago by a previous buddha. 

Thus the two are sometimes depicted flanking the 

Buddha in Buddhist art. Śariputra predeceased the 

Buddha. Like other arhats, Śariputra was already the 

focus of worship in ancient and medieval India. In 

Burma (Myanmar) he is one of a set of eight arhats 

propitiated in protective rituals and he is also believed 

to grant his worshippers wisdom. 


Bibliography 

Malalasekera, G. P. “Sariputta Thera.” In Dictionary of Pali 

Proper Names (1937–1938), 2 vols. New Delhi: Munshiram 




Strong, John S. The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and Interpretations, 

2nd edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002. 


SARVA STIVA DA AND 

MU LASARVA STIVA DA 

The term Sarvastivada means “those who claim that 

everything exists”; Mu lasarvastivada means “root Sarvastivada.” 

The Sarvastivada school, one of the largest 

and most important mainstream schools of Indian 

Buddhism, a subschool of the Sthavira branch, is first 

attested in inscriptions dating from the first century 

C.E. and was to become prominent throughout northern 

India and Central Asia, in particular in the northwestern 

regions of Kashmir and Gandhara and the 

north central region of Mathura. Traditional sources 

connect each of these regions with a prominent early 

Sarvastivada teacher: Kashmir with Madhyantika, and 

Mathura with Upagupta. Later, both regions became 

strongholds of the Sarvastivada school, but scholarly 

disagreement persists as to which region was the original 

home of the sect. 

A substantial portion of the Sarvastivada version of 

the Buddhist canon is preserved in Chinese translation, 

including the complete monastic disciplinary code 

(VINAYA), a portion of the dialogues (sutra), the complete 

collection of canonical scholastic treatises (AB- 

HIDHARMA), as well as other postcanonical scholastic 

texts and commentaries that contain detailed examinations 

of virtually all aspects of early Indian Buddhist 

doctrine. The most important of these doctrinal discussions 

is the hallmark position, “everything exists” 

(sarvam asti), from which the name, Sarvastivada, derives. 

Here the Sarvastivadins suggest that “everything,” 

that is all conditioned factors (dharma), “exist” 

and can exert causal efficacy in the three time periods 

of the past, present, and future. This position was attacked 

by rival Buddhist groups as a violation of the 

fundamental Buddhist position of ANITYA (IMPERMA- 

NENCE). In response, the Sarvastivadins developed an 

elaborate ontology that specified the manner in which 

past and future factors exist while attempting to preserve 

their impermanent character. 

Multiple recensions of extant Sarvastivada texts, as 

well as references in their scholastic literature to the 

variant doctrinal positions of different groups of Sarvastivadins, 

indicate that internal divisions existed 

within the larger Sarvastivada school. These divisions 

reflected regional, chronological, doctrinal, and possibly 

other differences. Regional variation might also explain 

the origin of one notable Sarvastivada group, the 

Mulasarvastivada. The Mulasarvastivadins possessed 

their own separate monastic code, extant in Sanskrit, 

and can also possibly be affiliated with certain sutra di- 


S A SKYA (SAKYA) 

alogues and other miscellaneous texts extant in Chinese 

translation. While the exact relationship between 

the Sarvastivadins and the Mulasarvastivadins remains 

unclear, it is possible that the Mulasarvastivadins represented 

either a later phase in the development of the 

Sarvastivada sectarian stream or perhaps specifically 

those Sarvastivadins who were centered in the region 

of Mathura. After the decline in prominence of the Sarvastivadins 

within the northwestern region of Kashmir 

and Gandhara, the Sarvastivadins of Mathura may 

have adopted the name Mulasarvastivada, or “root Sarvastivada,” 

to assert their status as the preeminent or 

original Sarvastivadins. 

See also: Mainstream Buddhist Schools; Mulasarvastivada-vinaya 

Bibliography 



1995. 


Origins of Buddhist Philosophical Systems, tr. Sophie Francis 

Kidd. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. 


to the Saka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain, Belgium: 


SA SKYA (SAKYA) 

COLLETT COX 

The monastery of Sa skya (Sakya) was founded in 

southern Tibet in 1073 by the master Dkon mchog 

rgyal po (Könchog Gyalpo, 1034–1102), a member of 

the ancient ’Khon (Khön) family from which the leaders 

of the Sa skya tradition have always come. Beginning 

with Dkon mchog rgyal po’s son, Sa chen Kun 

dga’ snying po (Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, 1092–1158), 

the next five great patriarchs of the ’Khon lineage are 

known as the Five Early Patriarchs of Sa skya (sa skya 

gong ma lnga). 

Sa chen Kun dga’ snying po mastered a huge variety 

of Buddhist teachings, both in the sutra-based 

MAHAYANA (Great Vehicle) tradition and the TANTRAbased 

VAJRAYANA (Adamantine Vehicle). The Sa skya 

school that developed after his time is distinguished by 

the teaching and practice of the various transmissions 

collected by Sa chen. For example, at the age of twelve 

Sa chen experienced a vision of the bodhisattva 

Mañjuśr, from whom he received a teaching known 

as “Parting from the Four Attachments” (Zhen pa bzhi 

bral). These instructions became the basis of the practice 

of “mind training” (blo sbyong) in the Sa skya 

school, and have continued to be used for meditation 

on the key points of the Mahayana tradition. 

The most significant tantric systems of the Sa skya 

tradition are connected to the Hevajra Tantra and the 

Cakrasam vara Tantra. From among these, the esoteric 

instructions of the great Indian adept Virupa’s “Path 

with the Result” (Lam ’bras) are a complete system of 

theory and meditation based on the tantric scriptures 

associated with the Hevajra Tantra. Sa chen received 

these teachings from the yogin Zhang ston Chos ’bar 

(Zhangdön Chöbar, 1053–1135), and the “Path with 

the Result” has continued to be the most important 

Vajrayana transmission practiced in the Sa skya school. 

Sa chen wrote the first texts to explain the “Path with 

the Result,” which had previously been an oral tradition 

in both India and Tibet. 

Sa chen was succeeded by two of his sons: Bsod 

nams rtse mo (Sönam Tsemo, 1142–1182) and then 

Grags pa rgyal mtshan (Trakpa Gyaltsen, 1147–1216). 

Bsod nams rtse mo wrote a number of important 

works, especially in the field of tantric study and practice. 

Grags pa rgyal mtshan wrote many extremely influential 

treatises concerning the esoteric instructions 

of the Sa skya tradition, and his works formed the basis 

for the development of the Sa skya approach to 

tantric study and meditation. During the lifetime of Sa 

chen and his sons, the Sa skya school remained concentrated 

at Sa skya Monastery, but during the following 

generations a major expansion occurred. 

Sa skya Pandita Kun dga’ rgyal mtshan (Sakya 

Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen, 1182–1251) succeeded his 

uncle, Grags pa rgyal mtshan, as the head of the Sa skya 

tradition. Several of Sa skya Pandita’s literary compositions 

became very important for the Sa skya school, 

including his Sdom gsum rab dbye (Clear Differentiation 

of the Three Codes). In about 1244 Sa skya Pandita 

was summoned to the court of the Mongol prince Göden 

Khan at Liangzhou in China. During the final years 

of his life, Sa skya Pandita taught Buddhism at the 

Mongol court, where he also completed an important 

treatise on Mahayana Buddhism entitled Thub pa’i 

dgongs gsal (Elucidating the Intention of the Sage). 

Sa skya Pandita was succeeded by his nephew, 

’Phags pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan (Pakpa Lodro Gyaltsen, 

1235–1280), the fifth Early Patriarch of Sa skya. 

In 1253 ’Phags pa met Qubilai Khan (1215–1294), who 


751

S A SKYA P AN D ITA (SAKYA P AN D ITA) 

later became the first emperor of the Yuan dynasty in 

China. Qubilai Khan requested from ’Phags pa the 

complete Hevajra initiation in 1258, marking the beginning 

of Vajrayana Buddhism in Mongolia. Three 

years later Qubilai Khan granted ’Phags pa the title of 

national preceptor (guoshi), thereby appointing him 

the leading Buddhist master in the empire. This precedent 

for a patron-priest relationship between Chinese 

emperors and Tibetan Buddhist masters would have 

great repercussions in subsequent centuries. 

Several important subdivisions later developed 

within the Sa skya tradition. Two of these are most significant: 

the Ngor pa (Ngorpa) subsect established by 

Ngor chen Kun dga’ bzang po (Ngorchen Kunga 

Zangpo, 1382–1456) and the Tshar pa (Tsarpa) subsect 

following the teachings of Tshar chen Blo gsal rgya 

mtsho (Tsarchen Losel Gyatso, 1502–1566). It is customary 

to refer to the Sa skya, Ngor pa, and Tshar pa 

traditions when discussing the entire range of the Sa 

skya school. 

In 1429 Ngor chen established the monastery of E 

wam Chos ldan (Ewam Chöden) at Ngor, where he instituted 

strict monastic rules. Ngor chen specialized in 

the tantric systems practiced in the Sa skya school and 

wrote many treatises based on the definitive works of 

the early ’Khon masters of Sa skya. His compositions 

formed the basis for the distinctive interpretations of 

the Ngor pa school, the first lasting subdivision of the 

Sa skya tradition. The Ngor pa tradition became extremely 

influential in the eastern regions of Tibet, 

where it enjoyed the royal patronage of the ruling 

house of Sde dge (Derge). 

The Tshar pa tradition takes its name from the great 

yogin Tshar chen Blo gsal rgya mtsho. This tradition 

is distinguished by its emphasis on a special esoteric 

transmission of the ancient tantric teachings of Sa skya, 

which came to be known as the “explication for disciples” 

(slob bshad), in contrast to the “explication for 

the assembly” (tshogs bshad). This esoteric transmission 

had previously been taught only to small groups of students 

and was seldom written down until the time of 

Tshar chen and his main disciples, who wrote a number 

of crucial texts. Some of the specific points of the 

Tshar pa explication were at first quite controversial, 

but they were eventually accepted by all Sa skya and 

Ngor pa teachers and taught more widely than before. 

At the beginning of the twenty-first century the Sa 

skya school is perhaps strongest in the Tibetan communities 

of India and Nepal, where most of the great 

teachers of the tradition resettled in the 1960s following 

the Chinese occupation of Tibet. In the modern establishments 

of India and Nepal, teaching, study, and 

meditation continue to be freely practiced according 

to the ancient traditions of Sa skya. The leader of the 

Sa skya school, His Holiness Sa skya Khri ’dzin (Sakya 

Trizin), Ngag dbang kun dga’ theg chen dpal ’bar 

(Ngawang Kunga Tegchen Palbar, b. 1945), is the 

forty-first patriarch of Sa skya. From his residence in 

India, he frequently travels in Southeast Asia, Europe, 

and North America, constantly spreading the traditional 

Sa skya teachings. 

See also: Sa skya Pandita (Sakya Pandita); Tibet 

Bibliography 

Davidson, Ronald. “Preliminary Studies on Hevajra’s Abhisamaya 

and the Lam-’bras Tshogs-bshad.” Tibetan Buddhism: 

Reason and Revelation, ed. Steven Goodman and 

Ronald Davidson. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1992. 

Deshung Rinpoche. The Three Levels of Spiritual Perception, tr. 

Jared Rhoton. Boston: Wisdom, 1995. 

Jackson, David. The Entrance Gate for the Wise (Section III). Vienna: 

Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien 

Universität Wien, 1987. 

Jackson, David. Enlightenment by a Single Means. Vienna: Der 


Ngorchen Konchog Lhundrub. The Beautiful Ornament of the 

Three Visions, tr. Lobsang Dagpa, Ngawang Samten Chophel 

(Jay Goldberg), and Jared Rhoton. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 

1991. 

Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltshen. A Clear Differentiation of the 

Three Codes: Essential Distinctions among the Individual Liberation, 

Great Vehicle, and Tantric Systems, tr. Jared Douglas 

Rhoton. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. 

Stearns, Cyrus. “Sachen Kunga Nyingpo’s Quest for The Path 

and Result.” Religions of Tibet in Practice, ed. Donald S. 

Lopez, Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. 

Stearns, Cyrus. Luminous Lives: The Story of the Early Masters 

of the Lam ’bras Tradition in Tibet. Boston: Wisdom, 2001. 

CYRUS STEARNS 

SA SKYA PAN D ITA (SAKYA PAN D ITA) 

Sa skya Pandita Kun dga’ rgyal mtshan (Sakya Pandita, 

1182–1251) was revered as the greatest early scholar of 

the SA SKYA (SAKYA) sect of Tibetan Buddhism. He is 

accorded the distinction of being the fourth of the five 

great Sa skya teachers, and is noted for his conserva- 


S A SKYA P AN D ITA (SAKYA P AN D ITA) 

tive polemics against what he saw as unwarranted Tibetan 

innovations. 

Precocious as a youth, Sa skya Pandita was identified 

early to follow in the footsteps of his ’Khon clan 

predecessors. His great-grandfather, ’Khon Dkonmchog 

rgyal po (Khön Könchok gyelpo, 1034–1102) 

had founded Sa skya Monastery in 1073 C.E., and the 

edifice had increased in fame and fortune under succeeding 

teachers. Sa skya Pandita’s uncle, Grags pa 

rgyal mtshan (Drakpa Gyeltsen, 1147–1216), directed 

much of his early education and was concerned mostly 

with the tantric system. In distinction, his nephew’s interest 

clearly moved toward the scholastic texts that 

had gained much currency and authority in Tibet 

throughout the twelfth century. Accordingly, Sa skya 

Pandita was sent to Central Tibet in 1200 C.E. to study 

with Tibetan teachers who emphasized the texts of YO- 

GACARA SCHOOL idealism, the philosophical works of 

the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL, and the works on LOGIC 

and epistemology of DHARMAKIRTI (ca. 650 C.E.) and 

his followers. The greatest influence, though, on Sa 

skya Pandita was destined to come through his meeting 

with the Kashmiri master Śakyaśrbhadra 

(1140s–1225) and his retinue of Indian and Kashmiri 

teachers fleeing the Muslim persecution of Buddhism 

taking place in India at the time. 

Together with the other scholars, Śakyaśrbhadra 

instructed Sa skya Pandita in the Sanskrit curriculum 

employed in the great Indian monasteries of the period. 

The topics emphasized the scholastic syllabus 

(ABHIDHARMA, VINAYA, PRAJNAPARAMITA LITERATURE, 

Madhyamaka, logic and epistemology, etc.), as well as 

a well-rounded education in the literature and, especially, 

poetics current in India. Scholastic pedagogy 

emphasized the memorization of texts and the debate 

of their contents, so that the learned were expected to 

become expert in the defense of specific propositions. 

In the more than one hundred compositions of his 

received œuvre, Sa skya Pand ita demonstrated his commitment 

to Indian scholastic Buddhism. David Jackson 

in his 1987 book The Entrance Gate for the Wise (vol. 

1, pp. 39–48) identifies five works of special influence: 

1. Mkhas pa rnams ’jug pa’i sgo (Entrance Gate for 

the Wise) is a pedagogical text that instructs the 

student in the primary skills—composition, exposition, 

and debate—of late Indian monasteries. 

2. Legs par bshad pa rin pa che’i gter (Treasury of 

Aphoristic Jewels) is a delightful collection of 

homilies and remains Sa skya Pandita’s best 

known work; it is still memorized by Tibetans 

and establishes a common discourse for much of 

Tibetan culture. 

3. Tshad ma rigs gter (Treasury of Epistemology), 

with its autocommentary, is Sa skya Pandita’s 

major statement on epistemology; it is dedicated 

to the refutation of the innovations of Tibetan 

scholars, especially Phywa pa Chos kyi seng ge 

(Chapa Chökyi Sengé, 1109–1169). 

4. Thub pa’i dgongs gsal (Clarifying the Sage’s Intention) 

is dedicated to the bodhisattva path as 

understood in late Mahayana scholasticism. 

5. Sdom gsum rab dbye (Clear Differentiation of the 

Three Codes) is a synthetic work on the vows of 

the monk, the bodhisattva, and the tantric practitioner. 

Through these and other works, Sa skya Pandita challenged 

what he perceived as non-Indian innovations, 

especially those he identified as coming from Chinese 

influence or indigenous Tibetan sources. 

Sa skya Pandita’s reputation for learning and sanctity 

eventually drew Mongol interest, and he was ordered 

by Göden Khan to the Mongol camp in 1244 

C.E. He spent his last days in Mongol hands, instructing 

his nephew, ’Phags pa (Pakpa, 1235–1280), who 

was destined to become the first monk ruler of Tibet 

and the fifth of the five great Sa skya teachers. 


Bibliography 

Bosson, James E. A Treasury of Aphoristic Jewels: The Subhasitaratnanidhi 

of Sa Skya Pandita in Tibetan and Mongolian. 

Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, 1969. 

Jackson, David P. The Entrance Gate for the Wise (Section III): 

Sa-skya Pandita on Indian and Tibetan Traditions of 

Pramana and Philosophical Debate, 2 vols. Vienna: Arbeitskreis 

für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, 1987. 

Jackson, David P. Enlightenment by a Single Means: Tibetan Controversies 

on the “Self-Sufficient White Remedy.” Vienna: Der 


Kuijp, Leonard W. J. van der. Contributions to the Development 

of Tibetan Buddhist Epistemology from the Eleventh to the 

Thirteenth Century. Wiesbaden, Germany: Franz Steiner 

Verlag, 1983. 

Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltshen. A Clear Differentiation of the 

Three Codes: Essential Distinctions among the Individual Liberation, 

Great Vehicle, and Tantric Systems, tr. Jared Douglas 

Rhoton. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 


753

ŚA STRA 

Stearns, Cyrus. Luminous Lives: The Story of the Early Masters 

of the Lam ‘Bras Tradition in Tibet. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 

2001. 

ŚA STRA. See Commentarial Literature 

SATIPATTHA NA-SUTTA 


The Satipatthana-sutta (Discourse on the Foundations 

of Mindfulness) is one of the most important expositions 

of Buddhist meditation in the Pali canon and in 

the THERAVADA school. The discourse enumerates 

twenty-one meditation practices for the cultivation of 

MINDFULNESS (Pali, sati; Sanskrit, smrti) under a fourfold 

rubric called the four foundations of mindfulness. 

The four foundations are extolled as the one path leading 

to the realization of NIRVAN A. The first foundation, 

“contemplation of the body” (kayanupassana), includes 

fourteen practices: mindfulness of breathing, 

mindfulness of postures, full awareness of bodily actions, 

contemplation of bodily impurities, contemplation 

of elements, and nine cemetery meditations. The 

second foundation, “contemplation of feeling” (vedananupassana), 

consists of one practice: mindfulness of 

sensations (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral). The third 

foundation, “contemplation of mind” (cittanupassana) 

is also a single practice: mindfulness of states of mind, 

such as lust, hatred, and liberation. The fourth foundation, 

“contemplation of mind-objects” (dhammanupassana), 

includes five meditations on specific 

categories of dharmas: the five hindrances, the five 

SKANDHA (AGGREGATES), the six sense bases, the seven 

enlightenment factors, and the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. 

In every exercise, the practitioner is directed to observe 

the object of meditation simply as it is with bare attention 

and without attachment. 

The text claims that correct practice of the four 

foundations of mindfulness will lead to enlightenment 

in as little as seven days. An expanded version of this 

text named the Mahasatipatthana-sutta is also found 

in the Pali canon. Since the beginning of the twentieth 

century, the Satipatthana-sutta has become especially 

influential as the scriptural foundation for the modern 

revival and popularization of insight meditation practice 

(vipassana) in the Theravada countries of South 

and Southeast Asia. 

See also: Vipassana (Sanskrit, Vipaśyana) 

Bibliography 

Bhikkhu Ñanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans. “The Foundations 

of Mindfulness.” In The Middle Length Discourses of the 

Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya. Boston: Wisdom, 

1995. 

Nyanaponika Thera. The Heart of Buddhist Meditation (Satipatthana): 

A Handbook of Mental Training Based on the Buddha’s 

Way of Mindfulness. London: Rider, 1962. 

SATORI (AWAKENING) 


Satori (Chinese, wu) is a term used principally in the 

CHAN SCHOOL to designate momentary episodes of 

transforming disclosure or insight that prompt further 

progress on the PATH. A practitioner may experience 

multiple satori, which may be of greater or lesser intensity. 

One’s first satori, sometimes defined as “seeing 

one’s [buddha] nature” (Chinese, jianxing; Japanese, 

kensho ), is typically regarded as especially important. 

Popular conceptions of Zen tend to portray satori as a 

sudden breakthrough in which intuition solves an otherwise 

intractable problem or dilemma. In Japanese 

Buddhist contexts, satori and its verb form satoru (to 

discern, to comprehend) frequently translate the Chinese 

terms jue (to become aware), wu (to comprehend), 

and zheng (to authenticate). Although satori is 

commonly translated as “awakening” or “enlightenment,” 

it is to be distinguished from the related term 

BODHI (AWAKENING). 

See also: Zen, Popular Conceptions of 

SAUTRA NTIKA 

ROBERT M. GIMELLO 

The term Sautrantika means “those who rely upon the 

sutras.” The Sautrantika mainstream Indian Buddhist 

school represented a dissenting doctrinal party within 

the Sarvastivada school, which was referred to by their 

Sarvastivadin opponents as Darstantika. The Sautrantika 

school rejected the authority of a separate ABHID- 

HARMA collection and adopted a doctrinal position of 

extreme momentariness, whereby only present activity 

exists. 


S CRIPTURE 


SCRIPTURE 

COLLETT COX 

The word scripture (from the Latin scribere, “to write 

or to compose”) is typically used to refer to written 

texts, usually the written, foundational texts of a religious 

tradition. But few religions had written texts in 

their earliest historical period. Instead, those fundamental 

texts were committed to writing only after they 

had been transmitted orally, often for several hundreds 

of years. Buddhism fits this pattern of development. 

According to the tradition, immediately after the death 

of the Buddha, MAHAKA ŚYAPA, one of the Buddha’s senior 

disciples, convened a council of five hundred 

ARHATs. At that time, those monks who had heard the 

Buddha speak were said to have recited all of the Buddha’s 

discourses from memory, and specific monks 

were then charged with the responsibility of transmitting 

specific discourses verbatim to their students. According 

to traditional historical accounts, this is the 

way in which Buddhist scripture was preserved in the 

earliest period. Whether this narrative represents historical 

fact or whether it is an attempt on the part of 

the tradition to legitimize the authenticity of its scriptures 

by tracing them back to the original source in an 

unbroken lineage is, of course, uncertain. However, it 

would appear that in India monks did orally transmit 

texts attributed to the Buddha from master to disciple 

in distinct lineages over several hundreds of years. This 

continued to be the case even after these oral texts were 

finally committed to writing and compiled into, for example, 

the Pali Buddhist CANON sometime in the first 

century B.C.E. The fourth century C.E. scholar monk 

VASUBANDHU speaks of such oral lineages of transmission 

(and of their corruption) in his important text, 

the Vyakhyayukti (Science of Exegesis). 

What are the Buddhist scriptures? The simple answer 

is that scriptures are texts that have the status of 

being considered BUDDHAVACANA (WORD OF THE BUD- 

DHA). Sutras are paradigmatic examples of scriptures. 

A sutra (literally “thread,” “measuring line,” or “standard,” 

from the Sanskrit root su tr, “to string together,” 

“to compose”) in its most general sense is a discourse 

of a buddha. However, the category of scripture is actually 

much broader than that of sutra. Thus, while all 

sutras are scripture, not all scriptures are sutras (see 

below). Scriptures are often distinguished from śastras, 

which are works, usually of a more synthetic and commentarial 

nature, that are based on, in the sense of being 

second-order expositions of, scriptural material. 

Not all scriptures are considered to be the word of the 

historical Buddha Śakyamuni, since there are some 

scriptures that are said to be spoken by other buddhas. 

Moreover, not everything that is spoken by a buddha 

is considered to be scripture. For example, the Tibetan 

tradition generally considers the works attributed to 

MAITREYA, the future Buddha, to be śastras, and not 

sutras. What is more, it is often the case that a work 

that is not a scripture may have a more exalted status, 

playing a more pivotal role in a particular Buddhist 

tradition than do actual scriptures. Take once again the 

works of Maitreya, or those of NAGARJUNA (ca. second 

century C.E.), which, despite their status as śastras, are 

immensely important for much of the later Indian, 

Chinese, and Tibetan traditions. All of this is to say 

that there is a certain arbitrariness concerning what is 

and what is not a Buddhist scripture, and that in the 

end a “scripture” may be no more and no less than 

what a specific Buddhist community considers to fall 

within the purview of that category. 

Scriptures and canons 

By comparison to the Torah, Bible, and Qur’an, the 

set of texts that comprise the Buddhist scriptural 

canon is mammoth. The Pali canon, for example, consists 

of over forty large volumes, and the scriptural 

portions of the Chinese and Tibetan canons are over 

twice that size. Given the heterogeneous nature of 

Buddhism, moreover, different Buddhist schools have 

different collections of texts that they consider to be 

the Buddha’s word. For example, the Theravada tradition 

of Southeast Asia generally considers only those 

works contained in the Pali canon (tipitaka) to be the 

Buddha’s word. The tipitaka, or “three baskets,” consists 

of the sutta (Sanskrit, sutra), the VINAYA, and the 

abhidhamma (Sanskrit, ABHIDHARMA). The sutta basket, 

although the most thematically heterogeneous 

collection in so far as it deals with a wide range of subjects, 

is nonetheless relatively coherent in terms of 

style. A sutta or sutra is a discourse or sermon usually 

on a specific topic delivered by the Buddha at a particular 

time, in a particular location, and to a specific 

audience. All of these—time, place, and audience—are 

identified in the preamble of a sutra. Sutras also tend 

to begin characteristically with the opening line, “Thus 

have I heard,” signaling once again the oral/aural nature 

of the original transmission of scripture. The 

vinaya basket is more thematically coherent in so far 


755

S CRIPTURE 

as it is a collection of texts dealing with the monastic 

discipline of monks and nuns. It contains texts that 

discuss the life of the Buddha and the history of the 

order, texts that list monastic vows, narrative accounts 

of how the various vows were set forth by the Buddha, 

ritual formulas (for example, for ORDINATION), and so 

forth. The abhidharma basket, by contrast, is more 

philosophical, often elaborating lists of technical terms 

(for example, the psychophysical constituents of the 

self and the world), their definitions and their grouping. 

Since it is a more derivative, manipulated, one 

might almost say artificial genre, there arose the question 

even in ancient times of whether or not abhidharma 

texts should be considered the actual word of 

the Buddha, with different schools taking different positions 

on the issue. 

Although there were questions even from very early 

times about which texts should and should not be considered 

the buddha’s word (and hence scripture), the 

issue truly came to the fore with the rise of the MA- 

HAYANA, or Great Vehicle. The Mahayana emerged (or, 

according to the tradition, reemerged) in the first centuries 

of the common era in India. It maintained that 

the Buddha had actually taught a much wider set of 

doctrines and practices than those preserved in the earlier 

scriptures, but that these texts had been hidden until 

the world was ripe for their revelation. Mahayanists 

thus made a case for an expanded scriptural corpus 

that included a wider range of texts. Although it is not 

clear whether this new corpus of texts ever achieved a 

canonical completeness or finality as a separate and 

distinct collection that had the same level of authority 

as the earlier canon, there is evidence that some Mahayanists 

did have a notion of the so-called Vaipulya 

(Extensive Works) as a kind of Mahayana canon, possibly 

subsumed within the sutra basket. 

Following this same pattern, several centuries later 

the TANTRA (also known as the Mantrayana or Vajrayana) 

emerged as a movement within Indian Buddhism 

(more specifically, as a submovement within the 

Mahayana), claiming scriptural status for its own set 

of texts, this time called not sutras but tantras. Like the 

former, the tantras were considered to be the word of 

the historical Buddha, or else the word of one or another 

of a variety of deities that, like the buddha, were 

fully enlightened beings. And here too one sometimes 

finds use of the “hidden text” trope to explain why 

these scriptures had not existed in the world heretofore. 

But tantrics also at times resorted to other strategies 

to explain why their scriptural texts had never 

existed in this world, strategies that were not unknown 

to the earlier Mahayana. For example, in some instances, 

rather than having been hidden, the texts were 

claimed to have been revealed anew to accomplished 

yogis or siddhas in visions or in otherworldly journeys 

to heavenly realms. In this way one finds in some 

tantras a theme that is common to other religious traditions, 

namely, the notion of a heavenly library, access 

to which is granted only to spiritually advanced 

individuals. 

As mentioned above, the corpus of texts that came 

to have the status of “scripture” varied from one Buddhist 

tradition to another. Hence, the Pali, the Tibetan, 

and the Chinese canons, to take three examples, are 

quite different, even if there is some overlap between 

the three. For example, the Chinese canon has a section 

called agama, which contains many of the sutras 

also found in the Pali canon (even if the Chinese texts 

are translations of different—Sanskrit, and not Pali— 

versions of these texts). Likewise, the Tibetan canon 

contains a great deal of vinaya material that is thematically 

similar to material found in the vinaya sections 

of both the Chinese and the Pali canons, even if 

the texts are not exactly the same. But of course both 

the Chinese and the Tibetan canons include Mahayana 

sutras that are absent from the Pali canon, and the Tibetan 

canon, in addition, includes many tantras that 

are not found in any other collection of Buddhist scriptural 

material. Theravada Buddhists, who follow the 

Pali canon, consider much of what is found in the Chinese 

and Tibetan scriptural collections to be apocryphal, 

that is, inauthentic because it is not the 

Buddha’s word. And likewise, Chinese Mahayana 

Buddhists will consider much of the scriptural material 

found in the tantric portions of the Tibetan Buddhist 

canon to be apocryphal. And even among 

Tibetans there were controversies over whether certain 

texts were authentic, such as certain tantras of the RNY- 

ING MA (NYINGMA) school, and the so-called treasure 

texts (gter ma) that were said to have been hidden and 

later found in a variety of sites in Tibet. This is important 

to point out, lest it be thought that there is 

consensus among different Buddhists concerning what 

constitutes scripture. Despite the fact that there are 

some contemporary collections of translated texts that 

bear this name, there is in reality no such thing as a 

single “Buddhist Bible.” 

The uses of scripture 

That being said, there is a great deal of similarity in the 

ways that different Buddhist traditions use scripture. 


S CRIPTURE 

First, scriptures are memorized. Sometimes they are 

memorized for no other reason than that memorizing 

the Buddha’s word is considered a virtuous activity 

that brings much merit. In Thailand, for example, 

those (albeit few) monks who have managed to memorize 

the entire Pali canon have an exalted status in the 

society, even being recognized with an official title by 

the government. Sometimes scriptures are committed 

to memory so as to be used liturgically, as is the case 

with the HEART SU TRA in the East Asian Tibetan traditions. 

In each of these cases it is possible that the person 

who is memorizing the text will not understand 

the meaning of the scripture, and this tells us that scriptures 

cannot be reduced to their content or meaning, 

since they are put to many uses that have nothing to 

do with their meaning. For example, scriptures are often 

displayed on altars, where they serve as a representation 

of the second of the three jewels, the jewel of 

the dharma, and where, in that capacity, they serve as 

an object of worship and devotion. In large monasteries 

in Tibet, for example, it is common for ambulatories 

to exist below shelved scriptures, permitting the 

devout to receive the merit and blessing of the dharma 

by walking underneath (in a squatting position that indicates 

subservience to and respect for) the physical 

texts located above them. In addition, in some Buddhist 

traditions scriptures are often taken in procession 

into the fields before sowing or harvesting as a 

way of blessing the earth and assuring a good crop. 

Sometimes portions of scripture will be tattooed onto 

the body, sometimes they are worn in the form of 

AMULETS AND TALISMANS, and sometimes they are 

burnt and ingested, all of this as a way of protecting 

the bearer or consumer of the text from evil or harm. 

All of these might be called “magical” or “popular” uses 

of scripture, wherein the physicality of the text (its 

sound and its material quality) are the principal focus 

of the various practices. It would be mistaken to consider 

these practices to belong exclusively to the LAITY, 

since MONKS and NUNS also engage in them. 

In addition to these popular practices, however, 

there are also what might be called the more elite uses 

of scripture. Here it is the content or meaning of the 

text that is the focus, and this is the object of concern 

of religious virtuosi, usually, though increasingly not 

exclusively, male monastics. In India the process of appropriating 

scriptural material in this fashion was systematized 

in the doctrine of the “three ways of gaining 

knowledge”: through hearing, thinking, and MEDITA- 

TION. First, the scripture is heard. Since the earliest 

form of scripture was oral, the only access that monks 

had to scripture was through hearing it spoken or recited. 

This spoken text was then usually memorized, 

and thus internalized linguistically. Once this had been 

accomplished, the monk was expected to begin the 

process of critically scrutinizing the meaning of the 

words. This would involve questioning the text, allowing 

doubts to emerge, and resolving those doubts 

through reasoning. Finally, once a stable form of certainty 

had been reached by pondering the meaning of 

the text, it was expected that that meaning would become 

the focus of one’s meditation, so that the doctrinal 

content of the scripture would be internalized in 

such a way that it had a permanent transformative impact 

on the person of the practitioner. This process that 

begins with language and proceeds through critical reflective 

practices culminating in transformative experience 

is paradigmatic of the Buddhist scholastic 

approach to the study of scripture. It became the quintessential 

mode of elite appropriation of scriptural texts 

in much of later Indian, Tibetan, and East Asian Buddhism, 

and it is in large part what gave rise to the vast 

commentarial tradition, that is, to scriptural exegesis. 

Although most Buddhist scholastics tended to follow 

the pattern of scriptural study just mentioned, it 

must be pointed out that there were also differences. 

For example, Indian and especially Tibetan Buddhist 

institutions tended to develop broad curricula that encouraged 

the study of many different scriptural texts 

(or their at times quasi-canonical commentaries). By 

contrast, in East Asia one finds that, rather than seeking 

diversified scriptural curricula, specific schools 

tended to focus on a particular scriptural text or on 

a small group of texts. Hence we find a focus on the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) on the 

part of the TIANTAI SCHOOL of East Asia. In a similar 

fashion, the Chinese HUAYAN SCHOOL developed an 

elaborate system of metaphysics and hermeneutics 

around the HUAYAN JING (Avatam saka-su tra, Flower 

Garland Su tra). PURE LAND SCHOOLS likewise had 

their own canon-within-the-canon in the form of the 

SUKHAVATIVYU HA-SU TRA. 

It would be mistaken to think that all Buddhist 

schools are univocally in favor of scriptural study, however. 

For example, those forms of Japanese Buddhism 

that derive from NICHIREN (1222–1282) tended to 

downplay the study of the content of the Lotus Su tra, 

believing, rather, that the appropriate practice in the 

present “degenerate age” should be the recitation of 

the DAIMOKU title of the sutra (Myo ho -renge-kyo in 

Japanese). An even more ambivalent attitude toward 


757

S ELF 

scriptural study is found among certain (though by no 

means all) branches of the CHAN SCHOOL, wherein the 

study of scripture (especially for the beginning practitioner) 

is seen as having the potential to mire the mind 

in language and in the dichotomies of thought. In these 

traditions, then, scriptural study is eschewed in favor 

of meditation, or else permitted only after the adept has 

a strong foundation in meditative practice. Interestingly, 

this inverts scholastic Buddhism’s classical order 

of praxis by advocating a movement from experience 

to words. 

See also: A gama/Nikaya; Apocrypha; Canon; Catalogues 

of Scriptures; Commentarial Literature; Merit 

and Merit-Making; Printing Technologies; Relics and 

Relics Cults 

Bibliography 

Bond, George D. “Two Theravada Traditions of the Meaning 

of ‘The Word of the Buddha.’” Mahabodhi 83 (1975): 

402–413. 



Cabezón, José Ignacio. Buddhism and Language: A Study of Indo- 

Tibetan Scholasticism. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1994. 

Coward, Harold. “Scripture in Buddhism.” In Sacred Word and 

Sacred Text: Scripture in World Religions. New York: Maryknoll, 

1988. 

Eimer, Helmut, and Germano, David, eds. The Many Canons of 

Tibetan Buddhism. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2002. 

Lancaster, Lewis. “Buddhist Literature: Its Canons, Scribes, and 

Editors.” In The Critical Study of Sacred Texts, ed. Wendy 

Doniger O’Flaherty. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Religious Studies 

Series, 1979. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. Buddhist Hermeneutics. Honolulu: University 


Ray, Reginald. “Buddhism: Sacred Text Written and Realized.” 

In The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, ed. Frederick 

M. Denny and Rodney L. Taylor. Columbia: University of 

South Carolina Press, 1985. 

Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. “The Buddhist Influence.” In What Is 

Scripture? A Comparative Approach. Minneapolis: Fortress, 

1993. 

JOSÉ IGNACIO CABEZÓN 

SELF. See Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self) 

SELF-IMMOLATION 

Self-immolation refers to ASCETIC PRACTICES that include 

the voluntary termination of life or the offering 

of parts of the body. The most commonly encountered 

types of self-immolation in Buddhism are autocremation 

(the deliberate incineration of one’s own 

body) and the burning off of fingers. Buddhist literature 

refers to such practices by a variety of terms that 

may best be rendered as “abandoning the body.” In the 

popular imagination, the best-known examples of selfimmolation 

are the Vietnamese monks who burned 

themselves to death between 1963 and 1975 to protest 

the anti-Buddhist policies pursued by the government 

of South Vietnam. The autocremation of Thích Quang 

Du’c on June 11, 1963, was captured by the American 

reporter Malcolm Browne in a series of photographs 

that have been frequently reproduced. Autocremation 

by Vietnamese Buddhists continues to be reported in 

the 1990s and early years of the twenty-first century. 

Self-immolation is best attested in Chinese Buddhist 

sources, which record hundreds of cases dating from 

the late fourth to the mid-twentieth century. Very few 

of these acts can be understood as political protest. The 

offering of fingers is still recognized and carried out as 

an ascetic practice by monks in China and Korea. 

Chinese Buddhist sources contain many accounts 

of monks, nuns, and laypeople who encouraged insects 

to feed on their blood, cut their own flesh (particularly 

the thigh), burned incense on their skin, or burned 

their fingers, toes, or arms. These practices did not always 

result in death, but they were still classified as 

heroic examples of “abandoning the body.” There are 

also accounts of people who starved themselves to 

death, disemboweled themselves, drowned in rivers or 

oceans, leapt from cliffs or trees, or fed themselves to 

wild animals. Although drowning seems to have been 

more common in Japan, autocremation was the most 

commonly attested form of self-immolation in China. 

The preparations for autocremation usually involved 

the construction of a funeral pyre, inside which the 

monk or nun would sit. The body was often wrapped 

in oil-soaked cloth to expedite the burning process, 

and frequently the autocremator would also consume 

oil and incense for several days or even months beforehand. 

Autocremation was usually a public event 

witnessed by a large audience. In the early medieval 

period (fifth to seventh centuries C.E.) Chinese emperors 

and senior officials often attended and later eulogized 

these dramatic acts. 


S ENGZHAO 

Autocremation was primarily a Sinitic Buddhist creation 

that first appeared in late fourth-century China. 

As practiced in China, autocremation was not a continuation 

of an Indian custom. Rather, it developed after 

a particular interpretation of certain Indian texts was 

combined with indigenous traditions, such as burning 

the body to bring rain, a practice that long predated the 

arrival of Buddhism in China. The most influential textual 

models were some of the bloodier JATAKA tales and 

the twenty-third chapter of the LOTUS SU TRA (Chinese, 

Miaofa lianhua jing; Sanskrit, Saddharmapundarlkasu 

tra), in which the Bodhisattva Bhaisajyagururaja 

(Medicine-King) burns his body in offering to the buddhas 

and to the sutra itself. The literary precedents for 

the practice of self-immolation found in Indian Buddhist 

sources are often extremely graphic, even if they 

were intended only rhetorically. These have been well 

studied by Hubert Durt and Reiko Ohnuma. The validity 

of self-immolation was reinforced by the production 

of Chinese apocryphal sutras that vindicated 

the practice, by the composition of biographies of selfimmolators, 

and, in time, their inclusion in the Buddhist 

canon as exemplars of heroic practice. 

Self-immolation was often controversial and attracted 

opposition from Confucians and sometimes 

from the state. The Confucian revivalist Han Yu 

(768–824), in his famous Lun Fogu biao (Memorial on 

the Buddha Relic), warned Emperor Xianzong (r. 

805–820) in 819 that he should not honor the Buddha’s 

relic because this would trigger a mass outbreak of religious 

fervor, causing people to burn the tops of their 

heads and set fire to their fingers. An edict promulgated 

in 955 by Emperor Shizong (r. 954–959) of the Later 

Zhou explicitly prohibited self-immolation for both 

saṅgha and laity. Within Buddhism, the strongest objection 

came from the eminent monk YIJING (635–713), 

who wrote a lengthy diatribe against autocremation in 

his Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan (An Account of the Dharma 

Sent Back from the Southern Seas). Much later the Ming 

dynasty cleric ZHUHONG (1532–1612) included a heartfelt 

and extremely critical essay on the practice of burning 

the body in his Zheng’e ji (Rectification of Errors, 

1614). The most coherently and passionately argued defense 

of self-immolation is that of Yongming YANSHOU 

(904–975) in his Wanshan Tonggui ji (The Common 

End of the Myriad Good Practices). For Yanshou selfimmolation 

is primarily a manifestation of DANA (GIV- 

ING), and as the ultimate expression of this PARAMITA 

(PERFECTION) it is grounded in ultimate truth rather 

than at the level of conventional phenomena. 

Bibliography 

Benn, James A. “Where Text Meets Flesh: Burning the Body as 

an ‘Apocryphal Practice’ in Chinese Buddhism.” History of 

Religions 37, no. 4 (1998): 295–322. 

Durt, Hubert. “Two Interpretations of Human-Flesh Offering: 

Misdeed or Supreme Sacrifice.” Journal of the International 

College for Advanced Buddhist Studies (Kokosai Bukkyo gaku 

daigakuin daigaku kenkyu kiyo) 1 (1998): 236–210 (sic). 

Gernet, Jacques. “Les suicides par le feu chez les bouddhistes 

chinois de Ve au Xe siècle.” Mélanges publiés par l’Institute 

des Hautes Études Chinoises 2 (1960): 527–558. 

Jan, Yün-hua. “Buddhist Self-Immolation in Medieval China.” 

History of Religions 4 (1965): 243–265. 

Ohnuma, Reiko. “The Gift of the Body and the Gift of the 

Dharma.” History of Religions 37, no. 4 (1998): 323–359. 

Orzech, Charles D. “Provoked Suicide and the Victim’s Behavior.” 

In Curing Violence, ed. Mark I. Wallace and Theophus 

H. Smith. Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1994. 

SENGZHAO 

JAMES A. BENN 

Practically the entire life of the important early Chinese 

MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL philosopher Shi Sengzhao 

(374–414 C.E.) was connected to KUMARAJIVA (350– 

409/413) and Kumarajva’s translation workshop in 

Chang’an. Coming from a poor family, Sengzhao 

earned his living as a copyist. This provided him with 

an excellent education in the Chinese classics, as well 

as Daoist and Buddhist scriptures. Recognized as a distinguished 

literatus by age twenty, he was fascinated 

with Kumarajva even before Kumarajva arrived at 

Chang’an. In fact, according to his biography, Sengzhao 

traveled to Guzang to meet his world renowned 

mentor, by whose side he spent the next twenty years 

serving as disciple and interpreter. 

Many of Kumarajva’s translations bear the literary 

style of Sengzhao, who is said to have had the primary 

responsibility for editing Kumarajva’s translations, 

adapting them to the taste of the literary elite in 

Chang’an. Sengzhao is also responsible for putting together 

a catalogue of Kumarajva’s translations, including 

some ninety titles, which circulated in 

Chang’an as late as the sixth century and which were 

later absorbed into the comprehensive catalogues Chu 

sanzang jiji (Collection of Records about the Production 

of the Tripitaka) and Kaihuang Sanbao lu (Catalogue 

of the Three Treasures of the Kaihuang [Era]). 


759

S ENTIENT 

B EINGS 

Sengzhao made multiple contributions to the world 

of early medieval Chinese Buddhism. One is his tenfascicle 

commentary to the Weimojie suo shuo jing 

(Su tra of Vimalaklrti’s Discourses; Sanskrit, Vimalaklrtinirdeśa-su 

tra), which elevates lay Buddhism above the 

monastic path of the clergy. Sengzhao is known to have 

been converted to Buddhism by this sutra. His commentary, 

written to Kumarajva’s translation of this text, 

reportedly inspired hundreds of Chang’an literati to 

practice Buddhism. Another contribution is a collection 

of philosophical treatises in which the Madhyamaka 

philosophy of NAGARJUNA (ca. second century C.E.) was 

expounded through the use of devices and language provided 

by traditional Chinese thinkers, particularly those 

of the Xuanxue (Dark Learning) school. Several such 

treatises were collected by later editors of the Tripitaka 

under the name of ZHAO LUN (The Treatises of [Seng] 

zhao). Other works attributed to Sengzhao, such as 

Zongben yilun (Treatise on the Foundational [Principles 

of the Doctrine]) and the apocryphal Baozanglun (Treasure 

Store Treatise), circulated as independent treatises. 

The greatest philosophical importance of Sengzhao’s 

writings is the introduction to China of the Madhyamaka 

ideas of Nagarjuna as they were shaped by Kumarajva’s 

understanding of these issues. Sengzhao’s own Daoist 

mystical inclinations contributed to the great emphasis 

placed on the idea of the TATHAGATAGARBHA (buddhanature) 

in Kumarajva’s translated texts, thus paving 

the way for the next phase in the development of Chinese 

Buddhist thought. 

See also: Catalogues of Scriptures 

Bibliography 



Liebenthal, Walter, trans. and ed. Chao lun, The Treatises of 

Seng-chao: A Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Appendices, 

Vols. 1 and 2, second revised edition. Hong Kong: 

Hong Kong University Press, 1968 

Sharf, Robert H. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A 

Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise. A Kuroda Institute 

book. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. 

T’ang Yung-t’ung. Han Wei Liang-Chin Nan-pei ch’ao fo-chiaoshih. 

Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1938. 

SENTIENT BEINGS 

TANYA STORCH 

Sentient beings is a term used to designate the totality 

of living, conscious beings that constitute the object 

and audience of the Buddhist teaching. Translating 

various Sanskrit terms (jantu, bahu jana, jagat, sattva), 

sentient beings conventionally refers to the mass of living 

things subject to illusion, suffering, and rebirth 

(SAM SARA). Less frequently, sentient beings as a class 

broadly encompasses all beings possessing consciousness, 

including BUDDHAS and BODHISATTVAS. 

The Pali nikayas and the Sarvastivada Abhidharma 

differentiate the mass of deluded beings subject to 

sam sara into a hierarchy of five paths or destinations 

of REBIRTH based upon KARMA (ACTION): DIVINITIES 

(deva), humans (manusya), animals (tiryak), spirits 

of the dead (preta), and denizens of hell (naraka). An 

alternative list of six categories, which was attributed 

to the Vatsputryas and gained popularity in East 

Asian and Tibetan Buddhism, places a class of demonic 

beings (asura) between humans and gods. 

All of these beings reside in the three realms of existence 

(tridhatu) that comprise the entirety of the 

Buddhist universe. The realm of desire (kamadhatu) is 

residence for beings from all the categories, while the 

realm of form (ru padhatu) and the realm of formlessness 

(aru ypadhatu) are reserved for gods of higher 

achievement. Among these paths of rebirth, the 

denizens of hell, spirits of the dead, and animals are 

regarded as unhappy destinies, while rebirth as humans 

and gods (as well as asura in the list of six) are 

considered desirable, most importantly because it is 

only through the human and deva destinies that enlightenment 

can be obtained. 

Although the Buddhist message from its inception 

held as its goal the liberation of sentient beings from 

the cycle of rebirth, the concern for sentient beings 

took on even greater urgency with the emergence of 

the MAHAYANA tradition, since all called to this tradition’s 

bodhisattva vocation were entrusted with the 

welfare and ultimate liberation of all sentient beings. 

The compassion, transfer of merit, and cultivation of 

UPAYA (skill in means) that are central in the cultivation 

of the bodhisattva path are all concerned with the 

salvation of sentient beings. The Mahayana tradition 

furthermore came to maintain that all sentient beings 

possessed the buddha-nature, which meant that all inherently 

had the potential to become enlightened. In 

later developments in East Asian Buddhism the possession 

of this nature was extended to insentient existents 

as well. 

See also: Cosmology; Ghosts and Spirits; Karun a 

(Compassion); Merit and Merit-Making; Tathagatagarbha 


S EXUALITY 

Bibliography 





Sadakata, Akira, et al. Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins, 

tr. Gaynor Sekimori. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle, 1997. 

SEXUALITY 


From the earliest beginnings of the religion, Buddhist 

thinkers have recognized the human drive for sensual 

gratification as an extremely powerful force. This 

recognition, however, is difficult to characterize. While 

sexuality has usually been viewed suspiciously, as a primary 

obstacle on the PATH to salvation, some Buddhists 

have claimed that, used properly, desire and 

pleasure can offer a shortcut to enlightenment for the 

advanced practitioner. Also, since laypeople have always 

been an essential part of the Buddhist community, 

fertility cults embracing a fecund sexuality have 

played an important part in the repertoire of ritual and 

iconography. 

This entry outlines the tension in Buddhism between 

antipathy toward sex and the celebration of it. 

As a religious tradition that has spread widely to diverse 

geographical regions over the course of some two 

and a half millennia, Buddhism cannot be said to have 

one fixed view of sex and sexuality. While it is impossible 

to delineate a single Buddhist attitude regarding 

sexuality, one can observe in specific doctrinal and historical 

moments tendencies typical of the tradition as 

a whole. 

The celibate ideal: Buddha, arhat, monk, 

and nun 

Hagiographies of the Buddha, in their treatment of his 

early years as the prince Siddhartha Gautama, place 

great emphasis on the sensual nature of his royal 

amusements. Having received a prophecy that the 

prince would either become a universal monarch or a 

great renunciant, Siddhartha’s father, King Śuddhodana, 

uses every means at his disposal to keep his 

son’s mind firmly focused on the pleasures of this 

world. Essentially, the young man is held prisoner in 

a garden of earthly delights. With sumptuous palaces 

and a large harem, Siddhartha has every opportunity 

to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh. The women of 

celestial beauty who dote on the young prince, foremost 

among them his lovely wife, Yaśodhara, are quite 

prominently featured. Lavish gyneceum scenes are depicted 

in the written, illustrated, and carved biographical 

representations of the Buddha’s life. Every libidinal 

urge he may have is gratified immediately. And yet, he 

feels malaise in this paradisiacal setting. 

Life in the palace compound is cloying and confining, 

so Siddhartha asks his charioteer to take him on 

a tour outside the gates. There he sees various signs of 

impermanence, which further disturb him, and he decides 

to leave his life of royal ease and with it the world 

of sexuality. As the prince escapes the palace by night, 

he sees his women, usually so poised and bewitching, 

sleeping in various states of dishevelment. Like so 

many corpses they lie, their poses wholly unflattering, 

threads of drool hang from the corners of their lolling 

mouths. The sight fills him with disgust as he beats a 

hasty retreat. After years of hard work in mental, spiritual, 

and physical cultivation, Siddhartha finds himself 

on the verge of enlightenment. MARA, wishing to 

entice Siddhartha from the fulfillment of his aim, sends 

his daughters to tempt the great man. Although they 

are beautiful as they dance provocatively and flirt with 

him, Siddhartha is unmoved. Even after the women 

undergo a series of transformations in an attempt to 

accord with a full range of male tastes in women, Siddhartha 

remains steadfast in his pursuit of the goal of 

enlightenment. 

Vulnerability to sexual temptation remains a 

barometer of spiritual fallibility in the Buddhist tradition 

far beyond this foundational story. Some accounts 

suggest that the first schism in the Buddhist monastic 

community was occasioned in large part by a debate 

concerning the nature of the enlightened person, the 

ARHAT. In the course of the debate, a monk named 

Mahadeva proposed that arhats are limited in their 

powers of omniscience, clairvoyance, and continence. 

Among the five assertions this monk made is that although 

the arhat has put an end to rebirth, escaping 

the round of SAM SARA, he is still subject to nocturnal 

emissions or so-called wet dreams. To make such a 

claim was to suggest that the perfected person was still 

subject to lustful thoughts, if only in his dreams. For 

some members of the community, this was heresy. 

Similarly, the story of the One-Horned Saint, a tale well 

known in Buddhist Asia from India to Japan, describes 

a religious virtuoso who has obtained many magical 

powers (abhijña) as a result of his training and austerities. 

While flying through the air one day, he is 


761

S EXUALITY 

distracted by the sight of the white thighs of a woman 

who has hiked up her dress to wash clothes by a river. 

The sage tumbles from the sky, bereft of his supernatural 

abilities. In one moment of sexual arousal, all the 

fruits of years of discipline are lost. He marries the 

washerwoman and settles down to a life more ordinary. 

In this story, the control of sexual urges is presented 

as a kind of litmus test for spiritual attainment. 

For the monastic community, the threat of sexual 

temptation was recognized as a serious obstacle to 

progress on the Buddhist path. For this reason, the disciplinary 

codes for MONKS and NUNS, the VINAYA, are 

quite explicit and exhaustive in the varieties of sexual 

activity they proscribe. The monk’s rule clearly states 

that genital, oral, manual, or anal sex is absolutely prohibited, 

be it with humans, divine beings, or animals. 

These acts will result in expulsion from the Buddhist 

order (SAṄGHA), as will making a lustful remark to a 

woman about her pudenda or her anus. Intentionally 

emitting semen (nocturnal emissions excepted) or 

causing someone else to do so will result in temporary 

suspension from the order. The nun’s rule is similarly 

detailed. 

Yet, while celibacy and complete sexual abstinence 

was an ideal for the clergy, for the LAITY, sexuality was 

an essential and celebrated aspect of life. In the different 

geographical and cultural areas where it flourished, 

Buddhism often assimilated itself to autochthonous 

fertility cults, enlisting local deities into the Buddhist 

pantheon. Thus, although proscribed for monks and 

nuns, lay sexuality was not merely tolerated as a necessary 

evil, but could, in fact, be lauded as a positive 

good. In some parts of Southeast Asia, where temporary 

ordination of young men is common, time spent 

as a monk is understood to increase one’s fertility and 

virility. 

Sexuality and the lay Buddhist 

The earliest surviving Buddhist STU PA, the great stupa 

at SAN CI in central India, was built around the third 

century B.C.E. In its richly carved decorative railings 

and gates, which date from a few centuries later, the 

modern viewer is afforded a glimpse into the sumptuous 

world of ancient Buddhist sexuality. These stone 

fences and doors are adorned with frankly seductive 

statues of female tree sprites (yaksl) and male–female 

pairs in attitudes of erotic play or union (maithuna). 

The gracefully arched pose of the yaksl as she grasps 

the branches of a mango tree is echoed in ancient Indian 

representations of the Buddha’s mother, Maya, as 

she painlessly delivers the bodhisattva from her side. 

The person of Lady Maya is a telling indicator of Buddhist 

ambivalence toward sexuality. The bodhisattva, 

the Buddha-to-be, must choose for his mother a 

woman who is the epitome of sexual attractiveness and 

fecundity, and yet she must die ten days after bearing 

him so that there can be no chance of her being defiled 

by any subsequent sexual intercourse. 

In every Buddhist culture, lay donors and supporters 

of Buddhism far outnumbered monastics. The institution 

of the family has been a focus of Buddhist 

theory and practice in every context—from India, to 

Thailand, to Korea. Lay worshippers who visited the 

Sañc stupa and similar sites like Bharhut, while they 

no doubt also sought proximity to the relics of the Buddha 

enshrined within the monument, would have been 

keenly interested in these visual representations of gods 

and goddesses who had ensured sexual fulfillment and 

safe childbirth long before the advent of Śakyamuni. 

New stories were created to demonstrate the Buddhist 

nature of such deities. These deities, whom people 

were accustomed to worshipping, were given new 

Buddhist identities and thus existing loyalties and devotions 

were brought into the Buddhist fold. One popular 

pairing was Pañcika (Kubera), King of the Tree 

Sprites, and Harit, a ravenous demoness converted by 

Śakyamuni. Statues of this couple, often surrounded 

by small children, gave the laity a positive vision of 

their own sexually engaged lives with the attendant 

blessings of progeny that belies the stereotype of Buddhism 

as a pessimistic and world-denying faith. 

Wherever Buddhism spread, a similar kind of conquest 

through assimilation occurred. For instance, in 

Japan, popular tales recounting the origins of Buddhist 

deities often incorporated local gods and goddesses 

and more often than not involved a story of starcrossed 

lovers. Medieval Buddhist interpretations of 

Japan’s cosmogonic myth placed particular emphasis 

on the lesson of the creative power of sexual union. 

Laypeople saw no contradiction between adherence to 

the Buddhist teachings and an active sex life; native fertility 

cults survived in Buddhist guise. 

And yet, it was not only the laity who sought sexual 

fulfillment. In many MAHAYANA countries, members 

of the saṅgha, specifically monks, saw fit to 

embrace women as wives or lovers either in secret or 

publicly. The bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara is said to have 

visited the thirteenth-century Japanese monk SHINRAN 

(1173–1263) to assure him that she would remove 

from him the obstacle of sexual desire by transforming 

into a woman and becoming his wife. In today’s 


S EXUALITY 

Japan, most Buddhist monks (often called priests in 

English to distinguish them from celibates) are married. 

In the VAJRAYANA or tantric contexts of Nepal and 

Tibet, there has long existed a special class of married 

clergy. While to some, both within and outside the 

Buddhist community, this may seem like a violation 

of the rule of the saṅgha, by many it is understood as 

much more than a mere concession to human nature. 

For Shinran, the attempt to live a life unsullied by sex 

marked a kind of striving that smacked of hubris. For 

others, particularly within the Vajrayana, sexuality is a 

powerful force for transformation, an aspect of the 

path of purification, an aid to enlightenment. 

Sexuality as obstacle, sexuality as opportunity 

While sexuality was often understood as a negative 

force associated with desire, some attempted to harness 

its power as a tool. As a fundamental drive numbered 

among the kleśa (afflictions, passions), sexuality 

was regarded with much disdain and suspicion, but 

there were those who felt that sensual desire was a door 

to liberation. Others used the senses to distance themselves 

from sexual instincts. One MEDITATION practice 

that spread, in one form or another, across Buddhist 

Asia, sought to cut off sexual desire at its root. Here, 

in typically androcentric fashion, sexual desire figured 

as the desire of a man for a woman. 

In these graveyard meditations, the monk would 

observe the fresh corpse of a young woman, a potential 

object of lust, as it proceeded through the stages of 

decomposition. As the body would begin to bloat, the 

skin to discolor, as maggots and wild animals hastened 

the process of the dissolution of the corpse, the monk 

was invited to reflect upon the true nature of the body. 

What had been so bewitching became an object of repulsion. 

A strain of misogyny that locates the origins 

of male desire in the female body is common to monastic 

legal codes and didactic literature. Thus, men’s lust 

for sexual gratification is blamed on the women who 

are the objects of their attraction. Behind this is the insistence 

in orthodox or mainstream Buddhism that 

sexual desire must be suppressed in order to attain the 

goal of awakening. A common description of the body 

is that it is a bag of skin filled with blood and pus, urine 

and excrement. 

Some Buddhists, primarily those of the Mahayana 

schools, have taken a different tack, at least rhetorically. 

While actual sexual activity was always the 

exception within the monastic community, the nondualist 

doctrines of the Mahayana called the traditional 

preoccupation with purity into question. In the tantric 

conception of the Vajrayana and the transcendentalist 

philosophy of immanence advocated by some in the 

CHAN SCHOOL, the afflictions (kleśa) themselves are 

equivalent to BODHI (AWAKENING), the realm of suffering 

(sam sara) in which one lives is no different than 

the goal of enlightenment (nirvana). The phenomenal 

world is, just as it is, ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS). In such a 

philosophical context, it is impossible to define sex as 

“dirty,” or as somehow able to impede enlightenment, 

which is understood to be an indwelling and immanent 

quality of mind. Awakening has nothing to do 

with stifling urges like sexuality; what is essential is to 

transform one’s outlook on the world. Correct understanding 

is, therefore, more important than what one 

does with one’s body. To the person who has deeply 

understood emptiness, no act creates attachment, no 

act is defiling. In fact, when used properly, sex can 

teach the practitioner about nondualism and the eradication 

of the sense of an independent self. 

In some traditions sex has been understood as a liberative 

technique, numbered among the UPAYA (skillful 

means) of the bodhisattva. In tantric Tibetan 

Buddhism in particular, there is an elaborate system of 

sexual yoga. Whether the sexual encounter between the 

male practitioner and the D AKIN I is properly meant to 

be understood as taking place in the physical world or 

in the mind of the devotee or in some other realm is 

a matter subject to much debate, but the literature outlining 

these practices is rich in sensual imagery and detailed 

in its description of the male and female body. 

Considerable attention is focused on sexual techniques 

and postures. Also remarkable is the iconography associated 

with this practice of union. While most often 

associated with the Tibetan cultural region, ideas of the 

religious benefits of conscious and controlled sexual 

union also appear in other contexts, for instance, the 

TACHIKAWARYU school of Japanese tantra, which was 

persecuted as heretical. 

Buddhist views of homosexuality 

The question of Buddhist views toward homosexuality 

is a complex one. One might want to argue that 

homosexuality is for the Buddhist problematic in precisely 

the same way that heterosexuality is; desire is, 

ipso facto, nonconducive to liberation and contributes 

to a false notion of the independence and permanence 

of the self. In the monastic codes there are sanctions 

against almost any imaginable kind of sexual activity, 

and homosexual acts are by no means exempt. However, 

male homosexuality is given special attention. 


763

S HINGON 


This is evident in the extensive vinaya discussion of the 

somewhat ambiguous figure of the pandaka. While this 

term has often been translated as “eunuch,” there is 

good reason to understand it to mean a man who is 

sexually inclined toward other men. 

In Japan there is substantial evidence that some Buddhists 

understood homosexuality, or more specifically 

relationships between adult male monks and their boy 

pages, to be a natural part of the monastic life. There 

are numerous popular tales from the medieval period 

describing these affairs. Usually the stories end in 

tragedy and the monk regrets his excessive attachment 

to the boy, but nowhere is the propriety of the homosexual 

relationship per se called into question. 

See also: Family, Buddhism and the; Gender; Women 

Bibliography 

Bloss, Lowell W. “The Buddha and the Naga: A Study in Buddhist 

Folk Religiosity.” History of Religions 13, no. 1 (1973): 

36–53. 





Jaffe, Richard. Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in 

Modern Japanese Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 2002. 

Perera, L. P. N. Sexuality in Ancient India: A Study Based on the 

Pali Vinayapitaka. Kelaniya, Sri Lanka: Postgraduate Institute 

of Pali and Buddhist Studies, 1993. 

Shaw, Miranda. Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric 

Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. 

Wilson, Liz. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine 

in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature. Chicago: 


SHINGON BUDDHISM, JAPAN 

HANK GLASSMAN 

Shingon refers to a major Japanese Buddhist school 

devoted to esoteric Buddhism. Shingon’s doctrine is 

built around two essential theories developed by 

KU KAI (774–835), based on his interpretation of the 

Mahavairocana-su tra (Japanese, Dainichikyo ) and the 

Tattvasam graha or Vajraśekhara-su tra (or Tantra; 

Japanese, Kongo cho kyo ): the dharmakaya’s preaching 

of the dharma (hosshin seppo ), and the practice of the 

three mysteries (sanmitsu gyo ). According to Kukai, the 

cosmic Buddha Mahavairocana, whose body consists 

of the six great elements (earth, water, fire, wind, space, 

and consciousness), is none other than the dharmakaya 

(law body). The constant, harmonious interaction 

between the six elements creates all things in the 

universe; everything in the world, made up of the six 

elements uniquely combined, is the manifestation of 

the dharmakaya. Thus, the dharmakaya permeates the 

universe, and all sorts of movements in the world 

are understood as the dharmakaya’s manifestation of 

the dharma. 

This secret revelation of the dharma can be captured 

by the study of the ritual system of the three mysteries: 

the mysteries of the body (MUDRA), speech (MANTRA), 

and mind (MAN D ALA). The study of mudras teaches 

practitioners to recapture in their bodies the cosmic 

movement of the six great elements by forming sacred 

gestures with their hands, arms, and legs. 

Mantras enable practitioners to manipulate the syllables 

that symbolically represent the six elements and 

their combinations, and to create the intertwining of 

the elements in the phonic actions of the mantras 

chanted. Meditation on the mandala creates in the 

minds of practitioners sacred images whose colors and 

shapes illustrate the six elements in their constant, concerted, 

engendering acts. The mastery of the discipline 

of the three mysteries therefore teaches Shingon practitioners 

not only to decipher dharmakaya Mahavairocana’s 

secret language, but also to engage in the 

dhamakaya’s eternal creation of the universe. 

This mode of understanding the relationship between 

the universe and individuals, the macrocosm 

and microcosm, led to the development of Shingon as 

a spiritual and religious “technology.” When applied 

to the area of physiology, the practice of the three mysteries 

enables practitioners to ritually simulate the 

body, speech, and mind of the cosmic Buddha, which, 

because of the intrinsic identity between the creating 

force and created objects, effaces the distinction between 

the practitioner and the dharmakaya (sokushin 

jo butsu; literally, “to achieve buddhahood in this very 

body”). The same technology can be employed as medicine 

in that it can serve as a method to restore the optimal 

balance between the six elements in the body of 

a patient. When applied outwardly to the environment, 

the practice of the three mysteries provides the means 

to change the course of natural events. Or, in the field 

of human affairs, it serves as a political technology to 

be used in diplomacy and warfare. All these elements 

have influenced the course of the development of the 

Shingon school in Japanese history. 


S HINGON 


The incipient Shingon school in the early Heian period 

of the ninth century grew rapidly due largely to 

the adoption by the royal court of esoteric Buddhist 

rituals for performing diverse ceremonies, especially 

the rites for the emperor’s coronation, legitimation, 

and empowerment. The Shingon school also built an 

alliance with the schools of NARA BUDDHISM, which 

found Shingon’s orientation toward ritual studies 

complementary to their doctrinal, text-based study of 

Buddhism. Tonain’in subtemple at Todaiji was established 

in 875 as a center for the combined study of the 

Shingon and Sanron schools by the monk Shobo (832– 

909). In the mid-Heian period (tenth and eleventh 

centuries), new centers of Shingon ritual studies, such 

as Daikakuji, Kajuji, Ninnaji, and Daigoji, in the vicinity 

of the Heiankyo (Kyoto), were founded by the emperors 

and members of the imperial family. Shingon 

monks at these monasteries vied with one another in 

developing sophisticated and complex theories and 

practice of esoteric rituals to better serve the imperial 

court and the aristocracy. Ningai (951–1045) is celebrated 

for his rainmaking ritual, which is said to have 

been used during the great droughts of 1015 and 1018, 

and on nine other occasions. These developments during 

the Heian period were important in forming the 

Shingon school’s strong orientation in ritual studies. By 

the end of the period, thirty-six ritual lineages within 

Shingon had been established, with each lineage holding 

its own distinct claim for its dharma transmission. 

The study of Shingon doctrine developed only from 

the latter part of the Heian period. Kakuban (1094– 

1143) was the first to develop a systematic interpretation 

of Kukai’s doctrinal works. During the Kamakura 

period (1185–1333), Kakukai (1142–1223), Dohan 

(1178–1252), Raibo (1279–1330), and other scholarmonks 

of Mount Koya and Toji, two institutions 

founded by Kukai, took the lead in developing a gamut 

of doctrinal treatises and exegeses on the essential 

scriptures of the Shingon school. Raiyu (1226–1304) 

inherited Kakuban’s scholarship and founded Mount 

Negoro Monastery as another major center for Shingon 

doctrinal studies. Negoro later developed into the 

headquarters of the Shingi Shingon school, which was 

largely responsible for the spread of Shingon into the 

provinces of eastern Japan in the medieval and early 

modern periods. 

During this period the spread of numerous legends 

depicting Kukai as a charismatic, miracle-making savior 

further raised the prestige of Mount Koya and Toji. 

The alliance of the Shingon school with the Nara Buddhist 

schools continued to grow. It was often the 

scholar-monks of the Nara monasteries whose combined 

mastery of Shingon gave rise to the most innovative 

use of the knowledge of esotericism; they 

include Hosso master Jokei (1155–1213), Kegon master 

Myoe KO BEN (1173–1232), and Shingon-ritsu nun 

Shinnyo (1211– ?). Master Eizon of Saidaiji 

(1201–1290) and his disciple Ninjo (1217–1303) are 

particularly renowned for saving beggars, lepers, and 

outcasts. This was also the time in which kami, the local 

Japanese gods, became integral within the esoteric 

Buddhist pantheon, playing the role of the guardians 

of Buddhism. Eizon’s esoteric Buddhist ritual service 

in 1281 at Iwashimizu, where the god HACHIMAN is 

enshrined, was praised by the court, the warrior government, 

and the masses for its claimed power to protect 

the nation from the Mongol invasion. 

Political turmoil during the Muromachi and Sengoku 

periods (1333–1600) significantly weakened the 

institutional and economic foundation of the Shingon 

monastaries. However, the influence of Shingon on 

late medieval culture and art, especially in Japanese poetry 

and poetics, remained essential. A significant 

number of celebrated waka and renga poets of the period, 

including Shinkei (1406–1475) and Sogi (1421– 

1502), were esoteric Buddhists. In the early modern 

period, the religious policy of the Tokugawa shogunate 

prohibited Buddhists from studying more than one 

discipline. Thus, one significant characteristic of Shingon 

since inception—its combined study with exoteric 

schools—ceased, and the Shingon school was reduced 

to a sectarian institution. The forceful separation of the 

worship of local gods from Buddhism and the creation 

of Shinto as the official religion of the nation by the 

Meiji government deprived Shingon of another important 

quality. In 1868 the Shingon ritual was eliminated 

from the emperor’s coronation ceremony, and 

the esoteric ritual lost its relevance to the official business 

of the state. At the beginning of the twenty-first 

century, Shingon continues to exist as an affiliation of 

eighteen independent subschools—the largest among 

them are the Mount Koya school, the Chizan school, 

and the Busan school. However, with its sophisticated 

symbolism of visual signs and representations that are 

grounded in unique semiotic and linguistic theories, 

Shingon continues to exert its influence on modern and 

contemporary Japanese art, literature, and philosophy. 


Japan; Japan; Japanese Royal Family and Buddhism; 



765

S HINRAN 

Bibliography 

Abé, Ryuichi. The Weaving of Mantra. New York: Columbia 



Visioning Kamakura Buddhism, ed. Richard K. Payne. Honolulu: 


Hakeda, Yoshito. Ku kai: Major Works. New York: Columbia 


Orzech, Charles. Politics and Transcendent Wisdom. University 

Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. 

Rambach, Pierre. The Secret Message of Tantric Buddhism. New 

York: Rizzoli, 1979. 

Sharf, Robert. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading 

of the Treasure Store Treatise. Honolulu: University of 




1999. 

Yamasaki Taiko. Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, translated 

and adapted by Richard and Cynthia Peterson; ed. Yasuyoshi 

Morimoto and David Kidd. Boston: Shambhala, 

1988. 

SHINRAN 

RYU ICHI ABÉ 

Shinran (Zenshin, Shakku; 1173–1263) was a Pure 

Land Buddhist teacher of medieval Japan and founder 

of the Jodo Shinshu (Shin Buddhism) tradition. His 

teachings focused on FAITH (shinjin) in conjunction 

with the practice of the nenbutsu, invoking Amida 

(AMITABHA) Buddha’s name, as the basis for birth in 

the Pure Land, where he believed Buddhist enlightenment 

is immediate. Shinran considered the Buddha’s 

power, rather than human effort, to be the motive force 

behind all true religious practice and behind enlightenment 

itself. The Shinshu, in accord with Shinran’s 

own example, broke with the Buddhist tradition of 

clerical celibacy, and allowed priests to marry and have 

families. Three centuries later, Shinran’s modest following 

grew into a huge and powerful Buddhist school 

headed by Honganji in Kyoto, which originated at his 

gravesite. 

Shinran spent the first twenty years of his career as 

a Tendai monk on Mount Hiei, but in 1201, after a 

hundred-day religious retreat at the Rokkakudo chapel 

in Kyoto, he abandoned monastic life and became the 

disciple of HO NEN (1133-1212). In 1207 Shinran was 

banished to Echigo province (present-day Niigata prefecture) 

in a general suppression of Honen’s Pure Land 

movement that occurred after provocative behavior by 

certain followers. Shinran never saw his teacher again, 

and for over twenty-five years he lived away from Kyoto. 

The last two decades of this period were spent in 

the Kanto region (around modern-day Tokyo), where 

Shinran became a peripatetic Pure Land teacher. His 

marriage occurred shortly before, or soon after, his 

banishment. Shinran continued to dress in Buddhist 

clerical robes and shaved his head as priests do, even 

while living with his wife, Eshinni (1182–ca. 1268), and 

their children. 

The gist of Shinran’s teaching is that Amida Buddha 

has vowed to bring all living beings to enlightenment, 

and the power of his vow surpasses any religious 

practice humans can perform. Thus, the consummate 

religious state is single-hearted reliance on Amida, or 

faith. This faith is none other than the Buddha operating 

in a person, rather than a person’s own created 

mental condition. The nenbutsu, likewise, is an act initiated 

by Amida, as well as an extension of him in the 

world. When people hear Amida’s name it awakens 

them to his grand vow, and when they intone the nenbutsu 

their practice coalesces with Amida’s compassionate 

activity. The upshot of this teaching is that 

Amida’s saving power extends to everyone without differentiation: 

clerical or lay, male or female, good or 

evil. In fact, evildoers are a prime object of Amida’s 

vow (akunin sho ki). 

Shinran returned to Kyoto in the early 1230s. By 

that time he had completed a preliminary draft of his 

magnum opus, Kyo gyo shinsho (Teaching, Practice, 

Faith, and Attainment). He spent the rest of his days 

in Kyoto, but remained in touch with his Kanto followers 

through letters and occasional visits on their 

part. In old age he dedicated himself to study and writing, 

completing his Kyo gyo shinsho and composing a 

variety of other Buddhist works, including wasan 

hymns. His wife and most of their children moved to 

Echigo in the 1250s to live on property she inherited. 

But Shinran remained in Kyoto with their youngest 

daughter Kakushinni (1224–1283), who looked after 

him in his last years. He died in Kyoto in 1263, chanting 

Amida’s name and surrounded by followers. Many 

revered him as an earthly manifestation of Amida Buddha 

or of Kannon (Avalokiteśvara) Bodhisattva. 

See also: Japan; Kamakura Buddhism, Japan; Nenbutsu 

(Chinese, Nianfo; Korean, Yŏ˘mbul); Pure Land 

Buddhism; Pure Land Schools 


S HINTO (HONJI S UIJAKU) AND B UDDHISM 

Bibliography 

Bloom, Alfred. Shinran’s Gospel of Pure Grace. Tucson: University 



Japan (1989). Reprint, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

2002. 

Hirota, Dennis, et al., trans. The Collected Works of Shinran, 2 

vols. Kyoto: Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, 1997. 

Keel, Hee Sung. Understanding Shinran: A Dialogical Approach. 

Fremont, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1995. 

Ueda, Yoshifumi, and Hirota, Dennis. Shinran: An Introduction 

to His Thought. Kyoto: Hongwanji International Center, 

1989. 

SHINTO (HONJI SUIJAKU) 

AND BUDDHISM 


Any investigation into the relationships of Shinto and 

Buddhism in Japan cannot ignore the effects of the 

anti-Buddhist persecutions and forced separation of 

Buddhist monasteries and kami shrines that occurred 

during the Meiji era (1868–1912). Such an inquiry can 

be further strengthened by understanding the premodern 

contexts. This entry will attempt to do precisely 

that by discussing how Buddhist concepts and 

ritual techniques served (or were adapted) to articulate 

the significance of various kinds of gods and spirits 

in premodern Japan. 

Received interpretations and their problems 

According to received definitions, Shinto is the autochthonous 

religious tradition of Japan. Its origins 

can be traced to animistic beliefs dating from the remotest 

antiquity. Its main features are an animistic belief 

in the sanctity of nature, shamanic practices, 

ancestor cults, respect for authority and communal 

value, and a strong capacity to integrate and homogenize 

foreign elements. Standard accounts also present 

the history of Japanese Buddhism as a gradual process 

of “Japanization,” that is, of Buddhism’s integration 

within the supposedly dominant Shinto system of beliefs 

and ritual practices. These kinds of accounts are 

heavily influenced by a nativist ideology of Japanese 

religion and do not reflect actual historical processes. 

In order to disentangle the complex relationships between 

Buddhism and local cults in the Japanese archipelago 

from ideological stereotypes, it is necessary to 

begin with an analysis of the term Shinto itself. As 

Kuroda Toshio has made clear, Shinto did not mean 

the same things throughout history. In particular, it 

did not designate an established system of religious institutions 

and their beliefs and rituals until after the 

eighteenth century. 

Shinto , most likely pronounced “jindo” until at least 

the fifteenth century, was essentially a Buddhist concept 

indicating the realm of local deities as related to, 

but distinct from, Indian deities of the Buddhist pantheon, 

which were usually referred to as ten or tendo . 

It was only since the second half of the Edo period 

(1600–1868) that more or less autonomous Shinto institutions 

began to develop, mainly centered on the 

Yoshida house in Kyoto (see below) and several schools 

of Confucian studies. However, Shinto as an independent 

religious tradition begins only 1868 with the 

so-called separation of kami and buddhas (shinbutsu 

bunri). This forceful separation, carried out upon orders 

emanating from the government, was one of the 

first acts in the Japanese process of modernization, and 

amounted to the artificial creation of two separate 

religious traditions, namely, Shinto and Japanese Buddhism. 

Subsequently, Shinto’s development was directly 

related to the policy and imperial ideology of the 

new Japanese state in what is known as State Shinto 

(kokka Shinto )—a formation that was disbanded after 

the end of World War II. 

In practice, shinbutsu bunri was not a mere “separation.” 

It defined what was “Buddhist” and what was 

“Shinto,” meaning that which was supposedly autochthonous 

in the religious world of the time. “Buddhist” 

elements (such as images with Buddhist flavor 

worshiped as the body of a kami, architectural elements, 

Buddhist scriptures offered to the kami, and so forth) 

were set apart and, in many cases, destroyed. “Shinto” 

elements, on the other hand, were systematized and 

“normalized.” Many local shrines were destroyed; the 

kami enshrined in several others were replaced by kami 

listed in the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters), an early 

eighth-century text that had become the bible of the 

nativists. Sacerdotal houses that had been in charge of 

services to the kami in certain locales for several generations 

were replaced by state-appointed officers who 

were followers of the nativist scholar Hirata Atsutane’s 

(1776–1843) brand of religious nationalism. Local rituals 

were replaced by authorized ceremonies that were 

related to a newly created cult for the emperor. People 

were forced to attend to new holidays that were related 

to state-sanctioned events. In this way, a new religion, 

supposedly autochthonous and with roots in a remote 

Japanese past before the arrival of Buddhism, was 

created and propagated among the people. After a few 


767


years of prohibition, Buddhism reorganized itself as a 

religion that was concerned with funerals and the moral 

education of the citizens of the new Japanese state. 

Buddhist appropriation of Japanese 

local deities 

The Buddhist appropriation of local kami is not a typically 

Japanese phenomenon: Local guardian gods and 

fertility gods are worshiped at Buddhist monasteries 

throughout Asia. Monastery gods are perhaps the original 

forms of adoption of local divinities in a Buddhist 

context. The interactions between Buddhism and local 

deities in Japan went through several phases, according 

to patterns that seem to be common to most 

Buddhist cultures. Japanese kami were first subjugated 

or converted to Buddhism, then transformed into 

dharma protectors, and finally organized in a hierarchical 

structure, a phase that involved a redefinition of 

the place of the kami in the Buddhist cosmology as 

manifestations of buddhas and bodhisattvas. 

At first, local kami were envisioned by Buddhists as 

dangerous entities that needed to be saved from their 

deluded condition and guided toward enlightenment; 

this implied acts of subjugation or conversion. Two 

legends exemplify this stage well. One day in 763 the 

kami of Tado village is said to have manifested itself 

through an oracle and requested to be converted so as 

to be liberated from its kami condition. A Buddhist 

monastery (jingu ji) was built in the area where the 

kami resided, and special services were held for the 

kami’s salvation. Another tale reports how a giant tree, 

believed to be the abode of a kami, fell to the ground 

and rolled into a river, where it was carried by the current. 

Every time the tree was stranded, epidemics 

struck the area. Finally, a Buddhist monk cut the fallen 

tree into pieces and carved three images of the BO- 

DHISATTVA Kannon (Avalokiteśvara) out of them (one 

of these images is said to be the Kannon at Ishiyamadera 

near Kyoto). Immediately, the epidemics 

ceased and the images generated good fortune and 

miracles. In both tales local kami are described as dangerous, 

violent entities, and sources of calamity to the 

local people. In contrast, Buddhism is presented as a 

pacifying and ordering force. At a subsequent stage, 

converted kami turned into protectors of the Buddhadharma 

and guarantors of the peace and prosperity 

in their respective locales. Kami were also gradually 

organized into a hierarchical structure, with the deities 

of twenty-two imperially sponsored shrines at the top, 

regional shrines at the middle, and village shrines at 

the bottom. There were in addition various orders of 

local deities that granted particular kinds of protection. 

These stages (subjugation or conversion of local divinities, 

their inclusion within the Buddhist system as 

protectors, and their redefinition as manifestations of 

sacred, translocal Buddhist entities) are usually presented 

as moments in a linear process of evolution, but 

it is important to emphasize that in practice they 

amounted to different modes of interaction rather than 

separate historical stages. As such they often overlapped. 

A local kami could be seen as a manifestation 

of a buddha or a bodhisattva, but at the same time it 

functioned as the protector of a specific locale, and 

Buddhist rituals were performed in front of it to secure 

its salvation. 

The field of Japanese local deities and 

its complexity 

Kami are usually understood as local, autochthonous 

Japanese deities. They are often described in animistic 

terms as supernatural forces abiding in natural entities 

such as trees, rocks, mountains, and waterfalls. However, 

the situation in premodern Japan was more complicated. 

Not all kami were animistic entities. In fact, 

scholars can identify a historical variety of kami, including 

royal deities, divinities of local clans (more or 

less related to royal deities), village spirits (which often 

had no name and no clearly defined shape), and imported 

deities (from India, Korea, and China). Royal 

deities, in particular those listed in the Kojiki and the 

early eighth-century Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan), 

were worshipped by the emperor as part of his sacerdotal 

duties. Interestingly, Buddhism was largely 

unconcerned with those deities, except for the most important 

ones among them—the kami of the Ise shrines. 

Japanese Buddhists devoted great efforts instead to domesticate 

and incorporate within their system local 

tutelary spirits. Clan divinities were largely treated as 

tutelary deities, and as such they were included in the 

Buddhist system in the ways discussed above. 

In premodern Japan there were a large number of 

local tutelary deities (chinju), ranging from household 

gods (such as the deities of the hearth), to village gods 

(such as paddy deities, ta no kami), to provincial and 

national protectors such as HACHIMAN, Kumano, Kasuga, 

and Sanno. The sanctuaries of these gods were 

normally affiliated with major Buddhist institutions 

(such as the large monasteries in Nara and Kyoto), 

were sponsored by the royal court and local gentry, 

and were often centered in sacred mountains where 



SHUGENDO mountain ascetics resided. In addition 

there were monastery gods (garanjin, such as Idaten, 

the son of Śiva, but also arhats) and dharma protectors 

(goho jin), even though this distinction was, in 

most cases, purely theoretical. These orders of deities 

were not clearly distinguished and, in practice, they often 

overlapped. The case of Nichira is particularly interesting. 

Originally a Korean general who became the 

tutelary deity of Mount Atago, which was considered 

a Japanese manifestation of bodhisattva Jizo (Ksitigarbha), 

Nichira came to be treated as an ARHAT. The 

name Nichira was interpreted as an abbreviation for 

the Japanese words nichi from Nippon (Japan) and ra 

from rakan (arhat). Arhats were the protectors of some 

Zen monasteries in Japan. 

As the case of Nichira indicates, not all kami were 

autochthonous, or originally Japanese. Buddhist 

priests brought to Japan deities from India, Korea, and 

China. Some of them were quickly “naturalized” and 

became very popular. Even today, many popular kami 

include foreign deities such as Benten (Sanskrit, Sarasvat), 

Daikokuten (Sanskrit, Mahakaka), Shinra (Korean, 

Silla), Myojin (probably of Korean origin), and 

other minor deities of Chinese origin related to yinyang 

and polar star cults. In addition, new deities were 

created under the influence of Buddhism. The two 

most popular kami in modern times, Hachiman and 

Inari, were produced by Buddhist combinatory doctrines 

and rituals. Hachiman, in particular, is said to 

have been the tutelary deity of a clan in southern Japan, 

but was recognized by the state in the eighth century 

as a great bodhisattva (daibosatsu) who promised to 

protect the country and ensure the diffusion of Buddhism 

there. He was also one of the protecting deities 

of the Todaiji, the largest monastery in Nara. Since 

then, he has always been one of the main protecting 

deities of Japan. 

Finally, premodern kami were usually not singular 

subjectivities, but plural entities that combined historical 

human beings, deities from various places in Asia, 

and Buddhist supernatural beings. Hachiman, for example, 

is both a kami and a bodhisattva, a king and a 

holy being: He is the deified aspect of Emperor O jin 

(who is said to have reigned in the late fourth to early 

fifth centuries) and at the same time a Japanese manifestation 

of Amida (Sanskrit, AMITABHA), or, according 

to some sources, of Śakyamuni. Analogously, the 

kami Inari began as an agricultural spirit bringing prosperity, 

later became the tutelary deity of the Fushimi 

area near Kyoto, and finally was envisioned as the 

Japanese manifestation of the Indian cannibal ogresses 

known as D AKINI. Inari is variously represented as an 

old man, a white fox, or a beautiful woman. 

With the development of increasingly complex hierarchies 

of protection and classification of divinities, 

we also see the formation of new interpretations about 

their functions and their modes of interaction with human 

beings. In general, buddhas and bodhisattvas were 

in charge of supramundane benefits (such as better rebirths 

and ultimate salvation), whereas the kami dealt 

specifically with worldly benefits and material prosperity. 

Furthermore, buddhas were normally benevolent, 

whereas the kami were in charge of punishing 

those who did not respect the deities. However, in 

medieval Japan a more nuanced vision developed, according 

to which buddhas and kami together administer 

punishments against their enemies. On the other 

hand, in some cases, such as in certain Shinto esoteric 

rituals, the kami provided a form of soteriology. In addition, 

refusal to worship the kami was considered a 

subversive act by the establishment and a revolutionary 

act by reform movements. In this way, the structure 

of the Buddhist pantheon was directly connected 

with visions of social order and morality. 

Japanese kami as manifestations of Buddhist 

sacred beings 

Buddhism interacted with Japanese deities in a way 

that finds no equivalent in most other Buddhist cultures 

(though there are very few comparative studies 

of Buddhist interactions with local deities). Around the 

eleventh to twelfth centuries, kami began to be envisioned 

as Japanese manifestations (Japanese, gongen; 

Sanskrit, avatara) of bodhisattvas or other deities of 

the Indian pantheon brought to Japan by Buddhism. 

The capacity of manifesting themselves in many forms 

is a feature of the gods of classical Indian mythology 

that was later attributed also to buddhas and bodhisattvas; 

in Japan, this feature was used to explain the 

status of the kami. This logic of manifestation was 

commonly defined as honji suijaku and wako do jin. The 

term honji suijaku (literally, “the original ground and 

its traces”) was originally used by the Chinese Tiantai 

patriarch ZHIYI (538–597) in his exegesis of the LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). According to 

Zhiyi, the first fourteen chapters of the scripture contain 

the provisional “trace-teaching” of the historical 

Buddha, whereas the final fourteen chapters are the ultimate 

“original teaching” of the eternal Buddha. In 


769


medieval Japan, honji suijaku was employed to mean 

that Indian and Buddhist entities constitute the “original 

ground” (honji) of their Japanese manifestations 

as local kami, defined as “traces” (suijaku). 

The expression wako do jin (literally, “to soften one’s 

radiance and become the same as dust”) can originally 

be found in the Chinese classic Daode jing (The Way 

and Its Power), where it refers to the way in which the 

Dao, the supreme principle, manifests itself in the 

world. The idea here is that the supreme principles (in 

this case, buddhas and bodhisattvas) cannot show their 

true forms in this world, but require a “coarsening” 

that makes them understandable to human beings. The 

“coarse” forms of buddhas and bodhisattvas were, of 

course, those of the Japanese kami. The underlying implication 

of both these expressions, as explained by several 

medieval texts, was that the Japanese people are 

too difficult to convert and too ignorant to understand 

buddhas and bodhisattvas in their “normal” forms. 

Therefore, they require rough manifestations to guide 

them to salvation. For example, according to honji suijaku 

logic, the sun goddess Amaterasu was envisioned 

as a manifestation of Mahavairocana, the universal 

Buddha of esoteric Buddhism; Hachiman was a manifestation 

of Amitabha; and so forth. 

The idea that Japanese deities were local manifestations 

of translocal deities proved enormously productive. 

By the fifteenth century, some Buddhist authors 

were arguing that the kami were in fact the primary, 

original forms of divine beings, while buddhas and 

bodhisattvas were Indian local manifestations of these 

original Japanese models. This reversal of dominant 

Buddhist ideas was at the basis of a new Shinto movement, 

of a strong nativist character, that stressed the 

superiority of all things Japanese against imported cultural 

elements. The center of this nativist reversal of the 

honji suijaku paradigm was the Yoshida shrine in Kyoto. 

Its priest, Yoshida Kanetomo (1435–1511), had collected 

a number of doctrines and rituals about the kami, 

mostly related to the then dominant esoteric Buddhism 

(mikkyo ), and tried to establish his own tradition by 

getting rid of the most visible Buddhist features. Gradually, 

the Yoshida tradition became the point of reference 

for nativist thinkers, anti-Buddhists, and kami 

priests disgruntled with the Buddhist establishment still 

dominating their shrines. These were the people and 

the groups that contributed to the constitution of a 

Shinto discourse as distinct from Buddhism during the 

Edo period in a process whose final stage was the early 

Meiji separation of Shinto from Buddhism. 

However, in medieval Japan not all kami were considered 

manifestations of Indian sacred entities. In the 

second half of the Kamakura period (1192–1333), the 

kami were divided into three categories that were based 

on ORIGINAL ENLIGHTENMENT (HONGAKU) thought: (1) 

kami of original enlightenment, such as Amaterasu of 

Ise; (2) kami of nonenlightenment (fukaku), such as 

the violent kami of Izumo shrine; and (3) kami of acquired 

enlightenment (shikaku), such as Hachiman. 

Even though this classification was probably devised 

to enhance the status of the Ise shrines and their deities, 

it is interesting to note that the kami are here thought 

to embody modalities of Buddhist soteriology and that 

some of them represent an obscure realm of ignorance 

and violence untouched by Buddhism. 

This latter point was further developed during the 

Kamakura period when authors began to define a distinction 

between “provisional deities” (gonsha) and 

“true deities” (jissha). Whereas provisional deities were 

considered to be benevolent, true deities were described 

as violent and dangerous entities that threatened 

the peace and security of local people. This 

distinction indicates that in medieval Japan divinities 

still existed that had not been integrated within the 

Buddhist system and that were described as chaotic 

forces (much as local deities before the arrival of Buddhism). 

The attitude of the Buddhists toward true 

deities was complex. Some warned local people not to 

worship them, since they were outside of Buddhism 

and therefore were irrelevant to the process of salvation; 

others suggested that these deities should be propitiated, 

while still others argued that human beings 

could not easily tell the difference between one category 

of deities and the other, and it was thus best to 

worship them all. 

Esoteric Buddhism and kami cults 

Honji suijaku and original enlightenment (hongaku) 

were essential parts of premodern Japanese esoteric 

Buddhism (mikkyo ), especially in its configuration 

known as EXOTERIC-ESOTERIC (KENMITSU) BUDDHISM. 

In fact, esoteric Buddhism played a fundamental role 

in the transformation of the kami and their inclusion 

within the Buddhist cosmology and salvation process. 

In particular, esoteric Buddhist MAN D ALA provided an 

important model for the systematization of the realm 

of sacred beings in Japan. The external sector of the 

Womb Mandala (taizo kai mandara) contains a number 

of non-Buddhist divinities ranging from Brahma, 

Śiva, and INDRA, to more animistic entities such as the 

gods of fire, water, and wind, and violent spirits and 


S HO BO GENZO 

demons (YAKSA). These divinities constituted the template 

for the organization of the premodern Japanese 

pantheon: As part of mandala they were provisional 

manifestations of the Buddha, and therefore entitled 

to a place in the Buddhist cosmos. In other words, Buddhism 

provided in Japan a new and broader cosmological 

framework in which to insert all (or most) 

forms of local sacred entities. During the Middle Ages, 

furthermore, mandalas were also used as conceptual 

models to represent the sacred space of kami shrines. 

In these images, the kami are usually represented both 

as “traces” (suijaku) with their earthly forms (animals, 

human beings) and as “original grounds” (honji), that 

is, buddhas and bodhisattvas. 

Esoteric Buddhism also influenced doctrines and 

rituals concerning the kami. Several schools of esoteric 

Shinto teachings developed at major cult sites, such as 

the Ise outer shrine, Hie shrine (affiliated with the 

Tendai monastery Enryakuji), and the Shingon 

monastery O miwadera (or Daigorinji). They all discussed 

issues of the honji suijaku paradigm, each from 

its own sectarian perspective and with its own Buddhist 

vocabulary. At the same time, these centers also 

developed a vast body of esoteric rituals dealing with 

the kami. Especially significant among them were initiation 

rituals on kami matters (jingi kanjo or shinto 

kanjo ), directly modeled on esoteric initiation rituals 

(denbo kanjo ), but also rituals for specific professions 

(e.g., carpenters, merchants, farmers) involving deities 

of the honji suijaku universe. In this respect, the previously 

discussed Yoshida tradition has a particular position 

in that it absorbed several elements from esoteric 

Buddhism (such as the goma fire ceremony and the 

notion of originals and traces), but developed them in 

an anti-Buddhist direction. 

See also: Cosmology; Folk Religion, Japan; Ghosts and 

Spirits; Japanese Royal Family and Buddhism; Local 

Divinities and Buddhism; Meiji Buddhist Reform; 

Shingon Buddhism, Japan; Shugendo; Space, Sacred 


Cult in Japanese History. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and 

London: University of California Press, 1992. 

Hardacre, Helen. Shinto and the State, 1868–1988. Princeton, 


Iyanaga Nobumi. Daikokuten henso (Bukkyo shinwagaku 1). 


Kageyama Haruki. The Arts of Shinto , translated and adapted 

by Christine Guth. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1973. 

Ketelaar, James E. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism 


Press, 1990. 

Kuroda Toshio. “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion.” 

Journal of Japanese Studies 7, no. 1, 1981: 1–21. 

Matsunaga, Alicia. The Buddhist Philosophy of Assimilation: The 

Historical Development of the Honji-Suijaku Theory. Rutland, 

VT, and Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1969. 

Murayama Shuichi. Honji suijaku. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 

1974. 

Naumann, Nelly. Die einheimische Religion Japans, 2 vols. Leiden, 

Netherlands: Brill, 1988–1994. 

Rambelli, Fabio. “Buddha’s Wrath: Esoteric Buddhism and the 

Discourse of Divine Punishment.” Japanese Religions 27, no. 

1 (2002): 41–68. 

Sato Hiroo. Amaterasu no henbo : Chusei shinbutsu ko sho shi no 

shiza. Kyoto: Hozokan, 2000. 

Scheid, Bernhard. Der Eine und Einzige Weg der Götter: Yoshida 

Kanetomo und die Erfindung des Shinto . Vienna: Verlag der 


Teeuwen, Mark. Watarai Shinto : An Intellectual History of the 

Outer Shrine in Ise. Leiden, Netherlands: Research School 

CNWS, 1996. 



and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003. 

Teeuwen, Mark, and Scheid, Bernhard, eds. Tracing Shinto in 

the History of Kami Worship. Special issue of Japanese Journal 

of Religious Studies 29, nos. 3/4 (2002). 


Bibliography 

Breen, John, and Teeuwen, Mark, eds. Shinto in History: Ways 

of the Kami. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 2000. 

Gellner, David N. “For Syncretism: The Position of Buddhism 

in Nepal and Japan Compared.” Social Anthropology 5, no. 

3 (1997): 277–291. 

Grapard, Allan G. “Institution, Ritual, and Ideology: The 

Twenty-two Shrine-Temple Multiplexes of Heian Japan.” 


SHO BO GENZO 

Sho bo genzo (Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma) 

is a collection of essays, in several premodern redactions, 

by the early Japanese Zen monk DO GEN 

(1200–1253). The title, which denotes the CHAN 

SCHOOL (Japanese, Zen) tradition, derives from an expression 

indicating the awakening traditionally said to 


771

S HO TOKU, PRINCE 

( TAISHI) 

have been transmitted by the Buddha Śakyamuni to 

his disciple MAHAKAŚYAPA. 

SHO TOKU, PRINCE (TAISHI) 


Prince Shotoku (taishi, 574–622) was a semilegendary 

prince who from the earliest stages of Japanese history 

has been revered as a cultural hero, as a Buddhist 

patron, as a civilizing ruler, and as a Japanese incarnation 

either of the Chinese TIANTAI SCHOOL monk 

Huisi (Japanese, Eshi; 515–577) or of the BODHISATTVA 

Avalokiteśvara. The earliest written accounts (dating 

from the eighth century) credit Shotoku with mastering 

Buddhism and Confucianism under the tutorage 

of the Korean teachers Hyeja (Japanese, Eji) and 

Kakka (Japanese, Kakuka); serving as regent for his 

aunt, Suiko (r. 593–628); establishing a system of 

twelve court ranks to replace ranks based on familial 

status; composing a Seventeen Article Constitution that 

expresses basic governmental ideals along with pious 

Buddhist and Confucian sentiments; constructing statues 

of the Four Heavenly Kings (shi tenno , gods of the 

four directions who protect Buddhist kingdoms); as 

well as lecturing on or authoring commentaries on 

three MAHAYANA Buddhist scriptures: the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA; Japanese, Hokekyo ), 

the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa (Yuimagyo ), and Queen Śrlmala 

Su tra (Sho mangyo ). Significantly, the central figure of 

the Vimalaklrti Su tra is a wise layman (like Shotoku), 

and the central figure of the Queen Śrlmala Su tra is a 

female ruler (like Suiko). In addition, many Buddhist 

temples important in early Japanese history traditionally 

have claimed Shotoku as their founding patron. 

These temples include Shitennoji, Gangoji (also 

known as Hokoji or Asukadera), Horyuji, Chuguji, 

and countless others. These claims helped to legitimate 

the strong relationship between the royal court and institutional 

Buddhism throughout most of premodern 

Japanese history. Moreover, reverence for Shotoku 

played a significant role in the lives of many subsequent 

Japanese Buddhist leaders, such as SAICHO 

(767–822) and SHINRAN (1173–1263). 

In modern times Shotoku has been promoted as a 

paradigm of ideal Japanese virtues, especially those of 

harmony (wa), nationalism, and a strong imperial rule. 

The prominence afforded him by many modern textbook 

accounts of ancient Japan can sometimes foster 

a one-dimensional view of the complex process by 

which the early Japanese state emerged. 

See also: Horyuji and Todaiji; Japanese Royal Family 

and Buddhism; Kingship; Nationalism and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Deal, William E. “Hagiography and History: The Image of 

Prince Shotoku.” In Religions of Japan in Practice, ed. George 

J. Tanabe, Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 

1999. 

Ito, Kimio. “The Invention of Wa and the Transformation of 

the Image of Prince Shotoku in Modern Japan.” In Mirror 

of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, ed. 

Stephen Vlastos. Berkeley: University of California Press, 

1998. 

Kanaji, Isamu. “Three Stages in Shotoku Taishi’s Acceptance of 

Buddhism.” Acta Asiatica (Tokyo), no. 47 (1985): 31–47. 

Kusunoki, Masazumi. “The Seventeen Article Constitution of 

Prince Shotoku: Its Contemporary Significance,” tr. Larry L. 

Hanson. Ex Oriente (Tokyo), no. 6 (1993): 1–34. 

Nishimura, Sey. “The Prince and the Pauper: The Dynamics of 

a Shotoku Legend.” Monumenta Nipponica (Tokyo) 40, no. 

3 (1985): 299–310. 

O yama, Seiichi. Sho toku taishi to Nihonjin (Prince Shotoku and 

Japanese identity). Nagoya, Japan: Fubaisha, 2001. 

SHUGENDO 


Shugendo is a syncretistic Japanese Buddhist tradition 

of mountain ASCETIC PRACTICES that incorporates elements 

from shamanism, indigenous Japanese folk beliefs 

concerning mountains and spirits of the dead, and 

Daoist magic. The word Shugendo literally translates as 

“the way of cultivating supernatural power.” Its practitioners 

are known as yamabushi (those who “lie 

down” in the mountains) or shugenja (ascetics, or 

“those who cultivate power”). Although their role has 

evolved and changed over the years, these figures were 

expected to accumulate religious power by undergoing 

severe ascetic practices in the mountains, such as fasting, 

meditating, reciting spells or Buddhist texts, sitting 

under waterfalls, gathering firewood, abstaining 

from water, hanging over cliffs to “weigh” one’s sins, 

retiring in solitary confinement to caves, and performing 

rituals such as fire ceremonies. Shugenja then 

drew on this power to provide services, such as guiding 

pilgrims, performing religious rites, and demonstrating 

superhuman feats like walking on fire, as well 

as divination, exorcism, and prayers. 


S HUGENDO 

Historical development and characteristics 

In pre-Buddhist Japan, religious activities included 

shamanistic trances, communication with spirits, and 

festivals and rites celebrating the descent of the agricultural 

deities from the mountains in the spring and 

their return to the mountains after the autumn harvest. 

Mountains were also believed to be the residence 

of the dead. As Buddhism was being assimilated into 

Japanese society in the sixth century (if not earlier), ascetics 

entered mountainous areas to undergo religious 

austerities. These persons were not always Buddhist 

monks, but included an assortment of solitary hermits, 

diviners, exorcists, “unordained” Buddhist specialists 

(ubasoku), and wandering religious figures (hijiri). The 

most famous of these was En-no-Gyoja (En the Ascetic, 

also known as En-no-Ozunu; ca. seventh century), 

a prototypical ascetic with shamanic powers and 

the semilegendary founder of Shugendo, stories of 

whose activities are in evidence at almost every mountainous 

area with an ascetic tradition. 

By the early Heian period (ninth century) many 

Buddhist ascetics, especially those associated with the 

tantric schools, entered Mount Hiei and Mount Koya 

(the headquarters of the Tendai and Shingon Buddhist 

schools), as well as other mountains such as Mount 

Kimbu in the Yoshino region. Various mountainous 

areas throughout Japan developed their own traditions, 

among them Hakusan and Mount Fuji in central 

Japan, the Haguro peaks in the north, Mount 

Ishizuchi in Shikoku, and Mount Hiko in Kyushu. 

Each had its own religious history, its own set of deities, 

its own web of associations with other sacred sites, and 

its own community of Shugendo practitioners. Shugenja 

from these areas performed religious services and 

guided pilgrims to popular sacred sites like Mitake and 

Kumano. These shugenja gradually became organized 

by the middle of the Heian period (tenth century), usually 

in connection with the pilgrimages of retired emperors 

and aristocrats. In time its institutional 

structure formed two major pillars: the Honzan-ha 

headquartered at Shogo-in and affiliated with Tendai 

Buddhism, and the Tozan-ha headquartered at Kofukuji 

and Daigoji and affiliated with Shingon Buddhism. 

In this way the older shamanistic and mountain 

ascetic practices were incorporated within the teachings 

and practices of tantric Buddhism, and Shugendo 

came to represent a large portion of the dominant syncretistic 

worldview of medieval Japan. In the early 

modern period (lasting from the seventeenth century 

to the nineteenth century) the role of most shugenja 

shifted from that of ascetic wanderer to that of someone 

settled in a local society as oshi (teacher) or kito shi 

(a diviner who offers “prayers”). 

Today Shugendo represents only a shadow of its former 

self, though Shugendo-related activities, such as 

the kaiho gyo Tendai practice of “circumambulating the 

peaks” on Mount Hiei and Shugendo-influenced rituals 

and activities in some of the new religious movements 

of Japan, are still practiced. A syncretistic mix 

of traditions, Shugendo was outlawed in the late nineteenth 

century as part of the attempt by the Japanese 

government to “purify” Shinto of its “foreign” elements. 

Shugendo specialists were forced to identify 

themselves either as Buddhist monks or Shinto priests. 

With the postwar declaration of religious freedom in 

the second half of the 1940s, Shugendo organizations 

recovered their independence and many activities, 

such as the Yoshino-Kumano pilgrimage along the 

O mine range and the seasonal retreats at Haguro, have 

been revived by their former institutional centers. 

Buddhist aspects of Shugendo 

Buddhist aspects of Shugendo are reflected in its doctrinal 

and ethical teachings, rituals, COSMOLOGY, and 

ascetic practices. These are based mainly on tantric 

Buddhism as it evolved in the Tendai and Shingon traditions 

in Japan. Examples include the reinterpretation 

of traditional Buddhist categories, such as the ten 

realms of existence (from hell to Buddha) and the six 

PARAMITA (PERFECTIONS), in terms of the physical and 

spiritual progress made by ascetics as they advance 

through the mountain trails and trials. Fire ceremonies 

(goma) and other Buddhist rituals also underwent 

transformation. Cosmological and symbolic significance 

was assigned to Shugendo geographical sites 

based on the configuration of the womb realm 

(taizo kai) and diamond realm (kongo kai) MAN D ALAs. 

In this way the mountains came to be identified with 

the body of the cosmic Buddha Mahavairocana 

(Japanese, Dainichi), and entering the mountains took 

on the added meaning of becoming integrated with the 

Buddha and attaining enlightenment. The belief that 

buddhahood can be attained within this life is a central 

tenet of Shugendo faith and a major goal of its 

practice. Traditional Buddhist and Buddhist-like figures 

(buddhas, BODHISATTVAS, and guardian deities) 

were incorporated into Shugendo worship, along with 

completely new figures. Especially important is Fudo 

(myo o ; the unmovable), a fiery and angry looking 

representation of the role of the cosmic Buddha in destroying 

the passionate afflictions of this world. Fundamental 

Buddhist practices such as MEDITATION 


773

S HWEDAGON 

(seated, walking, or otherwise on the move) and the 

recitation of sutras belong to the basic activities of 

Shugendo. Thus, while it is misleading to speak of 

Shugendo only in terms of Buddhism, its adherents 

consider themselves Buddhists and it is not inaccurate 

to consider it part of the Buddhist tradition. 

See also: Japan; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism; 

Space, Sacred 

Bibliography 

Earhart, H. Byron. A Religious Study of the Mount Haguro Sect 

of Shugendo . Tokyo: Sophia University, 1970. 

Miyake Hitoshi. Shugendo : Essays on the Structure of Japanese 

Folk Religion, ed. H. Byron Earhart. Ann Arbor: University 

of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, 2001. 

Renondeau, Gaston. Le Shugendo : Histoire, doctrine, et rites des 

anachorètes dits Yamabushi. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 

1965. 

Rotermund, Hartmut O. Die Yamabushi: Aspekte ihres Glaubens, 

Lebens und ihrer sozialen Funktion im japanischen Mittelalter. 

Hamburg, Germany: de Gruyter, 1968. 

Swanson, Paul L. “Shugendo and the Yoshino-Kumano Pilgrimage.” 

Monumenta Nipponica 36, no. 1 (1981): 55–84. 

Swanson, Paul L., and Tyler, Royall, eds. “Shugendo and Mountain 

Religion in Japan.” Special issue of Japanese Journal of 

Religious Studies 16, nos. 2–3 (1989). 

SHWEDAGON 

PAUL L. SWANSON 

According to Burmese accounts the Shwedagon 

pagoda was constructed in 585 B.C.E. It has since been, 

and is still being, much embellished. Successive Mon 

and Burmese kings and queens added their weights in 

gold to the spire as it rose higher and higher through 

the centuries. The finial or hti is encrusted with enormous 

rubies and diamonds. The Shwedagon finally 

reached its present height of 326 feet in the fifteenth 

century under the patronage of the Pegu queen Shin 

Sawbu. According to tradition, the Buddha gave eight 

of his hairs to two Mon merchants who returned to 

their land and dedicated the pagoda. The Shwedagon 

is now the most famous shrine in Burma and truly a 

wonder of the world. Best visited at night, one enters 

another world of gilded spires and tinkling bells, flickering 

candles, and reverberating gongs. 

The pagoda rises from the 190-foot high Dagon Hill 

and has four main entrances—one to each cardinal 

point—with long covered stairs, commanded at their 

feet by giant chinthé lions, and lined with pagoda shops 

selling flowers and religious paraphernalia. The south 

and east stairs have been remodeled recently. The main 

terrace was leveled by the Pegu kings in the fifteenth 

century; it covers fourteen acres and is paved with marble 

slabs. The main STU PA has a circumference of 1,421 

feet; the base is octagonal, each side lined with eight 

subsidiary stupas for a total of sixty-four. At each corner 

is a manothiha or sphinx. Octagonal terraces rise 

for eighty feet; only one terrace above the main platform 

is accessible, and only to monks and male Buddhists. 

Above these are the circular bands that rise to 

the hti finial. 

Opposite the covered zaung-dan (stair halls) are the 

four principal shrines dedicated to each of the four 

BUDDHAS who have manifested themselves during the 

present eon. Filling the platform are several hundred 

shrines and temples, mostly dating from the colonial 

period and Rangoon’s development as a mercantile 

capital. There are shrines erected by various merchant 

guilds, including the Chinese Buddhist Community. A 

fire in 1931 destroyed many of these pavilions and they 

were subsequently rebuilt. There are many fine examples 

of traditional wood carving. Surrounding the main 

stupa are planetary shrines for the days of the week 

with their corresponding animals. There are countless 

other shrines, statues, and symbolic objects on site. Divine 

beasts are everywhere, as are nats (spirits). The 

Maha Ghanta, a great bell cast by King Singu in 1779, 

is especially notable. It weighs twenty-three tons, has 

a diameter of over six feet, and stands seven feet high. 

In 1825 the British attempted to send the bell to London 

as booty, but while loading it onto a ship it fell 

into the Rangoon River and was abandoned there. 

Later an association of pious Burmese salvaged it from 

the riverbed and were allowed to replace it in the 

Shwedagon. There is another larger bell, the Mahatisadda 

Ghanta, that weighs forty tons; it was donated 

by King Tharawaddy in 1848 and is the second-largest 

bell in Burma. 

See also: Monastic Architecture; Myanmar; Myanmar, 

Buddhist Art in; Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Moore, Elizabeth; Meyer, Hansjorg; and U Win Pe. Shwedagon: 

Golden Pagoda of Myanmar. London: Thames and Hudson, 

1999. 


S ILK 

R OAD 

Win Pe. The Shwedagon. Rangoon: Printing and Publishing 

Corporation, 1972. 

PAUL STRACHAN 

SILENT ILLUMINATION CHAN. See Mozhao 

Chan (Silent Illumination Chan) 

ŚIKSA NANDA 

Śiksananda (652–710), a native of Khotan, was one of 

the major translators of MAHAYANA sutras into Chinese. 

Conversant with both Mahayana and mainstream 

Buddhist scriptures, as well as with non-Buddhist texts, 

Śiksananda came to China with a complete set of the 

HUAYAN JING (Avatam saka-su tra; Flower Garland Su tra) 

in Sanskrit after learning that Empress Wu (r. 690– 

705) had sent envoys to Khotan to search for the Sanskrit 

edition of the scripture and its translators. Under 

Empress Wu’s auspices, Śiksananda joined the translation 

team that undertook the translation and retranslation 

of nineteen Mahayana scriptures, including 

the Huayan jing and the LAṄKAVATARA-SU TRA (Discourse 

of the Descent into Laṅka). The newly translated 

Huayan jing, completed in 699 in a total of eighty fascicles, 

was said to be a literal translation, closer in both 

style and language to Buddhabhadra’s sixty-fascicle 

translation from the early fifth century than to the 

more recent translation of XUANZANG (ca. 600–664). 

In 704 Empress Wu allowed Śiksananda to return 

to Khotan, but he was summoned back to Chang’an 

in 708. Zhongzong (r. 705–710), then the reigning emperor, 

and all the monks in the capital greeted Śiksananda 

at Kaiyuan Gate with banners and parasols. 

Apparently in poor health at this time, Śiksananda was 

unable to take on any additional translation assignments 

and died in 710 at the age of fifty-nine. His body 

was cremated and his remains were escorted back to 

Khotan. His followers built a seven-story pagoda at the 

cremation site and named it “Pagoda of the Trepitaka 

Huayan” to commemorate him. 

See also: Kumarajlva; Paramartha 

Bibliography 



Song Gaoseng zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Monks Compiled in 

the Song Dynasty). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1987. 


SILK ROAD 

Buddhism spread from India to Central Asia and 

China via an overland network of major and minor 

routes popularly called the Silk Road. This network 

connected Buddhist centers in Northwest India, western 

Central Asia, the Tarim basin, and China during 

the first millennium C.E. In the broadest sense, the silk 

routes extended from China to the Mediterranean, incorporating 

routes through Syria, Mesopotamia, and 

Iran. Primary routes in western Central Asia ran 

through Margiana and the Oxus River (Amu Darya) 

valley, reached Bactria in northern Afghanistan or 

branched northward to Sogdiana, and continued to the 

Tarim basin in eastern Central Asia. Capillary routes 

through the Karakoram mountains in northern Pakistan 

directly linked the silk routes of eastern Central 

Asia with the major arteries for trade and travel in 

Northwest India. Northern and southern routes 

around the Tarim basin rejoined at DUNHUANG, the 

westernmost outpost of the Chinese empire, and proceeded 

through the Gansu corridor to central China. 

The transmission of Buddhism from India to Central 

Asia and China corresponded with the development 

of the silk routes as channels for intercultural 

exchanges. Chinese contacts with the “Western Regions” 

(Xi-yu) of Central and South Asia expanded 

during the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). By 111 

B.C.E., the Han controlled the Gansu corridor to Dunhuang, 

and garrisons and irrigated agricultural oases 

around the Tarim basin were established in the first 

century B.C.E. Although Chinese control of these areas 

fluctuated, prosperous trade in luxury items (including 

silk) and dynamic cultural exchanges continued. 

Chinese historical chronicles of the Han period refer 

to the gradual migration of Yuezhi nomads from 

the area around Dunhuang through the Tarim basin 

to Bactria in the second century B.C.E. The Kushans, a 

branch of the Yuezhi, advanced from Bactria across the 

Hindu Kush into Northwest India in the first century 

C.E. By the second century C.E. during the reign of 

Kanishka, the Kushan empire controlled the routes 

that connected northern India with the silk routes. 

Kushan control accelerated economic and cultural 

contacts and stimulated the movement of Buddhism 

beyond South Asia to Central Asia and China. 


775

S ILK 

R OAD 

Silk Road 

0 50 100 mi. 

0 50 100 km 

To Sogdiana 

Kashgar 

KARAKORAM 

MOUNTAINS 

To Kashmir 

Route 

City 

A 

I T 

S 

N 

K U N L 

To Ladakh 

N 

A H 

TARIM BASIN 

Takla Makan Desert 

Xinjiang 

Khotan 

Northern Route 

Niya 

U N S H 

A N 

Kucha 

Endere 

Bosten Hu 

Sout Route 

hern 

Tibet 

Turfan 

Intermediate Route 

Tarim 

River 

Loulan 

Miran 

Lop-nor 

Lake 

N 

A S H A L T U N 

Ayakkum Hu 

Aqqikkol Hu 

Mongolia 

Dunhuang 

To Gansu 

and 

Luoyang Loyang 

N 

The Silk Road: trade routes through eastern Central Asia. XNR Productions, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the Gale Group. 

Translators of early Chinese Buddhist texts came to 

China from western Central Asia and Northwest India 

via the silk routes. AN SHIGAO, Lokaksema, and other 

Parthian, Sogdian, and Indian translators arrived in 

Luoyang beginning in the middle of the second century 

C.E. Buddhist monasteries emerged near irrigated 

oases at Khotan, Kucha, Turfan, and Dunhuang on the 

northern and southern branches of the silk routes during 

the third to fifth centuries C.E. Certain scholarly 

monks, including DHARMARAKSA (ca. 233–310 C.E.) 

from Dunhuang and KUMARAJIVA (350–409/413 C.E.) 

from Kucha, came directly from Buddhist centers in 

the Tarim basin. Many anonymous monks who traveled 

between India and China along the silk routes 

were responsible for the transmission of Buddhism 

outside the monastic community. Chinese pilgrims to 

India returned with manuscripts, relics, and stories 

about sacred places in the Buddhist heartland. FAXIAN 

(ca. 337–418 C.E.) and XUANZANG (ca. 600–664 C.E.) 

were the most famous Chinese pilgrims; their accounts 

contain valuable details about social political, and religious 

conditions in Central Asia and India. 

STU PAS (reliquaries), cave paintings, and manuscripts 

discovered by Aurel Stein and other explorers 

in the early twentieth century illustrate the role of the 

Silk Road as a path for the expansion of Buddhism. 

Stupas at Buddhist sites on the southern route in the 

Tarim basin adopted architectural features from 

Northwest India. A Gandhar manuscript of the 

Dharmapada (Pali, DHAMMAPADA) from Khotan and 

approximately one thousand Kharosth documents 

from Niya, Endere, and Loulan show that the Gandhar 

language continued to be used along the southern 

silk route until the fourth century C.E. Numerous 

Buddhist paintings in caves along the northern silk 

route display close stylistic affinities with the art of 

Gandhara, western Central Asia, and Iran, while others 

incorporate Chinese and Turkish elements. The 

distribution of Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts from 

the second to sixth centuries C.E. indicates that Buddhist 

centers along the northern silk route were generally 

affiliated with MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS 

(particularly the Sarvastivada), but the MAHAYANA tradition 

was prevalent in southern silk route centers such 

as Khotan. After the sixth century, Buddhist literature 

was written in Central Asian vernacular languages, including 

Khotanese Saka, Tocharian, Sogdian, Uighur, 

Tibetan, and Mongolian. Buddhist artistic and literary 

traditions continued to flourish in Central Asia along 

with Zoroastrian, Manichaean, and Nestorian Christian 

traditions in the middle to late first millennium C.E. 

Despite this historical legacy, with the exception of 

the surviving Buddhist traditions in Tibet and Mongolia, 

Buddhism disappeared from the Silk Road regions 

of Central Asia as these areas gradually Islamicized in 

the second millennium C.E. 

See also: Cave Sanctuaries; Central Asia; Central Asia, 

Buddhist Art in; China; Gandharl, Buddhist Literature 

in; India, Northwest; Languages; Pilgrimage 


S INHALA, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

Bibliography 

Härtel, Herbert, and Yaldiz, Marianne. Along the Ancient Silk 

Routes: Central Asian Art from the West Berlin State Museums. 

New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982. 

Klimburg-Salter, Deborah. The Silk Route and the Diamond 

Path: Esoteric Buddhist Art on the Trans-Himalayan Trade 

Routes. Los Angeles: UCLA Arts Council, 1982. 

Liu, Xinru. Ancient India and Ancient China: Trade and Religious 

Exchanges, A.D. 1–600. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 

1988. Reprint, 1997. 

Liu, Xinru. The Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Interactions 

in Eurasia. Washington, DC: American Historical Association, 

1998. 

McRae, John, and Nattier, Jan, eds. Buddhism across Boundaries— 

Chinese Buddhism and the Western Regions. Honolulu: University 



Central Asian Buddhism.” Numen 37 (1990): 195–219. 

Rhie, Marylin Martin. Early Buddhist Art of China and Central 

Asia, Vol. 1: Later Han, Three Kingdoms, and Western Chin 

in China and Bactria to Shan-shan in Central Asia. Leiden, 


Sander, Lore. “Buddhist Literature in Central Asia.” In Encyclopaedia 

of Buddhism, ed. G. P. Malalasekera, Vol. 4, fascicle 

1. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Government of Ceylon, 1981. 


Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China, 2 vols. Leiden, 


SINHALA, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN 

JASON NEELIS 

Sinhala is the language of 72 percent of the population 

of Sri Lanka. Sinhala is considered part of the Indo- 

European family of languages, but recent scholarship 

has revealed a strong Dravidian influence as well. No 

written documents exist of the period before the coming 

of Buddhism in the third century B.C.E.; with Buddhism, 

a written literature developed. The earliest 

extant records are cave and rock inscriptions in a 

Brahm script dating from around 200 B.C.E., which 

list the names of Buddhist donors who supported cave 

dwelling monks. This connection between the language 

and the religion, established very early, gave rise 

over time to a vigorous Buddhist literature. 

As far back as the first century B.C.E., Buddhist 

monks at Aluvihare in central Sri Lanka committed 

Buddhist texts to writing. Monasteries quickly developed 

into centers of literary and intellectual activity, 

and a substantial collection of religious works, commentaries, 

exegetical writings, and historical records 

appeared in Pali, Sanskrit, and the local vernacular. 

Most of the early works have not survived, but scholars 

know of their existence from references in later 

texts and from rock inscriptions. The only extant 

works from before the eighth century C.E. are the historical 

chronicles the Dlpavam sa (fourth century C.E.), 

the Mahavam sa (sixth century C.E.), and its continuation 

the Cu lavam sa (twelfth century C.E.), which were 

all written in Pali, though based on records from the 

Sinhala. These chronicles, written by monks, constitute 

a chronology of Sinhala kings (from the time of 

the founder Vijaya to the time of the authors), their 

major victories and defeats, and their peacetime activities, 

especially their meritorious deeds in support of 

Buddhism. The chronicles present a blend of historical 

information, religious exhortation, and political 

nationalism, all done with remarkable literary skill, 

thus constituting a record of what the authors perceived 

as the establishing of a Buddhist nation on the 

island of Sri Lanka. 

The evidence of the chronicles, and references in 

later works and inscriptions, all suggest the existence 

of a flourishing literary tradition, even during this early 

period. Jayabahu Dharmakirti, writing in the thirteenth 

century in his Nikayasam grahaya (Collection of 

Writings on the Books of the Doctrine), lists the names 

of twenty-eight monks and nine lay writers well known 

for composing religious works, commentaries, glossaries, 

translations, and other works between the fifth 

and thirteenth centuries. Unfortunately, all that remains 

from the first to eighth centuries C.E. are graffiti 

poems on the mirror wall of the rock fortress at 

Sigiriya. These short casual scribbles of visitors to Sigiriya 

between the seventh and ninth centuries C.E. 

(many of whom included their names and identities) 

do not represent the major literary tradition of the 

time. However, their skill and verve indicate the widespread 

nature and vitality of a tradition where soldiers, 

artisans, monks, and women (in addition to more traditional 

scholars) could all write poems. 

Sinhala literature from the tenth to the thirteenth 

centuries was strongly influenced by the classical court 

literature of India. The major Sinhala poetical works 

of the period are the Muvadevavata (The Story of the 

Bodhisattva’s Birth as King Mukhadeva, [twelfth century]), 

the Sasadavata (The Story of the Bodhisattva’s 

Birth as a Hare, [twelfth century]), and the Kavsilumina 


777

S INHALA, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

(The Crown Jewel of Poetry), attributed to King 

Parakramabahu II (thirteenth century). These works 

are classical in style, and present stories of the past 

births of the Buddha. 

The oldest extant prose work in Sinhala is on 

rhetoric, the Siyabaslakara (The Ornaments of One’s 

Language), ascribed to King Sena I (r. 832–851). The 

Dhampiyatuva gätapadaya (Commentary on the Blessed 

Doctrine), a commentary on words and phrases in the 

Pali DHAMMAPADA, was composed in the tenth century. 

The Sikhavalan∧da (The Mark of Sign of the Precepts) 

and Sikhavalan∧da vinisa (An Examination of the 

Signs of the Precepts), a summary of precepts on priestly 

discipline, also belong to this period. 

Sinhala prose works from the twelfth and thirteenth 

centuries can be described as “intermediate 

texts.” Though still classical in form they were closer 

in idiom to the spoken vernacular. The Saddhamaratnavaliya 

(The Jewel Garland of the True Doctrine) 

by the monk Dharmasena, the Amavatura (The Nectar 

Flow or The Flowing Nectar [of the Doctrine]) and 

Dharmapradlpikava (The Light of the Doctrine) by the 

monk Gurulugomi, the Butsarana (The Protection [or 

Refuge] of the Buddha) by Vidyacakravarti, the Sinhala 

Thu pavam sa (The Chronicle of the Stupas), the Daladasirita 

(An Account of the Tooth Relic [of the Buddha]), 

the Pu javaliya (The Garland of Worship), the 

Pansiya Panas Jataka Pota (The Book of Five Hundred 

and Fifty Birth Stories [of the Buddha]), the monk 

Vldagama Maitreya’s Budugunalam karaya (An Elaboration 

of the Buddha’s Virtues), and the Lo väda sam grahaya 

(A Collection of Writings for the Betterment of the 

World) all belong to this tradition. They are Buddhist 

works intended for the edification of ordinary people 

and so had the flavor and style of popular sermons. 

Works on rhetoric, such as the Sidat Sam garava (A Collection 

of Writings on Grammar), the Siyabas lakuna 

(The Marks or Signs of One’s Language), and the Dandyalam 

kara sanna (Commentary on Dandin’s Theory of 

Alam kara) and works on prosody, such as the Elusandäs 

lakuna (The Mark of Signs of the Original Sinhala 

[elu]), were also composed during this period. 

If the thirteenth century saw a flowering of Sinhala 

prose literature, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 

saw a flowering of poetry as the process of secularization 

that had begun with prose continued into poetry. 

These Sinhala poems were written by monks using 

Buddhist themes, but they were modeled on classical 

Sanskrit court literature and thus became more secular 

in content. The most famous of a spate of sandesa 

(message poems) from this period were the Sälalihini 

sandeśaya (The Message Poem Carried by the Salalihini 

Bird) and the Parevi sandeśaya (The Message Poem Carried 

by the Pigeon) by the monk Totagamuve Sri 

Rahula, who also wrote the Kavyaśekhera (The Crown 

of Poetry). Two other well-known writers of the age 

were the monk Vidagama Maitreya, who wrote the 

Budugunalam karaya, and the monk Vëttëve, who 

wrote the Guttila Kavya (The Poem of Guttila). Increasing 

secularization resulted in a shift away from 

the earlier heavy Sanskritization of the language. 

Unfortunately, Sinhala literary and linguistic creativity 

was short lived. The arrival of Western European 

powers and subsequent colonial conquest by the 

Portuguese, Dutch, and British in succession from the 

sixteenth to the twentieth centuries resulted in a period 

of decadence in Sinhala literature. The only poet of significance 

during the sixteenth century was Alagiyavanna 

Mohottala, who wrote the Kusa Jataka (The Story 

of the Birth of the Bodhisattva as King Kusa), the Dahamsonda 

kavya (The Poem on the Good Doctrine), the 

Subhasita (Auspicious Thoughts), and some panegyrics. 

In the mid-eighteenth century there was a brief literary 

and religious revival in the central kingdom of 

Kandy, which had not yet been conquered by Western 

powers. It was spearheaded by the monk Welivitiye 

Saranakara, and produced a considerable body of 

work in Pali, Sanskrit, and Sinhala. This literary renaissance 

was short lived, however; the British conquered 

the entire island in 1815, colonial rule was 

established, and Sinhala language and literature became 

stagnant once again. 

When the first stirring of political nationalism occurred 

in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 

it took the form of a literary and religious revival, 

and the long-standing Sri Lankan connection between 

religion, literature, and the national identity resurfaced. 

The phenomenal increase in literary activity was 

at first entirely religious, but eventually newer genres 

influenced by Western contact came to prominence, 

and a modern secular literature was born. 

See also: Pali, Buddhist Literature in; Sri Lanka 

Bibliography 

Geiger, Wilhelm. A Grammar of the Sinhalese Language. 

Colombo, Sri Lanka: Royal Asiatic Society, 1938. 

Godakumbure, C. E. Sinhalese Literature. Colombo, Sri Lanka: 

Colombo Apothecaries, 1955. 


S KANDHA 

(AGGREGATE) 

Obeyesekere, Ranjini. Sinhala Writing and the New Critics. 

Colombo, Sri Lanka: Gunasena, 1974. 

Obeyesekere, Ranjini. “A Survey of the Sinhala Literary Tradition.” 

In Modern Sri Lanka: A Society in Transition, ed. Tissa 

Fernando and Robert N. Kearney. Syracuse, NY: Maxwell 

School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 

1979. 

Obeyesekere, Ranjini, trans. The Jewels of the Doctrine: Stories of 

the Saddharmaratnavaliya. Albany: State University of New 


Obeyesekere, Ranjini, trans. Portraits of Buddhist Women: Stories 

from the Saddharmaratnavaliya. Albany: State University 


Reynolds, C. H. B., ed. An Anthology of Sinhalese Literature up 

to 1815. London: Allen and Unwin, 1970. 

SKANDHA (AGGREGATE) 

RANJINI OBEYESEKERE 

According to Buddhist texts, the entire universe, including 

the individual, is made up of different phenomena 

(dharma). Although all these phenomena of 

existence are reduced to transitory entities by the theory 

of anatman (no-self), Buddhism classifies these 

phenomena into different categories, including the 

conventionally accepted concept of “person.” The 

three concepts of bases (ayatana), elements (dhatu), 

and aggregates (skandha; Pali, khandha) constitute different 

schemes for classifying the various phenomena. 

Although the aggregates are nothing but a “convenient 

fiction,” the Buddha nevertheless made frequent use 

of the skandha when asked to explain the elements at 

work in the individual. 

According to this scheme, what is conventionally 

called a “person” can be understood in terms of five 

aggregates, the sum of which must not be mistaken for 

a permanent entity since beings are nothing but an 

amalgam of ever-changing phenomena. The five aggregates 

are variously translated as matter or form 

(ru pa); sensation, emotion, or feeling (vedana); recognition 

or perception (sam jña); karmic activity, formation, 

force, or impulse (sam skara); and consciousness 

(vijñana). Ru pa is made of four primary elements (mahabhu 

ta): air, fire, water, and earth. It is also described 

as an amalgam of twenty-three secondary elements, 

which include the five sense organs, as well as their respective 

objects. Vedana, on the other hand, refers to 

the actual experience of the senses, always qualified as 

being either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. The term 

sam jña is assigned to the mental faculty that imposes 

categories upon the sensory stimuli, which interprets 

what is sensed. The fourth aggregate, sam skara, is 

probably the hardest to grasp because of the various 

meanings associated with the term. It is a force, karmic 

energy, that generates all the other aggregates; the theory 

of PRATITYASAMUTPADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINA- 

TION), for example, stipulates that on account of 

sam skara, vijñana and the other links of the chain 

emerge. Sam skara can therefore be seen as the driving 

force, the fuel, or the energy that keeps the five aggregates 

bound together within the cycle of life and death 

(SAM SARA). Sam skara is not only a causal factor; its signification 

includes everything that has been caused. 

Each of the five aggregates is therefore a sam skara in 

the sense that it is conditioned. The last aggregate is 

vijñana (consciousness), the faculty responsible for apprehending 

what manifests itself through each of the 

six senses. 

As with each of the links of the theory of dependent 

origination, the five aggregates are mutually dependent 

on one another. They need to be perceived from a 

cyclical perspective, where the last (vijñana) is a key 

factor in the emergence of the first (ru pa). This causal 

process points to the everlasting cycle of sam sara as 

opposed to NIRVAN A, which, in the THERAVADA tradition, 

is defined as a state totally devoid of the aggregates, 

beyond mind and matter. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Consciousness, 

Theories of; Dharma and Dharmas 

Bibliography 

Bodhi, Bhikkhu. “Khandha and Upadanakkhandha.” Pali Buddhist 

Review 1, no. 1 (1976): 91–102. 

Boisvert, Mathieu. The Five Aggregates; Understanding Theravada 

Psychology and Soteriology. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier 




Press, 1982. 

Gethin, R. M. “The Five Khandhas: Their Theatment [sic] in 

the Nikayas and Early Abhidhamma.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 

52 (1986): 35–53. 

Hamilton, Sue. Identity and Experience: The Constitution of the 

Human Being According to Early Buddhism. London: Luzac 

Oriental, 1996. 

MATHIEU BOISVERT 


779

S LAVERY 

SLAVERY 

The definition of the word slavery and the identification 

of terms such as Sanskrit dasa and corresponding 

vocabulary in other languages is contentious. If one 

understands the concept in terms of obligations, or 

power relations, however, slaves may be seen as those 

who owed obligations to many, but were owed few or 

none by others, thus avoiding the complications introduced 

by seeing slaves, as in classical law, as things 

(res). Of course, since the socioeconomic systems of 

different places and periods vary radically, it is impossible 

to generalize; in particular, the ties that many people 

in the premodern world had to the land meant that 

donations of property to Buddhist monasteries included 

the labor of those attached to that land. 

Whether or not such individuals are called serfs, their 

limited autonomy with respect to the state and to society 

is clear. In this sense, discussions of slavery can 

hardly be separated from those of land ownership or 

practices such as corvée labor, and in each case the 

whole complex must be investigated in light of the 

large-scale economic systems within which Buddhist 

institutions existed. 

While it is important to distinguish actual practices 

within Buddhist institutions from attitudes toward 

these practices as found in Buddhist literature, what 

can be said clearly is that there is almost no indication 

in any premodern Buddhist source, scriptural or documentary, 

of opposition to, or reluctance to participate 

in, institutions of slavery. It is true that the 

Buddhist monastic codes (VINAYA) of all sects are 

unanimous in stipulating that it is not permissible to 

ordain a slave, but the reasons for doing so clearly lie 

not in any opposition to slavery but rather in the wellrecognized 

reluctance of the Buddhist communities to 

interfere in previously established relations of social 

obligation, since it is also forbidden to ordain debtors, 

those in royal or military service, and so on. Again, 

when Buddhist texts speak of restrictions on the 

monastic ownership of slaves, they do so virtually without 

exception in the context of restrictions on individual 

rather than corporate ownership of wealth in 

general, and not with the intention of singling out slave 

ownership as somehow different from any other type 

of ownership. Indeed, in Buddhist literature of all varieties, 

stock descriptions of wealth, even that gifted to 

the Buddha, regularly include both male and female 

slaves along with silver, gold, fields, livestock, and so 

on. Some texts, emphasizing the moral obligation to 

receive whatever is given in reverence, declare that it 

is an offense not to accept such offerings, the lists of 

which regularly include slaves. 

Although there is a lack of sufficient sources to offer 

detailed proof, references in the accounts of Chinese 

pilgrims, as well as several inscriptional sources, 

make it clear that at least some Buddhist monasteries 

in India owned slaves. The sources are much better for 

other areas of the Buddhist world, and here too they 

are virtually unanimous. There is copious inscriptional 

and documentary evidence for the institutional 

monastic ownership of slaves from Sri Lanka, Cambodia, 

Burma, Thailand, Korea, China, and Japan; 

Central Asian documents frequently refer to slaves privately 

owned by individual monks. For example, in 

Koryŏ-period Korea (918–1392), the Buddhist monastic 

institution was one of the major slaveholders on the 

Korean peninsula during the late fourteenth century; 

the founders of the succeeding Chosŏn dynasty 

(1392–1910) transferred eighty-thousand monastery 

slaves to public ownership, leaving “only” one slave for 

every twenty monks. Slaves were also, however, owned 

by individual monks, and these remained unaffected 

by this legislation. Although it is worth stating that the 

general socioeconomic situation in theocratic Tibet 

was such that direct parallels are difficult to draw, there 

can be little doubt that comparable institutions existed 

there, whether or not the individuals in question were 

always called bran (slave). 

Although the details of every circumstance are different, 

we are compelled to conclude that here, as in 

so many other cases, individual Buddhists and Buddhist 

institutions were, much more frequently than 

not, fully integrated into the societies in which they existed, 

not challenging the structures or customs of 

those societies, but on the contrary, often working to 

strengthen them. 

See also: Economics; Monasticism; Persecutions 

Bibliography 

Agrawala, Ratna Chandra. “Position of Slaves and Serfs as Depicted 

in the Kharosthi Documents from Chinese 

Turkestan.” Indian Historical Quarterly 29/2 (1953): 97–110. 

Law, B. C. “Slavery as Known to Early Buddhists.” Journal of 

the Ganganatha Jha Research Institute 6/1 (1948): 1–9. 

Salem, Ellen. “The Utilization of Slave Labor in the Koryŏ Period: 

918–1392.” In Papers of the First International Conference 

on Korean Studies 1979. Songnam: The Academy of 

Korean Studies, 1980. 


S Ŏ KKURAM 

Singh, Madan Mohan. “Slavery as Known from the Buddhist 

Pali Sources.” Indian Historical Quarterly 39/1–2 (1963): 

1–12. 

SO KA GAKKAI 

JONATHAN A. SILK 

Soka Gakkai (Society for Value Creation), Japan’s 

largest lay Buddhist organization, was founded by 

the educator Makiguchi Tsunesaburo (1871–1944) 

in 1930 and reestablished after World War II by its 

second president, Toda Josei (1900–1958). In 2002 

it claimed 8.21 million member households; its 

worldwide umbrella organization, Soka Gakkai International 

(SGI), headed by the Soka Gakkai’s spiritual 

leader and former third president Daisaku Ikeda 

(1928– ), claimed more than twelve million members 

in 185 countries and territories. Beginning as a 

lay association of Nichiren Shoshu, a small sect 

within the NICHIREN SCHOOL, Soka Gakkai became 

independent in 1991 after longstanding tensions 

with the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood. In ethos and 

organizational style, it bears more similarity to 

Japan’s so-called New Religions than to traditional 

temple denominations. 

Soka Gakkai stresses faith, practice, and study of 

the teachings of NICHIREN (1222–1282) as the key to 

personal happiness and world peace. Members enshrine 

a copy of Nichiren’s MAN D ALA in their homes 

and twice daily recite portions of the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) and also chant the 

Lotus Su tra’s title, or DAIMOKU, Namu Myo ho -rengekyo 

. (In Soka Gakkai, as in some other Nichiren 

groups, “Namu” is usually pronounced “Nam” in actual 

recitation.) This practice is said to manifest innate 

buddhahood, bringing about a positive character 

transformation known as “human revolution,” and to 

contribute directly to realizing an ideal society. To 

help implement its social vision, Soka Gakkai established 

a political party, the Komeito (Clean Government 

Party), in 1964, sparking controversy over 

religion–state relations. Soka Gakkai officially separated 

from Komeito in 1970 but remains the party’s 

chief supporter. The organization encourages proselytizing, 

chiefly through personal contacts and neighborhood 

discussion meetings. Soka Gakkai also 

undertakes a range of cultural, educational, and humanitarian 

activities and is an NGO (nongovernmental 

organization) member of the United Nations. 

Bibliography 

Machacek, David, and Wilson, Bryan, eds. Global Citizens: The 

So ka Gakkai Buddhist Movement in the World. New York: 


Métraux, Daniel A. The So ka Gakkai Revolution. Lanham, MD: 

University Press of America, 1994. 

Métraux, Daniel A. “The Soka Gakkai: Buddhism and the Creation 

of a Harmonious and Peaceful Society.” In Engaged 

Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, ed. 

Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King. Albany: State University 


Murata, Kiyoaki. Japan’s New Buddhism: An Objective Account 

of the Soka Gakkai. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1969. 

SŎKKURAM 


Sŏkkuram (Stone Grotto Hermitage) is a Buddhist 

shrine located in Korea on the slope of Mount T’oham 

in Kyŏngju City in South Kyŏngsang province. According 

to the SAMGUK YUSA (MEMORABILIA OF THE 

THREE KINGDOMS, 1279), Prime Minister Kim Taesŏng 

(d. 774) constructed Sŏkkuram in 751 C.E. during 

the reign of King Kyŏngdŏk (r. 742–776) to honor 

his mother from a previous incarnation. 

The manmade, keyhole-shaped, cavelike structure 

is constructed with granite blocks covered with earth. 

The inner sanctuary is circular with a hemispherical 

domed ceiling containing a lotus capstone and twentyeight 

clump-stones representing the sun and the stars 

of the cosmos. The MAHAYANA Buddhist iconographic 

program is mixed with esoteric elements. The main 

buddha, perhaps an image of Śakyamuni, seated in the 

padmasana position with the earth-touching MUDRA, 

is a monumental sculpture in the round. Carved in relief 

on the sanctuary wall are fifteen standing deities: 

an eleven-headed Avalokiteśvara, Samantabhadra, 

Manjuśr, INDRA, Brahma, and ten ARHAT disciples of 

Śakyamuni. The upper niches of the wall contain ten 

seated figures: Vimalakrti, Ksitigarbha, Avalokiteśvara, 

and other esoteric BODHISATTVAS, one of whom holds 

a three-prong vajra. Fourteen guardian deities are 

depicted in the front area: four heavenly kings, two 

Dvarapala guardians, and the eight-set guardians, including 

Asura, Garuda, and Naga. 

The Buddha’s full fleshy face is softly modeled with 

a benign spiritual expression. The tribanga (threebending)-posed 

bodhisattvas are elegantly tall figures 

wearing three-plaque crowns with double-U pattern 


781

S Ŏ N 

S CHOOL 

scarves. The international Tang style is apparent in the 

thin clothes and fluid folds. The complex but precise 

iconometry of the cave and the figures creates a sense 

of harmony in the monument. 

See also: Cave Sanctuaries; Huayan Art; Korea, Buddhist 

Art in; Monastic Architecture; Stupa 

Bibliography 

Harrell, Mark. “Sokkuram—Buddhist Monument and Political 

Statement in Korea.” World Archaeology 27, no. 2 (October 

1995): 318–335. 

Hwang Su-young. Sokkuram Cave Temple. Photos by Ahn Jangheon. 

Seoul: Yekyong Publications, 1989. 

Kang Woo-bang. “Bulguksa Temple and Seokbulsa Temple.” 

Korea Journal 41, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 320–344. 

Park Hyounggook. “A Discussion on the Sculptured Images in 

Niches at the Sŏkkuram Cave Temple of Kyŏngju—with a 

Focus on the Restoration of Vimalakrti, Mañjuśri and Eight 

Bodhisattvas.” Ars Buddhica no. 239 (July 1998): 50–72. 

SŎN SCHOOL. See Chan School 

SOTERIOLOGY 

JUNGHEE LEE 

Soteriology (from Greek soter, “healer”) is the study of 

salvation. Soteriology is an important area of theology, 

especially in Christianity. Although it is a problematic 

term for Buddhists, most of whom (with the notable 

exception of Pure Land Buddhists) do not see salvation 

as occurring primarily through the agency of an 

external power, soteriology is being adopted in contemporary 

Buddhist scholarship to denote the study of 

the Buddhist PATH. 

SO TO ZEN. See Chan School 

DAN COZORT 

SOUTHEAST ASIA, BUDDHIST ART IN 

The earliest Buddhist art in Southeast Asia dates to 

about the sixth century C.E. These sculptures, primarily 

BUDDHA IMAGES, show close stylistic and iconographical 

relationships with Indian images. Contact 

between Southeast Asia and India occurred earlier, by 

the beginning of the common era as attested by Chinese 

literary sources and small scattered finds, such as 

Indian coins and glyptics. The motivation for contact 

was trade, primarily between India and China, with 

Southeast Asia being initially less a destination than a 

stopover between them. Southeast Asia was exposed to 

both Indian religions—Buddhism and Hinduism— 

during this process, not in terms of proselytization or 

colonization but from haphazard meetings of locals 

with Indian merchants and crew. While this perhaps 

helps to explain the late appearance of Buddhist art in 

Southeast Asia, it does not explain how thoroughly 

Buddhism and its art, from the sixth century on, were 

adopted and indigenized within the region. 

The modern nation-states of Southeast Asia are a 

poor model for organizing geographically the early 

Buddhist art. The people who made the earliest Buddhist 

art were the Pyu, Mon, Khmer, and Cham peoples 

on the mainland. These categories are not clear-cut, 

and are linguistically based on vernacular inscriptions. 

The Indonesian islands and the Malay Peninsula present 

a number of linguistic groups as well. 

The mainland: Pyu, Mon, Khmer, and Cham 

The Pyu lived in central and northern areas of Burma, 

with Śr Ksetra (modern Prome) offering the most 

Buddhist artifacts. These include three enormous tubeshaped 

brick stupas (the Bawbawgui STU PA is 150 feet 

tall) and several small brick temples that housed Buddha 

images. In addition, many metal and stone images 

of the Buddha and thousands of clay votive tablets were 

found. The discovery of twenty gold leaves (each 6-1/2 

by 1-1/4 inches) bound as a manuscript, with sections 

from the abhidamma and vinayapitaka inscribed in 

Pali, suggests relationships with THERAVADA traditions. 

Indeed, some scholars feel this is the earliest extant 

Pali manuscript, dating on the basis of its epigraphy 

to around the fifth century C.E. 

The Mon lived in southern Burma and in Thailand. 

They, like the Pyu, were predominantly Buddhists, and 

they also inscribed in stone Pali verses that relate 

closely to texts. The presence of images of bodhisattvas 

and some JATAKA reliefs indicate that the Mon were 

aware of Sanskrit Buddhist traditions as well. The Mon 

in Thailand (whose “kingdom” is often referred to as 

Dvaravat) had a brilliant sculptural tradition and have 

left extensive numbers of Buddhist images in stone, 

bronze, and clay. In addition, they produced several 


S OUTHEAST A SIA, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

unique image types, including stone wheels of the law 

(dharmacakra) that were raised on pillars, as well as 

depictions of the Buddha riding on the back of a 

winged figure, which are as yet unexplained. Dozens 

of Mon sites, such as Nakhon Pathom and Ku Bua, 

have been identified, but no complete architectural remains 

survive. From archaeological evidence we know 

it was brick architecture, and it included at Nakhon 

Pathom the Chula Phatom Chedi (stupas are referred 

to in Southeast Asia as chedi), which was decorated 

with stucco and terra-cotta jataka reliefs dating to 

around the eighth century. 

The Khmer lived in Cambodia, as well as in the 

northeastern parts of Thailand and in the Delta area 

of Vietnam. They, unlike the Pyu and Mon, were predominantly 

Hindus until the twelfth century, although 

Buddhism was present as well. The Khmer founded the 

famous Angkor dynasty in 802 C.E., which ruled not 

only Cambodia but much of the mainland for almost 

five hundred years. The pre-Angkorian period, however, 

produced some of the most remarkable Hindu 

and Buddhist sculpture ever made. The Buddhist images 

were primarily of the Buddha and two bodhisattvas, 

Avalokiteśvara and MAITREYA. The stone 

sculptures, dating to the seventh and eighth centuries, 

tend to be cut out into three dimensions, so that the 

arms, held by stone supports, extend into space. The 

three-dimensional quality of Khmer sculpture continued 

for centuries, in part reflecting the use of these images 

at the center of small shrines, where they were 

meant to be seen from all sides. The inscriptions and 

the art indicate that Buddhism was of much lesser importance 

than Hinduism during the ninth to twelfth 

centuries. The Khmer king Jayavarman VII (r. 1181–ca. 

1220) made a radical shift from royal support of Hinduism 

to Buddhism in the twelfth century. 

Under Jayavarman VII, the Khmer ruled more of 

mainland Southeast Asia than ever before, from coastal 

Vietnam up to the Thai-Burmese border. Jayavarman 

built monuments with inexhaustible energy. He constructed 

the BAYON, a temple that was rebuilt perhaps 

three times during his reign, in his royal city of Angkor 

Thom. Each of the kings of Angkor constructed a temple 

mountain in the form of a stepped pyramid, upon 

which they set an image of a Hindu god, usually Śiva, 

thus establishing the king’s personal relationship with 

the deity. The Bayon is Jayavarman’s temple mountain, 

and the deity he placed at its center was neither Śiva 

nor VISN U, but the Buddha seated in meditation on the 

coils of a seven-headed snake (naga). The king also built 

two enormous temples dedicated to his parents, one for 

his mother in the guise of the goddess Prajñaparamita 

and one to his father as Lokeśvara (a form of 

Avalokiteśvara). Indeed, these three deities (the Buddha 

on the snake, Prajñaparamita, and Avalokiteśvara) 

were represented repeatedly in art as a triad, and were 

central to Buddhism under Jayavarman. 

The Bayon has a circle of shrines that surrounds the 

central 140-foot tower in which the Buddha on the 

snake was housed. Placed in these shrines were images 

of local and regional deities brought to the capital from 

locations throughout the empire. These deities were 

placed in subordination to Jayavarman’s Buddha. The 

temple has fifty-four towers that are crowned by enormous 

faces. These faces, numbering some two hundred, 

are arranged so that they look axially. The city 

itself, Angkor Thom, is surrounded by a wall about two 

miles square with five gates, each gate topped by four 

directional faces. Although scholars have tried to interpret 

these faces, no theory has been completely convincing. 

One possibility is that the faces are those of 

the bodhisattva Lokeśvara, who as Lord of the World 

sees everywhere with a look of KARUN A (COMPASSION). 

That Jayavarman felt such compassion for all living 

things is stated in his inscriptions and seen in his building 

of 102 hospitals throughout the kingdom. In addition, 

the Bayon has extensive sculptural reliefs in 

surrounding galleries. These reliefs, however, do not 

depict stories from Buddhist texts but are mostly 

scenes of battles that Jayavarman undertook against 

the Cham, as well as interesting genre scenes, such as 

cockfights and markets. The reliefs also show that both 

Śiva and Visnu were under worship. 

Of the hundreds of other monuments Jayavarman 

built, the Neak Pean (coiled serpents) is notable. It 

consists of a square pond, 230 feet on each side, faced 

with stone steps and a circular stone island with a 

shrine in the center. Two carved snakes entwine the 

base of the island. There are four smaller directional 

ponds surrounding the central pond; these are connected 

with channels so that water could flow out of 

the central pond into the four side ponds. The water 

flowed through the stone heads of a human (east), lion 

(south), horse (west), and elephant (north). This symbolism 

apparently indicates that the pond was considered 

a duplicate of the Himalayan lake Anavatapta 

from which the four celestial rivers of India flow. The 

central shrine has three false doors carved with images 

of Avalokiteśvara, to whom the shrine was dedicated. 

A three-dimensional stone horse to which human figures 

cling is placed in the water; this is an image of 

Avalokiteśvara in his form as the horse Balaha, who 


783


The twelfth-century Khmer Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom, Cambodia, has fifty-two (originally fifty-four) “face towers.” Each contains 

four images, which likely represent the all-around compassion of Avalokiteśvara looking in all directions. © Robert D. Fiala, Concordia 

University, Seward, Nebraska. Reproduced by permission. 

attempted to rescue shipwrecked sailors. We know 

from a thirteenth-century Chinese visitor that the waters 

of Neak Pean were believed to wash away sin. 

The Cham sites are in mid- and southern Vietnam 

(the kingdom called Champa). The earliest Indianrelated 

inscription, in Sanskrit, in Southeast Asia 

comes from Vo Canh in south Vietnam, dating to 

around the third century C.E. The earliest extant 

Indian-related images are much later, from the seventh 

century, and are entirely Hindu. A Buddhist monastery, 

however, was built at Dong Duong in central Vietnam 

in the ninth and tenth centuries. The Buddhism was 

MAHAYANA with tantric elements, apparently something 

of a local school. The stone sculptures include 

figures performing unique gestures and wearing unique 

clothing and ornaments. Both Tara and Avalokiteśvara 

were of importance, and in 1978 a metal image of Tara, 

almost fifty inches tall, was found, indicating that large 

metal images were also being made at the time. The 

style of the Dong Duong sculptures is highly unusual 

within the Southeast Asian artistic tradition, with such 

characteristics as a single long eyebrow and the use of 

wormlike designs for hair and halos. 


The art history of Buddhism becomes even more complex 

when turning to Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula. 

As on the mainland, both Hinduism and 

Buddhism were introduced simultaneously from India 

as a result of trade. Two of the earliest Indian-related 

Southeast Asian kingdoms were founded in the fifth 

century C.E. on the islands, one in Borneo and one in 

Java. The inscriptions by the “kings” from both mention 

brahmanical rites and indicate the appeal Hinduism 

had for the local Southeast Asian chiefs as a 

means to increase their power through using a shared 

Indian religious vocabulary. 

These two kingdoms apparently disappeared, with 

Indian religions reappearing in central Java in the eighth 

century. During about a two-hundred-year period (ca. 

730–950), hundreds of monuments in brick and stone 

were built and thousands of images were made in stone 



and metal. It was during this Central Javanese period 

that the Buddhist monument BOROBUDUR was erected 

(ca. 800–830). Few Buddhist monuments have been 

studied as extensively as Borobudur. It is an enormous 

structure, measuring 370 feet square and 113 feet tall. 

Built over a small hill, it consists of millions of cut volcanic 

stone blocks that rise like a pyramid in four 

square and three round terraces. There are 1,300 relief 

panels that illustrate a series of Indian texts, including 

jatakas and life stories of Śakyamuni Buddha from the 

LALITAVISTARA. Placed in niches and in stupas are 504 

life-size Buddha images, each cut in the round. In addition, 

about 1,472 small stupas, 72 large perforated 

stupas, and an enormous single closed stupa at the top 

decorate the structure. 

A Mahayana monument, with perhaps tantric aspects, 

Borobudur has defied any single interpretation 

of its meaning and use. As with the Dong Duong Buddhism 

and art mentioned above, or the Dvaravat buddhas 

on flying figures, Southeast Asian Buddhists at 

Borobudur developed a type of Buddhism that was local 

and unique. Unlike East Asian Buddhists, Southeast 

Asian Buddhists did not in the ancient period 

translate Indian texts into local vernaculars, nor, as far 

as we know, did they produce their own Buddhist texts. 

They used the Indian texts in the original Sanskrit or 

Pali. The result is that we have Indian texts but Southeast 

Asian art, art that is Indian-related but consistently 

local in style and iconography. In short, we often have 

no way to know the extent to which local understanding 

is hidden under the Indian guise. 

There are other important Buddhist monuments in 

Central Java. Candi Sewu, which probably dates to the 

end of the eighth century, was dedicated to the bodhisattva 

Mañjuśr. It had a central cella with four attached 

directional subshrines, and was surrounded by 

250 smaller shrines. This mandalic organization is seen 

as well at Borobudur, with the organization of the Buddha 

images into a seven-Buddha system differentiated 

by their hand gestures (MUDRA) and directional placement. 

During the Central Javanese period both Hinduism 

and Buddhism coexisted, with the complex of 

Loro Jonggrang dedicated to Śiva, Visnu, and Brahma 

being constructed at about the same time as Borobudur. 

During the Central Javanese period enormous 

numbers of both Buddhist and Hindu images were 

caste in bronze, gold, and silver. The closeness in style 

and iconography that many of these metal images 

shared with images from the Pala period (eighth to 

twelfth centuries) sites in India has long been observed. 

The Pala kings were among the last major patrons of 

Buddhism in India, and it was under them that the 

great Eastern Indian monastery complexes such as 

Nalanda flourished. There is also inscriptional and historical 

evidence for frequent interchange between 

these monasteries and those in Indonesia. 

Sometime around the middle of the tenth century 

Central Java appears to have been abandoned, and 

artistic work ceased. The cause may have been the 

eruption of the volcano of Mount Merapi. The Central 

Javanese court moved to eastern Java, with a very 

different type of art and architecture developing there 

under several different kingdoms. By the sixteenth century, 

Islam had become dominant throughout the Indonesian 

islands, except in Bali. 

Buddhism continued throughout the Eastern Javanese 

period (tenth to fifteenth centuries), but it was 

not as important as Śaivism. Tantric beliefs and rituals 

became paramount in both Buddhism and Śaivism, 

and the two religions blended in many ways. The Buddhist 

KALACAKRA rituals were performed, and the kings 

were identified as Śiva/Buddha after death. The images 

in the temples in the forms of Buddhist deities, such 

as Prajñaparamita, were intended to represent the 

kings and queens after death when they became absorbed 

into the deity. Indeed, this use of images of 

deities as “portrait” statues of both the god and the 

royal person is what took place under Jayavarman VII 

at Angkor at about the same time, and it can be found 

in Champa as well. The Khmer, Cham, and Javanese 

royalty used images of deities in a similar way, a practice 

probably from the earliest adoption of Indianrelated 

art. 

There is a corpus of Buddhist art found on the island 

of Sumatra, but mainly at sites in what is today 

the southern area of the Thai peninsula; this art is 

loosely labeled as “Śrvijaya” in style, with dates from 

the seventh to thirteenth centuries. Śrvijaya enters 

history in the seventh century with several inscriptions 

in Sumatra. At the same time the Chinese monkpilgrim 

YIJING (635–713) tells us that he spent several 

years in Śrvijaya, initially in 671 to learn Sanskrit on 

his way to India, and then for two extended periods 

from 685 to 695 (with a brief return to China in 689) 

to translate texts and write his memoirs. Śrvijaya continued 

to exist for almost five hundred years, and inscriptions 

on the peninsula mention it. The problem 

has been to find it. The place Yijing lived appears to 

be Palembang in Sumatra, but it has been only since 

the late 1970s that any archaeological evidence has 

been found there. Much of Śrvijaya would have been 


785


An aerial view of the monument at Borobudur in Java, Indonesia. © Charles and Josette Lenars/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

built in bamboo and thatch, with people living on 

boats that left no trace. 

Most of the Buddhist art associated with Śrvijaya 

has been found in peninsular Thailand from such cities 

as Chaiya and Nakhon Si Thammarat. The art shares 

such general characteristics as being Mahayana in 

theme, with Avalokiteśvara being very popular. But 

rather than seeing this material, which is generally varied 

in style, as belonging to Śrvijaya, it is more helpful 

to locate and discuss it by region because the 

existence of a hegemonic empire based in Śrvijaya is 

questioned today. 

The Burmese, Thais, Laotians, and Vietnamese 

Besides the Khmer of modern Cambodia, there are 

other linguistic groups that dominate mainland Southeast 

Asia today: the Burmese, Thais, Laotians, and Vietnamese. 

Each of these groups, and the modern nations 

they have created, was predominantly Buddhist. The 

Burmese appear in history around the eleventh century. 

The Pyu kingdoms ended in the ninth, but the 

Mon continued for a time to share power with the 

Burmese. The Burmese looked to Sri Lanka for 

Theravada Buddhist monks and texts, and they built 

one of the greatest Buddhist sites in the world at Pagan 

on the Irrawaddy River. Fueled by a veritable 

frenzy of merit-making through giving to the SAṄGHA, 

some two thousand brick monuments (temples and 

stupas) were built over a two-hundred-year period. Although 

most of these monuments are abandoned today, 

some, such as the ANANDA TEMPLE, continue in 

serve worshipers. 

The Ananda was built by King Kyanzittha at the beginning 

of the twelfth century. As with the Bayon and 

Borobudur, the Ananda is impressive in its size and 

complexity. It takes the form of a Greek cross, with 

four directional entrances, each of which leads to a 

standing wood buddha image. The buddhas stand 

against a solid central masonry block that is 175 feet 

square. The buddhas, each thirty-one feet tall, are identified 

as four earthly buddhas: Kakusandha (Sanskrit, 

Krakuccanda; north), Konagamana (Sanskrit, Kanakamuni; 

east), Kassapa (Sanskrit, Kaśyapa; south), and 

Gotama (Sanskrit, Gautama; west). There are two inner 

galleries flanked by niches in which stone sculptures 

are placed, and on the outside of the building are 



extensive series of glazed stone tiles, including 912 tiles 

depicting jatakas that are arranged in tiers on the roof, 

which rises to a height of 172 feet. 

Myanmar (Burma), like Thailand, is a Buddhist nation 

today, and Buddhism is officially sponsored by the 

government. The famous SHWEDAGON pagoda (stupa) 

in Rangoon is constantly thronged with worshipers, as 

are Buddhist monuments everywhere, and images of 

the Buddha, mostly in bronze, are being produced in 

great quantities. Contemporary Thailand shares many 

Buddhist traditions with Burma, including its Theravada 

Buddhism. It is not clear when the Mon in central 

Thailand (Dvaravat) ceased making images, perhaps 

as early as the ninth century, but the Mon had a kingdom 

in northern Thailand at Haripunchai until the 

thirteenth century. This is approximately the time that 

the Thais first appear in history, when they revolt 

against their Khmer overlords and establish the first 

Thai kingdom of SUKHOTHAI. Like the Burmese, they 

looked to the Mon of lower Burma and the Sri Lankans 

for their Buddhism. 

Sukhothai in north central Thailand has many Buddhist 

monuments, but they are not on the scale of Pagan 

or Angkor, and most are in ruins today. But this 

area developed a new style of Buddha image known 

for its lithe, melting lines, which remains the favored 

style of the Thais, who continue to produce thousands 

of Buddha images in the style. Sukhothai’s political 

power waned quickly, as AYUTTHAYA, another Thai 

kingdom founded in 1350, soon dominated much of 

Thailand, and was to control much of Cambodia as 

well. The Khmer abandoned Angkor as the capital in 

1431 because of Thai attacks. By then Theravada Buddhism, 

already present during the reign of Jayavarman 

VII, had spread throughout Cambodia and Laos. The 

famous Angkor Wat, built in the twelfth century as the 

temple mountain of Suryavarman II and dedicated to 

the Hindu god Visnu, was converted in the fourteenth 

century to a Buddhist monastery. 

Finally, the Vietnamese have an extended Buddhist 

tradition. It is not, however, with India and Sri Lanka 

that we find relationships, but with China. China held 

northern Vietnam (Dai Viet) as a province for over a 

thousand years. The Vietnamese gained independence 

in the eleventh century. The Cham, in central and 

southern Vietnam, were in constant warfare with the 

Vietnamese, who relentlessly pushed them south until 

they completely collapsed in the nineteenth century. 

Vietnamese Buddhist art is best discussed in conjunction 

with that of China. 

The Ananda Temple at Pagan, Myanmar (Burma), is white with 

gilded spires. It rises to a height of 172 feet. © Robert D. Fiala, 

Concordia University, Seward, Nebraska. Reproduced by permission. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the, in Art; Esoteric Art, South 

and Southeast Asia; Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula; 

Indonesia, Buddhist Art in; Monastic Architecture; 


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Rawson, Philip. The Art of Southeast Asia. London: Thames and 

Hudson, 1995. 

Siribhadra, Smitthi, and Moore, Elizabeth. Palaces of the Gods: 

Khmer Art and Architecture in Thailand. Bangkok, Thailand: 

River Books, 1997. 

Soekmono, R. The Javanese Candi: Function and Meaning. Leiden, 



Bay, UK: Kiscadale, 1989. 

Thaw, Aung. Historical Sites in Burma. Rangoon, Myanmar: 

Ministry of Union Culture, 1972. 

Wales, H. G. Quaritch. Dvaravatl: The Earliest Kingdom of Siam. 

London: Quaritch, 1969. 

Woodward, Hiram. The Sacred Sculpture of Thailand. Baltimore, 

MD: Walters Art Gallery, 1997. 

Woodward, Hiram. The Art and Architecture of Thailand from 

Prehistoric Times through the Thirteenth Century. Leiden, 



SPACE, SACRED 

One way to investigate the historical and geographical 

spread of Buddhism in Asia is to focus on the creation, 

uses, and transformations of sites that religion characterized 

as sacred. Every Asian country where Buddhism 

became a major cultural force was remarkably affected 

by the production of its sacred spaces. While referring 

to continental examples, this entry will focus on JAPAN, 

where such creations and transformations occurred in 

a massive and profound manner. 

Indian Buddhism 

The original sacred space acknowledged by all schools 

of Buddhism is the actual site where the historical Buddha 

is said to have to have achieved BODHI (AWAKEN- 

ING), BODH GAYA in northeastern India, as is attested 

by the fact that sculpted depictions of the site in question 

were made before the Buddha himself was ever 

represented. The symbolism attached to this site formed 

a kind of anchor that most subsequent notions and 

practices referred to, consciously or not. A secondary, 

early form of sacred space involved PILGRIMAGES undertaken 

by monastic or lay figures who wished to “follow 

the footsteps” of the historical Buddha; many of 

these footsteps are described in a vast number of sutras, 

most of which begin with a statement identifying sites 

where the Buddha would have given his teachings. 

These sites are still visited by Buddhists from around 

the world, which seems to indicate that sacred space is 

not to be separated from practices and ideas linked to 

salvation (SOTERIOLOGY). One can see throughout 

Asia, for example, stones in which imprints of the soles 

of the Buddha’s feet have been engraved with a variety 

of symbols. Borrowed from pre-Buddhist Indian 

mythology, this feature of footprints left by divine entities 

stands for the notion that each Buddhist school 

is a “way” or “PATH” that is said to be a replica of the 

process whereby the Buddha reached NIRVAN A, or, as 

became fairly common later, that the footprints in 

question are “traces” that the post-nirvana Buddha 

would have left on the ground wherever local traditions 

claimed he would have manifested himself, 

preached, or performed supernatural deeds. 

One of the earliest aspects of the production of 

Buddhist sacred space in India was, perhaps, the construction 

of STU PAS, stone monuments that were used 

as reliquaries and soon became objects of veneration. 

As time passed and the legend of the Buddha’s life 

took shape, some of these stupas were adorned with 



bas-relief representations of important moments presumed 

to have taken place during the Buddha’s life 

and, later, with events that would have occurred in his 

former lives. Originally venerated as repositories of 

relics (physical supports for memories held to be true), 

stupas became memorials constructed and adorned in 

such a way that they would evoke specific recollections 

of the Buddha’s path, elicit intended readings of major 

experiences in the Buddha’s life, and support practices, 

such as circumambulation (walking clockwise 

around any Buddhist site of cult). As MONKS and NUNS 

engaged in austerities and built retreats, cave complexes 

were dug at the base of cliffs; some were plain 

cells, others were sanctuaries adorned with paintings 

or statues. Among the many cave complexes scattered 

throughout Asia, Ellora and AJAN T A in India and 

DUNHUANG in China are, perhaps, the most famous. 

Monasteries also came to be erected on or near such 

sites. Their scope, sometimes immense, attests to the 

patronage Buddhism enjoyed on the part of rulers or 

wealthy merchants, as can be seen in the stupendous 

monastery complexes of Pagan and Rangoon in 

Myanmar (Burma), Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom 

in Kampuchea (Cambodia), BOROBUDUR in Java, 

Lhasa in Tibet, the various capital cities of China, and 

many others. 

Pilgrims prostrating themselves at the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment 

in Bodh Gaya, India. © Alison Wright/Corbis. Reproduced 


Monasteries 

The construction of monasteries (tera, ji, or ji-in) in 

Japan began shortly after Buddhism was recognized by 

the court in the mid-sixth century C.E. The layout of 

these structures shows Chinese and Korean influences, 

while some aspects of the organization of their space 

reveals their relation to the COSMOLOGY and cosmography 

described in the ABHIDHARMA literature of early 

Buddhism. Typically, the four corner pillars of a 

monastery represent the abodes of the Four Heavenly 

Kings (Japanese, shitenno ), who are said to protect the 

east, south, west, and north corners of Mount Sumeru, 

the mountain located at the center of the Buddhist cosmos. 

Toward the back of such a monastery is a platform 

called shumidan (platform of Mount Sumeru), 

on which statues of buddhas and bodhisattvas are 

placed. Some monastery architecture, then, was based 

on cosmographic principles, but these cultic sites became 

sacred only after eye-opening rites (Japanese, 

kaigen shiki, kaigen kuyo ), in which a ritualist paints in 

an iris or otherwise sanctifies the sense of vision—both 

in the sense that BUDDHAS and BODHISATTVAS bless 

devotees by establishing visual contact and in the sense 

that anyone is blessed by looking at a buddha or bodhisattva. 

Furthermore, the transformation of a statue 

into a living icon required a ritualized exchange of 

breath between an officiating monk and a statue, and 

recent discoveries of relics and fashioned replicas of internal 

organs in statues prove that what was thought 

to be representations were, by ritual fiat, living entities 

and sacred spaces par excellence. 

Most of Japan’s earliest Buddhist monasteries were 

erected in plains or cities. Starting in the eighth century, 

however, monasteries were built on the sides of 

or near the summits of mountains, and concepts of 

sacred space thereby gained more intricate meanings, 

as did spatial, ritualized practices. An obvious but perhaps 

simplistic indication to this effect is the fact that 

fourteen Japanese mountains bear the name Misen, 

which refers to Mount Sumeru. Seventeen bear the 

name Ben[zai]ten, the Buddhist form of the Vedic deity 

Sarasvat. Twenty-two bear the name Fudo, the 

king of sapience Acala, an important deity in esoteric 

Buddhism. Twenty-seven bear the name Kyozuka 


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(sutra-burial mounds), although many more mountains 

bearing different names were also sites of sutra-burial. 

Twenty-nine bear the name Buddha, either as a title or 

as the name of the historical Buddha, Śakyamuni. Another 

twenty-nine bear the name Jizo (Ksitigarbha 

bodhisattva). Thirty-one bear the name Dainichi nyorai 

(Mahavairocana tathagata). Thirty-two bear the 

name Kokuzo (A kaśagarbha bodhisattva). Forty-three 

bear the name Yakushi (the buddha of medicine, 

Bhaisajyaguru). Fifty-four bear the name Kannon (the 

bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara). And 101 

mountains are simply named gongen (avatar), a term 

used to refer to a local native deity that is considered 

to be a manifestation of a buddha or bodhisattva. Several 

hundred other such examples of the occupation 

of striking features of Japan’s topography by the Buddhist 

pantheon attest to the creation of Buddhist sacred 

landscapes. This naming of mountains on the 

basis of buddhas, bodhisattvas, various Buddhist or 

Indian deities, and local Japanese deities should not 

be given too much weight, however, for it merely suggests 

certain aspects of topophilia and does not account 

for the fact that thousands of mountains were 

the object of more complex sacralization by means of 

Buddhist rituals, narratives, and other techniques described 

below. 

Ritualized geography 

As MAHAYANA Buddhism evolved around the beginning 

of the common era, one finds important statements 

concerning the actual site where the Buddha 

achieved awakening. In Dazhidu lun (Treatise on the 

Great Perfection of Wisdom) attributed to NAGARJUNA, 

for example, this site is referred to as bodhimanda (site 

of awakening; Japanese, do jo ), and it is described as 

consisting of an immense diamond protruding at the 

base of the tree where the Buddha would have sat in 

meditation. In later writings the term bodhimanda 

came to denote not only the physical site where the 

Buddha reached awakening, but the psychological situation 

or “mental space” he would have attained or 

produced through meditation. As a consequence, this 

term became an important aspect of the properties of 

sacred space in the context of ritualized practices, in 

which spiritual or subjective states were always linked 

to material or objective sites. Indeed, countless manuals 

detailing how rituals must be conducted contain 

an important section called “visualization of the site of 

practice/space of awakening” (do jo kan), which details 

how a ritual platform (dan) must be constructed and 

consecrated, as well as specific steps in the ritualized 

meditations that are supposed to lead to a visualization 

of the residence of a given buddha or bodhisattva 

that is thereby made to occupy the space of the ritual 

platform, as well as the mind of the ritualists. 

In a number of cases in Japan, such ritualized practices 

and exercises in visualization were projected onto 

mountains, which were then regarded as the do jo of a 

certain buddha or bodhisattva, that is, its site of residence, 

manifestation, and practice. The oldest Japanese 

document detailing this process of identification of 

a mountain with the abode (Pure Land) of a bodhisattva 

was written by KU KAI (Kobo Daishi, 

774–835) in 814. Kukai describes therein the first ascent 

of Mount Futara (today called Nantaizan and located 

in Nikko) by the monk Shodo, who, reaching the 

summit of its volcanic dome, envisioned it as the abode 

of Kannon (Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion). 

Shodo then sculpted a representation of Kannon, 

which can be seen today in Chuzenji, located at 

the foot of that mountain. Kukai’s rationale for identifying 

Mount Futara with Kannon’s residence was the 

toponym, which allowed an association between the 

Japanese name of the mountain, Futara, and the 

Japanized version of Kannon’s Pure Land, Fudaraku 

(Sanskrit, Potalaka). The entire area surrounding this 

mountain subsequently became a major site of SHUGEN- 

DO (Japan’s mountain religion), and ever more intricate 

practices continued, over the centuries, to 

elaborate the sacred character of the region. Such identifications 

of pure lands of buddhas and bodhisattvas 

with Japanese mountains reached full development 

with the nationwide spread of Shugendo, and ultimately 

led to the notion that Japan, in its entirety, was 

the actual residence of buddhas and bodhisattvas as 

well as other deities and their retinues. Kukai also 

wrote texts concerning the rituals used in the establishment 

of sacred grounds where monasteries were 

built; the term for these grounds, kekkai (bounded 

realm), refers to a ritually purified area that can range 

from a ten-foot square hut, as in the tea ceremony, for 

example, to large geographical areas over which the 

government or individuals relinquished all control, as 

in the case of sacred mountains. 

Several doctrinal propositions undergirded this 

geohistorical process. First, a central tenet of Shingon 

esoteric Buddhism (to mitsu) held that this world is the 

manifestation of its central buddha, Mahavairocana 

(Japanese, Dainichi). Second, and very closely related 

to the former proposition although structurally different, 

the Shingi-Shingon branch of esoteric Buddhism 

created by Kakuban (1094–1143) held that this world 



is the Pure Land of buddhas and bodhisattvas (mitsugon 

jo do, Pure Land adorned with mysteries). Third, a doctrine 

issued from Tendai esoteric circles (taimitsu) 

proposed that this world’s flora could achieve buddhahood 

(so moku jo butsu), and this proposition enjoyed 

a spectacular success in the medieval period and 

evolved to the point that, in some cases, the flora was 

regarded as the Buddha itself (so moku zebutsu). 

Fourth, various PURE LAND SCHOOLS proposed that 

certain geographical locations were gates to the transcendental 

Pure Land of the buddha Amida (Sanskrit, 

AMITABHA) or of various bodhisattvas, with an emphasis 

on Kannon. As a consequence, quite a few 

monastery gardens and buildings were built as physical 

replicas of various scriptural descriptions of the 

Pure Lands. 

Last but not least, the medieval assumption that 

many local deities, the indigenous kami of Shinto who 

were objects of cult in precise locations, were manifestations 

of buddhas and bodhisattvas became a major 

social practice. Known as HONJI SUIJAKU (Buddhist 

deities leaving their traces in the form of Shinto 

deities), this assumption and the related set of practices 

were responsible for a systematic association between 

Buddhist and non-Buddhist deities and their 

respective cultic sites, and for the addition of Buddhist 

notions of sacred space to native sentiments and practices. 

Nowhere was this system of associations, as well 

as the former four doctrinal points, more evident than 

in the development of pilgrimage and the formulation 

of Shugendo. 

Shugendo 

An amalgamation of Buddhist, Daoist, and Japanese 

native notions and practices, Shugendo slowly arose 

and became a loose institutional system in the eleventh 

century, by which time official records indicate the 

presence of its practitioners (called shugenja or 

yamabushi) in many parts of Japan, including the imperial 

court, where they served as thaumaturges and 

healers. Shugendo’s dominant features include tenets 

and practices that are central to both Shingon and 

Tendai forms of esotericism, as well as longstanding, 

pre-Buddhist notions of sacred space. Mountains that 

had been regarded as the abode of gods (many of them, 

incidentally, female entities), or as gods themselves, became 

objects of worship on the part of these mountain 

ascetics, but they also came to be treated as 

off-limits to all but male ascetics. Women were only 

allowed up to the point of certain boundaries marked 

by engraved stones or wooden boards that read nyonin 

kekkai (limit for women). Some peaks became the 

object of ritualized ascents, while mountain ranges 

became the object of highly ritualized peregrinations, 

the goal of which was to realize buddhahood in this 

body by becoming one with the land, each and every 

feature of which was conceived of as a repository or 

natural form of the Buddha’s teachings. Eventually, 

several hundred mountains became sacred to Shugendo 

practitioners. 

The main organizational characteristic of the Shugendo 

practitioners’ ascents and peregrinations was to associate 

a given trek through mountain ranges with the 

ritual acts and meditations monks of esoteric Buddhism 

engaged in when using MAN D ALAs. Two main 

mandalas were used in both Tendai and Shingon esoteric 

branches: the Adamantine mandala (kongo -kai 

mandara), which was drawn as geometric elements 

containing iconographic representations as well as 

symbols in order to represent the essential character 

of the absolute knowledge of the buddha Mahavairocana 

(Dainichi nyorai), and the Matrix mandala 

(taizo -kai mandara), which represented the various 

objects of that knowledge. There were many other 

mandalas, dedicated to single deities and known as 

besson mandara, many of which were also used in 

Shugendo. Elaborate rituals led to the achievement of 

mystic identification with the deities shown in these 

mandalas: Following a specific course through a given 

mandala, ritualists engaged in the practice of the triple 

mystery of the body, speech, and mind. Buddhahood 

was supposed to be reached when distinctions between 

the knower and the known (subject and object) were 

annihilated. In Shugendo, this ritual process was projected 

over fairly large geographical areas: One mountain 

range would be considered the natural form of one 

mandala, and a nearby range was considered the natural 

form of the other mandala. Each peak rising in 

these ranges, as well as some of the boulders, springs, 

waterfalls, and other topographic features, were regarded 

as the residence of one of the many deities represented 

in the mandalas, and the practitioners would 

spend several weeks peregrinating through such “natural 

mandalas” while dedicating rituals to these deities. 

Practitioners usually followed one mandala course 

through a given range in spring, the other mandala 

course through a nearby range in autumn, and a summer 

retreat in the central mountain. Sacred space, 

then, encompassed vast areas that were to be crossed 

ritually, and stood as guarantor of physical and spiritual 

salvation. Such “mandalized” areas were established 

along several ranges, from the northernmost 


791


part of Honshu Island to the southernmost part of 

Kyushu Island, and they ranged from relatively small 

areas to the entirety of Japan. Related mandalization 

processes also occurred in Tibet; further research 

should indicate whether other countries engaged in 

similar processes of sacralization. 

Another major technique used in Shugendo to produce 

sacred space was to consider individual mountains 

or entire mountain ranges as the natural embodiments 

of Buddhist scriptures. The Katsuragi range in the Kansai 

area, for example, was crossed by practitioners who 

stopped at twenty-eight caves adorned with statues or 

where scriptures had been interred; each cave was supposed 

to symbolically represent one of the twenty-eight 

chapters of the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA- 

SU TRA). On Kyushu Island, the Kunisaki peninsula was 

regarded as the lotus pedestal on which the Buddha 

preached the Lotus Su tra; eventually, twenty-eight 

monasteries, each corresponding to a chapter of the 

scripture, were built on the slopes of the peninsula, and 

there too peregrinations leading to these monasteries 

were held to enable one to grasp the multiple meanings 

of the sutra (this peregrination is still performed 

once every twelve years). Also in northern Kyushu, 

Mount Hiko was regarded as the site where MAITREYA 

(Japanese, Miroku), the next Buddha, would achieve 

buddhahood. Scriptures describe the palace where 

Maitreya awaits this moment as being composed of 

forty-nine chambers, and on and around Mount Hiko 

forty-nine caves were made to correspond to these 

chambers. As time passed, two mountains ranges extending 

north and northwest from Mount Hiko were 

treated as natural mandalas. Furthermore, Mount 

Hiko itself was regarded as the natural embodiment of 

a Tendai doctrine known as the Four Lands (shido 

kekkai), which were progressive spiritual stages reached 

in a ritualized meditation on the Lotus Su tra. In this 

case, the mountain was divided into four superimposed 

zones, each separated by a sacred gate (torii), 

and life was strictly regulated therein. In the lowest 

zone, ascetics and laypeople could commingle and reside; 

in the second zone, only ascetics could reside; in 

the third zone, which consisted of a variety of caves 

and sites for austerities, neither residences nor women 

were allowed. 

The fourth zone, which encompassed the triple 

summit of the mountain, could be visited only by ascetics 

who had completed fifteen mandala courses 

through the mountain ranges, but even they could not 

stay for long, for no bodily fluid, of any kind, was to 

defile the sacred space in question. The study of 

Shugendo has barely begun in Western countries, but 

it is obvious that this unique system was instrumental 

in the formation of concepts and practices related to 

the notion that sacred space is, in fact, the entirety of 

the natural world. These features illustrate a historical 

process whereby reverence for discrete “sites of cult” 

was enhanced by Shugendo rituals and concepts, and 

evolved into a “cult of sites” that is representative of 

premodern Japanese culture. 

Pilgrimage routes 

Eventually, many of these sites became pilgrimage stops 

for both priests and laity. Pilgrimages are structurally 

different from the mandalized peregrinations Shugendo 

practitioners performed, however, and a single case 

will serve to illustrate this important difference. In central 

Japan’s Kii peninsula, Shugendo practitioners went 

through two mandalized courses, one leading from 

Yoshino, located in the north, to Kumano, located in 

the southernmost part of the peninsula, and one leading 

from Kumano to Yoshino. Only male ascetics could 

engage in these mandalized peregrinations. But there 

was also a pilgrimage to Kumano, which emperors, aristocrats, 

warriors, and commoners alike engaged in. Its 

course, however, was radically different: It entailed following 

the western coast of the peninsula in a southerly 

direction, and then entering the mountainous ranges 

of the southern part of the peninsula to eventually reach 

Kumano. This pilgrimage course was marked by 

ninety-nine sites dedicated to protectors of various 

deities. In other words, Kumano was considered a sacred 

space by all, but it could be reached only by different 

roads, one “professional” (the mandalized 

peregrination), and the other, “common” (the pilgrimage). 

Furthermore, since Kumano came to be regarded 

as the Pure Land on earth of Kannon, the 

bodhisattva of compassion, it was placed at the head of 

yet another pilgrimage, dedicated to Kannon’s thirtythree 

manifestations, each worshiped in different 

monasteries connected by pilgrimage roads in central 

Japan. This pilgrimage was so popular that it was duplicated 

in many areas of Japan: Today there are at least 

fifty-four different pilgrimage courses dedicated to 

these thirty-three forms of Kannon. 

Starting in the medieval period, religious narratives 

detailing the origins, supernatural events, and the 

topography of Japan’s famed sacred sites were elaborated 

and written down. This fairly large body of literature 

indicates that sacred space cannot be separated 

from sacred time, that the history of these cultic sites 

is an intrinsic feature of their sacredness, and that lo- 



Monks in the Sacred Caves at Pak Ou, Laos. © Christophe Loviny/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

cal topography, natural features (in particular, sources 

of water), Buddhist monasteries, shrines to local gods, 

and narratives formed a single coherent whole. In 

other words, sacred spaces were fundamentally associated 

with postulated recollections of the past and ritualized 

practices, all tied up in attitudes and acts of 

devotion or piety that have been collectively referred 

to as geopiety by the human geographer J. K. Wright 

and topophilia by Yi-Fu Tuan. 

In contemporary Japan, about one hundred different 

pilgrimage courses linking more than five hundred 

monasteries in all parts of the country attest to the 

complexity of sacred space and exemplify the equally 

complex nature of the Japanese people’s spiritual and 

emotional attachments to their land. Shikoku Island, 

for instance, boasts of several mountains that were objects 

of Shugendo practices, and it is also the site of 

Japan’s most famous pilgrimage. Kukai, the founder of 

the Shingon school of esoteric Buddhism, was born 

there in the late-eighth century and he practiced austerities 

in some of these mountains. During the medieval 

period, Kukai became the object of a nationwide 

cult, and a pilgrimage dedicated to him was established 

around Shikoku Island; it consists of a course linking 

eighty-eight monasteries, and is still quite popular. 

Each monastery is sacred, obviously, but so is the entire 

course, and many pilgrims consider Shikoku Island 

itself to be sacred. 

Historical, social, and economic aspects 

Sacred spaces, however, have a history. To take one example, 

Japan’s highest mountain, Mount Fuji, was 

originally regarded as the abode of one local god; when 

Buddhism took charge of the cult around the twelfth 

century, the mountain came to be viewed as the abode 

of three buddhas and bodhisattvas and of that god as 

well, and it became a center of Shugendo. By the seventeenth 

century, however, Shugendo’s influence 

waned (for political reasons), and Mount Fuji became 

the object of mass pilgrimages on the part of laypeople, 

as a consequence of which the understandings of 

the mountain’s sacred character radically changed. Another 

example of major historical changes is the Ise 

Shrine, located on the eastern coast of the Kii peninsula. 

It is composed of an Inner Shrine dedicated to 

the ancestral god of the imperial house, and of an 


793


Outer Shrine dedicated to a god of food. During the 

medieval period, these sanctuaries became the object 

of complex associations with esoteric Buddhism, 

which viewed them as yet another manifestation of the 

Adamantine and Matrix mandalas. Ise subsequently 

became the object of mass pilgrimages, and for several 

centuries pilgrims were escorted by professional religious 

guides (onshi, or oshi), who gave instructions 

concerning the varied features of these sites of cult’s 

sacred features, ranging from trees, rivers, and waterfalls, 

to caves, monasteries, and shrines. In the early 

modern period, however, Buddhism became the object 

of critiques that led, ultimately, to the separation 

of theretofore unified Shinto-Buddhist cults throughout 

Japan. The thirty-seven Buddhist monasteries of 

Ise were destroyed at the end of the nineteenth century, 

and today Ise is regarded as a Shinto cultic site, 

with no trace of Buddhism whatsoever. 

It is important, therefore, to stress that the term sacred 

space is sometimes misleading because its oftfound 

emphasis on spirituality tends to generate an 

avoidance of the universally present material features 

of its historical production, as well as an avoidance of 

the many conflicts it caused or witnessed in the course 

of history. That is, the sacredness of certain sites or regions 

was instituted or maintained through various 

forms of an occupation of land (one of which was control 

over the people who lived there), and this sociohistorical 

fact suggests that studies of the term sacred 

space need to include historical, social, and economic 

aspects. Japan’s (and other countries’) shrines and 

monasteries were established on pieces of land that 

used to belong to an individual or the government. 

Measured on the basis of a technique called, in Japanese, 

shiichi (four corners), the area where they were to 

be erected was ritually cleansed and propitiated, and 

the individual or ruling entity that entrusted that area 

to religious authorities thereby gave up all and any control 

over it, especially taxes. In order to meet the 

monasteries’ needs for regular maintenance and repair, 

as well as in order to enhance their visibility and prestige, 

individuals or rulers commended land estates to 

them, and cultic sites became powerful economic entities. 

During the medieval period this estate system 

eroded and fell apart, and religious authorities had to 

look for different funding sources and traveled across 

the land in search of financial assistance while chanting 

the sacred character of their sites of cult and encouraging 

people to engage in pilgrimage. 

Pilgrimage, then, arose in a specific social and economic 

climate, and the narratives mentioned earlier 

played a great part in this development. Still today, pilgrimages 

have an important economic dimension that 

is all too often ignored in the analysis of sacred space, 

and the long but sometimes violent history of the sacred 

sites visited by pilgrims should be critically assessed 

in light (or shadow) of the stable myths that are 

often attached to the notion of sacred space. 

See also: Cave Sanctuaries; Consecration; Kailaśa 

(Kailash); Monasticism; Relics and Relics Cults 

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Separation of Shinto and Buddhist Divinities in Meiji (shimbutsu 

bunri) and a Case Study: To nomine.” History of Religions 

23, no. 3 (1984): 240–265. 

Grapard, Allan G. “Lotus in the Mountain, Mountain in the Lotus: 

Rokugo Kaizan Nimmon Daibosatsu Hongi.” Monumenta 

Nipponica (Tokyo) 41, no. 1 (1986): 21–50. 

Grapard, Allan G. “The Textualized Mountain–Enmountained 

Text: The Lotus Sutra in Kunisaki.” In The Lotus Su tra in 

Japanese Culture, ed. George J. Tanabe, Jr., and Willa Jane 

Tanabe. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. 

Grapard, Allan G. The Protocol of the Gods: A Study of the 

Kasuga Cult in Japanese History. Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1992. 

Grapard, Allan G. “Geosophia, Geognosis, and Geopiety: Orders 

of Significance in Japanese Representations of Space.” 

In NowHere: Space, Time and Modernity, ed. Roger Friedland 

and Deirdre Boden. Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1994. 

Grapard, Allan G. “Geotyping Sacred Space: The Case of Mount 

Hiko in Japan.” In Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land, ed. Benjamin 

Z. Kedar and R. J. Zwi Werblowsky. New York: New 

York University Press, 1998. 

Higuchi, Tadahiko. The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscapes, 

tr. Charles Terry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988. 

Huber, Toni. The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain: Popular Pilgrimage 

and Visionary Landscapes in Southeast Tibet. New 


Miksic, John. Borobudur: Golden Tale of the Buddhas. Singapore: 

Periplus, 1990. 

Statler, Oliver. Japanese Pilgrimage. New York: Morrow, 1983. 

Tuan, Yi-Fu. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, 

Attitudes and Values. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 

1974. 

ALLAN G. GRAPARD 


S RI 

L ANKA 

SRI LANKA 

Sri Lanka is home to the world’s oldest continuing 

Buddhist civilization. Brahm inscriptions etched in 

stone on drip ledges above natural caves in the country’s 

North-Central province indicate that hermitages 

have been dedicated by Buddhist LAITY for the meditation 

needs of monks since the third century B.C.E. 

Moreover, the fourth- and fifth-century C.E. monastic 

chronicles, the Dlpavam sa (Chronicle of the Island) and 

the Mahavam sa (Great Chronicle), contain a series of 

myths in which the Lankan king Devanam piya Tissa 

(third century B.C.E.), a contemporary of the Indian 

emperor AŚOKA, is said to have been converted to the 

Buddha’s teachings by Aśoka’s own missionary son, 

Mahinda. Thus, from inscriptions and monastic literary 

traditions, it is known that by the third century 

B.C.E. lineages of forest monks supported by Buddhist 

laity were established on the island in the region that 

became Lanka’s political center for thirteen subsequent 

centuries. Since Aśoka is also thought to have provided 

support for Devanam piya Tissa’s abhiseka (coronation), 

it would seem that Buddhism became formally 

associated with Lanka’s KINGSHIP by this time as well. 

For more than two millennia, until the British dethroned 

the last Lankan king in 1815, a symbiotic relationship 

entailing mutual support and legitimation 

between the Lankan kings and the Buddhist SAṄGHA 

(community) was sustained, either as an ideal or in actual 

practice. 

Over the course of this long history, other forms 

of Buddhism joined the predominant THERAVADA 

bhikkhu (monk) and bhikkhunl (nun) saṅghas, which 

the Mahavam sa asserts were established by Aśoka’s 

children, Mahinda and his sister Saṅghamitta, respectively, 

and whose lineages were preserved by the Theravada 

Mahavihara nikaya. These included the cults of 

MAHAYANA BODHISATTVAS such as Avalokiteśvara, and 

the teachings of several Mahayana schools and of 

tantric Buddhist masters associated with Mahavihara’s 

rival in Anuradhapura, the Abhayagiri nikaya, which 

were established and thrived, particularly during the 

seventh through the tenth centuries C.E. 

The Anuradhapura period 

FAXIAN (ca. 337–ca. 418 C.E.), the itinerant Chinese 

Buddhist pilgrim, has provided a valuable description 

of fifth-century Anuradhapura, reporting that approximately 

eight thousand Buddhist monks then resided 

in the capital city. Faxian also reports that a public ritual 

procession of the Dalada (tooth-relic of the Buddha) 

was celebrated annually, that the cult of Śri Mahabodhi 

(a graft of the original bodhi tree at BODH 

GAYA in India) was regularly venerated and lavishly 

supported by the laity and the king, and that Lankan 

kings had built massive STU PAs to commemorate the 

Buddha and his relics. Well before Faxian’s time and 

long thereafter, the city of Anuradhapura had become 

a politically powerful and cosmopolitan center whose 

successful economy had been made possible through 

the development of sophisticated hydraulic engineering 

and through the establishment of trade with partners 

as far flung as China in the east and Rome in the 

west. Furthermore, the city had become the administrative 

pivot of the three great monastic nikayas (chapters) 

of the Lankan Buddhist saṅgha: the Theravada 

Mahavihara; and the more doctrinally eclectic Abhayagiri 

and Jetavana chapters, each of which systematically 

established a vast array of affiliated village 

monasteries and forest hermitages throughout the domesticated 

rice-growing countryside. During the first 

millennium C.E., the three nikayas in Anuradhapura 

and their affiliated monasteries dominated every facet 

of social, economic, educational, and cultural life. 

Some have argued that just as Lankan polity was expected 

to be the chief patron supporting the saṅgha, 

so the saṅgha functioned as a “Department of State” 

for the kingship. Perhaps somewhat exaggerated, that 

assertion does point to the extent to which Buddhist 

institutions became the basic social infrastructure in 

Lanka for many centuries. 

Given the congenial relationship between polity and 

religion, the Anuradhapura period witnessed the fluorescence 

of an economically advanced and artistically 

sophisticated culture. Although the only surviving examples 

of painting are the frescos of heavenly maidens 

(perhaps apsaras) found at Sgiriya, thousands of freestanding 

stone sculptures of the Buddha, scores of 

stone-carved bas-reliefs, and hundreds of bronzes are 

still extant, including the famous colossal images at 

Avukana and the meditative Buddhas that remain 

within the ruins of the Abhayagiri monastic complex 

at Anuradhapura. Early anthropomorphic images of 

the Buddha in Lanka bear a stylistic, and sometimes 

material, affinity with Buddha images created at Amaravat 

in south India, while images from the later 

Anuradhapura period, such as the eighth-century 

Avukana image, reflect the development of a distinctive 

Lankan style that emphasized the significance of 

the Buddha as a mahapurusa (cosmic person). 


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The Mahavam sa asserts that the Buddhist CANON 

(Tripitaka; Pali, Tipitaka) was first committed to writing 

during the reign of King Vattagamin Abhaya in 

the first century B.C.E. at Aluvihara just north of 

Matale, inaugurating, perhaps, the tradition of inscribing 

Buddhist texts on to ola leaves, a tradition of 

committing the dharma to handwriting that continued 

into the nineteenth century. In rare instances, texts 

were also inscribed on gold or copper plates, such as 

the gold leaves bearing an eighth-century fragment of 

a Sanskrit Prajñaparamita-su tra (Perfection of Wisdom 

Su tra), found within the massive STU PA at Jetavana in 

Anuradhapura in the early 1980s. 

In addition to the Pali Tipitaka and the Pali monastic 

chronicles Dlpavamsa and Mahavam sa, the fifth 

and sixth centuries were the backdrop for the commentaries 

produced by BUDDHAGHOSA. His Visuddhimagga 

(Path of Purification), an elaborate and 

precise exegesis of slla (ślla; English, morality), samadhi 

(meditation), and pañña or PRAJN A (WISDOM)— 

the three elemental principles of practice that 

Buddhaghosa regarded as the bases of the Buddha’s 

“noble eightfold PATH”—eventually became an enduring 

centerpiece of normative orthodoxy for Theravada 

in Sri Lanka and later in Southeast Asia. The Visuddhimagga 

stressed the interrelated and dependent nature 

of slla, samadhi, and pan n a, and the fundamental 

reality of paticcasamupada or PRATITYASAMUTPADA 

(DEPENDENT ORIGINATION). 

The Polonnaruva era 

Beginning with the Polonnaruva era (eleventh through 

thirteenth century C.E.), and especially during the 

reign of Parakramabahu I (1153–1186 C.E.), when the 

saṅgha was reunified after its demise by south Indian 

Cola invaders who had demolished Anuradhapura in 

the late tenth century, Theravada became the exclusive 

form of doctrinal orthodoxy patronized by the 

kingship in Sri Lanka. It was specifically this reconstituted 

Theravada that was exported to Burma (Myanmar) 

in the eleventh century and subsequently into 

northern Thailand, spreading from those regions to 

become the dominant religion of mainland Southeast 

Asia. What was not reconstituted at Polonnaruva, 

however, was the bhikkhunlsaṅgha, a sorority that had 

thrived during the Anuradhapura centuries and had 

spread its lineage as far as China. Yet Polonnaruva became 

a marvelous city for a span of about 150 years 

before it was sacked by another south Indian invasion. 

Although its beautiful stupas could not rival the 

size of the Abhayagiri, Jetavana, and Ruvanvälisaÿa 

topes in Anuradhapura, and although its sculptures 

lacked the plastic fluidity of times past, the architecture, 

literature, and educational institutions of Polonnaruva 

were unparalleled anywhere in South or 

Southeast Asia at that time. The massive Alahena 

monastic university, a bastion of Theravada orthodoxy, 

at one time housed as many as ten thousand 

monks. 

It was also at Polonnaruva and in the courts of kings 

who soon followed, such as Parakramabahu II at 

thirteenth-century Dam˘badeniya, that new literary innovations 

were cultivated, in part due to the stimulus 

and presence of Hinduism and Sanskrit literature, and 

in part due to the maturation of the Sinhala language 

itself. At Polonnaruva, the Hindu temples built by the 

Cola invaders had not been destroyed by the reconquering 

Sinhalas in the eleventh century because the 

queens of the Sinhala kings, who were brought from 

south India, were nominally Hindu, as were their relations 

and retinues. Thus, the royal court headed by 

a Sinhala Buddhist king was heavily influenced by a 

classical Sanskritic or Hindu presence seen not only in 

the substance and style reflected in contemporary sections 

of the Cu lavam sa (Minor Chronicles, the sequel 

to the Mahavam sa), but also in the cultic life and sculptural 

creations of Polonnaruva, which included the 

veneration and depiction of Hindu deities such as 

VISN U and Śiva. In this context, Gurulugomi, a Buddhist 

upasaka (layman), composed the first Sinhala 

works of prose, including the Amavatura (The Flood of 

Nectar), a reworking of the life of the Buddha aimed 

at demonstrating his powers to convert others to the 

truth of dharma. Since the Amavatura seems to have 

been written in a conscious effort to avoid using Sanskrit 

words, some have suggested that his writings reflect 

an antipathy for an ever-growing Hindu influence 

on Sinhala Buddhist culture in general. The late Polonnaruva 

era also marks the creation of many other 

important Sinhalese Theravada Buddhist classics, including 

the Butsarana (Refuge of the Buddha), the 

Pu javaliya (The Garland of Offerings), and the Saddharma 

Ratnavaliya (The Garland of Jewels of the Good 

Doctrine), all didactic and devotional works. 

Hinduization of Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka 

While the destruction of institutional Buddhism at 

Anuradhapura and the reconstruction of the saṅgha at 

Polonnaruva may have led in general to the eclipse of 

Mahayana and tantric cults in Lanka, invasions from 

south India beginning in the tenth century and the increasing 

numbers of military mercenaries who fol- 


S RI 

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lowed during the politically volatile thirteenth and 

fourteenth centuries only increased the presence and 

influence of Hindu cults in the Sinhala Buddhist religious 

culture of the era. During the fourteenth century, 

when a retreating Buddhist kingship established 

its capital in the Kandyan highlands at Gampola, 

Hindu deities such as Visnu, Skanda, the goddess Pattin, 

and Ganesha, as well as a host of other local deities 

associated with specific regions and natural phenomena, 

were incorporated into an evolving pantheon of 

Sinhala deities. They were recast as gods whose warrants 

for acting in the world on behalf of Buddhist 

devotees were subject to the sanctioning of the Buddha’s 

dharma. The highest of these deities, worshipped 

within the same halls where the Buddha was worshipped 

or in adjacent shrines (devalayas) , came to be 

styled as BODHISATTVAS, or “buddhas in-the-making,” 

and a vast literature of ballads, poems, and sagas in 

Sinhala, some inspired by the Sanskrit puranas (mythic 

stories), was created to edify devotees over the ensuing 

several centuries. 

By the fifteenth century, the island had been again reunified 

politically by Parakramabahu VI, whose capital 

at Kotte on the southwest coast became the hub of 

an eclectic renaissance of religious culture epitomized by 

the gamavasi (village-oriented monk) Śr Rahula, 

whose linguistic dexterity (he was known as “master of 

six languages”) and concomitant affinities for popular 

religious and magical practices, refracted the syncretic 

character of religion at the time. Śr Rahula is perhaps 

best remembered for writing two classical Sinhala sandeśaya 

poems styled after the Sanskrit poet Kalidasa’s 

Meghadhuta (Cloud Messenger) that, while glorifying the 

Buddha as the “god beyond the gods,” appealed directly 

to the gods for divine assistance in sustaining the wellbeing 

of the Buddhist KINGSHIP and its administration. 

Vdagama Maitreya, a WILDERNESS MONK (arañavasi) 

and one of Parakramabahu’s childhood mentors, wrote 

the Budugunalam karaya (In Praise of the Buddha’s 

Qualities) as a scathing critique of the increasing Hinduization 

of Buddhist culture. These two great monks, 

both of whom were deeply involved in competing trajectories 

of court and monastic cultures, represent an 

ancient and continuing tension regarding the nature of 

the monastic vocation: as a matter of caring for the “welfare 

of the many” (the village monk) or engaging in the 

“rhinoceros-like solitary life” of a forest meditator. 

Colonial and postcolonial eras 

By the sixteenth century, the Portuguese had begun to 

interfere with the court at Kotte and eventually converted 

King Dharmapala to Christianity, exacerbating 

an increasingly fractious political context that led in 

the 1590s to the establishment of a new line of Sinhala 

Buddhist kings in highland Kandy, a new capital city 

replete with a supportive cast: a bhikkhusaṅgha whose 

lineage was imported from Burma, a new Dalada Maligava 

(Palace of the Tooth-Relic), and devalayas for 

the gods who had emerged as the four protective 

guardian deities of the island. The Kandyans colluded 

with the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century to oust 

the Portuguese. Despite one war in the 1760s during 

the reign of Krti Śr Rajasim ha, the Kandyans and the 

Dutch managed to coexist for a century and a half producing, 

in effect, distinctive highland and lowland Sinhala 

cultures. The former styled itself as more purely 

Sinhala Buddhist, despite the fact that by this time the 

Kandyan kings were ethnically Tamil, owing to the 

continuing practice of securing queens from Madurai. 

But it is remarkable how “Buddhacized” this last line 

of Lankan kings became. Krti Śr and his brother 

Rajadi who succeeded him, were responsible for the 

last great renaissance of Theravada: first, by reconstituting 

what had become a decadent saṅgha by introducing 

a fresh lineage from Thailand that became 

known as the dominant Siyam Nikaya; second, by appointing 

a monastic head (saṅgharaja) in the person of 

the learned monk Saranamkara, who reemphasized the 

importance of monastic literary education and moral 

virtue; third, by providing the means to hold a calendar 

of Buddhist public rites, including the still annually 

held äsala perahära procession of the Dalada and 

the insignia of the guardian deities in Kandy; and 

fourth, by refurbishing virtually every Buddhist monastery 

in the kingdom, a commitment that resulted in 

the artistic birth of the Kandyan school of Buddhist 

monastery painting. 

After the British established their colonial hegemony 

in the early nineteenth century, Buddhist culture 

atrophied for several decades. Its revival toward 

the end of the century was catalyzed in part by the establishment 

of two new low-country monastic nikayas, 

the Amarapura and the Ramañña. Both, in contrast to 

the Siyam Nikaya, established new lineages from 

Burma, claimed to be more doctrinally orthodox, emphasized 

the practice of meditation, and recruited 

novices without regard to caste. A series of public religious 

debates between Buddhist monks and Anglican 

clergy in the low country also fueled the revitalization. 

Moreover, the revival gained momentum with the 

arrival of Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907), an American 

theosophist who organized and established many 


797

S RI 

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A young novice monk bathes another after their heads were shaved as part of an ordination ceremony at a monastery in Colombo, 

Sri Lanka. © Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi/Reuters/Getty Images. Reproduced by permission. 

Buddhist schools modeled on the successful missionary 

schools administered by the Anglicans. Olcott wrote 

a widely disseminated “Buddhist Catechism,” designed 

and distributed a Buddhist flag, and helped to organize 

a liturgical year celebrating full moon days as Buddhist 

holidays. One of Olcott’s early and enthusiastic followers, 

the ANAGARIKA DHARMAPALA (1864–1933), transformed 

the religious revival into a religio-nationalist 

cause by founding in 1891 the Mahabodhi Society, 

which sought to regain Buddhist control of Buddhist 

holy sites in India. In addition, Dharmapala published 

his influential Return to Righteousness (a detailed excursus 

on lay Buddhist conduct and spiritual realization 

aimed at purifying Buddhism of its colonial and 

popular “contaminations”), and he inspired the laity to 

emulate their colonial masters’ work ethic. Some have 

argued that Olcott and Dharmapala successively set 

into motion a new lay Buddhist religious ethic comparable 

to the lay-oriented religious culture of Protestant 

Christianity, a “Protestant Buddhism,” so called because 

of its emphasis on unmediated individual lay religious 

practice and the importance attached to 

integrating the significance of spiritual teachings into 

everyday life. 

Aside from “Protestant Buddhism,” at least three 

other features marked the character of Buddhism in 

twentieth-century Sri Lanka. The first is the reemphasis 

given to meditation for both monks and 

laypersons, especially methods of insight (VIPASSANA 

[SANSKRIT, VIPAŚYANA]) practice made popular by 

Burmese masters. The second is the establishment of 

Buddhist-inspired welfare institutions, such as Sarvodaya, 

founded in the 1950s by A. T. Ariyaratne 

(1931–) to reawaken village culture and to stimulate 

rural economies and social services. The third is the 

increasing politicization of Buddhism in the postcolonial 

era, most notably the patterns that can be 

traced to the pivotal national elections of 1956 when 


S RI L ANKA, BUDDHIST A RT IN 

S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike (1899–1959) and his newly 

formed Sri Lanka Freedom Party won a landslide election 

on promises of “Sinhala only” as the national language 

and Buddhism as the state religion. This 

posture on language and religion (the basic constituents 

of ethnic identity in South Asia), as well as 

other subsequent “Sinhala Buddhist” based education 

and economic policies, were enacted to redress perceived 

inequalities resulting from earlier British colonial 

policies that had favored Tamil interests and 

disenfranchised the Sinhalese. In turn, these changes 

became reasons for Tamil alienation, feeding an enduring 

ethnic conflict dividing Sinhalas and Tamils 

during the final decades of the twentieth century. In 

this context, some influential Buddhist monks have 

colluded with Sinhala politicians to resurrect the ancient 

rhetoric of the Mahavam sa and proclaim Lanka 

as the exclusive and predestined domain of the Buddhadharma. 

Others have marched for peace and coexistence. 

See also: Mainstream Buddhist Schools; Sinhala, Buddhist 

Literature in; Sri Lanka, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Bartholomeusz, Tessa. Women under the Bo Tree: Buddhist Nuns 

in Sri Lanka. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

1994. 

Bond, George. The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka: Religious Tradition, 

Reinterpretation, and Response. Columbia: University 



and Historical Study. Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 1983. 

Geiger, Wilhelm, ed. and trans. The Cu lavam sa, 2 vols. 

Colombo, Sri Lanka: Government Printer, 1953. 

Geiger, Wilhelm, ed. and trans. The Mahavam sa. London: Pali 

Text Society, 1964. 


in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 

1971. 







Holt, John Clifford. Buddha in the Crown: Avalokitesvara in the 

Buddhist Traditions of Sri Lanka. New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1992. 

Holt, John Clifford. The Religious World of Klrti Śrl: Buddhism, 

Art, and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka. New York: Oxford 


Kemper, Steven. The Presence of the Past: Chronicles, Politics, and 

Culture in Sinhala Life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

1992. 

King, Winston Lee. Theravada Meditation: The Buddhist Transformation 


Press, 1980. 

Malalasekera, G. P. The Pali Literature of Ceylon. Colombo, Sri 

Lanka: M. D. Gunasena, 1958. 

Malalgoda, Kitsiri. Buddhism in Sinhalese Society, 1750–1900: A 

Study of Religious Revival and Study. Berkeley: University of 


Obeyesekere, Gananath. The Cult of the Goddess Pattini. 

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. 

Seneviratne, H. L. The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri 

Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. 

Von Schroeder, Ulrich. Buddhist Sculptures of Sri Lanka. Hong 

Kong: Visual Dharma Publications, 1990. 

SRI LANKA, BUDDHIST ART IN 

JOHN CLIFFORD HOLT 

During the twenty-five hundred years of Sri Lanka’s 

history, its royal capital has been located in a number 

of places. In chronological order they were Anuradhapura 

(ca. 500 B.C.E.–1000 C.E., North-Central 

province); Polonnaruva (1000–1235 C.E., North-Central 

province); Dam˘badeniya (1232–1272 C.E., North- 

Western province); Yapahuwa (1272–1284 C.E., 

North-Western province); Kurune¨gala (1293–1341 C.E., 

North-Western province); Gampola (1341–1411 C.E., 

Central province); Kotte (1411–1597 C.E., Western 

province); and Kandy (1480–1815 C.E., Central 

province). Sri Lanka’s Buddhist art is often analyzed in 

terms of these different periods. Of these eras, the 

Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva periods offer the most 

important surviving examples of early Buddhist art. 

The instability of the kingship and the wars that prevailed 

during the other periods resulted in less art surviving 

from those eras. 

Of these less copious periods, the Yapahuwa rock 

fortress is a remarkable monument from the Yapahuwa 

period. From the Kandy period, the king’s palace 

and the Tooth-Relic Temple at Kandy, one of the most 

important Buddhist PILGRIMAGE sites in the country, 

have survived. Gadaladeniya and Lankatilaka, two 


799


temples from the Kurune¨gala period that still stand 

near the city of Gampola, are famous for their architectural 

features and intricate carvings. 

Some of the important architectural structures and 

features from the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva periods 

include the STU PA or dagäba (symbolic burial 

mounds of the Buddha with relics enshrined), 

bodhighara (bodhi tree shrines), asanaghara (shrines 

enclosing huge rectangular stone slabs that symbolize 

the throne of the Buddha), vatadage (circular relic 

shrines), and chetiyaghara (circular shrines built 

around stupas, sheltering the monument). 

The sacred bodhi tree shrine from Anuradhapura, 

one of Sri Lanka’s most venerated Buddhist sites, has 

a long history dating back to the third century B.C.E. 

According to the Sri Lankan chronicles, the Buddhist 

nun Saṅghamitta, who was the daughter of Emperor 

AŚOKA (mid-third century B.C.E.), brought a sapling of 

the original bodhi tree from BODH GAYA and planted 

it in this location at Anuradhapura. There are both literary 

and inscriptional references to bodhi tree shrines 

in Sri Lanka from the early Anuradhapura period onward. 

A well-preserved structure of a bodhi tree shrine 

dating from the Anuradhapura period still stands at 

Nillakgama in the Kurune¨gala district. The structure 

includes two square stone walls with an entrance on 

one side, demarcating the shrine, which was inside. 

Famous examples of circular relic shrines include 

those at Thuparama (Anuradhapura), Medirigiriya 

(Polonnaruva), and Tiriyayi (Trincomalee), all dating 

to the seventh to tenth centuries. In Pulukunavi (Batticaloa 

district) there are remains of an early asanaghara, 

an architectural feature referred to in ancient literature 

and inscriptions. The remains of the largest chapter 

house for Buddhist monks stand in the ancient city of 

Anuradhapura. Such chapter houses, of which numerous 

ruins have been found throughout Sri Lanka, 

were called Uposathaghara in the ancient literature and 

Pohotaghara in inscriptions. 

Before the introduction of BUDDHA IMAGES, worship 

of the Buddha using aniconic symbols was common 

in Sri Lanka from about the third century B.C.E. 

to the second century C.E., as it was in contemporary 

India. A large number of stone footprints of the Buddha 

have been found in Buddhist monasteries from 

the early common era. A considerable number of 

bodhigharas and asanagharas from the Anuradhapura 

period are also evidence of a tradition dating back to 

an aniconic phase of Buddhism. 

Early Sri Lankan artists appear to have been influenced 

by three main Indian artistic traditions: 

Amaravati (or A ndhra), Gupta, and Pallava. Of these, 

the Amaravati school of art from the A ndhra region of 

India was the earliest and the most influential. Almost 

all surviving art in Sri Lanka beginning in about the 

first century C.E. shows the strong impact of the Amaravati 

style. During the fifth to sixth centuries and sixth 

to seventh centuries, styles deriving from Gupta and 

Pallava, respectively, begin to appear in Sri Lanka. 

The unique early art of Sri Lanka includes numerous 

seated and standing buddha images, including 

some monumental buddha statues. There are also gigantic 

stupas, some with highly ornate frontispieces 

called vahalkada, which consist of four rectangular architectural 

projections at the base of the stupa facing 

the four cardinal directions. Further early Sri Lankan 

art includes sandakadapahana (moonstones), dvarapala 

(guardstones), and the renowned Sigiriya paintings 

of beautiful damsels from the fifth century C.E. 

The earliest Buddhist edifices in Sri Lanka are natural 

rock shelters prepared and dedicated by lay devotees 

from the third century B.C.E. to the first century 

C.E. as residences for Buddhist monks during the earliest 

phase of Buddhist monastic activity in the region. 

Most of these CAVE SANCTUARIES include short formulaic 

dedicatory inscriptions declaring the donation. 

These rock shelters are devoid of any carvings, sculptures, 

or paintings; if there once were paintings, rain 

and weathering washed them away long ago. 

The eminent Sri Lankan archaeologist and epigraphist 

Senarat Paranavitana (1896–1972) published more 

than one thousand of these early Brahml cave inscriptions 

from almost three hundred early monastic sites 

scattered throughout Sri Lanka. Using the number of 

caves with inscriptions as an index, the largest of these 

early Buddhist rock monasteries are Mihintale, with 75 

inscriptions (Anuradhapura district, North-Central 

province); Situlpavvuwa, with 59 inscriptions (Hambantota 

district, Southern province); Rajagala, with 46 

inscriptions, (Ampara district, Eastern province); 

Periya Puliyankulama, with 34 inscriptions (Vavuniya 

district, Northern province); and Ritigala, with 33 inscriptions 

(Anuradhapura district, North-Central 

province). 

Stupas or dagäba begin to appear from about the 

second century B.C.E. onward, simultaneous with the 

earliest phase of Buddhist cave construction. Early Sri 

Lankan stupas are of gigantic proportions. The three 

largest are from Anuradhapura, the earliest capital of 



Sri Lanka: Ruvanvälisăÿa, from the second century 

B.C.E., has a diameter of 294 feet at the base and was 

originally 300 feet tall; Abhayagiriya, from the first century 

B.C.E., has a diameter of 325 feet and a height of 

325 feet; and Jetavana, from the third century C.E., has 

a diameter of 367 feet and was originally 400 feet tall. 

Until Anuradhapura was abandoned in the tenth century, 

these three stupas were enlarged a number of 

times by successive kings. 

The earliest Buddhist art in Sri Lanka appears in the 

relief carvings of the stupa vahalkada (frontispiece). 

The earliest of these relief carvings date to the first and 

second century C.E. and are found on the vahalkada of 

the Kantaka Cetiya (stupa) at Mihintale, eight miles 

east of Anuradhapura. Mihintale is the site where Buddhism 

was believed to have been first introduced to Sri 

Lanka by Buddhist missionaries from India, who were 

led by the arhat Mahinda during the mid-third century 

B.C.E. 

Unfortunately, little art from the earliest period has 

survived because the stupas were enlarged in various 

phases through the centuries. With the exception of 

the Kantaka Cetiya, surviving relief carvings of all other 

stupas are late in date and can probably be assigned to 

the second to fourth centuries C.E. For example, the 

carvings at Dghavapi stupa (Ampara district, Eastern 

province) date to the second century C.E.; those at 

Dakkhina stupa (Anuradhapura) and Yatala stupa 

(Humbantota district, Southern province) date to the 

second to third centuries C.E.; those at Ruvanvalisăÿa 

(Anuradhapura) to the third century C.E.; those at 

Abhayagiri stupa (Anuradhapura) to the third or 

fourth centuries C.E.; and those at Jetavana stupa 

(Anuradhapura) to the late third century. 

The main images appearing in Sri Lankan frontispieces 

include DIVINITIES, such as Surya and INDRA; 

YAKSAs with attendants, such as Kubera and Vaiśravana; 

yaksinls or other females with attendants; Gaja 

Laksmi, the goddess of prosperity; nagas in complete 

serpent form, often with five or seven cobra hoods; 

nagarajas in human form, often with five or seven cobra 

hoods; naginls, female serpent figures in human 

form with cobra hoods; and stone pillars depicting the 

kalpavrksa or the tree of life. Figures of yaksas, nagas, 

elephants, lions, bulls, and birds were shown emanating 

from this tree of life. Attached to these frontispieces 

were stone pillars topped by elephants, lions, bulls, and 

horses (Von Schroeder, pp. 80–95). All these early 

works are related to the late Amaravat tradition of the 

A ndhra region in India. 

The earliest available buddha images in Sri Lanka 

appear to be no older than the 250 C.E. to 350 C.E. period. 

A few seated buddha images from this period 

have been found at Anuradhapura at the sites of 

Abhayagiri Stupa and Thuparama Stupa (Von Schroeder, 

p. 113). Seated buddha statues become increasingly 

common in many parts of Sri Lanka beginning 

in the fifth to sixth centuries. The majority of them 

show the direct impact of the Amaravatl school. The 

seated buddha statues at Abhayagiri Vihara, Pankuliya 

Vihara, and Asokarama Vihara (all at Anuradhapura), 

datable to between the sixth and ninth centuries, are a 

few well-known examples. The majority of the seated 

buddha statues found in Sri Lanka are in the samadhi 

(meditative) posture. 

According to the available evidence, most of the 

standing buddha images from Sri Lanka also date from 

the fifth to sixth centuries C.E. and later. There are 

monumental standing buddha images carved in rock 

and stone at Avukana (42 feet, ninth century, 

Anuradhapura district); Sasseruva (38 feet, eighth to 

ninth centuries, Kurune¨gala district); Buduruvagala 

(44 feet, ninth to tenth centuries, Monaragala district); 

Dova Rajamahavihara (38 feet, ninth to tenth centuries, 

Badulla district); Maligavila (30 feet, eighth century, 

Monaragala district), and Lankatilaka and 

Tivanka (26 feet, twelfth century) at Polonnaruva. The 

twelfth-century Gal Vihara, or “rock temple,” at 

Polonnaruva is a unique monument carved out of solid 

rock and famous for its monumental recumbent and 

standing rock-cut statues in the round. 

There are a number of monumental MAHAYANA 

rock-cut and standing stone statues in the round. They 

include the eighth-century Dam˘begoda stone image in 

the round at Maligavila; at 45 feet in height, this 

image, believed to be Avalokiteśvara, is the largest 

bodhisattva statue in the world. The 13-foot Kushtarajagala 

rock-cut relief at Väligama (Southern province), 

which dates to the ninth or tenth century, is also believed 

to be an image of Avalokiteśvara. There are also 

two groups of rock-cut reliefs at Buduruvagala. One 

group includes a 12-foot Sudhanakumara on the left, 

a 24-foot Avalokiteśvara in the middle, and a 20-foot 

Tara at the right; the other group includes a 22-foot 

Vajrapani at the left, a 25-foot MAITREYA in the middle, 

and a 20-foot Avalokiteśvara at the right. These 

images all date to the ninth or tenth centuries (Von 

Schroeder, pp. 292–295). 

Other early Buddhist art of Sri Lanka from the 

Anuradhapura period was influenced by the Gupta and 


801


A recumbent Buddha statue at the twelfth-century Gal Vihara (Rock Temple) at Polonnaruva, Sri Lanka. The temple and statuary are 

carved out of the living rock. The Art Archive/Musée Guimet Paris/Dagli Orti. Reproduced by permission. 

Pallava traditions of India. The famous Mithuna or 

“loving couple” figure, which dates to the fifth to sixth 

centuries, from the so-called Isurumuniya Monastery 

of Anuradhapura is a well-known example of Gupta 

influence. The “man and the horse head” figure (sixth 

or seventh century) from the same monastery is considered 

to have been influenced by the Pallava tradition. 

Beautifully carved dvarapalas (guardstones) from 

the sixth to tenth centuries flank the entrances to Buddhist 

monasteries from Anuradhapura and many other 

parts of Sri Lanka; these are unique examples of both 

Gupta and Pallava artistic influences. The sandakadapahana 

(moonstone), an elaborately carved half-circle 

stepping stone placed at the entrance to a Buddhist 

monastery, is unique to Sri Lanka. At the center of 

these stone ornaments is a lotus flower from which emanate 

concentric half circles of vegetable, animal, bird, 

and flame motifs. Although the most refined moonstones 

are from the late Anuradhapura period, the 

carving of moonstones continued into the Polonnaruva 

period and later. 

Although secular in nature, Sigiriya’s elegant symmetrical 

gardens (fifth century) and water gardens are 

the earliest such examples in South Asia. Almost contemporary 

to the famous AJAN T A paintings from India, 

the renowned fifth-century rock paintings at 

Sigiriya, which was built by King Kaśyapa as a palace 

city, are masterpieces of early Sri Lankan art. On the 

western face of the Sigiriya rock, about four hundred 

feet above the ground, there are twenty-two extant 

paintings of beautiful women voluptuously depicted, 

most with their breasts exposed. Two images in particular 

appear prominently in these paintings: an elite 

lady standing alone holding a flower or an elite lady 

accompanied by a handmaiden. The meaning of these 

images is controversial. Ananda Coomaraswamy 


S TU PA 

(1877–1947) was of the view that they are celestial 

nymphs or Apsaras. Senarat Paranavitana, however, 

proposed that they symbolize the clouds (megha) and 

lightning (vijju) surrounding Mount KAILAŚA 

(KAILASH). His theory was that the builder of Sigiriya 

fortress, King Kaśyapa, lived there as Kuvera, the god 

of wealth in Hindu and Buddhist literature, who is supposed 

to dwell at A lakamanda on Mount Kailaśa. But 

some evidence points in another direction. The ladies 

holding flowers and accompanied by handmaidens appear 

to be popular motifs in art throughout west, central, 

and south Asia prior to Sigiriya times. It is possible 

that the Sigiriya paintings are an adaptation in a Sri 

Lankan context of this internationally popular subject. 

Given Sri Lanka’s flourishing role as a trade center connecting 

the eastern and western trade routes during the 

fourth through sixth centuries, such a sharing of international 

art motifs was quite possible. 

See also: India, Buddhist Art in; Sri Lanka 

Bibliography 

Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish. History of Indian and Indonesian 

Art. Leipzig, Germany: Hiersemann; London: 

Goldston; New York: Weyhe, 1927. Reprint, New York: 

Dover, 1985. 

Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish. Mediaeval Sinhalese Art, 2nd 

edition. New York: Pantheon, 1956. 

Paranavitana, Senarat. Sigiri Grafitti, Being Sinhalese Verses of 

the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Centuries, 2 vols. London and 


Paranavitana, Senarat. “Civilization of the Early Period: Religion 

and Art.” In University of Ceylon History of Ceylon. 

Colombo, Sri Lanka: Colombo University Press, 1959. 

Paranavitana, Senarat. “The Significance of the Paintings of Sigiri.” 

Artibus Asiae 24, nos. 3/4 (1961): 382–387. 

Paranavitana, Senarat. Inscriptions of Ceylon, Vol. 1: Containing 

Cave Inscriptions from 3rd Century B.C. to 1st Century A.D. 

and Other Inscriptions in the Early Brahml Script. Colombo, 

Sri Lanka: Dept of Archaeology, 1970. 

Priyanka, Benille. “New Research in the Early Art History of Sri 

Lanka: The Sigiriya Paintings Reinterpreted.” Paper presented 

in honor of the opening of the Sri Lankan consulate 

in Los Angeles, organized by the Southern Asian Art Council 

of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, February 17, 

2000. 

Von Schroeder, Ulrich. Buddhist Sculptures of Sri Lanka. Hong 

Kong: Visual Dharma, 1990. 

BENILLE PRIYANKA 

STU PA 

The Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary defines 

the word stu pa as “a knot or tuft of hair, the upper 

part of the head, crest, top, summit”; also “a heap 

or pile of earth, or bricks etc.” Opinions about the etymology 

of the word stu pa differ, and the root √stu p, 

“to heap up, pile, erect,” seems to have been a late invention 

in order to explain the term. Although now 

inextricably linked to Buddhism, originally the stupa 

was not exclusively a Buddhist structure, but also a 

Jaina monument. 

Generally the terms stu pa and caitya, said to derive 

from cita, “a funeral pile,” are used interchangeably. 

Both terms indicate a mound of earth surrounded by 

a wooden railing, marking the place of the funeral pyre 

of a significant person. While the meaning of caitya 

may also mean observances “relating to a funeral pile 

or mound,” the term stu pa designates the actual structure. 

Originally, stupas contained relics, mainly ash, of 

a saintly person, and later other objects, such as crystal 

beads. 

Buddhist texts narrate how the Buddha’s relics were 

divided into eight portions; these were distributed to 

different kingdoms within India and stupas were built 

over them. These relics were redistributed during the 

third century B.C.E. by AŚOKA not only as an act of 

homage to the Buddhist faith, but also to ensure the 

Buddha’s protection over his extensive empire. Thus, 

thousands of stupas were built as a remembrance of 

the Buddha and of the crucial episodes of his life; for 

example, the stupa at Sarnath commemorated the 

Buddha’s first sermon. In time, stupas were erected as 

an homage to any past or future buddha, or to any 

Buddhist saint. 

Basically a stupa consisted of a circular platform 

(medhl) on which was erected a solid masonry hemisphere, 

or anda (egg), made of unburnt bricks. In its 

center was a small space for a receptacle containing 

relics. On the summit of the plain anda, and aligned 

with the reliquary, was raised a shaft surmounted by 

one or more chattravali (parasols), a mark of royalty 

that later assumed a complex metaphysical meaning. 

The surface of the dome was finished with a thick layer 

of plaster. Because it was customary to circumambulate 

the stupa as a part of worship, a pradaksinapatha 

(processional path) was provided both on the medhl 

and at ground level by enclosing the monument within 

a vedika (wooden railing), leaving enough space for 

walking. The vedika, which, at least in theory, should 


803

S TU PA 

be a perfect circle, was interrupted by L-shaped entrances 

at the four cardinal points, creating a cosmological 

diagram in the form of an auspicious svastika 

cross. An example of this early type of stupa is that at 

Svayambhu Nath near Kathmandu; this stupa has been 

worshiped for more than two thousand years. 

This basic architectural scheme bears, in its simplicity, 

an infinite potential for variations dictated by 

local traditions, materials, and religious trends. Its crucial 

importance in the development of sacred buildings 

throughout Buddhist Asia, extending roughly 

from today’s eastern Afghanistan throughout Central, 

East, and Southeast Asia, cannot be overestimated. 

Early Pali texts do not pay much attention to the 

actual building of a stupa because its construction, 

maintenance, and worship were the concern of the 

LAITY. Later, however, the building process became the 

focus of intense metaphysical speculation. Each part of 

the stupa, beginning from the terraces at its base, to 

the number of parasols on the chattravali, became imbued 

with a profound meaning, variously interpreted 

by different schools. 

Central India: Stupas at Sañcl and Bharhut 

The greatest artistic expressions of early Buddhist tradition 

are the monuments at SAN CI and Bharhut, in 

Madhya Pradesh, seats of two of the most important 

Buddhist communities from the third century B.C.E. 

Among the oldest surviving stupas is Stupa II at Sañc, 

which dates from the Śuṅga period (second to first centuries 

B.C.E.). This simple monument housed the relics 

of several Buddhist teachers; the relics were enclosed 

in caskets and buried within the stupa’s solid mass. Of 

great interest are the interior and exterior surfaces of 

the stone vedika, obviously a replica of a wooden prototype, 

embellished with sets of vigorously carved 

medallions. Especially elaborate are the reliefs on the 

pillars flanking the L-shaped entrances at the four cardinal 

points. 

Dating from this early period is the now ruined mahastu 

pa (great stupa) discovered by Alexander Cunnigham 

in 1873 at Bharhut. The conspicuous size of 

the monument, whose diameter measures more than 

twenty meters, the care lavished on the decoration of 

the sandstone vedika, some three meters in height, and 

the monumental toranas (entryways) bear witness to 

the affluence of this commercial town, located on one 

of the major trade routes of ancient India. Although 

inscriptions on the vedika and the eastern torana proclaim 

that they were erected during the Śuṅga period 

(possibly between 100 and 80 B.C.E.), the stupa is probably 

earlier in date, because it was customary to add 

vedikas and toranas to earlier buildings. The torana 

consists of two upright pillars supporting three architraves 

spanning the entry to the stupa complex. The 

crossbars of the vedika are adorned with medallions 

displaying floral motifs, human figures, and JATAKA 

scenes. On the vedika’s terminal uprights are carved 

single figures, including standing warriors, equestrian 

figures, and yakss clutching a tree. Animals, plants, 

creepers, geometrical motifs, and scenes from Buddha’s 

life are among the subjects carved on the torana. 

Most of the remains of this railing are now displayed 

at the Indian Museum in Calcutta and in the Allahabad 

Museum. 

The celebrated Sañc Stupa I was built between the 

third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., with additions 

of the fifth century C.E. This imposing monument, 

measuring 36.6 meters in diameter, rises on top 

of the hill at Sañc. The solid hemisphere is truncated 

at the top by a harmika (pedestal supporting the shaft 

of the umbrella) crowned by a three-tiered stone umbrella 

and set within a square railing. A circular terrace 

accessed by two staircases runs along the base of 

the anda. At ground level is a stone-paved circumambulation 

path encircled by a vedika that is interrupted 

at the four cardinal points by imposing toranas. 

The present stupa, dating from roughly the second 

century B.C.E., encases an older one that was built probably 

a century earlier. Its plain surface contrasts with the 

wealth of images carved on the vedika. Medallions display 

floral, animal, and bird motifs, as well as human 

figures and mythical beings. The balustrade is divided 

into four sections defined by the L-shaped toranas, 

which were erected in the first century C.E. These are 

similar in design and construction technique to those at 

Bharhut, and they are covered with sculptures, whose 

liveliness and variety of subject matter are unsurpassed. 

The most famous scenes illustrate episodes from the 

jatakas and from the life of the Buddha. 

As in the case of the previous monuments, Gautama 

is never represented in human form, but by emblems, 

such as an empty throne beneath the bodhi tree, footprints, 

the triratna (three REFUGES), and finally the 

stupa. Salient events of his life and career have pride 

of place, such as his birth, the temptation of MARA, the 

first sermon at Sarnath, the conversion of the Kaśyapa 

brothers, and the miracles at Śravast and Kapilavastu. 

Episodes that followed his death (e.g., the fight over 

the Buddha’s relics) have also been illustrated. The pre- 


S TU PA 

decessors of Gautama, the buddhas of antiquity, have 

been incorporated in the iconographic program of the 

four toranas and are represented either by stupas or 

bodhi trees. Apart from scenes related to Gautama’s 

life, there are others depicting everyday life, music, 

dance, sports, and the like. These three early stupas, of 

seminal importance in the formation of early Indian 

sculpture, exemplify two opposing facets of early Buddhist 

art: On the one hand, there is the strict adherence 

to aniconic representation of the Buddha; on the other 

hand, there is the unstoppable, exuberant flow of narrative. 

The last addition to Sañc Stupa I occurred in 

the fifth century C.E. when four Buddha images in 

teaching MUDRA were placed against its walls, facing the 

entrances. Each figure is flanked by attendants. 

Western Deccan 

An interesting development occurred during the second 

and first centuries B.C.E., when a number of Buddhist 

cave complexes were excavated in the Western 

Ghats (e.g., Bhaja and Bedsa). These consisted of one 

or more caitya halls, pillared apsidal halls that contained 

a stupa, and rock-cut cells, some of which served 

as accommodation for the monks and nuns. This architectural 

innovation brought the recluses into closer 

contact with the stupa, which had to be included in 

their daily ritual, and eventually became the focus of 

worship. 

An early example of this type of architecture is the 

monastic complex at Bhaja (Maharashtra), which consists 

of a large caitya hall with a monolithic stupa and 

a substantial number of smaller cells. On epigraphical 

and stylistic grounds, it is probable that the main phase 

of the works took place between 100 and 70 B.C.E. This 

is possibly the earliest caitya hall of this region. It is divided 

into three naves by slightly inward-sloping octagonal 

columns, thus providing a circumambulatory 

passage around the stupa. The light penetrates from the 

door above, which opens a horseshoe window, one of 

the many elements that derive from wooden architecture 

(the horseshoe window is part of the door). This 

basic model was followed in Buddhist rock-cut architecture 

of Western India until the seventh century C.E. 

Gandha ra region 

Buddhism was introduced in the Bactro-Gandhara regions 

at the time of Aśoka. By around 130 B.C.E. the 

Śakas took control of this area in present-day Pakistan 

and Afghanistan, and at the turn of the common era, 

the Parthians moved in from Iran. One of the legacies 

of the Śaka-Parthian domination was the terracestupa. 

The circular base disappeared, to be replaced by 

a square terrace whose basement was adorned with 

classical elements inherited from the Hellenistic world: 

columns, pilasters, entablatures, and niches. In the first 

century C.E. the Kushan dynasty established its power 

over the territory of the Śaka-Parthians, and in the 

wake of their political influence Buddhism spread, not 

only throughout their territory, but also to adjacent 

countries, including Central Asia and China. By this 

time the MAHAYANA doctrine had introduced a new 

conception of the Buddha, in which he was seen as the 

epitome of wisdom, truth, and compassion, and as 

such, his person was worthy of worship. This led to a 

crucial artistic development: the almost contemporaneous 

creation of the Buddha image in the two main 

cultural centers of the Kushan empire, the Gandhara 

region, and Mathura (Uttar Pradesh), the southern 

capital of the empire. 

Among the numerous stupas and monastic establishments 

built in this period is the second-century 

terrace-stupa at Guldara in Afghanistan, a massive construction 

resting on an imposing square base adorned 

with pilasters, and a substantial superstructure now ruined. 

Also from this period is the large monastic establishment 

at Takht-i-Bahi in Pakistan, whose stupa is 

completely destroyed but for its base. Its elongated appearance, 

however, can be reconstructed by examining 

smaller stupas found in the region. 

By this time the primordial hemispherical stupa had 

developed into a towerlike monument by way of multiplying 

the layers of the base, elongating the anda into 

a domelike cylinder, and stretching the chattravali to 

a considerable length, either by multiplying the chattras 

or compressing them into a compact conical spire. 

Another innovation was the tower-stupa, which 

plays a determinant role in the evolution of the stupa 

into the East Asian pagoda. The massive cross-shaped 

foundations of the famous Kanishka tower-stupa at 

Shahji-ki-Dheri, near Peshawar, are still preserved. According 

to the reports of Chinese pilgrims, this building 

was characterized by superimposed wooden 

“stories” with cornices, windows, and niches, as well 

as a copper mast carrying thirteen copper umbrellas. 

It was probably from this model that the Chinese 

pagoda evolved. 

The Deccan: Amaravatl and Nagarjunakonda 

In most of peninsular India and Sri Lanka, the stupa 

kept its hemispherical shape and continued to be 

erected on a circular platform. Among the numerous 


805

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Reliefs depicting events from the life of the Buddha adorn the gate leading to this first-century B.C.E. stupa at the great monastic complex 

of Sañcl at Vidisa near Bhopal, India. © Adam Woolfitt/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

Buddhist sites in the eastern Deccan, two are noteworthy: 

Amaravat and Nagarjunakonda (Andhra 

Pradesh). The stupa at Amaravat achieved its final 

form in the second and third centuries C.E. during the 

Śatavahana and Iksvaku periods. Almost nothing is 

preserved of this monument, which was the largest in 

the eastern Deccan, apart from an earthen mound and 

a surrounding pathway defined by upright slabs. A 

number of celebrated finely sculpted limestone slabs 

that have survived depict this lavishly decorated monument 

with imposing projecting gateways in the four 

directions. Among the distinctive features of this structure 

were four votive platforms, each with five pillars, 

aligned with the four entrances. The surviving uprights, 

capping pieces, and slabs have been removed 

from the site and are displayed in various museums; 

the largest collection is at the Government Museum 

Chennai (Madras). 

During the third century a number of changes were 

occurring in Buddhist religion and art. These are reflected 

in the structures at Nagarjunakonda, the most 

important Buddhist settlement of the region, set in a 

valley delimited by the Krsna river on the west. In the 

third and fourth centuries, when Nagarjunakonda was 

the capital of the Iksvaku rulers, the successors of the 

Śatavahanas, a large number of monasteries and stupas 

were erected according to the cultic needs of various 

Buddhist schools, of which at least four were represented 

there. Here the great innovation is the wheel-shaped 

plan of the stupas, demonstrating the transformation of 

a sacred Buddhist symbol into an architectural design. 

Each monastic unit consisted of a stupa, a caitya hall, 

and a vihara (monastic quarters). The residential unit 

would be generally separated from the stupa by two 

caitya halls facing each other, one containing a stupa 

and the other a buddha image, thus equating the stupa 

with the buddha image. The stupa and the image of 

the Buddha eventually coalesced in the fifth century in 

the AJAN T A caves. Although most of the excavated remains 

at Nagarjunakonda were submerged under the 

waters of the Nagarjuna Sagar, a few monuments were 

recreated on a hilltop, now an island in the middle of 

the lake. Limestone panels and friezes once decorating 

various monuments have been discovered, and together 

with the carvings found at Amaravat, they are 


S TU PA 

the most important remains of the flourishing Buddhist 

art in the Deccan. 

North and eastern India in the fifth to 

seventh centuries 

The aesthetics of the Gandhara and the Mathura 

schools of Kushan art played a major role in the development 

of Gupta aesthetics. The Kushan power 

ebbed at the end of the third century C.E., and by the 

early fourth century the Gupta dynasty ruled over 

north and central India. Ancient sites connected with 

the Buddha, such as BODH GAYA (Bihar), were refurbished; 

Sarnath, near Varanas (the old Benares, in Uttar 

Pradesh), where the Buddha delivered his first 

sermon, became a major center of Buddhist learning 

and artistic development. The remains of two large 

stupas, whose cores probably date from the Aśokan period, 

as well as of a number of monasteries, are still 

preserved there. 

Another famous center of Buddhist learning was 

Nalanda, near Rajgir (Bihar). Despite its putative links 

to Gautama Buddha and to Aśoka, both of whom are 

said to have visited this site, no remains predate the 

fifth century C.E. The Stupa/Temple 3 is the most 

prominent building at Nalanda. This monument underwent 

various phases of construction. At its core is 

a small stupa set on a square base measuring 173 centimeters 

each side and 137 centimeters in height. It has 

been suggested that this could be an Aśokan stupa, 

built on the caitya of ŚARIPUTRA, the Buddha’s disciple 

renowned for his wisdom. It was further enlarged three 

more times. However, with the fifth enlargement, in 

the sixth century, the monument changed appearance 

and plan. It became a large-sized structure with four 

lavishly decorated towers at the corners. This monument 

was renovated twice more in the eleventh and 

twelfth centuries just before the decline of Buddhism 

in India. 

The stu pa beyond India 

The Buddhist doctrine was introduced in Sri Lanka in 

the third century B.C.E. During the subsequent centuries, 

a conspicuous number of dagobas or dhatugopas 

(relic-preservers) were built. Examples of this 

local version of the Indian stupa are found at various 

sites, such as Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri 

Lanka from around the second century B.C.E. to the 

ninth century C.E. Here are the oldest surviving 

dagobas, the largest of which is the Abhayagiri dagoba. 

Its diameter is about 110 meters and its height from 

the base to the spire about 82 meters. As is the case of 

the stupa in India and Nepal, the dagobas of Sri Lanka 

have richly carved oblong projections at each cardinal 

point, which were probably thrones for the Dhyani 

buddhas. More recent and smaller in size are the Buddhist 

remains at Polonnaruva, the capital of Sri Lanka 

from the ninth to the end of the thirteenth century C.E. 

The remains at this site are extremely important because 

these monuments were built at a time when Buddhists 

had greatly reduced, if not altogether ceased, 

their building activity in India. Furthermore, the architectural 

developments at Polonnaruva may constitute 

the link between the architecture on the Indian 

subcontinent and architecture overseas. 

Buddhism arrived in Burma from important centers 

on the eastern coast of India, such as Amaravat 

and Nagarjunakonda, in about the fifth century C.E. 

Both the MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS and Mahayana 

were present at this early date as testified by archaeological 

evidence from the Pyu city of Śr Ksetra, 

near Prome. In time, further links with southern India 

and Sri Lanka, and subsequently with eastern India, 

were established, which had a seminal influence in 

the formation of Burmese architecture. The Burmese 

stupa, an elegant, bell-shaped construction topped by 

a conical finial, is raised on a series of terraces or platforms; 

the most famous example is the great 

SHWEDAGON pagoda in Rangoon (ca. fifteenth century). 

Mainstream Buddhism was prevalent in Indonesia 

until the end of the seventh century C.E. By the end of 

the century, however, the Mahayana school had risen 

in importance and soon became the only form of Buddhism 

followed there. One of the most significant Buddhist 

monuments of the world is BOROBUDUR in Java, 

dated to around 800. Every part of this magnificent 

building, from its mandala-like layout to the tiniest detail 

of its decorative program, is imbued with a deep 

symbolic meaning. Here Buddhist doctrine, the structure 

of the universe, and the mystery of enlightenment 

are expressed through plan, architectural design, and 

sculpture. 

See Monastic Architecture; Relics and Relics Cults 

Bibliography 

Dallapicccola, Anna Libera, and Zingel-Avé Lallemant, 

Stephanie, eds. The Stu pa: Its Religious, Historical, and Architectural 

Significance. Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner, 1980. 

Dehejia, Vidya. Discourses in Early Buddhist Art: Visual Narratives 


Dehejia, Vidya. Indian Art. London: Phaidon, 1997. 


807

S UFFERING 

Hallade, Madeleine, Gandharan Art of North India and the 

Graeco-Buddhist Tradition in India, Persia, and Central Asia. 


Huntington, Susan, and Huntington, John C. The Art of Ancient 

India. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1985. 

Isaacs, Ralph, and Blurton, T. Richard. Visions from a Golden 

Land: Burma and the Art of Lacquer. London: British Museum, 

2000. 

Knox, Robert. Amaravati: Buddhist Sculpture from the Great 

Stu pa. London: British Museum, 1992. 

Marshall, John. A Guide to Sañcl, 3rd edition. New Delhi: Manager 

of Publications, 1955. 

Michell, George. The Penguin Guide to the Monuments of India, 

Vol. 1: Buddhist, Jain, Hindu. London: Viking, 1989. 

Sarkar, H., and Misra, B. N. Nagarjunakonda, 3rd edition. New 

Delhi: Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, 

1980. 

Volwahsen, Andreas. Indien: Bauten der Hindus, Buddhisten, 

und Jains. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 1968. 

Zwalf, Wladimir. Buddhism: Art and Faith. London: British Museum, 

1985. 

A. L. DALLAPICCOLA 

Uighur, and Xixia. Many core doctrines and practices 

of the Pure Land school in East Asia are based on the 

Sukhavatlvyu ha sutras, but in fact there are 290 translated 

scriptures in the Chinese canon that discuss 

Amitabha Buddha and his realm. 

The sutras describe a cosmic order containing both 

a sacred realm inhabited by buddhas and bodhisattvas 

living in a paradise of fantastic proportions and an 

mundane realm inhabited by ordinary people, animals, 

ghosts, and so on, transmigrating but trapped. 

The sutras also describe the promise by Amitabha Buddha 

to enable beings to transmigrate into his paradise. 

This is possible through his vows (Sanskrit, pranidhana) 

and the Mahayana doctrine of merit-transfer. 

Orthodox East Asian Pure Land thought views the 

Buddha’s eighteenth vow in the Sanghavarman Chinese 

translation as the authoritative expression of the 

Buddha’s commitment to help anyone, as it asks only 

that one sincerely hold in mind (or recite) the Buddha’s 

name a minimum of ten moments in order to 

be reborn in his Pure Land. 

See also: Pure Land Schools 

Bibliography 

SUFFERING. See Duh kha (Suffering) 

SUKHA VATI. See Pure Lands 

Gómez, Luis, trans. and ed. The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of 

the Buddha of Measureless Light, Sanskrit and Chinese Versions 

of the Sukhavatlvyu ha Su tra. Honolulu: University of 


Inagaki, Hisao. The Three Pure Land Sutras: A Study and Translation 

from Chinese. Kyoto: Nagata Bunshodo, 1995. 

MARK L. BLUM 

SUKHA VATIVYU HA-SU TRA 

The title Sukhavatlvyu ha-su tra (Su tra Displaying the 

Land of Bliss) actually denotes two related but distinct 

texts, both of which narrate aspects of the mythic story 

of the buddha called AMITABHA or Amitayus (Chinese, 

Amito; Japanese, Amida) and the paradise where he 

resides called Sukhavat. Following Chinese precedent, 

the two texts have commonly been distinguished as the 

Larger Su tra (Chinese, Wuliangshou jing, Dajing; 

Japanese, Muryo jukyo , Daikyo ; Su tra on the Buddha of 

Immeasurable Life) and the Smaller Su tra (Amito jing, 

Amidakyo ,Su tra on Amitayus Buddha). These are early 

MAHAYANA sutras, probably composed in northwest 

India, and translations of the Larger Su tra began in 

China in the second or third century. The pervasiveness 

of this belief is known by manuscripts of the Larger 

Su tra also extant in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Khotanese, 

SUKHOTHAI 

Sukhothai, the first Thai kingdom, was founded 

around 1238 in the central part of present-day Thailand. 

In previous centuries, this area was under the sovereignty 

of Khmer kings who practiced Hinduism and 

MAHAYANA Buddhism. The Thai, however, adopted 

THERAVADA Buddhism from Sri Lanka. Upon his return 

from Sri Lanka in the early 1330s, Si Satha, a highranking 

monk, introduced a new Sinhalese sect along 

with Buddha relics and artisans. The veneration of 

relics played a significant role in this sect, which dramatically 

transformed the architecture and plans of 

temple compounds. While earlier STU PAs (Thai, chedi) 

in Sukhothai were in Khmer-tower form (prang; e.g., 

Wat Phraphai Luang), new innovative forms were built 


Ś U NYATA (EMPTINESS) 

after 1340 as stupas became the religious and ceremonial 

centers of monasteries. 

The most important temple remains that reflect the 

development of Sukhothai architecture are at Wat Mahathat 

(Monastery of the Great Relic), located in the 

center of the city. Wat Mahathat was built during King 

Ramkhamhaeng’s reign (ca. 1279–1298) and was renovated 

around 1340 during the reign of the pious King 

Loëthai (1298–1346/7). Many forms of stupas can still 

be seen (Khmer-tower, lotus-bud, and bell-shaped 

types), as well as the ruins of the congregational hall 

(ubosot or bot) and an assembly hall (wihan). A unique 

Sukhothai-type of stupa was built on a low pyramidal 

platform of three levels that supported a staggered shaft 

that housed the relic. Above it was a smoothly rounded 

ovoid bulb (lotus-bud stupa), which would later be 

crowned with a spire. Eight subsidiary stupas were 

linked to the center with connecting walls. The four 

axial towers built in Khmer style were decorated with 

stucco designs similar to those on the Lankatilaka 

Temple in Sri Lanka, dating to 1342. Themes from the 

historical Buddha’s past lives, meant to inspire practitioners, 

decorated the Mahathat tympana. 

Ubosot and wihan were commonly built of brick 

covered with plaster and decorated with stucco. Their 

roofs were made of wood covered with ceramic tiles; 

for the most part, only the columns stand today. Ubosot 

can be distinguished from wihan by the (typically 

eight) boundary stones (sema) that were generally 

placed around it. 

See also: Ayutthaya; Monastic Architecture; Southeast 

Asia, Buddhist Art in; Thailand 

Bibliography 

Gosling, Betty. Sukhothai: Its History, Culture, and Art. Singapore 


Griswold, Alexander B. Towards a History of Sukhothai Art. 

Bangkok: Fine Arts Department of Thailand, 1967. 

PATTARATORN CHIRAPRAVATI 

SUMERU, MOUNT. See Cosmology 

ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) 

Within the nature of reality in MAHAYANA ontology, 

emptiness (śu nyata) must be realized en route to enlightenment. 

The term śu nyata has been glossed as 

“openness,” “inconceivability,” or “unlimitedness,” 

but is best translated as “emptiness” or “voidness.” It 

refers to what dharmas (elements of reality) really are 

through what they are not: not as they appear, not conceptualizable, 

not distinguishable, and, above all, lacking 

permanent, independent, intrinsic existence. 

Although emptiness is sometimes mentioned in 

non-Mahayana texts, where it describes, for example, 

the contents of an advanced meditative state, the 

nonexistence of a self, or the absence of defilements in 

NIRVAN A, the PRAJNAPARAMITA LITERATURE of the Mahayana 

brought emptiness to prominence in Buddhist 

wisdom discourse. In paradoxical rhetoric, these sutras 

describe emptiness as the true nature of all entities and 

concepts, from form through a buddha’s awareness; 

thus, there really is no form, no buddha. This apparently 

nihilistic claim has been the subject of commentarial 

exegesis, philosophical disputation, meditative 

investigation, and ethical reflection throughout the 

Mahayana world. Still, emptiness is simply a radicalization 

and universalization of the earlier Buddhist 

idea of no-self (anatman), so that the view that there 

exists no unchanging subsisting person is extended to 

all possible objects and ideas, whether pure or impure, 

Buddhist or non-Buddhist—since grasping at true existence 

in any of them (including emptiness itself) will 

preclude the uprooting of defilements, hence the attainment 

of liberation and buddhahood. 

In India, the most important philosophical reflection 

on emptiness emerged from the MADHYAMAKA 

SCHOOL, beginning with NAGARJUNA (ca. second century 

C.E.), whose Madhyamakakarika (Verses on Madhyamaka) 

uses reductive reasoning to demonstrate the 

untenability, hence emptiness, of various key concepts, 

including causation, time, and nirvana. Nagarjuna asserts, 

however, that emptiness is nihilistic only for 

those who ignore the distinction between two truths: 

the ultimate, in which everything truly lacks intrinsic 

existence; and the conventional, in which, precisely because 

they are empty (that is, interdependent), things 

exist and function, and concepts are valid. Subsequent 

Madhyamaka thinkers extended Nagarjuna’s analysis, 

reflecting on the implications of emptiness for such issues 

as the role of rationality on the PATH, the admissibility 

of syllogistic arguments “proving” emptiness, 

the “truth” value of conventional truths, the absoluteness 

of the negation involved in emptiness, the status 

of morality and compassion, the content of an awareness 

realizing emptiness, and the rapidity with which 

realization of emptiness effects enlightenment. 


809

S U TRA 

Other Mahayanists analyzed emptiness, too. YO- 

GACARA SCHOOL writers agreed on its ultimacy, but 

described it as the absence of concepts in perfected 

awareness, or as an external object’s inseparability from 

the consciousness perceiving it. Texts on TATHAGATA- 

GARBHA (buddha-nature) sometimes implied that 

emptiness is different on different levels: Sam saric phenomena 

are empty of intrinsic existence, but buddhaawareness 

is empty of sam saric phenomena, itself being 

pure, permanent gnosis. In Tibet, these ideas were described 

as the intrinsic emptiness and extrinsic emptiness 

views, respectively. The HUAYAN JING (Avatam sakasu 

tra; Flower Garland Su tra) and East Asian schools 

based upon it, such as the Huayan school, portrayed 

emptiness as the perfect interpenetration of all phenomena. 

In tantric traditions, emptiness is the 

adamantine nature of reality, inseparable from a clear, 

blissful gnostic awareness; worlds and beings, 

MAN D ALAS and deities, arise from and return to it, in 

reality as in meditative practice. 

Discourse about emptiness was central to scholastic 

and meditative traditions in Tibet. It was also central 

to the philosophical treatises of the Sanlun, 

Huayan, and Tiantai schools of China, Korea, and 

Japan, and to the texts and praxis of East Asian Chan. 

Contemporary Buddhists, both Asian and Western, 

continue to explore the philosophical and practical implications 

of emptiness, reexamining traditional explanations 

of it, while aligning it with modern scientific 

and philosophical concepts, such as relativity, ecology, 

and deconstruction. 

See also: Anatman/A tman (No-Self/Self); Chan School; 

Huayan School; Philosophy; Prajña (Wisdom); 

Tantra; Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Conze, Edward, trans. The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand 

Lines and Its Verse Summary. Bolinas, CA: Four Seasons 

Foundation, 1973. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart 

Sutra. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. 

Stearns, Cyrus. The Buddha from Dolpo: A Study of the Life and 

Thought of the Tibetan Master Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen. Albany: 


Streng, Frederick. Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning. 

Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1967. 


SU TRA 

The Sanskrit word su tra (Pali, sutta), or “discourse,” is 

the name generally given to any text said to contain 

the words or the teaching of the Buddha. Whether or 

not it actually does is another matter; many sutras 

clearly postdate the Buddha’s time. Typically, a sutra 

begins with the phrase “Thus have I heard,” which is 

presumed by tradition to be the words of the Buddha’s 

attendant A NANDA repeating at the First Council 

what he heard the Buddha say at a given time and 

place. The su tra-pitaka (basket of discourses) represents 

one of three major divisions of the Buddhist 

CANON (Tripitaka), the others being the VINAYA and 

the ABHIDHARMA. 

See also: A gama/Nikaya; Councils, Buddhist; Scripture 

SU TRA ILLUSTRATIONS 


Sutras were illustrated in many different formats and 

media, such as BIANXIANG (TRANSFORMATION TAB- 

LEAUX), but this entry is limited to manuscript illuminations 

and illustrations done primarily on palm 

leaf or paper. 

Su tra illustrations in South and Southeast Asia 

In South and Southeast Asia the oral transmission of 

sutras prevailed until the first century B.C.E. when written 

copies were first produced. By the tenth and 

eleventh centuries written sutras were common and 

monastic complexes such as Nalanda produced illustrated 

texts. Sutras were copied onto leaves of the tala 

or palmyra tree, the oldest extant example being one 

brought from China to Japan in 608. The palm leaves 

are approximately three to four inches wide by twelve 

to eighteen inches long. The text was written on both 

sides of the palm leaves, which were lacquered or prepared 

with pigments before the inscription of the texts. 

Strung together, the palm leaves were bound between 

covers of narrow boards upon which illustrations and 

decorative motifs were also drawn. Illustrated sutras 

were also executed on paper that was cut, strung, and 

bound in the shape and style of palm-leaf sutras. 

The illustrations on these manuscripts were placed 

in single frames between lines of text or on the covers. 

Common subjects included individual deities and the 


S U TRA 

I LLUSTRATIONS 

This twelfth-century Japanese work illustrates the Buddha preaching in the mountains, from the epilogue to the Lotus Su tra. (Japanese, 

Heian period, 794–1185.) © Reunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY. Reproduced by permission. 

eight great events of Śakyamuni’s life. In many instances, 

the figures depicted had no specific connection 

with the contents of the text and probably 

functioned as symbols of protection and reverence for 

the text. In other instances, particularly in later manuscripts, 

there were deities and narrative scenes based 

on the contents of the sutra. The images were painted 

most often in ink and gouache, but also could have gold 

and silver accents. The miniaturization necessary to the 

format and the preeminence of the text hampered the 

development of continuous or complex narrative illustrations. 

Illuminated sutras reached an artistic apogee 

in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, declined in number 

for several centuries, and experienced resurgence in 

number and quality in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 

eighteenth centuries, especially in Nepal, Tibet, Thailand, 

and Burma. 

Su tra illustrations in East Asia 

East Asian Buddhists copied sutras from as early as the 

fourth century in China, where the development of and 

the Chinese reverence for the written word led to sutra 

copying on a large scale. Sutra copying reached its peak 

in the Tang period (618–907) in China, the Heian 

(794–1185) and Kamakura (1185–1333) periods in 

Japan, and the Koryŏ period (918–1392) in Korea. The 

sutras were copied chiefly onto hand scrolls, but the 

folded book (Japanese, orihon), in which a scroll was 

folded in accordion fashion, and the bound book of 

separate sheets of paper were also used. Although the 

initial impetus was the need for copies of the text, the 

copied sutras also were revered as evidence of the sponsor’s 

piety and merit. The veneration of sutras led to 

increasing adornment involving dyeing, marbling, decorative 

designs, and illustrations, as well as the use of 

gold and silver inks. 

The most common form of sutra illustration is the 

frontispiece painting found at the beginning of hand 

or folded book scrolls. These paintings were often executed 

in gold and silver inks and formed a style common 

to all East Asian cultures. The subject matter 

frequently centered upon the Buddha preaching to a 

group of BODHISATTVAS, deva, ARHATs, and practitioners. 

A printed version of the DIAMOND SU TRA from 

DUNHUANG dated 868 is the earliest dated versions of 

such a frontispiece illustration. The scene of preaching 

did not always reflect the specific content of the text. 

However, some frontispiece paintings illustrated the 

main doctrines or stories of the text either as single illustrations 

or as additions to the preaching scene. 

A second broad category of paintings evoked, rather 

than directly illustrated, the text’s message. Japanese illustrations 

of the Heian and Kamakura periods sometimes 

referred to poetry or stories about the ideas and 

episodes in the sutra. These illustrations appear to be 

unrelated to the text, but have hidden script and rebus 

that, when decoded, related to the specific sutra. The 

Heike Nokyo of 1164 is a good example of this evocative 

style of illustration. 

Illustrations were also painted in the upper sections 

over text that was written in the lower sections, or the 


811

S UVARN APRABHA SOTTAMA- SU TRA 

illustrations were interspersed between sections of the 

text. In both cases the text and picture were more 

closely interwoven than in frontispiece illustrations, 

and therefore these paintings were often more literal 

renditions of the text. 

Finally, there were sutra illustrations that had no relationship 

to the text. These illustrations were linked 

to the sponsor or copyist of the sutra and thereby emphasized 

the person to whom merit accrued for copying 

the sutra. It is believed that the fan-shaped booklets 

from the twelfth century at Shitennoji are examples of 

a sutra written over paper painted with genre, courtier, 

and landscape scenes that once belonged to the sponsor 

of the copied sutra. 

Regardless of format or material, sutra illustrations 

functioned in many ways: as illustrations and evocations 

of the sutra’s content, as protective talismans of 

the text, as emblems of the sponsor, and as pure 

adornment to an object of reverence. 

See also: Scripture 

Bibliography 

Egami, Yasushi, ed. Sôshkugyo (Nihon no Bijutsu no. 278). 

Tokyo: Shibundo, 1989. 

O yama, Ninkai, ed. Shakyo (Nihon no Bijutsu no. 156). Tokyo: 

Shibundo, 1979. 

Pal, Pratapadtya, and Meech-Pekarik, Julia. Buddhist Book Illuminations. 

New York: Ravi Kumar, 1988. 

Tanabe, Willa Jane. Paintings of the Lotus Sutra. New York: 

Weatherhill, 1988. 

WILLA JANE TANABE 

SUVARN APRABHA SOTTAMA-SU TRA 

A MAHAYANA sutra likely compiled in northern Indic 

or Central Asian regions between the first and third 

centuries C.E., the Suvarnaprabhasottama-su tra (Sutra 

of Golden Light) is rich and varied in content. The nineteen 

chapters of the Sanskrit version preserved in the 

Nepalese tradition include a confession ritual, several 

chapters that prescribe rituals surrounding the preaching 

or hearing of the sutra, two chapters dealing with 

medicine, and three tales of the Buddha’s past lives (JA- 

TAKA), including a distinctive telling of the well-known 

“Tigress Story.” Most of the sutra’s seemingly disparate 

parts share an emphasis upon the transformative 

power of the sutra itself, represented as golden light 

that infuses its preachers and auditors. The role of the 

sutra in protecting and sustaining the kingdom of the 

ruler who accords it appropriate respect is another 

dominant theme. 

The transmission history of the text is particularly 

complex. The sutra is partially or wholly extant in 

seven languages other than Sanskrit (Chinese, Tibetan, 

Khotanese, Sogdian, Tangut, Mongolian, and Old 

Uighur), in versions ranging from eighteen to thirtyone 

chapters in length. Both the Chinese and the Tibetan 

canons preserve several different versions of the 

sutra. Many of the translations are based not on the 

Sanskrit sutra but on YIJING’s thirty-one chapter Chinese 

translation of the early eighth century. The Mongolian 

translations are based on the versions in the 

Tibetan canon. In both China and Japan the sutra was 

a central text in imperial rituals and was the subject of 

several commentaries. In Tibet, the text was sometimes 

classified as a TANTRA rather than a sutra. 


Bibliography 

Emmerick, R. E., trans. The Su tra of Golden Light, Being a Translation 

of the Suvarnaprabhasottama-su tra, 2nd edition. Oxford: 


SUZUKI, D. T. 

NATALIE D. GUMMER 

Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (1870–1966) was one of the 

most important individuals involved in the twentiethcentury 

spread of Japanese Buddhism, particularly 

Zen, to the West. A lay popularizer of Japanese spirituality, 

Suzuki resided in the United States for two extended 

periods, in the early twentieth century and 

again in the 1950s. Through his distinctive lectures and 

voluminous, though idiosyncratic, writings in English, 

Suzuki sparked an interest in Zen and Japanese culture 

among many influential Western scholars, intellectuals, 

artists, and writers. 

See also: Chan School; Japan; Zen, Popular Conceptions 




S YNCRETIC S ECTS: THREE T EACHINGS 

SYNCRETIC SECTS: THREE TEACHINGS 

While popular religious movements have left their 

marks in the Chinese historical record since the Eastern 

Han dynasty (25–220 C.E.), a new type of syncretic 

sectarianism emerged from the Yuan dynasty (1279– 

1368) onwards. Continuing trends begun under the 

preceding Song dynasty (960–1279), this age was characterized 

by expanding commerce, the spread of literacy, 

a flourishing printing and publishing industry, 

improved communication and transport systems 

throughout the empire, and increasing social and geographical 

mobility of the population. All of these factors 

facilitated the flow of religious ideas across 

regions, denominational boundaries, and classes, and 

thereby stimulated the emergence of new religious 

movements. The resulting syncretic proclivities of the 

age are part of a long history of negotiating the relationship 

of China’s two major indigenous traditions 

(Confucianism and Daoism) with the foreign newcomer, 

Buddhism. Harmonizing tendencies constituted 

a strong intellectual undercurrent among the 

literati elite, while striking even deeper roots in popular 

religion, where a focus on family and the local community 

did not require exclusive affiliation with a 

particular teaching. Instead, each was seen to have its 

role to play in the life cycles of families and communities, 

and thus the concepts and religious specialists 

associated with each could be drawn upon as needed. 

This general outlook conditioned the efforts of popular 

religious virtuosi, creative individuals who possessed 

enough literacy to benefit from the burgeoning 

supply of printed texts, but lacked the formal education 

needed to gain access to literati circles. Many 

founders of popular sects from the Yuan dynasty onwards 

came from the ranks of these “folk intellectuals,” 

who received inspiration from many sources and 

combined their ideas into new religious systems. These 

systems become visible to the historian of religion primarily 

in the texts composed by sectarian founders, 

texts that are treasure troves of information on the religious 

life of China throughout the Late Imperial period 

up into modern times. 

This entry will focus on the contributions of Buddhism 

to the colorful world of Chinese popular sectarianism. 

The impact of Buddhist thought varied 

from sect to sect, with some movements being so 

strongly Buddhist in orientation that they have been 

regarded by outside observers as “lay” or “folk Buddhist” 

movements, while the teachings of others were 

more influenced by Daoism. Lin Zhao’en (1517– 

1598), for example, founded the Sanyi Jiao (Three-in- 

One sect), which sought to combine the Three Teachings, 

but in doing so emphasized Confucianism and 

the internal alchemy of Quanzhen (Complete Realization) 

Daoism over Buddhism. On the other hand, Luo 

Qing (1442–1527), founder of the Wuwei (Non- 

Action) sect, was a major figure in Buddhist-inspired 

sectarianism. Originally a soldier by profession, he set 

out on a quest for salvation, studied with various masters, 

and drew inspiration from a large number of 

texts, the majority of which were Buddhist in nature. 

Among these, the Jin’gang keyi (Ritual Amplification of 

the Diamond Su tra) touched him particularly; he devoted 

three years of study to this text and frequently 

referred to it in his writings. His teachings show a 

strong influence of Chan Buddhism, with an emphasis 

on the individual’s recovery of his or her innate 

buddha-nature, or TATHAGATAGARBHA. For Luo Qing, 

the concept of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) collapsed all distinctions, 

including those between men and women, 

and clergy and laity, opening up release from SAM SARA 

for all living beings. His writings were gathered in a 

collection called the Wubu liuce (Five Books in Six Volumes), 

which still enjoys the status of sacred scripture 

among present-day sects such as the Longhua Pai 

(Dragon Flower Sect) of southeastern China. 

Alongside the “popular Chan” of Luo Qing, there 

developed a separate sectarian tradition of a millenarian 

nature. The first text to formulate this approach is, 

in fact, the earliest surviving sectarian scripture, dated 

to 1430: the Foshuo huangji jieguo baojuan (Precious 

Volume Expounded by the Buddha on the [Karmic] Results 

of the [Teaching of the] Imperial Ultimate [Period]). 

Here we find a Buddhist inspired view of the 

world as moving through three cycles: First there was 

the Ultimateless (wuji) period reigned over by the 

Lamplighter (Dpam kara) Buddha (Randeng Fo); the 

present age is that of the Great Ultimate (taiji), governed 

by Śakyamuni Buddha; and now the world is 

about to enter the Imperial Ultimate (huangji) period 

of the Buddha MAITREYA. This three-stage COSMOLOGY 

with its eschatological expectation of a savior ushering 

in a new and better world became a powerful motif 

among later popular sects. It was modified somewhat 

by the introduction of a mother goddess, the Eternal 

Mother (Wusheng Laomu), who dispatched the various 

buddhas to the world so that her human children 

might return to their original home at their Mother’s 

side. This return is becoming urgent as the world 


813

S YNCRETIC S ECTS: THREE T EACHINGS 

enters its final period and is on an inexorable course 

toward apocalyptic destruction. Sometimes, sectarian 

leaders themselves claimed to be Maitreya, sent by the 

Eternal Mother to gather in her children; occasionally, 

millenarian fervor initiated political action, as sects rebelled 

in an attempt to usher in the new age. The bestknown 

modern representative of this millenarian 

tradition is the Yiguan Dao (Way of Unity), an influential 

religious movement in Taiwan and Hong Kong 

and among overseas Chinese, which was founded in 

the 1920s by a patriarch who claimed to be the Living 

Buddha Jigong, dispatched by the Eternal Mother to 

open up a path of salvation in this final age. 

Thus, Buddhism historically served as an important 

source of inspiration for Chinese popular sects. Buddhist 

concepts and themes were integrated with Confucian 

and Daoist elements, as well as with elements 

of popular origin (such as mediumistic practices), to 

produce a variegated array of religious movements. 

The creativity of popular sectarianism has not ebbed 

in the modern age, as new sects keep emerging. Some 

of these draw on older sectarian traditions, while others 

make a fresh start by taking a new look at China’s 

Three Teachings. A modern example of a sect that 

draws strongly on (in this case, tantric) Buddhist material 

is the Zhenfo Zong (True Buddha movement), 

founded by Lu Shengyan (1945– ) in the 1980s. Headquartered 

in Seattle, Washington, it is particularly active 

among overseas Chinese. While usually eyed with 

some suspicion by the mainline SAṄGHA, the Buddhist 

borrowings of such syncretic sects are a testimony to 

the successful integration of Buddhism into Chinese 

popular culture and to its power to inspire religious 

innovation. 

See also: Confucianism and Buddhism; Daoism and 

Buddhism; Folk Religion, China; Millenarianism and 

Millenarian Movements 

Bibliography 

Berling, Judith A. The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en. New 


Dean, Kenneth. Lord of the Three in One: The Spread of a Cult 

in Southeast China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1998. 

Haar, Barend J. ter. The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious 

History. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1992. 

Jordan, David K., and Overmyer, Daniel L. The Flying Phoenix: 

Aspects of Chinese Sectarianism in Taiwan. Princeton, NJ: 


Ma Xisha, and Han Bingfang. Zhongguo minjian zongjiaoshi. 

Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1992. 

Overmyer, Daniel L. Folk Buddhist Religion. Cambridge, MA: 


Overmyer, Daniel L. “Messenger, Savior, and Revolutionary: 

Maitreya in Chinese Popular Religious Literature of the Sixteenth 

and Seventeenth Centuries.” In Maitreya, the Future 

Buddha, ed. Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre. Cambridge, 


Overmyer, Daniel L. Precious Volumes: An Introduction to Chinese 

Sectarian Scriptures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 

Centuries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 

1999. 

PHILIP CLART 


T 

TACHIKAWARYU 

Tachikawaryu is the name of a subschool of Shingon 

Buddhism, one of the two Japanese schools of tantric 

Buddhism. Probably founded by Ninkan, who was active 

in the early twelfth century, Tachikawaryu seems 

to have continued into the seventeenth century. The 

epithets often associated with it, “perverse teaching” or 

“perverse school,” imply that this subschool taught a 

set of doctrines and rituals that were strongly sexualized. 

Tachikawaryu was denounced by Yukai (1345– 

1416) and other representatives of the Buddhist orthodoxy 

during the Middle Ages, and most of the texts 

associated with the school are now lost. However, examination 

of the few extant texts that can be traced 

back to Tachikawaryu reveals that its teachings were 

not very different from those of the other Shingon subschools. 

In addition, a close reading of Shinjo’s Juho - 

yo jin shu (Circumspect Acceptance of the Dharma, 

1268), the earliest text that is commonly believed to be 

a denunciatory account of Tachikawaryu practices, reveals 

that the sexual rituals described are not said to 

pertain to Tachikawaryu. Shinjo speaks simply of 

“these rituals,” without naming them. 

It is possible to distinguish at least two levels of sexual 

doctrines and rituals in medieval Japanese religion. 

First, in every lineage of what is usually called kenmitsu 

Buddhism, sexual elements were widely spread and 

practiced, at least in a metaphorical way. Tachikawaryu 

may well be counted as one of these lineages, although 

there were certainly more purist tendencies in each lineage. 

Second, the rituals described by Shinjo may have 

been taught and practiced only in a particular segment 

of this general movement. The rituals imply not only 

sexual intercourse, but also ritual use of a human skull. 


Japan; Japan; Kamakura Buddhism, Japan; Shingon 

Buddhism, Japan; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Kock, Stephen. “The Dissemination of the Tachikawa-ryu and 

the Problem of Orthodox and Heretic Teaching in Shingon 

Buddhism.” Studies in Indian Philosophy and Buddhism, 

Tokyo University, 7 (2000): 69–83. 

Sanford, James. “The Abominable Tachikawa Skull Ritual.” 


TAIWAN 

NOBUMI IYANAGA 

Scholars can document the existence of Buddhism in 

Taiwan only from the migration of Chinese fleeing to 

the island after their failure to restore the fallen Ming 

dynasty in 1662. The “Southern Ming” court ruled Taiwan 

until the Qing dynasty captured the island in 1683. 

The subsequent history of Buddhism in Taiwan falls 

into three periods delimited by the three political 

regimes that followed: Qing rule (1683–1895); Japanese 

viceroyalty (1895–1945); and Han Chinese rule 

(1945–present). 

The Southern Ming/Qing dynasty period 

Chinese and Japanese scholars agree that knowledge 

and practice of Buddhism during this time was relatively 

unsophisticated. Taiwan was a land of pirates, 

typhoons, plagues, and headhunting natives, and did 

not attract China’s social elite. Many of the “monks” 

815

T AIWAN 

A row of golden Buddha statues at Fo Kuang Shan Monastery, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. © Michael S. Yamashita/Corbis. Reproduced by 

permission. 

of this period were Ming loyalists who fled to the island 

in clerical disguise, and legitimate clerics were few 

in number and largely ignorant of Buddhist teachings. 

Those whose names appear in the records were noted 

for non-Buddhist accomplishments such as rainmaking, 

painting, poetry, and playing go. Most clerics functioned 

as temple caretakers and funeral specialists, and 

did not engage in teaching, meditation or other Buddhist 

practices. 

The first known monk to migrate from the mainland 

is Canche (d.u.), who arrived in 1675. Chen 

Yonghua, a military commander, had built a monastery 

called the Dragon Lake Grotto (Longhu Yan), and invited 

Canche to serve as abbot. Canche later founded 

the Blue Cloud Monastery (Biyun-si) on Fire Mountain 

(Huoshan) near the present-day town of Chia-yi. 

As the island became more settled, many more 

monasteries were founded, particularly around the 

capital city of Tainan. Notable among these early 

monasteries are the Zhuxi (“Bamboo Stream”) Monastery 

(1664); the Haihui (“Ocean Assembly”) Monastery 

(1680); the Fahua (“Dharma-Flower”) Monastery 

(1683); the Mituo (“Amitabha”) Monastery (d.u.); the 

Longshan (“Dragon Mountain”) Monastery (1738); 

the Chaofeng (“Surpassing Peak”) Monastery (registered 

1763); and the Daxian (“Great Immortal”) Monastery 

(d.u.). Despite this vigorous activity, most of 

the MONKS and NUNS in these monasteries had probably 

received only the novices’ ordination; there was no 

ordaining monastery in Taiwan, and only scant records 

exist of those who journeyed to the mainland to receive 

the full PRECEPTS. 

The Japanese colonial period 

In 1895 the Chinese government ceded the island to 

Japan, and the Japanese troops brought Buddhist 

chaplains with them. These chaplains were eager to establish 

mission stations in order to propagate Japanese 

Buddhism to the native population, but funding 

from their head temples was insufficient, and only a 

very small percentage of the Chinese population ever 

enrolled in Japanese Buddhist lineages. 

One of the most notable features of the Japanese 

period was, in fact, the effort on the part of the local 


T AIWAN 

Buddhists to maintain their Chinese identity and traditions. 

This period saw the institution of the first facilities 

for transmitting the full monastic precepts in 

Taiwan. Four monasteries established “ordination 

platforms”: The Lingquan (“Spirit Spring”) Chan 

Monastery in Keelung, the Lingyun (“Soaring Cloud”) 

Chan Monastery on Guanyin Mountain, the Fayun 

(“Dharma Cloud”) Chan Monastery near Miaoli, and 

the Chaofeng (“Surpassing the Peak”) Monastery in 

Kaohsiung County. The leaders of these monasteries 

all received ordination at the Yongquan (“Surging 

Spring”) Monastery in Fuzhou, China, and they transmitted 

their tonsure-lineages to Taiwan. Monks and 

nuns ordained from these monasteries went forth and 

founded other monasteries, giving rise to the “four 

great ancestral lineages” that defined and organized 

Buddhism during this period. 

At the same time, there were small groups of Chinese 

Buddhist monks who studied Marxism and advocated 

the relaxation of monastic discipline as a 

means to strengthen solidarity with ordinary people, 

while also resisting Japanese domination. 

Even as Chinese Buddhism attempted to maintain 

its own distinctive identity, it still had to accommodate 

the government; thus clergy and laity joined 

together to form Buddhist organizations that functioned 

as governmental liaisons. The largest of these, 

founded in 1922 by Marui Keijiro, was called the 

South Seas Buddhist Association, which operated until 

1945. These organizations were significant because 

they included members of zhaijiao, the “vegetarian 

religion”—a form of popular Buddhism that stood 

apart from the monastic establishment and rejected its 

oversight. Zhaijiao’s participation in these Buddhist 

organizations marks the only time in history that they 

ever cooperated with monastic Buddhism. In 1945 they 

parted ways once again. 

The Republican period (1945–present) 

At the end of the Pacific War (known as World War 

II in the United States), Taiwan was returned to 

China, and the Japanese were evacuated. Four years 

later, in 1949, mainland China fell to the communists, 

and the nationalists fled to Taiwan. All of these events 

kept the political and economic situation in turmoil, 

and Buddhist clerics experienced difficulty keeping 

their monasteries viable. A few refugee Buddhist 

monks from the mainland, such as Cihang 

(1895–1954), were imprisoned on suspicion of spying. 

A few monks of national eminence also arrived, 

such as the Zhangjia Living Buddha (1891–1957), 

Baisheng (1904–1989), Wuming (1912– ), and YIN- 

SHUN (1906– ). They were the leaders of the newly revived 

Buddhist Association of the Republic of China 

(BAROC), and came to Taiwan for reasons that paralleled 

those of the nationalists: to use Taiwan as a 

base of operations until they could return home to rebuild 


The BAROC mediated between Buddhism and the 

government in several ways: The government expected 

it to register all clergy and temples, organize and administer 

clerical ordinations, certify clergy for exit 

visas, and help in framing laws dealing with religion. 

The BAROC also confronted the government when it 

felt religious interests were threatened. Two notable 

controversies concerned the failure of the government 

to return confiscated Japanese-era monasteries to religious 

use, and the government’s obstruction of efforts 

to establish a Buddhist university. 

Because the laws on civic organizations allowed only 

one organization to fill any single niche in society, the 

BAROC enjoyed hegemony until the late 1980s. In 

1989 the government stopped dealing with Buddhist 

monks and nuns separately, and registered them under 

their lay names as ordinary citizens. Thus, the 

BAROC was no longer needed to certify their status. 

That same year, a new law on civic organizations took 

effect, abolishing the “one niche, one organization” 

rule and opening the way for competition. In the ensuing 

period, other Buddhist organizations took root. 

Some grew out of preexisting groups, most notably Fo 

Kuang Shan and the Buddhist Compassionate Relief 

Tz’u-Chi Association. Others were newly founded, 

such as Dharma Drum Mountain. 

Recent changes 

Buddhism in Taiwan has undergone many changes 

during the last few decades as the island has shifted 

from an agrarian, village-based to an industrial, urbanbased 

society. Four particularly prominent developments 

follow. 

Historically, monks have predominated numerically 

over nuns in Chinese Buddhism. Since the 1950s 

the number of nuns in Taiwan has increased relative 

to the number of monks: Between 1953 and 1986 the 

BAROC ordained 2,030 men and 6,006 women. With 

more women than men seeking ordination, women are 

much more likely to be eliminated or given longer periods 

of testing. This has raised the overall quality and 

status of the nuns’ order relative to the monks. 


817

T AIWAN 

A ceremony at Fo Kuang Shan Monastery, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 1987. © Don Farber 2003. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 

This first development must be seen against a backdrop 

of steadily decreasing ordinations overall. Between 

1949 and 1989, when the population of Taiwan 

rose from 7.5 million to over 20 million, the number 

of new ordinations each year, especially male, did not 

keep pace. Many observers understand this phenomenon 

to be part of a trend in the Buddhist world at 

large, where laity has grown increasingly active and 

prominent. 

Third, the ethical content of Buddhism in Taiwan 

has undergone change. Some organizations such as Fo 

Kuang Shan and the Buddhist Compassionate Relief 

Tz’u-Chi Association have propounded new precepts 

that followers formally undertake. The founder of Fo 

Kuang Shan, Xingyun (1927– ), has published his vision 

of “Fo Kuang Buddhism” in several lectures and 

books, in which he seeks to turn followers’ attention 

away from otherworldly concerns, such as rituals for 

the dead and rebirth in the Pure Land, and toward efforts 

to benefit living beings in this world. Likewise, the 

Buddhist Compassionate Relief Tz’u-chi Association 

under its founder Zhengyan (1937– ) trains its followers 

to be of assistance within the present world. As an 

association composed almost entirely of laypeople, the 

focus is on social action rather than maintaining monastic 

roles. Individual monasteries such as the Nongchan 

Monastery in northern Taipei and the Faguang Monastery 

in downtown Taipei are two of many that no 

longer use disposable chopsticks and bowls due to a 

concern for the environment. In all these contexts, the 

slogan is “to build a Pure Land on Earth.” 

Finally, Buddhist monasteries in Taiwan have 

changed their fund-raising methods in response to developments 

in the economic sphere. In place of traditional 

methods of generating income, such as soliciting 

donations, providing funeral services, and renting land 

for agriculture, many monasteries seek to build bases 

of lay support in a more systematic, less overtly commercial 

way. They organize their core constituency 

into lay organizations, such as the Dharmapala organization 

that supports Dharma Drum Mountain. They 

found collegiate Buddhist fellowships and lead students 

in meditation or Pure Land retreats. Some of the 

larger urban monasteries have publishing concerns. 


T AKUAN 

S O HO 

However, the most universal means of raising money 

is still to hold “dharma meetings” (fahui), in which 

laypeople come to hear sutras recited, see the ceremony 

of releasing living beings (fangsheng), or witness a ritual 

for the Release of the Burning Mouths (yuqie 

yankou), in which hungry ghosts are freed from their 

torments, fed, and receive teaching. 

See also: China; Colonialism and Buddhism; Pure 

Land Schools 

Bibliography 

Jones, Charles B. Buddhism in Taiwan: Religion and the State 

1660–1990. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. 

Jones, Charles B. “Buddhism and Marxism in Taiwan: Lin Qiuwu’s 

Religious Socialism and Its Legacy in Modern Times.” 

Journal of Global Buddhism 1 (2000): 82–111. 

Laliberté, André. “The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in 

Taiwan: 1989–1997.” Ph.D. diss. University of British Columbia, 

1999. 

CHARLES B. JONES 

the Chinese Buddhist Association, which had been established 

by the monk Yuanying (1878–1953) in 

Shanghai in 1929. But Taixu’s involvement with political 

leaders such as Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) of 

the Nationalist government enabled him to continue 

his Buddhist reforms and trips abroad. 

After the end of World War II in 1945, Taixu regained 

his influence and served on the Zhongguo fojiao 

zhengli weiyuan hui (Committee for the Reorganization 

of Chinese Buddhism). Hindered by the civil war 

(1946–1949) between the Communists and Nationalists, 

Taixu was unable to complete his reforms. He died 

on March 17, 1947, in Shanghai. His writings and lectures 

were posthumously published under the title 

Taixu dashi quanshu (The Collected Works of Great 

Master Taixu). 

Taixu is regarded as the most important and controversial 

reformer in the history of modern Chinese 

Buddhism. His significance lies not in his reform movements, 

which in fact yielded limited results, but rather 

in his vision and ideas to modernize Chinese Buddhism 

through lay cooperation, intellectual promotion, social 

engagement, and international involvement. 

TAIXU 

Taixu (Lü Peilin, 1890–1947) was a Chinese Buddhist 

monk and reformer in the early Republican era 

(1912–1949). He was born on January 8, 1890, into a 

working-class family in Haining County of Zhejiang 

Province. In 1904 he joined the monastic order and received 

the Buddhist name Taixu (Supreme Emptiness). 

Several months later, Taixu formally took the 

Buddhist precepts at Tiantong Monastery in Ningbo, 

Zhejiang, where he studied Buddhism with a focus on 

MAHAYANA texts and Chan meditation. 

Taixu started his reform activity by founding Jueshe 

(Awakening Society) in Shanghai in 1918. Disregarding 

opposition from conservative Buddhists, Taixu 

campaigned for a socially engaged form of Buddhism 

and for a worldwide Buddhist mission. He aimed to 

organize the Buddhist clergy, revitalize Mahayana 

teachings, and propagate Buddhist studies. He also 

called for the government to preserve monastic resources. 

Under Taixu’s leadership, the monthly periodical 

Haichao yin (The Sound of the Sea Tide) began 

publication in 1920, and the Wuchang foxue yuan 

(Wuchang Buddhist Institute) in Hubei, the first modern 

Chinese Buddhist seminary, was established in 

1922. During the 1930s Taixu’s leadership declined in 

See also: China; Yinshun 

Bibliography 

Pittman, Don A. Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s 

Reforms. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. 

Taixu dashi quanshu (The Collected Works of Great Master 

Taixu), 62 vols. Taibei: Haichao yin she, 1950–. 

TAKUAN SO HO 


Takuan Soho (1573–1645) was a Japanese Zen (Chan) 

priest affiliated with the Daitokuji temple in Kyoto. In 

1629 the Tokugawa government banished Takuan to 

northern Japan because of his open opposition to the 

new government regulations that had been imposed 

on the Zen monasteries of Kyoto. After his pardon in 

1632, Takuan moved to Edo (modern Tokyo), where 

he eventually became adviser to the third Tokugawa 

shogun, Iemitsu (1604–1651). Today Takuan is best 

remembered for a letter he wrote to the fencing instructor 

Yagyu Munenori (1571–1646) in which he 

used swordsmanship as an example to explain the importance 

of imperturbability and mental freedom in 


819

T ANTRA 

the performance of one’s duties. Reprinted under the 

title Fudo chi shinmyo roku (Record of Marvelous Immovable 

Wisdom), Takuan’s treatise is frequently cited 

by people who advocate a connection between Buddhism, 

especially Zen, and Japanese martial arts. 

See also: Chan School; Martial Arts; Zen, Popular Conceptions 


TANTRA 


Tantra in Western nomenclature has achieved forms 

of signification independent from its Sanskritic use and 

has become a somewhat promiscuous category applied 

to various RITUALS otherwise not easily classified. In 

general parlance, tantra indicates the pan-Indic religious 

system that became emulated in Buddhist, 

Hindu, and Jain circles, and tantra is often understood 

as having an erotic component. This entry will discuss 

the idea of tantra in India and in Central and East Asia. 

India and Nepal 

The word tantra in India was much more widely applied 

than might be understood from the modern explanation 

of its derivation from √tan—to weave. In 

medieval Sanskrit, the term signifies many forms of 

complex arrangement and may denote military deployment, 

a loom, certain forms of ritual, a political 

culture, a scriptural text emphasizing selected rituals, 

the pan-Indic religious aesthetic, and so on. In Buddhism, 

tantra is usually understood to include the use 

of MANTRAs authorized by a preceptor on a disciple 

during a complex initiation rite that confers the disciple 

with the authority to engage in many different 

kinds of ritual associated with a specific class of BUD- 

DHAS, BODHISATTVAS, or Buddhist DIVINITIES. Included 

in the rituals are the construction or visualization of 

sacred circles (MAN D ALA), the use of hand gestures 

(MUDRA), and the employment of fire sacrifice (homa), 

all of which may be for the purpose of specific soteriological 

or nonsoteriological goals. These latter are 

usually the four ritual actions of the pacification of obstacles, 

the increase of prosperity, the subjugation of 

difficulties, and the destruction of enemies; they may 

be performed for the practitioner’s own ends or on behalf 

of a patron. 

However, many of these elements had already enjoyed 

a lengthy precedent in Buddhist ritual long before 

the coalescence of mature esoteric Buddhism—to 

which tantra may properly be applied—in the late seventh 

and early eighth centuries. It is historically misleading 

to understand normative MAHAYANA rituals as 

tantric in any significant sense, despite the fact that 

many of them make use of several of the elements eventually 

included in esoteric Buddhism. Moreover, many 

of the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and Buddhist divinities 

that originated in the Mahayanist ritual environment 

eventually made the easy transition to the esoteric milieu. 

The primary difference between normative Mahayana 

and tantric Buddhism is that the latter 

appropriates an overarching political metaphor of 

overlordship in this very life, so that the INITIATION is 

performed in a manner derived from the coronation 

rituals of medieval Hinduism. Tantric Buddhism may 

be understood as a sacralization of the early medieval 

political and military fragmentation of North India, 

with its contentious rivalries between feudal clans. 

Consequently, it expresses an emphasis on secrecy, loyalty, 

allegiance, and unbreakable trust; on the visualization 

of self as a divine king (devataraja) controlling 

complex spheres of dominion and power (mandala); 

on new arrangements of vows; and on the use of any 

means necessary to achieve stated goals or secret ends. 

All of these items are generally absent from normative 

Mahayanist rites. 

Thus, replacing the self-sacrificial bodhisattva is the 

ideal of all-powerful siddha or MAHASIDDHA, the perfected 

being to whom no standards of behavior can 

apply. Siddhas also employed the methods of medieval 

sorcerers (VIDYADHARA)—such as the tantric feast 

(ganacakra) involving the sacramental employment of 

ritualized group sex and the ingestion of illicit substances 

like meat and liquor—in their search for magical 

powers. In imitation of the behavior of Śaiva and 

other ascetics, some siddhas wore ornaments of human 

bone, carried staffs of distinctive shapes, and frequented 

cremation grounds or forest areas. Their 

interest in tribal peoples is a theme in much of the 

later literature, and some siddhas were known to have 

spent time among the forest tribes of Central or Eastern 

India. From them, specific divinities appear to 

have been appropriated, possibly including Śam vara, 

Heruka, and Jaṅguli. Siddhas were also interested in 

herbs and drugs, and their use of intoxicants like 

datura is well attested. The tendency to group siddhas 

into various numbering systems (84 being most common, 

but 20, 40, 50, 80, and other numbers are also 

seen) occurred rather late and reflects Indian organizational 

strategies. 


T ANTRA 

Siddhas may have been a minority, though, since 

Buddhist monks are quite frequently represented as 

Buddhist monastic tantrikas. Monastic Buddhism apparently 

tried to displace overt siddha behavior with 

visualized or covert forms, and we occasionally read 

of monks becoming siddhas by being expelled from 

their cloisters for inappropriate behavior. Monks 

were responsible for domesticating the esoteric 

method by formulating it as on a continuum with 

monastic and Mahayana vows. This eighth-century 

hermeneutic was formalized in the triple discipline: 

The tantric master is expected to practice the vows of 

the monk (pratimoksasam vara), the bodhisattva 

(bodhisattvasam vara), and the sorcerer (vidyadharasam 

vara). This reading emphasized that the esoteric 

system was a branch of the Mahayana—the 

mantra-method (mantranaya). 

The maturation of tantric Buddhism happened surprisingly 

quickly. There is no concrete evidence for 

tantra prior to the late seventh century, and yet all the 

basic principles were in place a century later. It is also 

primarily a North and Central Indian phenomenon, 

with modest contributions from South India or Sri 

Lanka. The emphasis on PILGRIMAGE sites predominantly 

found in North and Central India, like the legendary 

Odiyana (Swat Valley), reflect this reality. 

Because tantra arose in a culture of fragmentation, 

there is little textual unity, and the works classified by 

later authors as tantric may call themselves by other titles: 

discourse (sutra), meditative aid (DHARAN I), secret 

spell (MANTRA), incantation (vidya), ritual (kalpa), 

as well as tantra. The textual sources gain added complexity 

through the tendency of later authors to read 

esoteric directions into earlier Buddhist scriptures and 

to incorporate these scriptures in their exegesis. Accordingly, 

the HEART SU TRA is often taken as a tantric 

text, since it contains a mantra, even though this text 

predates any tantric Buddhism per se. 

Classificatory systems thus had to wrestle with great 

differences in texts, and consequently there is no unanimity 

on tantric typology. Perhaps the most basic 

scheme is that employed by Buddhaguhya and others 

in the mid-eighth century: Tantras are those that 

emphasize external ritual activity (kriyanaya-tantra) 

or those that emphasize internal yogic practices 

(yoganaya-tantra). The fourfold classification favored 

by Tibetans has been often cited: Tantras are those that 

enjoin ritual action (kriya), behavioral practice (carya), 

meditation (yoga), or the highest yoga (anuttarayogatantra). 

Textual examples include the Susiddhikara 

(kriya), the Vairocanabhisambodhi (carya), the Sarvatathagatatattvasam 

graha (yoga), and the Guhyasamaja 

(anuttara-yoga-tantra). The latter category was often 

subdivided into two, with the Guhyasamaja being a 

mahayoga-tantra and works like the Cakrasam vara 

classified as a yoginl-tantra. It must be emphasized, 

though, that there were many other typologies—some 

with seven or more categories. Neither was there unanimity 

on which texts actually belonged to which categories, 

irrespective of the number of categories. Some 

important texts, like the Mañjuśrlnamasam glti or the 

Hevajra, might be classified into two or three categories, 

depending on the interpretation. 

Linguistically, the tantras reflect the regionalization 

of Indian society. They are written in regional or nonstandard 

Sanskrit—often influenced by colloquial expressions 

or grammar—and some of those composed 

in Eastern India use vernacular-based literary languages, 

such as Apabhram śa, in liturgical environments. 

Siddhas would also compose adamantine songs 

(vajraglti) to express their understanding or to critique 

others, and they often provided a signature line to 

identify the author. Consequently, tantric Buddhism 

returned to the autobiographical voice and the use of 

non-Sanskritic languages, as had been done in the early 

days of Buddhist literature but had been largely abandoned 

under the influence of the classical Mahayana. 

Ritually, the fundamental meditative ritual became 

the sadhana, a rite wherein the meditator visualized the 

buddha or divinity as before him or identical to himself, 

prior to performing specific activities: recitation 

of mantras, yoga, fire sacrifice, initiation, tantric feast, 

and so on. The visualization sequence most often included 

imagining a royal palace inside a protective 

sphere, and visualizing a lotus on which is placed a seed 

syllable (bljamantra), which transforms first into a 

symbol of the divinity and then into the divinity itself. 

Thus, the syllable om might turn into a wheel and then 

into the Buddha Vairocana. If the practice contained 

a full mandala of buddhas or divinities, the meditator 

would perform the same act (or an abbreviated version) 

for each figure. Because the mandala is generated 

or born, this meditative form is sometimes called the 

birthing or developing process (utpattikrama). 

Many of the later tantras also discuss an esoteric yogic 

physiology, sometimes called the vajra-body, in 

which the body contains psychic ganglia that may be 

represented in the form of wheels (cakra) or other 

arrangement. Generally, they contain the letters of the 

Sanskrit alphabet, the vowels (ali) and consonants (kali), 

in one or another of many specified combinations. 


821

T ANTRA 

Connecting the ganglia are channels (nadi) through 

which flows karmic winds (karmavayu) that are 

closely involved with the physiological and psychological 

processes. The letters and winds may also be 

posited as being the internal representations of external 

phenomena, so that the meditator’s perceptions 

are a result of the karmic relationship between the microcosm 

and macrocosm. The channels include a central 

channel and a left and right channel, eventually 

branching out into seventy-two thousand subsidiary 

channels that reach all areas of the body. In different 

visualizations, often called the perfecting process 

(sampannakrama), the meditator may imagine a flame 

below the navel or various lights in the wheels or employ 

a female sexual partner as a physical aid to harness 

the psychophysical process. By manipulating the 

winds that control his psychic processes, the meditator 

seeks eventually to drive these winds into some 

area of the central channel, an act that is said to transform 

the psychophysical winds into the gnostic wind 

(jñanavayu). As the process is accomplished, a series 

of visions emerges, ending in an awareness of the illusory 

nature of interior and exterior phenomena, 

with all forms finally resolving into the clear light of 

ultimate reality. 

Central Asia and Tibet 

Tantric Buddhism became quickly popular in the areas 

immediately contiguous to Northern India—Burma, 

Nepal, Tibet, Nanzhao—and spread into Central Asia 

and China. Tantric works were eventually translated 

into the Central Asian languages of Khotanese, Uighur, 

Tangut, and Mongolian, but TIBET became the most 

important area of tantric development. Three of the 

four major Tibetan orders—SA SKYA (SAKYA)-pa, BKA’ 

BRGYUD (KAGYU)-pa, and Dga’ ldan-pa (Gandenpa)— 

maintained a more or less conservative approach, following 

closely the later Indian tantras and other Indian 

scriptures translated in the astonishing efforts of the 

eighth through the fifteenth centuries. 

The RNYING MA (NYINGMA)-pa order, however, 

continued the Indian culture of scriptural composition 

rather than the simply the conservation of received 

Indian works. As a result, the production of 

tantras in Buddhist Tibet equaled or exceeded the 

number and volume produced in Buddhist India, and 

these Tibetan works were collected together with a few 

important Indian tantras into the Rnying ma rgyud 

‘bum (Old Tantric Canon), beginning in the eleventh 

century. Most of these texts claim translation from a 

non-Tibetan source: from Odiyana, Brusha, India, or 

Hayagrva, a Buddhist wrathful deity, shown with his consort. 

(Tibetan sculpture, bronze, eighteenth century.) The Art 

Archive/Musée Guimet Paris/Dagli Orti. Reproduced by permission. 

the realm of the goddesses. Many are revealed in the 

process of the treasure (gterma) phenomenon in Tibet 

and are said to have been buried physically or spiritually 

on Tibetan soil by important saints of the 

eighth- to ninth-century royal dynastic period of Tibetan 

history. 

While the content of many of the works is only beginning 

to be explored, our catalogues classify the Old 

Tantric Canon into the standard fourfold division accepted 

by most Tibetans (kriya, etc.), with the difference 

that the Highest Yoga tantras are further divided 

into three: mahayoga, anuyoga, and atiyoga. Generally, 

it is considered that the first two correspond in content 

to the division of Indian tantras into mahayoga 

and yoginl-tantras (while the texts themselves are 

mostly different) but the atiyoga category is understood 

to be a Rnying ma category, even though the 

term was used in India to describe a stage of meditative 

ritual. In Rnying ma parlance, atiyoga is generally 


T ANTRA 

equated with the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) and its 

literature is subdivided into three further varieties: the 

mental class (sems sde), the expanse class (klong sde), 

and the seminal drop class (snying thig sde). The first 

of these (mental class) appears to have evolved from 

the doctrines concerning the mind of awakening 

(bodhicitta), an important development in seventh- to 

eighth-century India based on an earlier Mahayanist 

idea. The second and third classes, however, are 

Rnying ma contributions and represent in some sense 

the flowering of indigenous Tibetan spirituality, although 

they build on Indian ideas and practices. 

Atiyoga tantras are also qualitatively different from Indian 

works by their increased emphasis on doctrinal 

and philosophical expressions rather than performative 

ritual systems, so that they constitute some of the 

more interesting expressions of Buddhist ideology. 

East Asia 

The question of the existence and role of tantra in East 

Asia has provoked considerable disagreement. While 

the dissemination of South Asian texts, rituals, and 

ideas that may be designated as tantric was a major 

factor in the cultural milieus of China, Korea, and 

Japan from the eighth century onward, these developments 

were usually understood as new discursive and 

ritual extensions of the Mahayana. A survey of the 

Japanese Bukkyo daijiten (Encyclopedia of Buddhism) 

and the Mikkyo daijiten (Encyclopedia of the Esoteric 

Teachings) yields almost no references to tantra and 

the phrase “great teaching king” (da jiao wang) that 

sometimes served as a translation of mahatantraraja is 

rare and occurs mostly in titles of a few Song dynasty 

(960–1279) translators. The scarcity of the designation 

is not merely an effect of an ideological rejection of 

later tantras, such as the Hevajra, by Japanese Shingon 

orthodoxy. Rather, the absence of a transliterated form 

of the term tantra in the context of assiduous transliteration 

of mantras and dharans into Chinese underscores 

the irrelevance of the term throughout most of 

East Asia. While tantra is missing, mantra, dharan, 

siddhi, abhiseka, homa, aveśa (induced trance), and so 

on are well attested both in transliterated and translated 

forms. 

Rather than either trying to apply a South Asian label 

that East Asians ignored or trying to measure Chinese 

and Korean religious history by the yardstick of 

Japanese sectarian developments, we do better asking 

a different set of questions, questions guided by the vocabulary 

that is present: Where do the ideas, discourses, 

pantheon, practices, and texts of South Asian 

tantra appear in East Asia? Who circulates them and 

what are the conditions of their reproduction, assimilation, 

and transformation? 

A variety of tantras were quickly translated or summarized 

in Chinese. By the mid-eighth century the 

Susiddhikara, the Vairocanabhisambodhi, the Sarvatathagatatattvasam 

graha, and the Subahupariprccha had 

been translated, and we have evidence that the Guhyasamaja 

was known. So too, by the mid-eighth century, 

rituals to evoke or propitiate deities as diverse as 

Marc, the lords of the Great Dipper, Buddhosnsa, 

and the various vidyarajas had spread as far as Japan. 

By the end of the tenth century a version of the Mañjuśrlmu 

lakalpa and a complete version of the Sarvatathagatatattvasam 

graha had been translated into 

Chinese. By the twelfth century the full range of tantra, 

ritual manuals, and associated paraphernalia were 

available. 

As in South Asia, in East Asia we find certain distinctive 

metaphors and practices connected with the 

circulation and assimilation of these texts. These include 

the pervasive use of the mandala as an organizing 

principle and with it, its South Asian derived 

metaphors of sovereignty, unlimited power or siddhi 

(both for mundane and soteriological purposes), the 

notion of mantra, and rites of immolation (including 

those for pacification, increase of fortune, subjugation, 

and destruction), initiation, trance, and notions of secrecy. 

In the broadest sense, what we are dealing with 

is the afterlife of South Asian originated or inspired 

iconic discourses and ritual technologies for producing 

and manipulating the divine and the demonic in 

tangible form. In practice this adaptation of South 

Asian forms can range from the consecration of images 

to the induction of trance through possession, to 

the assumption of divine identity by the adept. The often 

trumpeted transgressiveness of tantra is a direct 

function of its core metaphors of kingship, its assertion 

of unlimited sovereignty, and the particular social 

locations of its practitioners. Thus, in East Asia the 

court was the natural locus of these systems. When located 

outside the court, “tantra” manifested in the 

pseudo KINGSHIP of siddhas and the occult. 

China and Korea 

The signature South Asian characteristic of tantra—its 

extensive application of the kingship metaphor deployed 

in mandala and enacted in ritual—made it at 

once a possible threat to the Chinese imperial establishment 

and then a valued form of legitimation. Thus, 

the Indian missionary Śubhakarasim ha (637–735) was 


823

T ANTRA 

initially treated with suspicion by emperor Xuanzong 

(r. 712–756). He was placed under house arrest, and 

his Sanskrit texts were impounded. But it soon became 

clear that the new teachings came along with considerable 

advances in mathematics and particularly calendrical 

astronomy, areas that were central to imperial 

ideology. The polymath monk Yixing (673–727) was 

assigned to spy on Śubhakarasim ha, as much as to help 

him in his work of translation and dissemination of 

the Vairocanabhisambodhi and other mantra (Chinese, 

zhenyan) teachings, including the Subahupariprccha. 

A few years later in 720 C.E. the monk Vajrabodhi 

(671–741) arrived in the Chinese capital Chang’an 

(possibly from Śrvijaya) and soon he and his chief disciple 

Amoghavajra (705–774) were, if not embraced by 

the court, at least given permission to translate texts 

and to take on disciples in exchange for performing 

ritual duties for the imperial house. Amoghavajra 

proved himself a valuable ally to the imperial house 

during the chaos of the An Lushan rebellion (755–763) 

and he gave emperor Suzong (r. 756–762) abhiseka as 

a cakravartin or world-ruling king. Under Suzong and 

then under his successor Daizong (r. 762–779), Amoghavajra 

and his disciples articulated an ideology of 

dual rulership with the cakravartin supported by his 

acarya (religious preceptor) in a pattern remarkably 

similar to that found in South Asia. Amoghavajra not 

only produced translations of tantras and ritual manuals, 

but he also produced updated versions of some 

Mahayana texts, bringing their language into line with 

the latest esoteric or mantra discourses by adding 

dharan and ritual commentaries. The most prominent 

of these texts was the Chinese RENWANG JING 

(HUMANE KINGS SU TRA), a scripture that melded traditional 

Chinese and Buddhist notions of rulership. 

Under Amoghavajra’s tutelage the teachings associated 

with the Sarvatathagatatattvasam graha permeated 

much of the court, the military, and many imperial institutions. 

A ritual arena for homa and other practices 

was established in the imperial compound. Mañjuśr 

replaced Pindola in monastic refectories, large numbers 

of “tantric” ritual manuals were translated, and 

permanent altars for homa and abhiseka were constructed. 

Thematically speaking, Amoghavajra’s Buddhism 

was, to borrow the Korean phrase, “State 

Protection Buddhism,” and its most developed ritual 

dimensions concerned propping up the imperial 

house, ensuring the health of the emperor, giving succor 

to its ANCESTORS, helping to keep meterological 

and cosmic portents favorable, and generally esoterizing 

monastic establishments that were imperially 

funded. Although Daizong’s successor Dezong (r. 

779–805) initially severed lavish patronage to the 

mantra teachings, he later reversed his decision and 

supported the last of the great South Asian translators 

of the Tang, the monk Prajña (734–806?). 

Imperial patronage henceforth was spotty. During 

the early Song dynasty the last group of great South 

Asian translators, Dharmapala (963–1058), Danapala 

(fl. tenth century), and Fatian (d. 1001) produced 

more complete versions of the Sarvatathagatatattvasam 

graha, a version of the Guhyasamaja, and a translation 

of the Śrlvajramandalam karamahatantraraja. 

Patronage was, however, sporadic until the Mongols 

(Yuan dynasty, 1234–1368) and even later Ming 

(1368–1644) and Qing dynasty (1644–1911) patronage 

of Tibetan VAJRAYANA. Severed from the court and 

bereft of its natural metaphoric locale at the actual 

center of power, various elements of the system 

merged back into the stream of late Mahayana while 

others were simply rolled into Vajrayana from Tibet. 

Indeed, the ritual technology associated with these 

teachings, especially that promising various forms of 

siddhi and connected with homa and aveśa, had an impact 

not only on the Mahayana in China, but also on 

Daoism and on local religious traditions. Perhaps more 

than all the divinities and complex ritual, Chinese 

traditions—Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike—found 

the ideology of hiddenness and the aura of the esoteric 

power of mantra most appealing. The idea of mantra 

had already been circulating from the second century 

onward and served as a model for the Brahmalanguage 

of Daoist scripture. An exclusive focus on the 

short-lived presence of a sectarian tantric or esoteric 

“school” misses the point entirely. By the twelfth century 

there were esoteric CHAN SCHOOL transmissions, 

rites deriving directly from the tantras in use in PURE 

LAND SCHOOL circles and more generally for the salvation 

of the dead (the shishi or “distribution” of food 

to ghosts and the elaborate shuilu or Land and Water 

Masses). Popular accounts of the acaryas celebrated 

their wielding of siddhi in a manner not unlike tales of 

siddhas found in South Asia and Tibet. 

While a polity inspired by and enacted according to 

the Sarvatathagatatattvasam graha was made an actuality 

for some twenty-five years in China, we have no 

solid evidence that the teaching garnered full institutional 

support in Korea either under the Silla (668–935) 

or Koryŏ (918–1392) periods. Although the SAMGUK 

YUSA (MEMORABILIA OF THE THREE KINGDOMS) mentions 

two esoteric “sects” under the Koryŏ (Ch’ongji 

or Dharan school and the Sinin or Mudra school) the 


T ANTRA 

reliability of this source is questionable and there is no 

independent evidence of sectarian “schools.” We know 

of a number of prominent Korean monks who studied 

with famous Chinese acaryas—Pulgasaŭi (d.u.) with 

Śubhakarasim ha, Hyech’o (fl. eighth century) with 

Amoghavajra, Hyeil (d.u.) and Ojin (d.u.) with Amoghavajra’s 

disciple Huiguo (?–805)—and it appears that 

they brought full range of mantra teachings and ritual 

technology to the peninsula. The first edition of the Korean 

Tripitaka (produced 1029–1089 C.E.) contains the 

works of the Tang acaryas as well as those of the Song 

acaryas, and we have to assume that there was a ready 

market for these works among the Korean aristocracy. 

Apparently the mantra teachings were incorporated 

into Koryŏ Buddhism much as they had been into Tang 

and Song Buddhism, as new mantric ritual extensions 

of the Mahayana with new pantheons. While a full sectarian 

identity for the mantra teachings in the Silla and 

Koryŏ periods is suspect, we do have ample evidence 

of the spread of rituals in court circles. These included 

rites to Marc, Mahamayur Vidyarajñ, Buddhosnsa, 

Yamantaka, and rites originating in the Tang and Song 

dynasties, including Land and Water Masses and rituals 

for protection of the state connected with the 

Humane Kings Su tra and the SUVARN APRABHASOTTAMA- 

SU TRA. As was the case in China, the rise of the Mongols 

and their influence over the Korean peninsula 

brought Tibetan LAMAS and the performance of 

Vajrayana rituals to the court in the late thirteenth 

century. This presence, however, was fleeting. 

Japan 

Although we tend to equate the arrival of the tantras 

in Japan with KU KAI (774–835) and Shingon, this is 

not wholly accurate. Indeed, Kukai himself read the 

Vairocanabhisambodhi before he traveled to China and 

there is considerable evidence that teachings, texts, and 

ritual technology originating in South Asia had spread 

to Japan by the mid-eighth century and were known 

and in use in both monastic and hijiri (mountain ascetic) 

circles. The standard story of the foundation of 

the Shingon school by Kukai on his return from the 

Tang court in 805 and the parallel esoterizing of the 

Tendai sect by SAICHO (767–822) that resulted in what 

later exegetes would dub Tomitsu and Taimitsu, respectively, 

have recently come under scrutiny and 

have been shown to be, especially in the case of Kukai 

and Shingon, a pious and anachronistic simplification. 

As was the case for Amoghavajra, Kukai saw himself 

as introducing a distinctive inner teaching and a 

method of discourse and interpretation that extended 

and completed the Mahayana, and much of his work 

was aimed at and eventually embraced by the established 

Nara schools. It now appears that the synthesis 

of a system framed by two mandalas drawn respectively 

from the Vairocanabhisambodhi and the Sarvatathagatatattvasam 

graha was in large part Kukai’s 

articulation of possibilities present but not expressed 

in the work of his Chinese teachers. Basing their system 

on these two texts Shingon apologists distinguish 

their Esoteric Buddhism (Mikkyo) from the corpus of 

texts described in the Vajrayana as anuttarayoga-tantra. 

Accordingly they see their “pure” esoterism as untainted 

by influences originating in Śaivite Hinduism. 

One of Kukai’s most interesting innovations was his 

insistence that the esoteric teachings were preached 

directly by the Dharmakaya Buddha (the transcendent 

body of the Buddha). 

But the sectarian history of Shingon and Tendai esoteric 

Buddhism does not fully capture the effect of 

the mantra teachings on Japanese culture. Scholars 

speak of the esoterizing of medieval Japanese culture 

and some of the most important effects of the tantras 

in Japan occurred in spite of Shingon’s existence as a 

religious institution. For instance, Kakuban (1095– 

1143) explored the relationship between Shingon and 

Shinto, between Mahavairocana, the great Sun Buddha, 

AMITABHA, and Amaterasu, the solar goddess 

progenitor of the imperial clan. Others explicated Pure 

Land and Zen in terms of the esoteric teachings. 

Mantras and dharans spread through the culture and 

language, as did deities (Acala vidyaraja, for instance), 

and practices (homa). Antinomian tendencies surfaced 

in the so-called Tachikawa heresy with its promise of 

various siddhi and its employment of sexual techniques 

and skull rituals reminiscent of the Kapalikas, 

and in the Pure Land/esoteric fusion of the “Secret 

Nenbutsu” (himitsu nenbutsu), which equated sexual 

action to the intake of breath and the chanting of the 

Buddha’s name. The emergence of Ryobu Shinto, a 

tradition that synthesized esoteric and indigenous traditions, 

is further evidence of the impact of the mantra 

teachings on medieval Japan. Perhaps the most important 

influence of the mantra teachings cannot be 

documented in a cause/effect fashion. It is nonetheless 

clear that the idea of mantra, of the blja syllables (they 

adorn cemeteries and can be found on homa sticks in 

modern temples), were likely the inspiration for the 

hiragana syllabary. 

See also: Mijiao (Esoteric) School; Shingon Buddhism, 

Japan; Tiantai School 


825

T AOISM 

Bibliography 

Abé Ryuichi. The Weaving of Mantra: Ku kai and the Construction 


Press, 1999. 

Achard, Jean-Luc. L’essence perlée du secret: Recherches philologiques 

et historiques sur l’origine de la Grande Perfection dans 

la tradition rNying ma pa. Turnhout, Belgium: Prepols Publishers, 

1999. 

Bailey, H. W. “Vajrayana Texts from Gostana.” In Studies of Esoteric 

Buddhism and Tantrism. Koyasan, Japan: Koyasan 


Chou I-liang. “Tantrism in China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic 

Studies 8 (1945): 241–332. 



Press, 2002. 

Davidson, Ronald M. “Reframing Sahaja: Genre, Representation, 

Ritual, and Lineage.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 30 

(2002): 45–83. 

Faure, Bernard. “Japanese Tantra, the Tachikawa-ryu, and 

Ryobu Shinto.” In Tantra in Practice, ed. David G. White. 


Hakeda, Yoshito S., trans. and ed. Ku kai: Major Works. New 


Jong, J. W. de. “A New History of Tantric Literature in India.” 

Acta Indologica (Naratasan Shinshoji) 6 (1984): 91–113. 

Kiyota, Minoru. Shingon Buddhism. Tokyo and Los Angeles: 

Buddhist Books International, 1978. 


Rje’s Fundamentals of the Buddhist Trantras. The Hague and 

Paris: Mouton, 1968. 

Namai, Chisho Mamoru. “On Bodhicittabhavana in the Esoteric 

Buddhist Tradition.” In Tibetan Studies—Proceedings 

of the 7 th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan 

Studies, Graz 1995, ed. Helmut Krasser et al. Vienna: Verlag 

der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997. 

Nihom, Max. Studies in Indian and Indo-Indonesian Tantrism: 

The Kuñjarakarnadharmakathana and the Yogatantra. Vienna: 

Institute of Indology, University of Vienna, 1994. 




Przyluski, Jean. “Les Vidyaraja: Contribution à l’histoire de la 

magie dans les sects mahayanistes.” Bulletin d’École Francais 

d’Extrême-Orient 23 (Hanoi, 1924): 301–318. 

Regamey, Constantin. “Motifs vichnouites et śivaites dan le 

Karandavyuha.” In Études tibétaines dédiées à la mémoire de 

Marcelle Lalou. Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 1971. 

Sanford, James H. “The Abominable Tachikawa Skull Ritual.” 



the Himalayan Plateau. Boston: Wisdom, 2001. 

Snellgrove, David L. “The Notion of Divine Kingship in Tantric 

Buddhism.” The Sacral Kingship: Contributions to the Central 

Theme of the Eighth International Congress for the History 

of Religions. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1959. 


and Their Tibetan Successors, 2 vols. Boston: Shambhala, 1987. 

Sørensen, Henrik H. “Esoteric Buddhism in Korea.” In The Esoteric 

Buddhist Tradition, ed. Henrik H. Sørensen. Copenhagen 

and Aarhus, Denmark: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 

1994. 

Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme 


Van der Veere, Hendrik. A Study into the Thought of Ko gyo 

Daishi Kakuban. Leiden, Netherlands: Hotei, 2000. 

Wallace, Vesna A. The Inner Kalacakratantra: A Buddhist Tantric 

View of the Individual. Oxford and New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2001. 

Wayman, Alex. Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra: The Arcane Lore 

of Forty Verses. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977. 

TAOISM. See Daoism and Buddhism 

TATHA GATA 


CHARLES D. ORZECH 

Tathagata is the epithet used by the Buddha in referring 

to himself. In Sanskrit and Pali, it can mean 

either “Thus-Gone-One” (tatha-gata) or “Thus- 

Come-One” (tatha-agata). In translating the term, Tibetans 

generally opted for the former meaning, and 

East Asians for the latter. In either case, the implication 

is that the Buddha has come (or gone) in the same 

manner as his predecessors, the buddhas of the past. 

See also: Buddhahood and Buddha Bodies 

TATHA GATAGARBHA 


The tathagatagarbha (“matrix,” “seed,” or “treasurestore 

of the Tathagata”) is a MAHAYANA Buddhist doctrine 

expressing the conviction that all beings have 


T ATHA GATAGARBHA 

within themselves the virtues and wisdom of the 

TATHAGATA (buddha), but that these are hidden by a 

covering of defilements (kleśakośa). The third-century 

scripture, the Tathagatagarbha-su tra, introduced the 

doctrine and illustrated it with nine similes based on 

the different meanings of the word garbha, such as 

womb, store, calyx, husk, and seed. The tathagatagarbha 

is likened to a buddha hidden in the calyx of a 

flower; to a noble son hidden in the womb of a vile, 

ugly woman; to a seed hidden in a useless husk; and 

to a store of treasure hidden beneath a poor man’s 

house. The compound therefore permits a wide range 

of legitimate translations including matrix, womb, 

embryo, germ, and treasure-store of the Tathagata. 

Originally, the term tathagatagarbha seems to have referred 

to beings themselves, who are tathagatagarbhas, 

or “harborers of the Tathagata.” 

The concept was developed further in later writings 

like the Śrlmaladevl-su tra (Discourse of Queen Śrlmala), 

where the term refers to an inner potential that enables 

beings to become buddhas. Were it not for the 

tathagatagarbha, this sutra states, beings would be unable 

to feel aversion for suffering or to seek NIRVAN A. 

The sutra identifies the tathagatagarbha as the dharmakaya 

of the buddha, which pervades all beings. The 

dharmakaya is said to have the four perfections (gunaparamitas) 

of eternality, bliss, self, and purity, an 

assertion that has led some to question whether the 

tathagatagarbha teaching might expound a form of 

Hindu monism, in which case it might contradict such 

fundamental Buddhist doctrines as ANITYA (IMPERMA- 

NENCE), ANATMAN/ATMAN (NO-SELF/SELF), and DUH KHA 

(SUFFERING). 

A closely related concept to the tathagatagarbha is 

the buddhadhatu, usually translated as “buddha-nature,” 

a term first used in the NIRVAN A SU TRA with the famous 

phrase “all beings possess buddha-nature.” Like 

the tathagatagarbha, it expresses the Mahayana conviction 

that all beings have the potential for buddhahood. 

The only Indian Buddhist treatise devoted to the 

tathagatagarbha is the fifth-century Ratnagotravibhaga 

(Chinese, Baoxing fenbie dacheng jiujing yaoyi lun; 

Analysis of the Source of the [Buddha] Jewel). The Ratnagotravibhaga 

identified the tathagatagarbha as “thusness 

mingled with pollution” (samala tathata), whereas 

the dharmakaya is identified as “thusness apart from 

pollution” (nirmala tathata). Thusness means supreme 

truth apprehended by nondiscriminating wisdom. The 

MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL understood thusness to mean 

the emptiness of all dharmas, but the Ratnagotravibhaga 

insisted that while the tathagatagarbha is empty 

of kleśas, it is not empty of the virtues of the buddha, 

“which are more numerous than the sands of the 

Ganges.” This assertion that something is ultimately 

“not empty” is also found in several YOGACARA SCHOOL 

texts. Additionally, the Ratnagotravibhaga uses traditional 

Yogacara categories for analysis, which further 

suggests possible ties to the Yogacara school. 

A central teaching of the Ratnagotravibhaga, derived 

from the Jñanalokalaṅkara-su tra (Discourse on the Ornamentation 

of Wisdom), is that nirvana, the noble 

truth of the cessation of suffering, ought to be understood 

as the nonorigination, rather than the extinguishing, 

of suffering and illusion. The mind is pure 

by nature, and suffering arises only when irrational 

thought (ayoniśomanaskara) originates illusions, attachments, 

and cravings. One who has reached the 

truth does not give rise to illusions. The expression 

“cessation of suffering” refers to the dharmakaya of the 

Tathagata, which is unborn and unproduced. Because 

all beings have the dharmakaya within them, they have 

the capacity not to originate suffering. 

The tathagatagarbha teaching was far more popular 

in East Asia than in India or Tibet. In India no school 

was organized around the tathagatagarbha teaching, 

and in Tibet, only the Jo nang pa centered itself on the 

tathagatagarbha teaching. But the Ratnagotravibhaga 

and the sutras expounding the tathagatagarbha were 

translated into Chinese shortly after their composition, 

and heavily influenced important Chinese treatises like 

the AWAKENING OF FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN LUN). An 

extensive debate over the buddha-nature of the 

ICCHANTIKA (the worst of beings), provoked further interest 

in the doctrine. The tathagatagarbha teaching was 

accorded the highest place in the doctrinal classification 

schemes of such notable HUAYAN SCHOOL figures 

as FAZANG and ZONGMI (780–841), and became a focal 

point of both Tiantai and Chan school teachings. 

See also: A layavijñana; Bodhicitta (Thought of Awakening); 

Chan School; Critical Buddhism (Hihan 

Bukkyo); Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Brown, Brian Edward. The Buddha Nature: A Study of the 

Tathagatagarbha and A layavijñana. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1991. 

Gregory, Peter N. “Chinese Buddhist Hermeneutics: The Case 

of Hua-yen.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 

51, no. 2 (1983): 231–249. 


827

T EMPLE 

Grosnick, William H. “Nonorigination and Nirvana in the Early 

Tathagatagarbha Literature.” Journal of the International Association 


Ruegg, David Seyfort. La théorie du tathagatagarbha et du gotra: 

Études sur la sotériologie et la gnoséologie du bouddhisme. 

Paris: École Française d’Extrème-Orient, 1969. 

Takasaki, Jikido. A Study on the Ratnagotravibhaga (Uttaratantra), 

Being a Treatise on the Tathagatagarbha Theory 

of Mahayana Buddhism. Rome: Istituto italiano per il Medio 

ed Estremo Oriente, 1966. 

Wayman, Alex, and Wayman, Hideko, eds. The Lion’s Roar of 

Queen Śrlmala: A Buddhist Scripture on the Tathagatagarbha 

Theory, tr. Alex Wayman and Hideko Wayman. New York: 


WILLIAM H. GROSNICK 

See also: Japan 

Bibliography 

Nosco, Peter. “Keeping the Faith: Bakuhan Policy towards Religions 

in Seventeenth-Century Japan.” In Religion in Japan: 

Arrows to Heaven and Earth, ed. Peter Kornicki and Ian Mc- 

Mullen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 

Williams, Duncan. “Representations of Zen: A Social and Institutional 

History of Soto Zen Buddhism in Edo Japan.” 

Ph.D. diss. Harvard University, 2000. 

TENDAI SCHOOL. See Tiantai School 

DUNCAN WILLIAMS 

TEMPLE. See Monastic Architecture; Monasticism 

TEMPLE SYSTEM IN JAPAN 

The Japanese Buddhist temple system was established 

through legal decrees by the Tokugawa government 

(1603–1868) as a method to maintain secular control 

over Buddhist institutions. Overseen by the government’s 

Office of Temples and Shrines, this administrative 

system involved a head-and-branch temple 

(honmatsu) organization. Each Buddhist sect designated 

a headquarters temple, which was approved by 

the government. With the headquarters temple at the 

top, all the sect’s temples in Japan were linked through 

a hierarchical network. With links originally formed 

between teachers’ (head temples) and disciples’ temples 

(branch temples), a head temple often had a number 

of affiliated lineage branch temples. These linkages 

between generations of temples formed the basis for 

the concept that a particular temple was hierarchically 

superior to another. 

Under the Tokugawa regime, informal lineagebased 

ties became formalized, and even temples that 

had no lineage ties were sometimes arbitrarily placed 

in head-and-branch relationships. This system consolidated 

sectarian hierarchies for all Buddhist temples by 

the early eighteenth century as the government perfected 

its control over Buddhist institutions. While the 

system developed out of a secular need for control, it 

also served each sect to establish organizational sectarian 

structures that persist into the modern period. 

THAI, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN 

Thai, the national language of Thailand, is closely related 

to Lao, the national language of neighboring 

LAOS, as well as the Shan language of northern Burma 

(MYANMAR) and several other languages and dialects 

in northern VIETNAM and southern CHINA. Together, 

they comprise the Tai language family. Approximately 

half of the more than sixty million residents of Thailand 

speak Thai as their mother tongue. Thai, and all 

Tai languages, are tonal languages in which a change 

of syllable tone results in a change of meaning. 

The origin of the Thai script is credited to King 

Ramkhamhaeng the Great of Sukhothai and an inscription 

that dates from the latter part of the thirteenth 

century. While there is some debate about the 

authenticity of this inscription, it is generally held to 

be the first written evidence of the strong presence of 

Buddhism in Siam or Thailand. The Thai definition of 

literature is far reaching, and this inscription, which 

reads like a nation’s constitution, is also viewed as a 

seminal piece of Buddhist literature. In it, the king 

states that he gives alms to the Mahathera Saṅgharaja, 

a wise monk who has studied the Buddhist Pali CANON 

(Tipitaka) from beginning to end (and who also likely 

came from Sri Lanka). The king also mentions that 

paying proper tribute to a divine spirit residing at a local 

mountain helps to ensure the prosperity of the 

kingdom. This blend of Buddhist practice and animistic 

elements continues to be characteristic of the 

Thai worldview. 

The Thai imagination is most active in a work attributed 

to Phya Lithai, Trai Phum Phra Ruang (The 


T HAI, BUDDHIST L ITERATURE IN 

Three Worlds of King Ruang, 1345). Based on Buddhist 

canonical texts, local legends, and dreams, this detailed, 

full-blown COSMOLOGY serves as a road map to 

various HEAVENS and HELLS and the perils of lives lived 

at all levels of existence. In this work, gaps in Buddhist 

texts are filled in with speculation about the creation 

of life, while the spirit of other texts provides a 

springboard into rich pools of fantastic description 

that include falls from grace, detailed accounts of 

karmic consequences, and elaborated notions of a 

wheel-turning king whose right to rule is based on his 

righteousness. 

One of the most enduring Thai literary works is the 

Ramakian, a uniquely Thai interpretation of the Indian 

epic, the Ramayana. While some people believe 

that the Thai version of the Rama legend predated the 

establishment of the Kingdom of Sukhothai, the earliest 

archeological evidence for it was found in the ruins 

of the Kingdom of Ayudhaya, which was sacked by 

the Burmese in 1767. The destruction of Ayudhaya is 

considered one of the greatest losses of art and literature 

in Thai history. The longest version of the Ramakian 

was written by a group of poets in 1798 and 

was sponsored by the first king of the Chakri dynasty, 

Rama I. Much has been written about the Indianization 

or Sanskritization of Southeast Asia, and the Ramakian, 

a blend of Thai legends, state rites, and 

Buddhist elements, stands as clear evidence of such influence. 

The JATAKA tales, or birth stories of the Buddha, 

have held a prominent place in the imagination of the 

Thai people. Traditionally, the most popular tale describes 

the Buddha’s penultimate life before attaining 

Buddhahood, that being the story of the generous 

Prince Vessantara (Sanskrit, VIŚVANTARA). This Joblike 

tale focuses on the sacrifices and merit made by 

Prince Vessantara. It includes demonstrations of the 

prince’s nonattachment and giving—even the giving 

up of family members—in the process of demonstrating 

his commitment to generosity. The merit-making 

message of this tale is evidence of the importance of 

gift giving in Thai culture. Many monks continue the 

tradition of chanting, day and night, an elaborate version 

of this jataka tale in an annual event called the 

Thet Mahachat (Sermon of the Great Life). 

A further outgrowth of gift giving takes the form of 

an unusual genre of literature, the cremation volume. 

Souvenirs are often presented to attendees at the close 

of cremation rites. As early as the 1870s, with the advent 

of printing presses in Thailand, people began to 

distribute books at funerals. These volumes usually include 

a brief biography of the deceased; in addition, 

the publication of cremation volumes is a way of distributing 

and preserving literary, cultural, and religious 

information that families find meaningful. In a statusconscious 

society, these volumes also help to “place” 

people in the Thai social order. A collection of cremation 

volumes at Wat Bovoranives in Bangkok is cataloged 

according to an adaptation of the Dewey decimal 

system that reflects the status, ranks, and structure of 

Thai society. 

Buddhist teachings and stories have been preserved 

through the strength of oral traditions and attention 

given to (palm leaf) manuscripts. The name of the 

Buddhist canon, the Tipitaka, presumably comes from 

an early filing system: putting the three parts of the 

canon—rules (VINAYA), teachings (sutta), and philosophical 

details (abhidhamma)—into separate baskets. 

While ideally monks should be well versed in all three 

of these dimensions, Buddhist tradition and subsequent 

curricula for monks focused on certain parts of 

the canon over others, making the observer often wonder 

which basket carries the most weight. For example, 

the meditative interests of forest monasteries tend 

to focus on texts (and biographies of local monks) 

dealing with such practices, while the leaders of some 

urban monasteries may favor other parts of the canon, 

including a fascination with the abhidhamma. The 

DHAMMAPADA has always been a popular text, and its 

inclusion in several levels of monks’ Pali exams has 

helped to maintain its popularity. Thai Buddhist laity 

are more likely to gain their knowledge of Buddhism 

from the influence of parents and teachers, and 

through listening to sermons and reading collections 

of proverbs, modern commentaries, or interpretations, 

rather than the canonical texts themselves. 

Several modern figures have made major contributions 

to religious literature in Thailand. At the end of 

the nineteenth century, Prince-Patriarch Wachirayanwarorot 

(1860–1921, half-brother to King Chulalongkorn, 

Rama V) wrote a number of concise 

textbooks aimed at providing summaries of the important 

tenets of Buddhism. These texts were especially 

useful for people who ordained temporarily during the 

“rainy season retreat” (vassa) and they took an important 

place in the early curriculum for monks. BUD- 

DHADASA Bhikkhu (1906–1993) fostered his own 

brave, innovative blend of Thai colloquial terms and 

interpretations of dhamma to spark more interest in 

Buddhist practice. His commentaries run many volumes, 

resembling a canon itself. In 1971 Prayudh 


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T HAILAND 

Payutto published the first edition of Buddhadhamma, 

a summary of major Buddhist principles, focusing especially 

on Buddhist notions of causality and interdependence. 

This major work has been expanded to over 

one thousand pages. And, not to be overlooked, modern 

Thai fiction itself is often a blend of romantic love, 

heroism, the life of the Buddha, and references to 

jataka tales. While globalization refashions traditional 

belief, the Thai creative imagination continues to respond 

to modernity with its own distinctive synthesis 

of the past and present. 

See also: Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in; Thailand 

Bibliography 

Bofman, Theodora Helene. The Poetics of the Ramakian. 

DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Center for Southeast 


Chamberlain, James F., ed. The Ramkhamhaeng Controversy: 

Selected Papers. Bangkok, Thailand: Siam Society, 1991. 

Olson, Grant A. “Thai Cremation Volumes: A Brief History of 

a Unique Genre of Literature.” Asian Folklore Studies 51 

(1992): 279–294. 

Payutto, Prayudh. Buddhadhamma: Natural Laws and Values 

for Life, tr. Grant A. Olson. Albany: State University of New 



According to King Ruang: A Thai Cosmology. Berkeley, CA: 

Asian Humanities Press, 1982. 

Rutin, Mattani Mojdara. Modern Thai Literature: The Process of 

Modernization and the Transformation of Values. Bangkok, 

Thailand: Thammasat University Press, 1988. 

THAILAND 

GRANT A. OLSON 

The historical origins of Buddhism in the part of mainland 

Southeast Asia known today as Thailand are obscure. 

According to popular Thai tradition, Buddhism 

was propagated in the region south of present-day 

Bangkok by the monks Sona and Uttara, who were sent 

to Suvannabhumi (the golden land) by the Mauryan 

king AŚOKA in the third century B.C.E. According to 

this view, from these beginnings Buddhism of a THER- 

AVADA persuasion has dominated the country. Archaeological 

evidence confirms a flourishing Buddhist 

culture among the Mon at Dvaravat in the region of 

Nakon Pathom thirty miles southwest of Bangkok as 

early as the fourth century C.E., but historical evidence 

fails to corroborate the legend of Aśoka’s emissaries. 

Furthermore, while both archaeological and textual evidence 

suggest a strong Pali Theravada presence among 

the Mon states in Thailand and lower Burma (Myanmar), 

the Buddhist ubiety in the region was marked by 

diversity rather than uniformity. Indeed, prior to the 

establishment of the major Tai states of SUKHOTHAI 

and Chiang Mai in the thirteenth century, Buddhism 

in Thailand can only be characterized as eclectic. As 

part of the Indian cultural influence into “greater 

India,” elements of MAHAYANA, TANTRA, and MAIN- 

STREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS entered different regions 

of Thailand through the Mon, the expansion of the 

Sumatran-based Śrivijaya kingdom into the southern 

peninsula, and the growing dominance of the Khmer 

empire in the west. These diverse Buddhist expressions, 

in turn, competed with Brahmanism, Hinduism, 

and autochthonous animisms. Rather than an organized 

sectarian lineage, the early religious amalgam in 

Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia might be 

more accurately described as a syncretic collage of 

miraculous relics and charismatic monks, Hindu 

dharmaśastra, Brahmanic deities, Mahayana buddhas, 

tantric practices, and Sanskrit Sarvastivadin and Pali 

Theravada traditions. 

Syncretism and tantric Theravada 

François Bizot describes the eclectic nature of Buddhism 

in premodern Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia as 

a congruence of Vedic Brahmanism, tantrism, and a 

pre-Aryan Austro-Asiatic cult of guardian spirits and 

protective divinities. Interacting with Mon Theravada 

beliefs and practices, and possibly influenced by the 

Mulasarvastivadins, it resulted in what Bizot has characterized 

as “Tantric Theravada,” identified with a 

mystical tradition known as Yogavacara (practitioner 

of the spiritual discipline). The features of this tantric 

Theravada, at odds with the stereotypical view of classical 

Theravada, include identifying one’s body with 

the qualities of the Buddha; the use of esoteric syllables 

and words (DHARAN I, MANTRA, yantra) to represent 

the identity of microcosm and macrocosm; the 

dharmic potency of sounds and letters; and esoteric 

initiation for the realization of both soteriological and 

mundane ends (Crosby). 

By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Tai migrations 

from southwest China into Thailand resulted in 

the establishment of several petty kingdoms, most notably 

Chiang Mai under King Mangrai (r. 1292–1317) 

and Sukhothai under King Ramkhamhaeng (r. ca. 


T HAILAND 

A restored statue of the Buddha at Sukhothai, the ancient capital 

of Thailand, which contains many temples and monasteries, some 

in ruins. © Lindsay Hebberd/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

1279–1298). Somewhat earlier, the rise to power of the 

Sinhalese monarch Parakkama Bahu I (r. 1153–1186) 

in Sri Lanka and the subsequent dominance of the 

Mahavihara monastic fraternity led to the missionary 

expansion of Sinhalese Theravada into Burma and 

Thailand. A 1287 C.E. inscription at Sukhothai records 

that Ramkhamhaeng patronized monks of the Lanka 

order (lankavam sa), whom he invited from Nakon 

Sithammarat, a Thai state located far to the south on 

the Gulf of Siam. Thai monks ordained in Burma and 

Sri Lanka brought lineages of Sinhala Theravada to 

Thailand in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Under 

Tilokarat (r. 1441–1487) monks of the Mahavihara 

reformist tradition at the Red Forest Monastery (Wat 

Pa Daeng) in Chiang Mai gained a religious and political 

prominence that led to a council under royal 

sponsorship to regularize monastic teaching and practice. 

Nevertheless, although Buddhism in the Thai 

states from Nakon Sithammarat in the south to AYUT- 

THAYA in central Thailand and Chiang Mai to the north 

came more under the sway of Sinhala Theravada, it 

lacked the uniformity achieved with the formation of 

the modern nation-state around the turn of the twentieth 

century. Even today, Thai Buddhism is more complex 

and hybridized than the Pali canon, the normative 

commentaries of BUDDHAGHOSA (fifth century C.E.), 

the Mahavihara paritta ritual handbook, and a national 

SAṄGHA organization created by the great Supreme Patriarch 

(sam gharat), Wachirayan (Vajirañanavarorasa, 

1860–1921), would lead one to believe. 

Syncretism continues to define many Thai religious 

practices. Temple festivals begin by invoking the 

guardian deities of the four quarters, zenith, and nadir. 

Monastic ordinations are often preceded by an elaborate 

spirit calling (riak khwan) ceremony. Yantric tattoos 

and magical amulets are worn by the devout to 

ward off danger. Offerings are made at the shrines of 

deities protecting mountain passes, and elaborate altars 

to the Hindu god Brahma occupy a prominent 

place at the entrance to hotels. In Chiang Mai, northern 

Thais inaugurate the New Year by three sequential 

events: appealing to the spirit of a palladial buddha image; 

invoking the god, INDRA, resident in the city pillar; 

and sacrificing a buffalo to the spirits who guard 

the mountains overlooking the valley. The veneration 

of King Rama V (Chulalongkorn, r. 1868–1910), which 

originated as a cult of his equestrian statue before the 

parliament building in Bangkok, has spread nationwide. 

And, as if to validate Bizot’s theory of tantric 

Theravada, Thailand’s fastest-growing new Buddhist 

movement, Wat Thammakai, espouses a Yogavacara 

form of meditation claimed by the founder to be an 

ancient method rediscovered by the late abbot of Wat 

Paknam, a royal monastery located on Bangkok’s Chao 

Phraya River. 

Saṅ˙ gha and state 

From the time of the Tai kingdoms in the thirteenth 

and fourteenth centuries, royal patronage of monks, 

monasteries, and monastic lineages has characterized 

the relationship between Buddhism and the state. 

Based on inscriptional and chronicle evidence, Ishii 

Yoneo observes in Saṅgha, State, and Society (1986) 

that state Buddhism in the Sukhothai and Ayutthaya 

kingdoms included the following elements: Kings conferred 

ecclesiastical ranks and controlled monastic appointments; 

kings appointed secular officials in charge 

of crown-saṅgha relationships; royal patronage included 

donating lands as well as building royal monasteries 

in the capital and provinces; kings ordained as 

monks for a limited time as an expression of piety; and 


831

T HAILAND 

kings helped settle saṅgha disputes. Accounts from the 

Thai Pali chronicles, the Jinakalamallpakarana (Sheaf 

of Garlands of the Epochs of the Conquerors) and the 

Camadevlvam sa (Legend of Queen Cama), link the 

spread of Buddhism and the legitimation of royal 

power with the veneration of magical BUDDHA IMAGES 

and relics, in particular the palladial Emerald Buddha 

now enshrined on the grounds of the grand palace in 

Bangkok. 

In the Trai Phu m Phra Ruang (Three Worlds According 

to King Ruang), King Lithai of Sukhothai 

(1346/47–1368/74?) constructed a cosmological legitimation 

of Buddhist KINGSHIP and the state that in the 

Ayutthaya period (1569–1767) became a “galactic 

polity” through which the Ayutthayana monarchs 

dominated tributary states (Tambiah). It was certainly 

not a coincidence that when King Rama I (r. 

1782–1809) took over the reins of power at the new 

Thai capital in Thonburi/Bangkok after the Burmese 

sacked Ayutthaya in 1767, he sponsored a saṅgha 

council that included among its activities the production 

of a new edition of Lithai’s Trai Phu m Phra Ruang. 

In the early modern period, King Mongkut (r. 

1851–1868) fully personified the close relationship between 

Buddhism and the state. Ordained a monk for 

twenty-seven years before he became king (Rama IV), 

he founded a new monastic order, the Thammayut 

(“adhering strictly to the dhamma”), in 1829. In 1836 

Mongkut was appointed abbot of Wat Bowoniwet 

monastery in Bangkok, which was to become the headquarters 

of the Thammayut order and the home of its 

monastic university, Mahamakut, founded in 1893. 

Mahachulalongkorn was established as the university 

for the larger Mahanikai (great congregation) order at 

its Bangkok headquarters, Wat Mahathat. Both institutions 

figured prominently in the development of advanced 

monastic education during the twentieth 

century. 

Buddhism as a civil religion was promoted by King 

Wachirawut (Rama VI, r. 1910–1925) through the promulgation 

of the slogan, “nation, religion [Buddhism], 

king,” symbolized by the country’s tricolor national 

flag. During the regimes of the military strongmen 

Sarit Thanarat and Thanom Kittikachorn, who served 

as prime ministers from 1959 to 1973, new government 

programs, the Thammacarik (Dhamma Travelers) 

and Thammathut (Dhamma Emissaries) were 

created to enlist saṅgha participation in the government’s 

efforts to promote rural development, integrate 

the northern hill tribes into the Thai nation state, and 

encourage national loyalty in the face of perceived 

communist threats in sensitive border areas. 

The symbiotic relationship between Buddhism and 

the state has not been without its tensions. Although 

royal patronage benefited the saṅgha, the power of the 

state restricted its freedom and authority; hence, on 

occasion, monks have challenged the state. In the 

1930s the northern Thai monk, Khruba Swic∧hai, was 

disciplined by the national saṅgha headquartered in 

Bangkok for following traditional northern Thai Buddhist 

practices that contravened the 1902 national 

saṅgha law. In the late nineteenth century, A c∧han Sao 

Kantaslo and A c∧han Man Bhuridatto founded the 

modern forest WILDERNESS MONKS tradition. Although 

they remained Thammayut monks, the movement 

offered monks an avenue to pursue a spiritual 

practice freed from many of the constraints imposed 

by the national saṅgha. In the 1970s volatile political 

events saw an unprecedented left and right politicization 

of the saṅgha, and in what became the cause 

célèbre of the 1990s: Phra Bodhirak, who founded the 

Santi Asoka movement in the early 1970s, was defrocked 

because he ordained monks in defiance of 

government regulations. 

Despite such tensions, state Buddhism has been an 

overriding feature of Thai history since the founding 

of Sukhothai and Chiang Mai. The prosperity of the 

saṅgha, the national system of monastic study and lay 

Buddhist education through both monastery and government 

schools, and the important place Buddhism 

holds in Thai culture and society has come about 

through the encouragement and patronage of the state. 

Thailand has a national saṅgha organization first enacted 

in 1902 during the reign of Rama V. Its current 

form, set into law by the 1962 saṅgha ordinance, places 

a saṅgharaja (saṅgha king) and an appointed council 

at the head of a hierarchical structure organized into 

regions, provinces, districts, and subdistricts. 

A standardized monastic curriculum was developed 

by Supreme Patriarch Wachirayan, an accomplished 

Pali scholar in his own right and author of numerous 

books still in use throughout the nearly thirty thousand 

monasteries nationwide. The curriculum is divided 

into general Buddhist studies (naktham) and 

training in Pali language. The three levels of Buddhist 

study include Buddhist doctrine, Buddhist history, the 

life of the Buddha and his most famous disciples, 

monastic discipline (VINAYA), and Buddhist rituals 

and ceremonies. The formal study of Pali in Thailand 


T HAILAND 

began in the Ayutthaya period, although the system 

of nine grades or levels dates from the reign of Rama 

II (1809–1824). Over the years its content has 

changed; today it includes study of Wachirayan’s Pali 

grammar, the DHAMMAPADA commentary, BUDDHA- 

GHOSA’s commentary on the vinaya and Visuddhimagga 

(Path to Purification), as well as study of the 

abhidhamma and the commentary on the Man˙galasutta 

(Maṅgalatthadlpanl) written in 1525 C.E. by Sirimaṅgala, 

northern Thailand’s greatest Pali scholar. 

Buddhism and Thai society 

In times past it was said that to be Thai was to be Buddhist. 

Although the place of Buddhism as the linchpin 

of Thai identity has eroded due to the onslaught of 

globalization and rapid social change, the great majority 

of Thais still find Buddhism to be a locus of personal 

meaning and community identity. The Buddhist 

worldview continues to inform the lives of both urban 

and rural Thais: the transformative ideal of NIRVAN A; 

the natural law of cause and effect and its consequentialist 

ethic based on KARMA (ACTION) and RE- 

BIRTH; the values of generosity and hospitality; the 

ideals of equanimity, compassion, and nonviolence; 

the merit-making exchange that binds monk and laity 

together in a relationship of mutual reciprocity; and 

attitudes toward social hierarchy and gender. 

These principles and values continue to be enacted 

in social relationships, including the ways in which 

children relate to parents, younger people to older people, 

and men to women. The rituals that define a life 

passage from birth to death and the festivals that mark 

a similar passage of the year, in the past tied more obviously 

to seasonal change and an agriculture calendar, 

have not disappeared even though they are attenuated 

in urban settings. Scores of young men still ordain annually 

as novice monks for a brief period, perhaps 

during a summer vacation rather than the traditional 

three-month rains-retreat from mid-July to mid- 

October. Temporary ordination has been the norm in 

Thailand for centuries, a very small percentage deciding 

to remain in the monkhood for a lifetime. 

According to traditional lore, spending a few 

months as a monk “ripens” a young man and prepares 

him for responsible family and community life after he 

disrobes. Furthermore, ORDINATION not only functions 

as a male rite of passage into adulthood, it accrues 

special merit for one’s parents, especially one’s 

mother. Girls participate only as onlookers, unlike 

Burmese custom where both boys and girls are included 

in shinbyu ceremonies that end in temporary 

ordination for males and ear-boring for females. Anthropologists 

speculate that prostitution may have a 

perverse tie to the ideology of merit-making in Thailand. 

Since there is no women’s saṅgha, females are 

denied the male opportunity to make merit for their 

parents; they can, however, help prevent their parents 

from falling into penury by supporting them from 

money earned as prostitutes (Muecke). 

Other rites of passage continue to be observed in 

Thailand, often incorporating beliefs and practices 

more animistic than Buddhist. Life transitions of all 

kinds may be marked by spirit-calling rites (pithl riak 

khwan), and illness or other personal and community 

crises are occasions for life-extension (su ’pc∧hata) rituals. 

Monks will be invited to conduct protective rituals 

(suat mon/tham yan) for a new home, building, or 

business, and funerals at monasteries and in homes are 

such important ritual occasions that a unique chant 

style was developed for these occasions. 

Annual festivals continue to serve as events where 

both men and women, young and old, experience a 

sense of belonging to a local community and a nation. 

For some, such as the Thai New Year celebrated at the 

end of April before the May monsoon rains, commercialism 

nearly overwhelms traditional practices. However, 

the old customs of paying respect to elders, 

building sand “mountains” (c∧hedl) on the monastery 

grounds, and lustrating Buddha images and relics perdure. 

The annual preaching of the Vessantara-jataka 

(thet mahachat) in November has given way to movies, 

video, and rock concerts, but the Festival of the Floating 

Boats (loi kratong) held during the same month 

survives in altered form, with the traditional bananaleaf 

rafts floated on ponds, lakes, and rivers replaced 

by Styrofoam boats. Visakha Puja, a celebration of the 

Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death, and the beginning 

and end of the monastic rains-retreat endure 

not only as opportunities to make merit for the benefit 

of one’s self and extended family both living and 

dead, but as an affirmation of one’s identity as a Thai 

Buddhist. 

Buddhism and the twenty-first century 

To retain a continuing relevance to changing circumstances 

and conditions, religious traditions themselves 

must change. The Thailand of today differs vastly from 

the Tai kingdoms of the fourteenth century and also 

from the state Buddhism promoted by King Chulalongkorn 

and Supreme Patriarch Wachirayan in the 

early twentieth. Buddhism in Thailand today is marked 


833

T HAILAND 

A Thai Buddhist lays an offering of flowers on the feet of a giant Buddha statue at Intaravehan Temple in Bangkok, Thailand, 1997. 


by a cacophony of voices, a pluralism that includes 

a continuation of traditional forms and practices, a 

new sectarianism, an efflorescence of magical cults, a 

multifaceted reform movement, and an internationalism 

attuned to the emergent global community. Today, 

Thai Buddhist identity extends beyond the 

borders of a local community and the nation-state to 

an increasingly globalized world. 

State Buddhism established at the beginning of the 

twentieth century and revised by the 1962 saṅgha law 

is still intact; however, calls for reforming the conservative, 

hierarchical saṅgha governance structure come 

from younger liberal monks as well as educated laity. 

There is increasing concern that mainstream civil Buddhism 

is out of tune with the times that in the affluent 

decades of the 1980s and 1990s became more 

complacent and materialistic. To be sure, in villages 

and towns throughout the country the monastery continues 

to serve important community functions, especially 

educating the rural poor, even though many of 

the roles once filled by monks are now the purview of 

civil servants. As a result there has been a general decline 

in the high regard and social status traditionally 

accorded monks. Several high-profile instances of immorality 

and rancorous division have also challenged 

the saṅgha’s moral authority. 

In the 1970s, partly in response to the changes 

brought about by globalization and challenges to the 

relevance of the saṅgha, two nationwide sectarian 

movements emerged, Santi Asok and Wat Thammakai. 

Although Phra Bodhirak, Santi Asok’s founder, 

was ordained into the Thammayut and then the Mahanikai 

orders, in the mid-1970s Bodhirak and his fellow 

monks cut all ties with the national saṅgha. The 

movement continued to grow rapidly in the 1980s, and 

it gained special prominence through one of its members, 

General Chamlong Simuang, a former governor 

of Bangkok, member of parliament, and founder of 

the Phalang Dhamma political party. Santi Asok defined 

itself against the Thai mainstream, establishing 

centers where monks and laity observed a moderately 

ascetic regime, living in simple wooden huts, eating 

one vegetarian meal daily, and avoiding intoxicants, 

stimulants, and tobacco. In the view of mainstream 

Thai Buddhists, Santi Asok had overstepped acceptable 

limits both in terms of its independence and its 


T HAILAND 

Thai Buddhists celebrate the new year by making merit. Here women give goods and flowers to Buddhist monks during a morning alms 

offering in Bangkok, Thailand, 2002. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission. 

outspoken criticisms of Thai society. In 1995 a court 

decision codified a 1988 recommendation by national 

saṅgha leaders to expel Bodhirak from the monkhood 

on the grounds that he had ordained monks and nuns 

without authorization and had contravened a vinaya 

prohibition forbidding claims to supernatural powers. 

In several respects, Wat Thammakai stands at the 

opposite end of the spectrum to Santi Asok. Also a 

product of the early 1970s, its imposing national headquarters 

at Prathum Thani near Bangkok represents a 

new version of state Buddhism with an aggressive, international 

perspective. Its founders, Phra Thammachayo 

and Phra Thattachwo, were educated in 

marketing before becoming monks under the inspiration 

of the Venerable Monkhon Thepmun of Wat 

Paknam, who was noted for his unique visualization 

meditation method. The entrepreneurial skills they 

brought to the movement led to its considerable success 

but has also generated attacks on its commercialism 

and charges of financial irregularity. 

A striking feature of the religious ethos in Thailand 

at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a burgeoning 

increase in cults. Although the veneration of 

relics and images of the Buddha has long played a 

central role in Buddhist devotional religion, its contemporary 

efflorescence is due in part to their commodification 

in the face of the cultural dominance of 

commercial values. The cult of images and relics, furthermore, 

is matched by the veneration of charismatic 

monks to whom are ascribed a wide range of apotropaic 

powers, including the generation of wealth. New 

cults, abetted by the financial crisis of 1997, include 

the veneration of images and other material representations 

of royalty, especially King Rama V, and the 

popularity of the Bodhisattva Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara), 

which testifies to an increasing Chinese influence 

in the Thai economy. 

One of the most encouraging developments in Thai 

Buddhism at the beginning of the twenty-first century 

is the movement toward change and reform generated 

by a loose agglomeration of monks and laity. This 

includes monks who have dedicated their lives to addressing 

a wide range of social, economic, and environmental 

problems faced by the people they serve in 

villages and towns throughout the country. One of the 

chief inspirations for Buddhist reformism has been 


835

T HERAVA DA 

Phutathat (Buddhadasa Bhikkhu), whose innovative 

teaching and example continued to inspire the leading 

Buddhist reformist voices in the country, even after 

his death in 1993. Although regarded primarily as 

an outstanding Pali scholar, Phra Thammapidok 

(Dhammapitaka), along with Phutathat, have influenced 

numerous Buddhist social activists including 

Sulak Sivaraksa, a major figure in the international engaged 

Buddhist movement. Sulak’s NGOs (nongovernmental 

organizations) include the International 

Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB). The issues addressed 

by INEB range from assisting democracy activists 

persecuted by Myanmar’s repressive military 

dictatorship to supporting the prominent Thai Buddhist 

academic, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, who resigned 

her position in the philosophy department at Thammasat 

University to ordain in Sri Lanka as Samaneri 

Dhammanan with the hope of establishing an order of 

nuns in Thailand. 

The international engaged Buddhist movement that 

includes reformers like Sulak advocates the integration 

of inner-personal and outer-social transformation. 

Progressive Thai Buddhists believe that the international 

problems of global poverty, economic exploitation, 

and violence require the practice of sustained 

awareness that lies at the heart of true compassion. Although 

awareness is an ancient Buddhist practice, its 

application to a Buddhist social ethic is an innovation 

that, while running the risk of diminishing its original 

intent, holds out the promise that the tradition will 

maintain its relevance to the dramatic dislocations of 

the postmodern world. 

See also: Amulets and Talismans; Engaged Buddhism; 

Merit and Merit-Making; Relics and Relics Cults; 


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Bizot, François. Le Chemin de Lanka. Paris: École Française 

d’Extreme-Orient, 1992. 

Bizot, François. Le Bouddhisme des Thais. Bangkok, Thailand: 

Editions des Cahiers de France, 1993. 

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. Me and Mine: Selected Essays of Bhikkhu 

Buddhadasa, ed. Donald K. Swearer. Albany: State University 


Crosby, Kate. “Tantric Theravada: A Bibliographic Essay on the 

Writings of François Bizot and Others on the Yogavacara 

Tradition.” Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary 

Journal 1, no. 2 (November 2000): 141–198. 

Ishii Yoneo. Saṅgha, State, and Society: Thai Buddhism in History, 

tr. Peter Hawkes. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 

1986. 

Jackson, Peter. Buddhism, Legitimation, and Conflict: The Political 

Functions of Urban Thai Buddhism. Singapore: Institute 

of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989. 

Keyes, Charles. “Buddhist Politics and Their Revolutionary Origins 

in Thailand.” International Political Science Review 10, 

no. 2 (1989): 121–142. 

Muecke, Marjorie A. “Mother Sold Food, Daughter Sells Her 

Body: The Cultural Continuity of Prostitution.” Social Science 

Medicine 35, no. 7 (1992): 891–901. 

Ratanapañña Thera. The Sheaf of Garlands of the Epochs of the 

Conqueror (Jinakalamalipakaranam), tr. N. A. Jayawickrama. 

London: Luzac, 1968. 

Reynolds, Frank E., and Reynolds, Mani B. Three Worlds According 

to King Ruang: A Thai Buddhist Cosmology. Berkeley, 


Swearer, Donald K. The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia. Albany: 


Tambiah, Stanley J. World Conqueror, World Renouncer: A 



Press, 1976. 

THERAVA DA 

DONALD K. SWEARER 

Theravada is the dominant form of Buddhism in Cambodia, 

Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka, and Thailand. 

It remains a central component of the Buddhism 

of Vietnam, even after its formal unification with MA- 

HAYANA forms in the 1960s. The tradition is followed 

by the Baruas, Chakma, and Magh ethnic groups in 

Bangladesh, and the Shans of southern China. Historically, 

the Theravada school was also important in 

South India, and had a wider presence in South and 

Southeast Asia more generally, including Indonesia. In 

the modern period, Theravada has spread worldwide 

through diaspora and mission. The school has been instrumental 

in the Buddhist revival in India and has begun 

to replace traditional Newari Buddhism in the 

Kathmandu valley of Nepal. Missionary monks worldwide 

serve both diasporic and convert Buddhists, often 

as separate congregations. In the two relatively 

recent phenomena of Western convert and ENGAGED 

BUDDHISM, Theravada is likely to be universalized 

rather than culturally specific, and to be mixed or at 

least in dialogue with other forms of Buddhism and 


T HERAVA DA 

even other religions. There are an estimated 100 million 

Theravada Buddhists worldwide. 

Scriptural authority 

Among the key features of traditional Theravada Buddhism 

are the use of Pali as a sacred language and the 

acceptance of the Pali Buddhist CANON (tipitaka) as 

the highest scriptural authority. This remains true 

nominally even where the tipitaka is not directly relevant 

to belief or practice, and in spite of so-called 

APOCRYPHA and numerous other religious texts that 

teach noncanonical practices. 

Theravada’s doctrinal tradition derives from the 

distinctive Abhidhamma Pitaka of its aforementioned 

tipitaka. Because of the form of analytical doctrine 

(Pali, vibhajjavada) represented in this abhidhamma 

(Sanskrit, ABHIDHARMA) section of its canon, some 

scholars have suggested that Theravada is better identified 

as the Vibhajjavada school. 

Theravada is also characterized by an ORDINATION 

tradition based on its distinctive VINAYA Pitaka. Although 

various branches of Theravada may historically 

have used other vinayas, modern variations within the 

school relate principally to differing interpretations of 

the traditional 227 rules of conduct for monks outlined 

in the Pali vinaya. Thus there are different nikayas (ordination 

lineages) within Theravada, and numerous 

sub-nikayas. 

Commentarial tradition and historiography 

The scriptural authority of the Pali tipitaka continues 

through strata of commentaries and compendia, dominated 

by works attributed to the fifth-century Indian 

scholar-monk BUDDHAGHOSA. Buddhaghosa is often 

considered to be the authoritative arbiter of Theravada 

orthodoxy, although this status has been challenged, 

for example, by proponents of Burmese-style 

VIPASSANA (SANSKRIT, VIPAŚYANA) meditation in Sri 

Lanka in the twentieth century. 

One explanation for Buddhaghosa’s dominance 

over Theravada scholasticism lies in the use made of 

him by another key figure in the commentarial tradition, 

the twelfth-century scholar-monk Sariputta. 

Sariputta emerged as the premier scholastic figure in 

Theravada following King Parakramabahu I’s unification 

of the central Sri Lankan saṅgha groups under 

the Mahavihara monastic tradition. Sariputta based 

much of his interpretation of vinaya and doctrine on 

Buddhaghosa. Because of the political dominance of 

Sri Lanka at the time and the Mahavihara tradition’s 

reputation as the representative of Theravada orthodoxy 

and orthopraxy, many monks on mainland 

Southeast Asia sought ordination in the Mahavihara 

lineage. Mahavihara-derived lineages subsequently 

gained political support in mainland Southeast Asia, 

and Sariputta’s influence shaped literary developments 

within Theravada over subsequent centuries. 

The legacy of Mahavihara dominance has had an 

enormous impact on our understanding of the history 

of Theravada more generally. Theravada’s own historiography 

is preserved mainly within the VAM SA 

(chronicle) tradition of the Mahavihara and traditions 

derived from it. These chronicles emphasize the significance 

of the Mahavihara, Sri Lanka, and Pali orthodoxy, 

and appear to have obscured local traditions. 

According to the commentarial and vam sa tradition, 

Theravada is original Buddhism. Like the sutta 

(Sanskrit, sutra) and vinaya texts of its tipitaka, its abhidhamma 

texts too are attributed directly to the Buddha, 

who is said to have taught them to his mother 

in heaven, where they were witnessed for posterity by 

the Buddha’s disciple Sariputta (Sanskrit, ŚARIPUTRA). 

Theravada even claims that its commentaries were 

compiled at the First Council following the Buddha’s 

death. All the texts in its canon were rehearsed again 

at a second council one hundred years later. While the 

term Theravada, meaning “doctrine of the elders,” 

could be understood to indicate Buddhism in contrast 

to other religious traditions, the term becomes associated 

with a specific school in the Theravada account 

of the schism between the MAHASAM GHIKA SCHOOL 

and more orthodox Sthaviras (the Sanskrit equivalent 

of the Pali term Thera) that is said to have occasioned 

the Second Council. Theravada sees itself as the continuation 

of this orthodox Sthavira branch of the early 

Buddhist tradition. The ambiguity of the term theriya, 

which can mean either “elder Buddhist monk” or “follower 

of the Thera school,” complicates attempts to 

trace the school’s early history. According to Theravada 

tradition, its orthodoxy was again defended under 

Emperor AŚOKA in the third century B.C.E., this time 

against the corruption of heretics, which set a precedent 

for state intervention in the affairs of the saṅgha, 

which has shaped so much of the subsequent history 

of Theravada. 

After this purification, Aśoka had his son Mahinda 

and daughter Saṅghamitta ordained. They are credited 

with bringing Theravada and its orthodox canon 

and commentaries to Sri Lanka, the same commentaries 

that Buddhaghosa later redacted back into the 


837

T HERAVA DA 

original Pali from Singhalese. The vam sas also record 

that two monks, Sona and Uttara, took Theravada to 

mainland Southeast Asia around this time. Trade links 

had certainly already been forged between the Indian 

mainland, Sri Lanka, and mainland Southeast Asia by 

the third century B.C.E., although archaeological evidence 

suggests that the introduction of Buddhism into 

these new regions occurred in piecemeal and diverse 

fashions. 

Sometimes it is hard to relate inscriptions and other 

archaeological finds to a specific school and the association 

of Pali exclusively with Theravada may prove 

anachronistic. Theravada seems to have flourished in 

parts of Burma and Thailand from the fourth century 

onward, becoming particularly strong in the lower 

Burmese kingdom of Pyu and the Dvaravat polity of 

Thailand. While Theravada on the whole seems to 

have coexisted in mainland Southeast Asia with other 

traditions of Buddhism, as it had to a lesser extent in 

Sri Lanka, it sometimes became almost a quasi-state 

religion. This happened, for example, under King 

Aniruddha of the Pagan kingdom of upper Burma in 

the eleventh century, under King Ramkhamhaeng of 

central Thailand in the thirteenth century, and under 

King Tilokarat of northern Thailand in the fifteenth 

century. 

Buddhology 

The buddhology of Theravada is dominated by the figure 

of Gotama (Sanskrit, Gautama) Buddha, the historical 

Buddha, who lived in the sixth century B.C.E. 

according to Theravada chronology. Also important 

are the other four buddhas of the current world age, 

in particular the future buddha Metteyya (Sanskrit, 

MAITREYA). There is formally a tradition of twentyfour 

previous buddhas recorded in the Buddhavam sa 

(Chronicle of the Buddhas) text of the Sutta Pitaka, but 

they rarely figure in iconography or narrative, except 

in relation to the career of Gotama Buddha in his former 

lives. Other important cultic figures include localized 

Indic and Buddhicized local deities, as well as 

heroic and mythic figures. Nagas, mythical serpent beings 

that can take human form, are frequently represented 

as protectors of Buddhism. The process of 

localization, whereby DIVINITIES and spirits local to the 

host culture of Buddhism are adopted as protectors of 

Buddhism, has been important in Buddhism’s adaptation 

to new cultures. As Theravada ousted other forms 

of Buddhism in mainland Southeast Asia, it has incorporated 

figures such as UPAGUPTA, GAVAM PATI, and 

Pindola Bharadvaja, who are thought to have been 

more important originally in other Buddhist schools, 

such as the Sarvastivada. Consequently, the identity 

and significance of various deities and protective and 

other cultic figures varies greatly between different areas, 

and even between individual villages. They often 

serve some of the this-worldly functions of Theravada 

religion. 

Sacred landscape 

The sacred landscape of Theravada is dominated by 

monastic complexes. These complexes typically incorporate 

monastic dwellings, a building or area for 

sermons, a STU PA in commemoration of the historical 

Buddha, a bodhi tree, a BUDDHA IMAGE, often in 

an enclosed temple, along with other traditional representations 

of the Buddha, such as his sacred footprint. 

In many villages the local temple is the 

dominant feature. Temples are often decorated with 

carvings outside and, inside, with paintings of 

episodes in Gotama Buddha’s former lives (JATAKA) 

or final life, images of HELLS, and legends relating the 

coming of Buddhism to the region. Deities may also 

be featured in a subordinate position in the temple 

layout or contributory landscape. It is often believed 

that a guardian deity resides within the stupa, tree, or 

image, in addition to the inherent Buddha power. 

Stupas are often believed to contain relics of Gotama 

Buddha. Shrines, images, and stupas are also found 

independent of the monastic complex. Other features 

of the sacred landscape are forest and mountain hermitage 

sites for meditation monks, and, since the 

1950s, meditation and retreat centers for laypeople. 

The three refuges in religious practice and the 

role of ordination 

Much Theravada practice revolves around the three 

REFUGES of the Buddha, dhamma (Sanskrit, dharma), 

and SAṄGHA. Appropriate treatment of all three is a key 

focus of MERIT AND MERIT-MAKING, a principal focus 

of religious practice in Theravada. 

WORSHIP of the Buddha varies from daily and incidental 

personal worship to annual festivals involving 

the entire community. The annual festival of 

Wesak, named after the lunar month in which it takes 

place (April/May), celebrates the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment 

and death. Celebrations of other events, 

such as his former births, in particular the very popular 

Vessantara-jataka, may also form a significant 

component of festivals that are not primarily Buddhist 

in focus, such as annual harvest festivals or ancestor 

rites. Occasional ceremonies include consecrations of 


T HERAVA DA 

images and inaugurations of both sacred and secular 

buildings. Worship involves offerings of flowers, rice, 

and lamps to the Buddha image and circumambulation 

of the stupa. While the Buddha in human form 

may have died, his powers are thought to remain accessible 

through his relics and images. A legend known 

throughout the Theravada world states that the Buddha 

himself commissioned his own first image, and 

imbued it with all his own qualities so that it might 

remain to protect the dhamma. Some relics and statues 

are associated with the security of the nation, as 

is the case with the tooth relic enshrined in Kandy, Sri 

Lanka, or the Emerald Buddha in Thailand. Vam sas 

record visits the Buddha made during his lifetime to 

the later strongholds of Theravada Buddhism, in 

which he predicts the future glory of the religion and 

the monarchs who protect it in the region, and sometimes 

leaves behind relics. The predicted continuation 

of the dhamma in a particular region or in association 

with a particular royal lineage has been used to authorize 

the saṅgha-state interaction that dominates 

Theravada history. Pilgrimages to sites associated with 

Gotama or previous buddhas—both in different Theravada 

countries and the area of north India in which 

the historical Buddha lived—continue to be a popular 

form of merit-making. 

The monk represents the ideal of enlightenment, 

even if this is nowadays thought by most to be unattainable, 

and in some traditions the ordinand ritually 

reenacts the life of the Buddha at ORDINATION. Ordination 

of men is mainstream. In Sri Lanka, lifelong ordination 

remains the dominant intention, although 

monks often secede from the order, sometimes after 

becoming established in a career, and there is an increasing 

tendency toward ordination as a form of retirement. 

In mainland Southeast Asian traditions that 

have not been undermined by communism, most Buddhist 

men will ordain at some point in their lives, even 

if only for a short period. In these societies, ordination 

fulfills the function of a coming-of-age ceremony and 

is also seen as a way of providing one’s parents, in particular 

one’s mother, with merit to ensure a heavenly 

REBIRTH, thus repaying her for the agony of childbirth. 

The earliest age for novice ordination (the lower of the 

two levels of ordination) varies from very young boys 

in Myanmar, to eight-year-olds and above in Sri Lanka, 

and teenagers and upward in Thailand. The availability 

of education through non-monastic state and private 

educational institutions has altered ordination 

patterns, as has the need to fit temporary ordination 

into the schedule of compulsory education. While temporary 

ordinations used to last for the three months 

of the annual rains-retreat, some are now designed to 

fit into the long university vacation. In communist 

countries, the loss of prestige and the lack of continuity 

in ordination traditions have reduced the dominance 

of ordination, especially in urban areas. 

Full ordination for WOMEN died out in the medieval 

period and some Theravada traditions have only recently 

attempted to revive it through reimportation of 

a Buddhist ordination lineage from East Asia (in 1996 

in Sri Lanka, in 2002 in Thailand). For this reason, manifestations 

of female renunciation in the Theravada 

school are quite diverse. Many women have pursued a 

life of celibate renunciation by undertaking either individually 

or in an institutionalized group most or all 

of the ten PRECEPTS traditionally undertaken by a novice 

monk. Sometimes nunneries are attached to monasteries, 

and NUNS may essentially serve the domestic 

needs of MONKS. Sometimes nuns have separate institutions 

and are independent of monks, a situation only 

fully possible in the absence of full ordination, since full 

ordination for women requires the participation of 

monks. The prestige and opportunities accorded Theravada 

nuns have greatly increased over the past few 

decades. Nevertheless, it is the exception rather than the 

rule for nuns to form a significant focal point in the religious 

life of a Theravada layperson. 

By contrast, monks are the focus of lay religious 

practice at a whole range of ceremonies, from large annual 

celebrations to incidental homage paid when a 

layperson meets a monk. Perhaps the most significant 

of the annual ceremonies is the kathina ceremony, at 

which robes (kathina) and other gifts are offered to 

monks at the end of the rains-retreat. 

In addition to representing and pursuing the ideal 

of nibbana (Sanskrit, NIRVAN A), monks fulfill a number 

of other roles. They are the preservers and communicators 

of the dhamma. They are the formalized 

recipients of the generosity and esteem of laypeople 

and thereby serve as a source of merit for the laity. 

They act as spiritual teachers, particularly through providing 

sermons on holy days and on special occasions. 

They may act as advisers to rulers and governments. 

Some monks have even become members of parliament, 

trade union heads, and directors of charities. 

They have traditionally been educators, especially before 

the introduction of state education. Finally, 

monks fulfill the function of priests and ritual specialists, 

and sometimes even serve as astrologists. As ritual 

specialists monks have a role in administering the 


839

T HERAVA DA 

refuges and precepts to laypeople, and in performing 

funerals. They are often engaged to perform apotropaic 

rituals, which focus on the protective power of the 

Buddha and the dhamma. 

Paritta 

The most common manifestation of such protective 

rituals is the recitation of PARITTA AND RAKSA TEXTS, 

which are considered to offer powerful protection in 

warding off dangers and appeasing malevolent spirits. 

Paritta recitation can last throughout the night or even 

for seven days and nights. During the ceremony further 

objects may be imbued with protective qualities, 

including string, sacred water, and AMULETS AND TAL- 

ISMANS. In mainland Southeast Asia it is common for 

men to wear protective amulets in the form of small 

Buddha images, images of famous monks or kings, 

mythical figures, or even phallic shapes. Other forms 

of visual protection include yantras, which may be 

drawn on cloth or used as the pattern for a tattoo. They 

portray heroic figures and sacred writing of Buddhist 

formulae in Pali, sometimes in the form of geometric 

designs and outlines of the Buddha. 

Attempts to classify Therava da 

Much Theravada religious activity includes ritualized 

interaction with the Buddha, dhamma, and saṅgha in 

combination in one or more of the forms described 

above. As such, Theravada has much in common with 

other forms of Buddhism. In scholarship it is often 

strongly demarcated from other traditions, although 

the viability of such distinctions is currently under 

scrutiny. 

One such distinction can be summarized on the basis 

of the relative value in Theravada of self-transformation 

through MEDITATION and RITUAL. Paraphrasing the 

work of Melford Spiro, Theravada religion may be said 

to fall into three categories. First, nibbanic Theravada focuses 

on self-transformation, chiefly through meditations 

aimed at developing the emotional responses and 

level of insight of individuals so that they become enlightened 

and escape from SAM SARA. Second, kammatic 

religion focuses on merit-making and ethical action, to 

improve one’s future life and lives within sam sara. 

Third, apotropaic Buddhism uses magic in the form of 

amulets and rituals to deal with this-worldly concerns, 

either in distinction to or outside of the law of karmic 

cause and effect. 

Tibetan Buddhism has been similarly categorized 

by Geoffrey Samuel. His three categories are: first, 

bodhi-oriented practices that focus on often ritualized 

altruism and higher levels of tantric ritual; second, 

karma-oriented merit-making to improve future life 

within sam sara; and third, pragmatic religion for thisworldly 

concerns, using tantric ritual. 

If we align these two analyses we see that in terms 

of the two categories of seeking improved life within 

sam sara and this-worldly concerns, Theravada and Tibetan 

Buddhism are directly parallel. It is at the soteriological 

end that Theravada putatively eschews ritual 

and magic, whereas Tibetan Buddhism invokes it. 

However, there is a tradition of ritualized soteriology 

in Theravada too that was found throughout the Theravada 

world in the premodern period. This tradition 

involved ritual identification with the Buddha and the 

assimilation of the Buddha’s qualities, much as are 

found in Tibetan tantra, yet using only Theravada categories 

and nomenclature. Thus, Theravada also employs 

ritual practices that might be designated magical 

at the nibbanic/bodhi end of the spectrum, a convergence 

that minimizes the distinction between Tibetan 

and Theravada Buddhist practices. It further suggests 

that the apparent Theravada focus on forms of meditation 

found in the tipitaka and Buddhaghosa may be 

the result of a narrowing of the tradition caused in part 

by the close state-saṅgha relationship that shaped 

dominant forms of Theravada. 

A more widespread generalization often made regarding 

Theravada is that it is the sole surviving form 

of HINAYANA Buddhism. The supposed Mahayana- 

Hnayana dichotomy is so prevalent in Buddhist literature 

that it has yet fully to loosen its hold over scholarly 

representations of the religion. Hnayana (literally, “inferior 

way”) is a polemical term, which self-described 

Mahayana (literally, “great way”) Buddhist literature 

uses to denigrate its opponents. As such, Hnayana is a 

designation that has no clearly identifiable external referent. 

Some of the first attempts to categorize forms of 

Buddhism as either Hnayana or Mahayana are found 

in the accounts of early Chinese pilgrims to South Asia. 

But there are additional reasons for the modern association 

of Theravada with Hnayana. The first is that 

one body of Mahayana texts, the PRAJNAPARAMITA LIT- 

ERATURE, propounds the lack of self of all dharmas, a 

critique of the analytical categories of the abhidharma. 

This position is refuted in the Kathavatthu (Points of 

Controversy), a text of the Theravada Abhidhamma 

Pitaka, which purports to discuss points of debate with 

other religious traditions raised at the Third Council. 

The second is that one supposed characteristic of the 

Mahayana involves the proliferation of multiple buddhas 

in parallel world systems. The possibility of more 


T HERAVA DA A RT AND A RCHITECTURE 

than one buddha living at a time is a view also rejected 

in the Kathavatthu. The most common reason made 

to distinguish Mahayana and Theravada is thoroughly 

flawed. This is the distinction made between Mahayana 

as the path of the BODHISATTVA and Theravada as the 

path of the ARHAT or śravaka (disciple). Even Buddhaghosa 

recognized three levels of practice: that of the 

Buddha through the path of the bodhisatta (Sanskrit, 

bodhisattva); that of the paccekabuddha (Sanskrit, 

PRATYEKABUDDHA); and that of the arhat. Furthermore 

the bodhisattva ideal is present throughout Theravada 

history, even if it never became ritualized and institutionalized 

to the same degree as it did in other Buddhist 

traditions. Although the bodhisattva ideal in 

Theravada is more commonly associated with Gotama 

Buddha himself and with kings, it is also found expressed 

by those of humbler position. It is, for example, 

a common vow made by manuscript copyists in 

the colophons to Theravada texts. 

See also: Cambodia; Commentarial Literature; Councils, 

Buddhist; Folk Religion, Southeast Asia; Laos; 

Mainstream Buddhist Schools; Myanmar; Pali, Buddhist 

Literature in; Sri Lanka; Thailand; Theravada 

Art and Architecture; Vietnam 

Bibliography 

Assavavirulhakarn, Prapod. “The Ascendancy of Theravada 

Buddhism in Southeast Asia.” Ph.D. diss. University of California, 

Berkeley, 1990. 

Crosby, Kate. “Tantric Theravada: A Bibliographic Essay on the 

Writings of François Bizot and Other Literature on the Yogavacara 

Tradition.” Journal of Contemporary Buddhism 1, 

no. 2 (2000): 141–198. 

Gombrich, R. F. Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient 

Benares to Modern Colombo. London and New York: 

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988. 




Samuel, Geoffrey. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. 

Washington, DC, and London: Smithsonian Institution 

Press, 1993. 

Samuels, Jeffrey. “The Bodhisattva Ideal in Theravada Buddhist 

Theory and Practices: A Re-evaluation of the Bodhisattva- 

Śravaka Opposition.” Philosophy East and West 47, no. 3 

(1997): 399–415. 


Lanka. Chambersburg, PA: ANIMA, 1978. 

Spiro, Melford. Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and Its 

Burmese Vicissitudes. London: Allen and Unwin, 1971. 

Swearer, Donald S. The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia, revised 

edition. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

1995. 

Terwiel, B. J. Monks and Magic: An Analysis of Religious Ceremonies 

in Central Thailand (1975), 3rd revised edition. 

Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus Press, 1994. 

KATE CROSBY 

THERAVA DA ART AND ARCHITECTURE 

The focus of THERAVADA Buddhist art and architecture 

is Buddha Gautama, as revered teacher, exemplar of 

virtue and ethical conduct, role model for the SAṄGHA, 

and source of supernatural power. Thus the Theravada 

monastery serves as a center for the dissemination of 

the Buddha’s teachings, a gathering place for the practice 

and continuity of the religion, a dwelling place for 

monks, and a repository of sacred objects, including 

BUDDHA IMAGES and relics. Similarly, the majority of 

Theravada art consists of sculptures and paintings depicting 

narratives about the historical Buddha’s life 

and previous lives as lessons for the faithful. 

In premodern times, Theravada Buddhist monasteries 

were the focal point in the social and educational life 

of the community. Every village had at least one 

monastery and each town and city had several. While 

sociological, economic, and in some cases political 

changes—particularly in Cambodia and to a lesser degree 

in Laos—have disrupted many traditional patterns, 

the local monastery continues to occupy a significant 

place in the lives of individuals and communities. 

A monastery compound typically includes an image 

hall for the monastery’s principal Buddha image, 

an ordination hall, an assembly hall where laypeople 

gather to listen to sermons and recitations of sacred 

texts by the monks, a solid, dome-shaped reliquary, 

and residence buildings for the monks. Regional variations 

on this model exist, however; for example, in 

certain places the image hall and assembly hall are 

combined into one building. In other places the assembly 

hall and ordination hall are combined and the 

place reserved for ordinations is off-limits to women. 

Moreover, some monasteries have residences for nuns 

and lay meditators and some have a separate building 

for storing sacred scriptures. The latter, often referred 

to as a Tripitaka hall or library is usually raised on stilts 

to protect the books from water, insects, and rodents. 

While the proportions and architectural features of 

monastery buildings vary from one region to another, 


841


certain features can be found throughout the Theravada 

Buddhist world. Most obvious are the roofs, 

which are multitiered (especially for ordination halls 

and image halls) with an odd number of tiers, three 

being the most common. In addition, eaves brackets, 

gables, pillars, and doors are often decorated with carvings 

and paintings of mythical beings from Buddhist 

COSMOLOGY, such as ascetics, heavenly musicians, naga 

serpents, lions, geese and other mythical birds, as well 

as plant motifs, particularly lotuses and vines. These 

motifs were among the repertoire of elements that both 

Buddhism and Hinduism inherited from the indigenous 

mythological landscape of India. Similarly, as 

Buddhism spread from India to Sri Lanka and Southeast 

Asia, it adapted to local preexisting spiritual beliefs 

by incorporating them into its narratives, rituals, 

and iconography. As examples, many Burmese monasteries 

contain statues of the thirty-seven nats (the indigenous 

deities representing natural phenomena and 

the spirits of ancestors who have met a violent death) 

and throughout the Theravada world people place offerings 

at the foot of large banyan trees—both within 

monastery compounds and outside—to revere the 

spirits that dwell within. 

Similarly, Hindu deities, such as Brahma and INDRA, 

are frequently depicted as guardians of the Buddha to 

indicate the ascendancy of Buddhism over Hinduism, 

as are demonic figures that represent local spirits tamed 

by the Buddha’s teachings. All of these elements contribute 

toward creating an elaborate, otherworldly atmosphere 

that calls to mind both local royal dwellings 

and higher realms of the Buddhist cosmos. 

A generally more austere, but no less important, 

building in the monastery compound is the STU PA or 

cetiya, a solid structure roughly resembling an inverted 

cone. The stupa also varies greatly in shape, from broad 

bulbous bowl-shaped monuments in Sri Lanka to 

obelisk-shaped towers found at some sites in northeast 

Thailand (such as Phra That Phanom), to elegant, attenuated 

lotus-bud chedis of the SUKHOTHAI kingdom 

in Thailand. While some stupas contain relics of 

monks or monastery patrons, others are believed to 

hold bone fragments of the Buddha and are highly 

revered for their sacredness. 

Laypeople’s activities 

Laypeople visit the monasteries for numerous reasons: 

to observe the lunar holy days (every full moon, waning 

moon, new moon, and waxing moon), to make 

merit for deceased relatives or for family member who 

are sick or in need, to consult with the monks about 

problems or about astrological considerations, to 

make merit for themselves in the hopes of fulfilling 

wishes, to seek advice or blessings, to be ordained, and 

to meditate. 

Numerous monasteries are popular PILGRIMAGE sites 

because they are believed to contain sacred objects, such 

as an authentic bone fragment of the Buddha, a footprint 

left by the Buddha as delineated in a local chronicle, 

or historically significant images of the Buddha or 

of deceased monks famous for their supernatural powers. 

Devout Buddhists often make a special effort to pay 

reverence at these sites—sometimes in the hopes of obtaining 

a boon—with traditional offerings of flowers, 

incense, and candles. They usually return home with 

an amulet resembling the principal Buddha image commemorating 

the significance of the site. 

At many monasteries pilgrims can purchase a small 

bird in a bamboo cage, circumambulate the monastery 

holding the birdcage, praying at various Buddha images 

along the way. Finally, they release the bird, appealing 

to the three JEWELS (Buddha, dharma, and 

saṅgha) to witness this act as sufficient merit. 

Ja taka stories 

Until modern times, the monastery’s functions included 

the teachings of moral and religious teachings 

as well as basic literacy skills. With a largely illiterate 

population, monks relied on oral storytelling and the 

visual lessons of murals to teach Buddhist principles 

of ethics and morality through stories about the Buddha 

Gautama’s life and previous lives. While key events 

from the Buddha’s biography are frequently depicted 

in mural painting as well as in the miniature paintings 

of paper manuscripts, stories from his previous lives 

(JATAKAS, or birth stories, found in varied collections 

and totaling 500 to 547 stories) are equally, if not more, 

prevalent. 

In Myanmar (Burma) terra-cotta plaques representing 

each of the jatakas can be found on the outside walls 

of some of the great monasteries of the ancient city of 

Pagan. In the mural painting of Thailand, Cambodia, 

and Laos, the last ten birth stories are found more frequently 

than the entire set. Each story represents one 

of the ten great virtues (renunciation, perseverance, 

loving kindness, resolution, wisdom, moral practice, 

forbearance, equanimity, truthfulness, and generosity) 

that the future Buddha perfected in order to attain enlightenment, 

and each has a predictable iconographic 

set of elements to identify it. For example, in the story 



demonstrating perseverance, the future Buddha, a 

prince who is separated from his kingdom at birth, survives 

a shipwreck to claim his throne. He is usually depicted 

swimming, surrounded by stylized waves and sea 

monsters, and rescued by a sea goddess. 

The last of the ten, the Great Birth Story or Vessantara 

Jataka, which exists in countless versions, or 

“tellings,” is the most frequently depicted and recounted 

narrative of all, including the biography of the 

Buddha Gautama. Depending on the region, it is recited 

at the close of the Buddhist rains-retreat (around 

the time of the full moon in November) or during the 

months that follow. In parts of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, 

and Burma, the recitation of this story is one of 

the most significant ceremonies of the year, lasting an 

entire day and a night. Painted banners depicting 

events in the story are hung around the inside of the 

monastery. Laypeople sponsor the reading of sections 

of the story and bring offerings of food and flowers. 

The motivation behind these activities is the widespread 

belief that a person who listens to the Great 

Birth Story recited in this context will be reborn during 

the time of the future Buddha MAITREYA. Those 

who hear Maitreya preach, according to this belief, will 

accomplish the very difficult goal of attaining NIRVAN A. 

While this doctrine may be technically outside the 

realm of what some would consider orthodox Theravada 

teachings, it is an important aspect of practice and 

iconography in Theravada regions. 

Apart from these themes, other narratives depicted 

in murals, reliefs, and carvings are local histories describing 

the coming of Buddhism to the area, local 

folktales that are retold as birth stories of the Buddha, 

and the great Ramayana epic. While the latter is technically 

a Hindu story, it has long been popular in the 

Buddhist world and particularly in royally sponsored 

monasteries because of its association with kingship. 

Rama, the story’s hero, is a model of royal and familial 

righteousness. Monastery murals frequently depict 

his battles with the demonic forces to rescue his wife 

Sta and restore order in his kingdom. They were commissioned 

by monarchs as a way of bringing to the 

earthly realm the power and symbolism of the heaven 

or macrocosm. 

Murals and manuscripts depict the same themes 

and share similar stylistic features: abstract rather than 

realistic portrayal of figures, architecture, and landscape; 

and grouping of similar figures (such as warriors, 

attendants, dancers) in clusters that form one 

among several patterns within a space, with one figure 

echoing the others. Moreover, within these paintings 

A bronze Buddha from the Thai “golden age.” The Buddha is usually 

depicted standing, sitting, or lying down; the walking image 

is distinctively Thai. (Thai, Sukhothai period, fourteenth century.) 

© Copyright The British Museum. Reproduced by permission. 

one can also see a strong reflection of local dress, textile 

designs, indigenous physical characteristics, architecture, 

and customs. 

Sculpture 

Sculptures representing the historical Buddha made of 

stone, bronze, terra-cotta, or wood can be found 

throughout the Theravada world. They range in size 

from colossal images especially popular in Sri Lanka and 

Burma to miniature amulets encased in gold and worn 

on a necklace. The image serves as a reminder of the 

Buddha, his teachings, and his spiritual descendants— 

the monks, known collectively as the saṅgha. Images of 

the Buddha are always treated with utmost reverence 

and placed on a dais or altar above the heads of the people. 

It would be inappropriate to keep a Buddha image 

in a place other than a monastery, museum, or private 

home altar. 


843

T HICH N HAT H ANH 

Images are believed to be repositories of potency 

and are often draped with orange robes resembling 

those worn by monks and worshiped with offerings of 

flowers, incense, and candles. Moreover, certain images 

are revered for miracles associated with them or 

legends surrounding their discovery. At many monasteries 

worshipers can purchase small squares of gold 

leaf to attach to images as acts of merit, and certain 

images, such as the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, regularly 

receive offerings of special food thought to be 

their favorite from devotees requesting favors, such as 

a relative’s good health. 

Throughout Southeast Asia during the festivities revolving 

around the solar New Year in mid-April, images 

are carried in procession on elaborately decorated 

carts or trucks and bathed with fragrant water. Thus, 

even in a Theravada context, Buddha images are 

treated in ways similar to those of statues of Hindu 

deities in India. 

The most frequently seen postures and hand positions 

(MUDRA) in the Theravada tradition are those 

depicting key events in the Buddha’s life: meditating — 

seated cross-legged with hands folded in the lap; the 

enlightenment—a similar seated posture, but with the 

right hand at the right knee, fingers pointing downward 

toward the earth; teaching—standing with hands 

extended; and in nirvana or death—lying on the right 

side, head supported by the right hand. 

In Southeast Asia, the most popular posture by far 

is that of enlightenment, the posture known either as 

“touching the earth” or “victory over MARA” (the personification 

of darkness and delusion). In many 

monasteries, murals depicting this event cover the wall 

behind the main Buddha image. A central meditating 

figure of the Buddha is surrounded by Mara’s army— 

a variety of demonic characters, some human, some 

animal, some hybrid—flinging arrows and other 

weapons. Below the Buddha is a standing female figure 

of the Earth Goddess, whom the Buddha has called 

to witness his enlightenment. She wrings out her long 

hair and from it flows the water that has collected from 

the acts of generosity that Gautama performed in his 

past lives, each time consecrating his donation by 

pouring water from an urn onto the ground. Theravada 

Buddhists sometimes replicate this practice when 

they present offerings to the monks. 

See also: Amulets and Talismans; Buddha, Life of the, 

in Art; Merit and Merit-Making; Southeast Asia, Buddhist 

Art in; Sri Lanka, Buddhist Art in 

Bibliography 

Boisselier, Jean. The Heritage of Thai Sculpture. New York: 

Weatherhill, 1975. 

Döhring, Karl. Buddhist Temples of Thailand: An Architectonic 

Introduction. Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus Press, 2000. 

Gosling, Betty. A Chronology of Religious Architecture at 

Sukhothai, Late Thirteeth to Early Fifteenth Century. Ann Arbor, 

MI: Association for Asian Studies, 1996. 

Gosling, Betty. Old Luang Prabang. New York and Kuala 

Lumpur, Malaysia: Oxford University Press, 1996. 

Luce, Gordon H., Old Burma—Early Pagan. Locust Valley, NY: 

J. J. Augustin, 1969. 

Matics, K. I. Introduction to the Thai Temple. Bangkok, Thailand: 

White Lotus Press, 1992. 

Ringis, Rita. Thai Temples and Temple Murals. Singapore and 



Bay, Scotland: Kiscadale, 1989. 

Vogel, Jean Philippe. Buddhist Art in India, Ceylon, and Java. 

New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1998. 

Woodward, Hiram W. The Sacred Sculpture of Thailand: The 

Alexander B. Griswold Collection, the Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore, 

MD: The Walters Art Gallery; Seattle: University of 


Woodward, Hiram W. The Art and Architecture of Thailand: 

From Prehistoric Times through the Thirteenth Century. Leiden, 

Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2003. 

Wray, Elizabeth; Rosenfield, Clare; and Bailey, Dorothy. Ten 

Lives of the Buddha: Siamese Paintings and Jataka Tales. New 

York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1972. 

THICH NHAT HANH 

BONNIE BRERETON 

Thich Nhat Hanh (Nguyen Xaun Bao, 1926– ), a Vietnamese 

Buddhist monk and peace activist, coined the 

term ENGAGED BUDDHISM in the 1960s to describe the 

antiwar movement in his country. Nominated for the 

Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 by Martin Luther King, Jr., 

Nhat Hanh led the Buddhist delegation to the Paris 

peace talks and organized rescue missions to save the 

“boat people” fleeing Vietnam in the 1970s. Exiled 

from Vietnam since the 1960s, Nhat Hanh has taught 

MEDITATION and reconciliation to thousands of followers 

in the West. He founded the Tiep Hien Order 

(Order of Interbeing), has established retreat centers 

in Europe and North America, and has published more 


T IANTAI 

S CHOOL 

than one hundred books of poetry and prose. Stressing 

the oneness or “interbeing” of all existence, mindfulness 

in daily life, and service and nonviolent 

activism on behalf of those suffering tyranny and injustice, 

Thich Nhat Hanh is a leading preceptor of engaged 


See also: Europe; United States 

Bibliography 

Nhat Hanh, Thich. Being Peace. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 

1987. 

Nhat Hanh, Thich. Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social 

Change. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1993. 

TIANTAI SCHOOL 


Often described as the first genuinely Sinitic school of 

Buddhism, the Tiantai school traces its ancestry back 

to NAGARJUNA (ca. second century C.E.) in India, not 

by any direct transmission but through the reading of 

translated texts by its proto-patriarchs, Huiwen (Beiqi 

zunzhe, mid-sixth century) and Huisi (Nanyue chanshi, 

515–577). Very little is known of these two figures. 

Huiwen in particular is little more than a 

shadowy presence; traditional biographies report that 

he was active during China’s Northern Qi dynasty 

(550–577), stressed strict meditation practice, and initiated 

the characteristic Tiantai emphasis on triplicity. 

In particular, Huiwen is reported to have emphasized 

the “simultaneity of the three contemplations,” 

namely, the contemplation of each object as emptiness, 

provisional positing, and the “mean,” as derived 

from a strong misreading of works attributed to 

Nagarjuna. Huisi, on the other hand, authored several 

extant texts, and is credited with combining Huiwen’s 

“three contemplations” with the teaching of the 

LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), to 

which Huisi was especially devoted. This combination 

proved to be explosive. 

Huisi interpreted the lotus from the title of this 

sutra as a metaphor suggesting a special relationship 

between cause and effect, or practice and enlightenment. 

The lotus, he noted, is unusual in that it gives 

no flower without producing a fruit, that the fruit is 

concealed and copresent in the flower, and a single 

flower produces many fruits. This suggests that every 

practice leads to many different results, which are copresent 

in the practice, and yet unrevealed; every practice, 

even those that show no orientation toward 

buddhahood, lead to and are copresent with buddhahood. 

The translation of the Lotus Su tra by KUMARA- 

JIVA (350–409/413 C.E.) characterizes “the ultimate 

reality” (literally, “real mark”) “of all dharmas” in terms 

of “ten suchnesses” (literally, ten like-this’s). They are: 

1. like-this (suchlike) appearance 

2. nature 

3. substance 

4. power 

5. activity 

6. cause 

7. condition 

8. effect 

9. response 

10. equality of ultimacy from beginning to end. 

Huisi developed a special reading of this passage, facilitated 

by the peculiarity of the Chinese translation, 

where each phrase referred to every element of experience 

simultaneously as “empty,” in addition to its literal 

reference to each as provisionally posited, referring 

to each specific differentiated aspect (i.e., appearance, 

nature, etc.). In Zhiyi’s exfoliation of this interpretative 

move, each was also understood as the “mean.” 

This bold hermeneutic approach and its threefold implication 

formed the basis for what would develop into 

the distinctive Tiantai conception of “the ultimate reality 

of/as all dharmas.” 

The de facto founder of the school, from whose 

part-time residence—Mount Tiantai in modern 

Zhejiang—the school gets its name, is ZHIYI (Tiantai 

Zhizhe dashi, 538–597). It was Zhiyi’s numerous and 

voluminous works, most of which were transcribed by 

his disciple Guanding (Zhangan dashi, 561–632) from 

Zhiyi’s lectures, that become authoritative for all later 

Tiantai tradition. 

Provisional and ultimate truth: The Lotus Su tra 

and the classification of teachings 

Zhiyi constructed a vast syncretic system of MAHAYANA 

thought and practice that aimed at giving a comprehensive 

overview of all of Buddhism and that found a 

place for all known modes of practice and doctrine. 


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T IANTAI 

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Confronted with the massive influx of Mahayana texts 

translated into Chinese, many of which directly contradicted 

one another in matters of both doctrine and 

practice, Zhiyi was faced with the challenge of accommodating 

the claim that all these texts represented the 

authoritative teaching of the Buddha. The solution he 

arrived at can be described as an insight into the 

interconnection between two central Mahayana doctrines: 

the concept of UPAYA (skillful means), particularly 

as presented in the Lotus Su tra, and the concept 

of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS), particularly as developed in 

the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL. From the synthesis of these 

ideas, Zhiyi developed a distinctive understanding of 

the buddha-nature, rooted especially in the universalist 

exposition given in the NIRVANA SU TRA, and the 

identity between delusion and enlightenment as invoked 

in the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa and other sutras, 

which entailed a reconfiguring of both upaya and 

śunyata as they had been understood in earlier Mahayana 


The Lotus Su tra asserts that the śravakas (HINAYANA 

disciples), who had hitherto been regarded as having 

no aspiration toward bodhisattvahood or buddhahood—indeed, 

as having explicitly repudiated these 

goals—are in fact BODHISATTVAS currently working toward 

buddhahood, although they are unaware of the 

real efficacy of their current practice. The text develops 

the idea that it is possible to be a bodhisattva without 

realizing it into a claim that in fact all Buddhist 

disciples are really bodhisattvas, and all who hear the 

Lotus teaching will finally attain buddhahood. Indeed, 

it is said in the text that no sentient being really knows 

what he or she is practicing, what the ultimate karmic 

efficacy of his or her deeds and cognitions is, nor what 

his or her own real identity is. Only buddhas know 

these things, and the real efficacy of all their deeds as 

thus known by the buddhas is that these deeds allow 

these beings eventually to become buddhas themselves. 

The non-bodhisattva practices and teachings are all 

skillful means provided by the Buddha, sometimes requiring 

an ignorance of the final goal in order to have 

efficacy toward reaching that goal. This is the teaching 

of the first half of the sutra, which Zhiyi calls the “trace 

gate.” Another wrinkle is given in the second half of 

the sutra, which Zhiyi calls the “root gate.” Here it is 

claimed that Śakyamuni Buddha did not attain buddhahood 

at BODH GAYA, but had actually been and 

would continue to be a buddha for countless eons, in 

spite of his apparent imminent decease. The implication 

is that while practicing the bodhisattva path, he 

was in fact already a buddha (leaving ambiguous his 

own degree of awareness of this fact at the time), and 

that being a buddha does not mean a transcendence of 

engagement in the intersubjective work of liberating 

SENTIENT BEINGS, but the mastering of all possible skillful 

means by which to accomplish this task, and a 

ceaseless indefatigable endeavor to do so. 

Taken together then, the two halves of the sutra suggest 

that all beings are bodhisattvas, and all bodhisattvas 

are buddhas. And yet this is only so if the 

division between them, the opacity and ignorance that 

keeps them from collapsing these identities, remains 

intact, just as the upayas work only as long as they are 

not known as such. This means that the intersubjective 

liberative relationship between buddhas and sentient 

beings is primary and always operative, whichever 

role one may seem to be playing at any time. To be is 

to be intersubjective, and each being is always both liberating 

and being liberated by all others, even while 

also creating KARMA (ACTION) and DUH KHA (SUFFER- 

ING). Ontology is here made soteriological: All existence 

is instructive and revelatory, and can be read as 

a salvational device put forth by a buddha to liberate 

sentient beings. 

The relation between illusion and reality is thus 

reconfigured as the relation between provisional and 

ultimate truth in the Buddha’s teaching. Zhiyi characterizes 

the Lotus teaching as the “opening of the provisional 

to reveal the real” (kaiquan xianshi), allowing 

one to see the provisional truths as both a means to 

and an expression of the ultimate truth. Provisional 

and ultimate truth are nondual, even while maintaining 

their strict opposition. Their relation is similar to 

that between the set-up and punch line of a joke; the 

punch line is funny only because the set-up was not, 

but once the punch line is understood, the set-up too 

is seen to have always been pervaded with the quality 

of humorousness, precisely by being contrastingly 

nonhumorous. On the basis of this doctrine, Zhiyi established 

a comprehensive system of “classification of 

teachings,” which categorizes all Buddhist teachings as 

expressions of ultimate truth tailored to specific circumstances 

and listeners. 

The Madhyamaka doctrine of “two truths” can be 

understood as asserting that ultimate truth is somehow 

more real than conventional truth, and indeed 

that while conventional truth covers both common 

language (i.e., the everyday use of terms like I, you, 

cause, effect, and the like) and verbal Buddhist teachings, 

the metaphysical claims of rival schools (i.e., attempts 

to make rigorous ultimate truths of causality, 


T IANTAI 

S CHOOL 

selfhood, a first cause, and so on) are not even conventional 

truth, but are simply falsehoods and errors. 

Zhiyi reinterprets the Madhyamaka position as implying 

the “three truths”: emptiness, provisional positing, 

and the mean, which includes both and signifies their 

synonymy. The relation between these three is understood 

on the model of the Lotus Su tra’s doctrine of 

“opening the provisional to reveal the real,” which annuls 

any hierarchy between conventional and ultimate 

truth, and also expands conventional truth so as to include 

any provisionally posited assertion or cognition 

without exception. Zhiyi’s claim is that these three aspects 

are not only on precisely equal footing and of 

equal ultimacy, but that each is in fact simply a way of 

stating the other two; the three are synonymous. 

The three truths and the doctrine of 

inherent entailment 

The reasoning behind the three truths doctrine follows 

the traditional Buddhist doctrine of PRATITYASAMUT- 

PADA (DEPENDENT ORIGINATION), which holds that 

every element of experience necessarily appears “together 

with” other elements, which it depends upon 

for its existence and determinate character. These 

other, conditioning, elements, of course, also gain their 

determinate character only through their dependence 

on still other elements that simultaneously condition 

them. But it was this determinate character that was 

supposed to serve as a determining ground for the first 

element. If the determiner is not determinate, the determined 

also fails to be determined. Hence each element 

is coherent only locally, in relation to a limited 

set of these conditions; when all of its conditions— 

including contexts, components, and precedents—are 

considered, its coherence vanishes. There arises, then, 

no unambiguous particular element or entity with a 

univocally decidable nature. Precisely because all are 

determined in dependence on conditions, they are simultaneously 

without a fixed, determinate identity. 

This is the meaning of emptiness. 

Elements of experience are normally taken to have 

definitive identities, to be determinate, to be finite, to 

have “simple location,” and to have borders or boundaries 

between themselves and what is outside themselves. 

Tiantai MEDITATION, however, calls for an inquiry 

into the borders between being X and not being X, either 

in time, space, or conceptual space (i.e., the arising 

of a given state from its qualitatively different 

antecedents, conceptual contrasts, or efficient causes). 

To appear in experience at all, X must be “non-all,” 

must be contrasted to some non-X, and must have an 

“outside.” But to necessarily have an outside means the 

outside is not really outside; the relation between the 

internal and the external is itself internal. One can always 

ask: Is the border (spatial, temporal, or conceptual) 

part of the inside or the outside, both, or neither? 

There is no coherent way to answer these questions if 

to exist is assumed to mean “simply located.” Hence, 

the interface always proves unintelligible, and the outside 

proves paradoxically both ineradicable and impossible, 

since it always proves to be equally internal, 

and hence not an outside at all. Therefore, the inside 

(X) is equally ineradicable and impossible (bukede, 

bukeshe). Like space, each determinate existent is simultaneously 

a merely nominal reality, is unobstructed 

and unobstructing, is beyond being and 

nonbeing, and is all-pervasive, present equally in the 

opposite of itself, in contrast to which it was originally 

defined. Precisely the same analysis applies to the difference 

between those defining borders that “determine 

as X” and those that “determine as Y,” which is 

why Zhiyi goes on to assert that to be determined as 

X is always at the same time to be determined as Y, 

and all other possible quiddities. 

In sum, what is only locally coherent is thereby globally 

incoherent. It is what it is only because the horizon 

of relevant contexts has been arbitrarily limited, 

but the fact that all being is necessarily contextualized 

(arises with qualitative othernesses) means that any 

such limit is ultimately arbitrary, and there are more 

relevant contexts that can be brought to bear in every 

case. The “mean” signifies that these two are merely 

alternate statements of the same fact, which necessarily 

appears in these two contrasted ways. Determinateness, 

thought through to the end, turns out to be 

ambiguity, and vice versa. Hence, ambiguity and determinateness 

are no longer “other” to one another, 

and each is itself, just as it is, “absolute” (i.e., free of 

dependence on a relationship to an outside). Therefore, 

determinateness is a synonym for ambiguity, and 

either is a synonym for absoluteness (the ultimate reality 

and value, “eternal, blissful, self, and pure”). Any 

of these always signifies all three aspects. Moreover, determinateness 

is never simply “determinateness as such 

or in general”: It always means precisely this determinateness 

and precisely all other possible determinateness, 

which Zhiyi formulates for convenience as “the 

three thousand quiddities.” Any possible experienced 

content is necessarily dependently co-arisen, which is 

to be provisionally posited as precisely this (like-this 

appearance, etc.), which is to be empty, which is to 

be readable equally as provisional positing and as 


847

T IANTAI 

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emptiness, which is to be readable as precisely every 

other possible determinacy. 

It is from the “mean” that the Zhiyi deduces the 

claim that all things are everywhere at once. For if to 

be definitively X and not definitively X are merely alternate 

ways of stating the same fact about X, the contrast 

between the absence and presence of X is 

annulled, and X is no more present here and now than 

it is present there and then. It is “simply located” at 

neither locus, but “virtually located” at both. It pervades 

all possible times and places to exactly the extent 

that it is present here at all. It can be read into 

any experience, and is here and now only because it 

has been so read into the here and now. X, in other 

words, is eternal and omnipresent, but only as “canceled,” 

divested of the putative opacity of its simple 

location. 

As an exfoliation of these claims, Zhiyi develops his 

theory of “the three thousand quiddities in each moment 

of experience,” which implies the interinclusion 

of the ten realms of sentient experience: purgatories, 

hungry ghosts, asuras, animals, humans, devas, 

śravakas, PRATYEKABUDDHAS, bodhisattvas, and buddhas. 

Each realm is a process of causes and effects that 

inherently entails all the other realms. Each of these 

realms can at each moment be characterized by the ten 

“suchnesses” from the Lotus Su tra. All of these may be 

understood either in terms of the sentient beings experiencing 

these realms, the environment conditioning 

these beings, or these beings considered in terms 

of their components. Ten realms, each including all the 

others, makes one hundred; multiplied by the ten suchnesses, 

one gets one thousand, and multiplied by the 

three aspects, three thousand. Zhiyi asserts that all of 

these qualities, which indicate not merely all things as 

considered from a single perspective, but all processes 

as simultaneously understood from the perspectives of 

all the cognitive misperceptions of all sentient beings, 

are inherently entailed in each moment of experience 

undergone by any sentient being at any time. 

The three tracks and buddha-nature 

The three truths are a name for the ultimate reality of 

all dharmas, or the ultimate reality as all dharmas, since 

to be is to be determinate as just these particular things, 

in their ambiguity and conditioning relationships. 

From various perspectives, the three truths can be renamed 

as a number of other triads, all of which maintain 

the same relation of interpervasive identity as 

difference. Zhiyi calls these parallel triads the “three 

tracks,” which he characterizes as: 

1. the track of contemplation and awareness (corresponding 

to emptiness) 

2. the track of conditions for actualization or practice 

(provisional positing) 

3. the track of the real nature or the absolute as such 

(the mean) 

The triads belonging to these tracks include the three 

buddha-natures: 

1. buddha-nature as manifesting cause (the awareness 

that allows the omnipresent buddha-nature 

to be made manifest) 

2. buddha-nature as conditioning cause (practical 

and physical conditions that make this awareness 

possible) 

3. buddha-nature as proper cause (the omnipresent 

absolute reality to be realized) 

but also the three virtues of NIRVAN A: 

1. prajña (wisdom) 

2. liberation 

3. dharmakaya 

and the three paths: 

1. kleśa (delusion) 

2. karma (activity as cause of suffering) 

3. duhkha (suffering) 

Since all these triads are merely alternate names for the 

three truths and bear the same internally interinclusive 

relationship derived from the relation of upaya to 

ultimate truth, one arrives at the identity between delusion 

and wisdom, karma and liberation, dharmakaya 

and suffering. Each of these is eternal and omnipresent, 

always present in every possible quiddity. In addition, 

there is the identity between each of these as actualized 

realities and as potentials, between the virtues of 

nirvana and the buddha-nature as potential, between 

buddha-nature and delusion-karma-suffering, and so 

on. These paradoxical identities between oppositely 

valued realities come to be the distinctive mark of the 

Tiantai school, culminating in its unique doctrine of 

“the evil inherent in the buddha-nature,” the perfect 

interpervasion of delusion and enlightenment. 


T IANTAI 

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Zhanran and the buddha-nature of 

insentient beings 

The Tiantai school fell into decline in the Tang dynasty 

(618–907), losing its imperial patronage and dominant 

influence to the newly arisen HUAYAN SCHOOL and 

CHAN SCHOOL. ZHANRAN (Jingxi zunzhe, 711–782) is 

credited with revitalizing the tradition, meeting the 

challenges of the new schools and consolidating and 

reorganizing Tiantai doctrine. The bulk of his writings 

concentrate on detailed commentaries to Zhiyi’s 

works, but he is also responsible for adopting and 

adapting Huayan terminology into Tiantai doctrine 

while reasserting the distinctiveness of the Tiantai 

school, particularly noting the uniqueness of its doctrine 

of the evil inherent in the buddha-nature. 

In his work Jin’gangbei (Diamond Scalpel), his 

only noncommentarial composition, Zhanran makes 

a frontal attack on the Huayan and early Chan doctrine 

that views the buddha-nature as an aspect of 

sentience, reasserting the Tiantai view that the 

buddha-nature is necessarily threefold from beginning 

to end, omnipresent in all three aspects, and impossible 

to restrict to sentient beings only. In fact, the threefold 

buddha-nature is another name for the three 

truths, which are the reality of any content of experience 

whatsoever, mind or matter, sentient or insentient. 

To be any one among them is to be all of them, so there 

can be no division of buddha-nature as the unconditioned 

essence of sentience and awareness as opposed 

to the passive inertness of insentient beings. Whenever 

one being attains buddhahood, all beings are buddha; 

whenever one entity is insentient, all beings are insentient. 

This is the interpervasion of all realms as understood 

in a Tiantai perspective; all possible predicates are 

always applicable to all possible beings. 

The Song dynasty (960–1279) schism 

Zhanran had imported certain formulations from 

Huayan thought into his teaching, most notably an 

interpretation of mind-only doctrine not found in 

Zhiyi, including the phrase “unchanging but following 

conditions, following conditions but unchanging,” 

as a characterization of the mind and its nature, 

respectively, as derived from the Huayan patriarch 

FAZANG (643–712). In the Northern Song dynasty, 

some Tiantai writers later called the Shanwai (i.e., 

“off-mountain,” or heterodox) began to adopt the 

privileging of “awareness” (zhi), or mind, that characterizes 

later Huayan and early Chan thought. Even 

in Fazang a similar tendency is arguably discernible. 

Here the mind in its present function is a transcendent 

category that produces all phenomena, and of 

which all phenomena are transformations; the mind 

is in this sense at least conceptually prior to these 

phenomena, and is their ontological base, although it 

is not a definite objective entity. Realizing this allpervasive 

awareness as all things is equivalent to awakening, 

and so this mind is also called “ultimate reality.” 

Praxis here means to see “the three thousand 

quiddities” as this present moment of mind, which is 

the transformation of mind, with nothing left out. 

Mind is the all-embracing “whole” that is uniquely capable 

of producing, determining, containing, and unifying 

all differentiated existences. 

ZHILI (Siming Fazhi fashi, 960–1028) led an attack 

on this interpretation of Tiantai thought, developing a 

position that was later called the Shanjia (Mountain 

Masters, or orthodox) position. Zhili holds fast to the 

traditional Tiantai interpretation of the claim in the 

HUAYAN JING (Sanskrit, Avatam saka-su tra) that “there 

is no difference between the mind, buddhas, and sentient 

beings,” holding that this means that each of these 

three may be considered the creator of the other two, 

and vice versa. This interpretation rejects the assertion 

that mind is the real source that is able to create, or 

manifest itself, as either buddhas or sentient beings (as 

the Shanwai, Huayan, and Chan putatively claim), depending 

on whether it is enlightened or deluded. On 

the latter view, although buddhas and sentient beings 

could still be said to be “identical” to mind and hence 

to each other, this identity would be mediated by a 

one-way dependence relation. Zhili holds that this 

would not be real “identity,” for mind has at least one 

quality that the other two lack: It is creator, as opposed 

to created. In Zhili’s view, each is creator, each is created, 

and none is more ultimate than the others. 

Zhili’s teaching combats a one-sidedly “idealist” interpretation 

of Tiantai doctrine. He holds that while it 

is true to say that mind inherently entails all entities, 

it is equally true to say that form or matter inherently 

entails all entities, and not merely because matter is actually 

nothing but mind. Here Zhili is echoing Zhiyi’s 

teaching that reality can be spoken of equally as mindonly, 

matter-only, taste-only, smell-only, touch-only, 

and so on. Zhili also insists that Tiantai meditation is 

a contemplation of the deluded mind, not directly of 

the pure or absolute mind that is the source and 

ground of all existence. The object of contemplation is 

the deluded process of differentiation itself, which is 

to be seen as creating the particular determinacies of 

the experienced world, then as inherently including all 

these determinacies, then as being identical to them all, 


849

T IANTAI 

S CHOOL 

and finally as itself determined, hence conditioned, 

hence empty, hence provisionally posited, hence the 

“mean.” Once this is done, all other contents are 

equally seen as the three truths, but the process of 

transformation must begin with the deluded mind, the 

mind that mistakenly sees itself as “inside” as opposed 

to “outside,” which makes arbitrary distinctions, and 

which is conditioned in a particular manner by particular 

causes. Only in this way, Zhili thinks, is practice 

both possible and necessary. 

Zhili also reasserts the centrality of the doctrine of 

inherent evil, as is particularly evident in his teaching 

of “the six identities as applicable even to the dung beetle.” 

The six identities were propounded by Zhiyi originally 

to maintain a balance to the claims of identity 

between sentient beings and buddhahood. All beings 

are identical to the Buddha (1) in principle; (2) in 

name, once they hear of this teaching and accept it intellectually; 

(3) in cultivation; (4) in partial attainment; 

(5) in approximation to final identity; and finally (6) 

when Buddhist practice is completed and one becomes 

explicitly a buddha. Zhili asserts that these six levels of 

difference and identity apply not only to the relations 

between sentient beings and buddhas, but also to the 

relations between any two sentient beings, any two determinations 

of any kind, indeed, even between any 

entity and itself. This means that prior to Buddhist 

practice one is identical to, say, a dung beetle in principle 

only, but as one’s practice continues, one finally 

attains a more and more fully realized identity with the 

dung beetle, so that all the marks and names associated 

with dung beetle-hood become increasingly explicit 

and fully realized as practice continues. Evil, in 

other words, is not only what is cut off, but also what 

is more fully realized with practice; all things become 

more explicit together, and this full realization of their 

own determinate marks, by virtue of the three truths, 

is their liberation and transformation. This is the real 

goal of practice; indeed this is buddhahood itself. 

Transmission to and development in Japan 

and Korea 

Much of Zhili’s concern in his polemic against the 

Shanwai and his defense of the doctrine of “inherent 

evil” was to maintain the seriousness of Tiantai ritual 

practice, an evil that he saw threatened by the “sudden” 

doctrines of Chan and the Shanwai. Zhili and his 

dharma-brother Zunshi (Ciyun fashi, 963–1032) were 

instrumental in combining Tiantai contemplation 

with the practice of the PURE LAND SCHOOLS, particularly 

the visualizations of AMITABHA, which were to 

be done in tandem with Tiantai doctrinal ruminations, 

“contemplating the image of the Buddha as an 

inherent aspect of the mind, utilizing the Buddha image 

to manifest the nature of mind.” This was consistent 

with Zhili’s general teaching that when any 

given content is made more explicit, it simultaneously 

makes all contents more explicit, as well as their 

interpervasion, the interpervasive three thousand being 

the realm of enlightenment. 

In China, Tiantai and Pure Land practice came to 

be closely associated. A different development took 

place in Japan, where Tiantai, or Tendai in the Japanese 

pronunciation, became closely associated with esoteric 

Buddhism. Tiantai texts were first brought to 

Japan by the Chinese vinaya monk Jianzhen (687– 

763), but did not really take hold until the founding of 

the Japanese Tendai school by SAICHO (Dengyo daishi, 

767–822). Saicho combined the Tiantai teachings he 

had studied in Tang China under Zhanran’s disciple 

Daosui with elements of esoteric and Chan Buddhism. 

The tradition he founded later split into several rival 

schools, but Tendai remained for centuries the mainstream 

of Japanese Buddhism, providing the theoretical 

foundation of Buddhist practice to a much greater 

degree than was the case in China, where Huayan and 

Chan understandings of Buddhist doctrine arguably 

took a more preeminent position. Later Japanese 

Tendai contributed distinctive developments to the 

doctrines of ORIGINAL ENLIGHTENMENT (HONGAKU) 

and the buddhahood of inanimate objects, on which it 

laid special stress. All of the Buddhist reformers who 

created the new Japanese sects in the Kamakura period, 

including HO NEN (1133–1212), SHINRAN (1173–1263), 

NICHIREN (1222–1282), and DO GEN (1200–1253), were 

trained initially as Tendai monks. 

Both Huisi and Zhiyi are said to have had direct 

disciples hailing from the Korean peninsula, and this 

tradition of exchange continued for many centuries. 

But it was not until 1097 that a separate Tiantai (Korean, 

Ch’ŏnt’ae) school was established there. Its 

founder, ŬICH’ŎN (1055–1101), hoped the new school 

would help reconcile the long-standing conflict in Korean 

Buddhism between scholastic studies and meditative 

practice. Ch’ŏnt’ae became one of the two main 

pillars of Korean Buddhism, together with Chan (Korean, 

Sŏn). The schools were unified under the 

auspices of a reconstituted Sŏn school in the early fifteenth 

century. 

See also: China; Japan; Korea; Vietnam 


T IBET 

Bibliography 

Chan, Chi-wah. “Chih-li (960–1028) and the Crisis of T’ien-t’ai 

Buddhism in the Early Sung.” In Buddhism in the Sung, ed. 



Cleary, Thomas, trans. Stopping and Seeing: A Comprehensive 

Guide to Buddhist Meditation (a partial translation of Zhiyi’s 

Mohe zhiguan). Boston: Shambhala, 1997. 












Gregory, Peter, and Getz, Daniel, eds. Buddhism in the Sung. 



Ideas of a Chinese Buddhist Monk. M’elange Chinois et Bouddhiques, 

vol. 12 (1960–1962). Brussels: Institut Belges Des 

Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1980. 

Ng Yu-kwan, T’ien-t’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika. Honolulu: 





Press, 1986. 

Stone, Jacqueline. Original Enlightenment and the Transformation 

of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of 


Swanson, Paul L. Foundations of T’ien-t’ai Philosophy: The Flowering 

of the Two Truths Theory in Chinese Buddhism. Berkeley, 


Ziporyn, Brook. “Anti-Chan Polemics in Post-Tang Tiantai.” 


17, no. 1 (1994): 26–63. 




TIBET 

BROOK ZIPORYN 

Tibet became one of the last major zones in Buddhist 

Asia to accept Buddhist ideology and rituals into its culture, 

which assumed a unique position as the perceived 

source for true dharma study during the twelfth to the 

twentieth centuries. Throughout their religious history, 

Tibetans have emphasized a balance of scholarship, 

contemplative MEDITATION, and the indivisibility of religious 

and secular authority; most of these values were 

formulated under the aegis of Buddhist tantrism. Tibetan 

Buddhism matured over the course of fourteen 

centuries and will be assessed in this entry in phases 

that, if somewhat contested in scholarly literature, still 

represent important stages in its development. 

The Royal dynasty and the early 

translation period 

Tibetan literature attributes the formal introduction 

of Buddhism to the reign of its first emperor, Srong 

btsan sgam po (Songtsen gampo, d. 649/650). Undoubtedly, 

though, proto-Tibetan peoples had been 

exposed to Buddhist merchants and missionaries earlier. 

There is a myth that the fifth king before Srong 

btsan sgam po, Lha tho tho ri gnyan btsan, was residing 

in the ancient castle of Yum bu bla mkhar when a 

casket fell from the sky. Inside were a gold RELIQUARY 

and Buddhist scriptures. While the myth is not early, 

it possibly reveals a Tibetan memory of prior missionary 

activity. We do know that official contact with 

Sui China was accomplished from Central Tibet in 608 

or 609 and that, as Tibet grew more powerful, Buddhist 

contacts increased. 

Nonetheless, two of Srong btsan sgam po’s wives— 

Wencheng from China and Bhrkut from Nepal—were 

credited with constructing the temples of Magical Appearance 

(Sprul snang, or the JO KHANG) and Ra mo 

che. Other temples were built as well, and twelve were 

later considered limb-binding temples, where a demoness 

representing the autochthonous forces of Tibet 

was subdued by the sanctified buildings. Srong 

btsan sgam po is also credited with having one of his 

ministers, Thon mi Sambhota, create the Tibetan 

alphabet from an Indian script and write the first 

grammars. 

Buddhist progress occurred with the successors to 

Srong btsan sgam po. Notable was the foundation of 

the first real monastery in Tibet, BSAM YAS (SAMYE, 

ca. 780) and the influx of Indian, Chinese, and Central 

Asian monks around that time. Particularly influential 

were Śantaraksita, an important Indian 

scholar, and his disciple Kamalaśla. Śantaraksita and 

his entourage were responsible for the first group of 

six or seven aristocratic Tibetans to be ordained in Tibet. 

These authoritative monks did much to cement 


851

T IBET 

the relationship between Indian Buddhism and Tibetan 

identity. Another teacher, PADMASAMBHAVA, 

was a relatively obscure tantric guru whose inspiration 

became important later. 

Translation bureaus in DUNHUANG and Central 

Tibet were opened by the Tibetan emperors, from 

Khri srong lde’u btsan (Trisong détsen, ca. 742–797) 

through Ral pa can (r. 815–838), but unofficial translations 

were recognized sources of concern. While the 

official bureaus emphasized the MAHAYANA monastic 

texts, unofficial translations tended to feature more 

radical tantric works. During the reign of Sad na legs 

(r. 804–815) a council was convened to regularize Tibetan 

orthography and to establish both translation 

methods and a lexicon of equivalents for official 

translators. The result was the emergence of classical 

Tibetan, a literary language developed to render both 

sophisticated Buddhist terminology and foreign political 

documents into the rapidly evolving Tibetan 

medium. 

Translations were initially made from several languages, 

but principally from Sanskrit and Chinese, so 

that a consistent tension between Indian and Chinese 

Buddhist practice and ideology marked this period. 

The Northern CHAN SCHOOL was present in Tibet, but 

from 792 to 794 a series of discussions between Indian 

and Chinese exegetes at the BSAM YAS DEBATE was ultimately 

decided in favor of the Indians. Eventually, 

Buddhist translations from Chinese were abandoned 

for exclusively Indic sources. 

Fragmentation and the later spread of 

the dharma 

The last of the emperors, Dar ma ’U dum btsan (r. 

838–842) began a campaign of suppression of Buddhism 

contemporary to the Huichang suppression in 

China. Dar ma was assassinated by a Buddhist monk, 

and the vast Tibetan empire fragmented over imperial 

succession. The period from 850 to 950 was a chaotic 

time marked by popular revolts and warlordism. Surviving 

Buddhist monks fled, and monastic practice was 

eclipsed in Central Tibet for approximately a century. 

Aristocratic clans that had accepted Buddhism, however, 

continued to develop indigenous rituals and new 

literature based on the received tradition. This is the 

time that the classical persona of the nonmonastic religious 

teacher coalesced: the lay LAMA, sometimes a 

mystic inspired by visions of imperial preceptors. With 

the reestablishment of records in the late tenth century, 

we see active lay Buddhist behavior—PILGRIMAGE, lay 

rituals, autochthonous divinities as protectors, and so 

on—that was to endure to the present. 

Yet the monastic religious form was closely allied to 

the memory of the empire, and Bsam yas stood empty. 

Eventually several Tibetans under the leadership of Klu 

mes from Central Tibet traveled to Dan tig Temple, in 

modern Xining, and received monastic ordination 

from Tibetan monks who had maintained it. Returning 

to Central Tibet around 980, Klu mes and others 

began to refurbish Bsam yas as well as construct networks 

of new temples. Their position, though, was often 

threatened by the lay lamas called Ban de, and the 

new monks were sometimes physically attacked. 

One line of the imperial house established itself in 

Gu ge, in West Tibet, and some two dozen men, preeminently 

Rin chen bzang po (958–1055), were sent to 

study in Kashmir. Like the Tibetan emperors, the Gu 

ge kings supported Mahayana scholarship and were 

critical of extreme tantric behavior, whether Tibetan 

or Indian. While Rin chen bzang po principally translated 

esoteric works, many other translators, especially 

Ngog Blo ldan shes rab (1059–1109), specialized in 

Mahayana philosophical treatises, rendering many 

into Tibetan for the first time. Thus, the Five Treatises 

of Maitreya and much of the work of DHARMAKIRTI 

and other scholastic authors were introduced to Tibetans 

through their activity. A great translator’s convocation, 

where scholars discussed their texts and 

procedures, was called by the Gu ge king in 1076. 

In Central Tibet, the later translation movement began 

with ’Brog mi (ca. 990–1060), who studied in 

Vikramaśla and elsewhere in India. Following him, 

Dgos lo, Rwa lo, Mar pa, Kyung po rnal ’byor, and 

other scholars began the new translation or revision of 

Indian works. Many of these eleventh-century Central 

Tibetan translators were concerned with the newly 

evolving TANTRAs, which they presumed had not been 

revealed to earlier Tibetans. They also believed that the 

imperially sponsored systems had become mixed with 

indigenous Tibetan practices and derided them as “old 

style” (rnying ma). 

For their part, certain RNYING MA (NYINGMA) 

teachers—especially Rong zom Chos kyi bzang po (late 

eleventh century)—were also translators and defended 

their own texts by decrying perceived inadequacies of 

the new translators and their Indian informants. Rong 

zom also composed the first synthetic Tibetan treatment 

of the Buddhist path in a detailed manual called 

the Theg chen tshul ’jug (Entering the Method of the Mahayana), 

which begins with monastic Buddhism and 


T IBET 

culminates in the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) teaching. 

The Zur clan was also involved in Rnying ma defense, 

and Zur chen and Zur chung put together the 

earliest Rnying ma rgyud ’bum (Old Tantric Canon). 

Another Rnying ma response became the development 

of the “treasure” literature (gter ma), grounded 

in indigenous scriptural composition during the tenth 

century, when Central Tibet was isolated. Scriptural 

composition was normative Buddhist behavior, liberating 

the intention of the Buddha from excessive literalness. 

In India, the practice was inhibited by 

various conservative strategies, but Tibetans began to 

stretch the form in creative ways. By the eleventh century, 

they realized that texts revealed in Tibet could 

not be justified on standard literary grounds. They 

therefore formulated the ideology that these works 

had been hidden, physically or spiritually, as treasures 

by saints of the Royal dynasty. Many of these early 

treasures were dedicated to the Great Perfection view 


In 1042 the important Indian missionary, ATISHA 

Dpam kara Śrjñana (982–1054), arrived, invited by 

the Gu ge king. Atisha introduced the popular Bengali 

cult of the goddess Tara and reframed tantric Buddhism 

as an advanced practice on a continuum with 

monastic and Mahayana Buddhism. This systematization, 

already known in India, became designated the 

triple discipline (trisam vara: the monastic, bodhisattva, 

and tantric vows) and Atisha embedded this 

ideal in his Bodhipathapradlpa (Lamp for the Path to 

Awakening). Atisha also promoted the basic Mahayana 

curriculum of his monastery Vikramaśla, where works 

like ŚANTIDEVA’S BODHICARYAVATARA (Introduction to 

the Conduct That Leads to the Enlightenment) were fundamental 

to monastic stability. Atisha’s lay lama disciple 

’Brom ston Rgyal ba’i byung gnas (1004–1064) 

founded the monastery of Rwa sgreng in Central Tibet 

(1057) and organized the Bka’ gdams pa order. 

The tantric orders evolved out of the activity of the 

early Central Tibetan translators. Preeminent were the 

various traditions of the Dwags po Bka’ brgyud that 

derived from MAR PA (MARPA, 1002/1012–1097). 

While some of Mar pa’s disciples were concerned with 

tantric scholarship, it was Mar pa’s poet disciple 

MI LARASPA(MILAREPA, (1028/40–1111/23), and Milarepa’s 

disciple Sgam po pa, who effectively grounded 

the tradition in both tantric and monastic practice. 

Likewise, ’Brog mi’s center in Mu gu lung did not last, 

but his later follower ’Khon Dkon mchog rgyal po 

(1034–1102) founded SA SKYA (SAKYA) Monastery in 

1073, and the Sa skya order became widely acknowledged 

through the influence and learning of ’Khon 

clan members. Beyond these, many smaller lineages 

were received from Indian masters but only partially 

succeeded in the institutionalization process of the 

twelfth century, eventually becoming subsets of one 

or another of the major orders. 

Tanguts, Mongols, and Buddhist efflorescence 

in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries 

By the twelfth century, small lineages began developing 

into specific orders that compiled the writings of 

exemplary figures. The initial cloisters were expanded, 

becoming “mother” monasteries for a series of satellite 

temples and monasteries. Orders established dominion 

in their areas, so that lay practice tended to 

come under the aegis of important teachers. Buddhist 

doctrinal and philosophical material became an important 

part of the curriculum. Translation activity 

continued, but with an emphasis on the revision of 

previous translations. A CANON of translated scripture 

and exegesis was compiled throughout this period, so 

that by the end of the fourteenth century its major outlines 

became relatively clear. Finally, the aura of the 

emerging orders attracted the interest of Central Asian 

potentates, beginning with the Tanguts and extending 

to the grandsons of Genghis Khan. 

The Rnying ma order had coalesced around the received 

teachings derived from the Royal dynastic period, 

whether transmitted in a human succession (bka’ 

ma) or as revealed treasure teachings (gter ma). Preeminently, 

Vimalamitra and Padmasambhava among 

the Indians, and Bai ro tsa na among the Tibetans, were 

the mythic sources for treasure scriptures. The important 

treasure finder Nyang ral Nyi ma ‘od zer 

(1142–1192) and his school in southern Tibet promoted 

Padmasambhava over other figures. From 

Nyang ral’s group came the Mani Bka’ ‘bum, the vehicle 

for the spread of the cult of Avalokiteśvara as the 

special protector of Tibet, purportedly embodied in 

Emperor Srong btsan sgam po. Treasure hagiographies 

of Padmasambhava by U rgyan gling pa (1323–?) have 

proven classics of the genre. Karma gling pa revealed 

the Bar do thos grol, widely known in the West as the 

TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD. Although Rnying ma 

philosophical authors were relatively few, Klong chen 

rab ‘byams pa (1308–1363) set the standard for tantric 

scholarship. Basing himself on treasures of the Snying 

thig (seminal drop) tradition of the Great Perfection, 

Klong chen pa authored important discussions of Rnying 

ma theory and practice. 


853

T IBET 

A statue of Padmasambhava, who played a crucial role in the establishment 

of Buddhism in Tibet in the eighth century, at the Jo 

khang Temple, Lhasa, Tibet. © Craig Lovell/Corbis. Reproduced 


The ’Khon clan continued to develop Sa skya 

Monastery, with the help of such individuals as Ba ri lo 

tsa ba (1040–1112), who assembled many relics at Sa 

skya. The great literary contributions, though, came 

from the five Sa skya masters: Sa chen Kun dga’ snying 

po (1092–1158), Bsod nams rtse mo (1142–1182), 

Grags pa rgyal mtshan (1147–1216), SA SKYA PAN D ITA 

(SAKYA PAN D ITA, 1182–1251), and Chos rgyal ’Phags 

pa (1235–1280). Sa chen specialized in tantric scholarship, 

writing the first summary of the tantric path in 

Tibet and compiling eleven commentaries on the central 

text of the esoteric Lam ’bras (Path and Fruit), attributed 

to the Indian saint Virupa. Sa chen’s sons, Bsod 

nams rtse mo and Grags pa rgyal mtshan, contributed 

to the myth of the Buddha, established tantric exegesis, 

commented on Śantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara, and codified 

the Sa skya understanding of the tantric path. With 

Sa skya Pandita, the Sa skya took to conservative philosophical 

scholarship, and the Sa skya order came to be 

known for its maintenance of the triple discipline and 

its defense of Dharmakrti’s epistemological system. 

However, many original Tibetan contributions to 

Buddhism also came from this period. Among his 

innovations, Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge (1109–1169) 

developed philosophical definitions, doctrines of 

universals, and methods of argumentation; many challenged 

Indian assumptions, especially those of Dharmakrti. 

In an entirely different direction, seminal BKA’ 

BRGYUD (KAGYU) representatives, like Sgam po pa bsod 

nams rin chen (1079–1153), delineated the doctrines 

of the self-sufficient white remedy (dkar po gcig thub). 

These doctrines posited a soteriology of a single meditative 

method under the rubric of the Great Seal (mahamudra). 

Another Bka’ brgyud pa, ’Bri gung ’Jig rten 

mgon po (1143–1217), additionally proposed that all 

the Buddha’s statements were of definitive meaning 

(nltartha), so that they all had the same intention 

(dgongs gcig). Also based on esoteric Buddhist ideals, 

Dol bu pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan (1292–1361) represented 

the newly formed Jo nang school, a tradition 

grounded in KALACAKRA exegesis. Dol bu pa’s reading 

of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) emphasized an emptying of 

attributes from a ground of reality and became technically 

known as the “other emptiness” (gzhan stong). 

This position stood in opposition to the “self emptiness” 

(rang stong) of orthodox MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL 

philosophy. Like the ideology of the eighth-century 

Chinese Heshang Moheyan and the more radical Rnying 

ma doctrines, most of these Tibetan contributions 

became refuted by the orthodox, who adhered to a narrow 

definition of acceptable statements based on conformity 

to Indian texts by specific authors. 

The Sa skya were granted control over Tibet during 

the Yuan dynasty, with the fifth of the great Sa skya 

teachers, ’Phags pa blo gros rgyal mtshan (1235–1280) 

proclaimed Kublai Khan’s national preceptor in 1261. 

Sa skya leaders supported Mongol policies, such as the 

first census of Tibet, and some scholars became influenced 

by Mongol and Chinese literature, with Chinese 

imperial records translated into Tibetan. However, 

about 1350, during the Yuan decline, the Bka’ brgyud 

pa monk Ta’i si tu Byang chub rgyal mtshan (1302– 

1364) challenged the Sa skya for control of Central 

Tibet. He was successful in some measure, and his Phag 

mo gru pa subtradition was the dominant political 

force for most of the next century. 

One result was the formalization of the Tibetan 

canon under Ta’i si tu’s patronage, by BU STON (BU 

TÖN) Rin chen grub (1290–1364). Bu ston catalogued 

the tantric canon (rgyud ‘bum) section of the translated 

scriptures (Bka’ ’gyur) and compiled the translated 

authoritative treatises (Bstan ’gyur). In the 


T IBET 

canonical compilation process, Bu ston wrote a history 

of the dharma, where scriptures and treatises were set 

out in a grand schematism of history, cosmology, and 

mythology. About the same time, the learned Sa skya 

hierarch, Bla ma dam pa Bsod nams rgyal mtshan 

(1312–1375), wrote the Rgyal rabs gsal ba’i me long 

(Mirror Illuminating Royal Genealogy), representing 

the popular mythology of the imperial period and origin 

of the Tibetan people. 

Moreover, the peculiarly Tibetan office of the reincarnate 

lama became institutionalized. One of Sgam 

po pa’s important disciples, the KARMA PA I Dus gsum 

mkhyen pa (1110–1193) was said to have prophesied 

his own rebirth as Karma pa II Karma Pakshi (1204– 

1283). While earlier teachers were said to be the reembodiment 

of specific saints or BODHISATTVAS, this was 

the first formalization of reincarnation, with the previous 

saint’s disciples maintaining continuity and instructing 

his reembodiment. Following the lead of the 

Bka’ brgyud pa, most traditions eventually appropriated 

the institution. 

Great institutions and the Dga’ ldan pa in the 

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 

If the previous three centuries represented an intense 

struggle with intellectual and canonical issues, the fifteenth 

and sixteenth centuries demonstrated the struggle 

for institutional authenticity. In part because of the 

political power wielded by the Sa skya and Bka’ brgyud 

orders, many of the cloisters had become more social 

or political institutions, with religious involvement in 

the hands of the great clans or landed interests. Indeed, 

Tibetan monasteries were ripe for reformation, with 

great wealth and political authority eclipsing aspects of 

spirituality. 

The most important event of this period was the rise 

and development of the reform order of TSONG KHA 

PA Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419). Born in Amdo, 

Tsong kha pa originally studied in many traditions, but 

his most important intellectual influence was the Sa 

skya monk Red mda’ ba (1349–1412), who had championed 

the radical Prasaṅgika-Madhaymaka system of 

CANDRAKIRTI (ca. 600–650). However, Tsong kha pa 

became dissatisfied with the contemporary understanding 

of monastic institutions and more general aspects 

of scholarship. With successive visions of 

Mañjuśr, Tsong kha pa understood that he was to emphasize 

the system that Atisha had brought to Tibet. 

Eventually, after many years of wandering through Tibet 

bestowing instruction, he was persuaded to settle 

down and in 1409 founded the monastery of Dga’ ldan, 

the Tibetan translation of Tusita, the name of 

MAITREYA’s heaven. Tsong kha pa’s order was called the 

Dga’ ldan pa, although it was also known as the new 

Bka’ gdams pa or the DGE LUGS (GELUK; Virtuous Order). 

He changed the color of their hats to yellow as 

well, giving them the name Yellow Hats in the West. 

In a series of important treatises, he articulated a 

systematization of the exoteric Mahayana meditative 

path (Lam rim chen mo) and the esoteric practice according 

to the VAJRAYANA (Sngags rim chen mo). In the 

latter instance, he employed interpretive systems developed 

by exponents of the Guhyasamaja tantra to articulate 

a systematic HERMENEUTICS that could be 

applied to all tantras. Tsong kha pa, though, is best 

noted for his intellectual synthesis of the Madhyamaka 

and Yogacara systems of Buddhism, using Indian treatises 

as a basis for his great commentaries and subcommentaries, 

and emphasizing the philosophical 

position of Candrakrti. 

Three of his disciples were most important in the 

continuation of his work. Rgyal tshab Dar ma rin chen 

(1364–1432) was Tsong kha pa’s successor at Dga’ 

ldan and was especially noted for his orthodox summaries 

and commentaries that became the basis for 

much of Dge lugs pa scholasticism. Mkhas grub Dge 

legs dpal bzang (1385–1438) succeeded him at Dga’ 

ldan and was known for his acerbic tone toward his 

contemporaries as well as his epistemological treatises 

and his Kalacakra tantra exegesis. Dge ’dun grub pa 

(1391–1474, posthumously the first DALAI LAMA) 

founded the great monastery of Bkra shis lhun po in 

1447 and was also noted for his scholarly work on 

epistemology. The rush to construct new Dga’ ldan pa 

monasteries continued through the fifteenth century, 

with ’Bras spung (1416) and Se ra (1419) founded in 

the area of Lhasa, while others spread out east and 

west. Some of these monasteries eventually enrolled 

several thousand monks and were virtual religious 

cities. Part of this process led to the mission of Bsod 

nams rgya mtsho (1543–1588) to the Mongols, who 

had lapsed from Buddhist practice after their involvement 

with the Sa skya. Widely received, he was 

given the title Dalai Lama by Altan Khan, a title extended 

to his earlier incarnations beginning with Dge 

’dun grub pa. Bsod nams rgya mtsho’s reincarnation 

(Dalai Lama IV, Yon tan rgya mtsho, 1589–1616) was 

discovered as the great-grandson of Altan Khan, the 

only Dalai Lama not Tibetan by birth. 

The intellectual and institutional vitality of the 

Dga’ ldan pa did not go unopposed, and the Sa skya 


855

T IBET 

in particular found much to criticize. Interestingly, the 

Sa skya tradition also became involved in its own reform 

movement. Ngor chen Kun dga’ bzang po 

(1382–1456) founded the monastery of Ngor E wam 

chos ldan in 1429 and established it as the most important 

tradition of esoteric Lam ’bras instruction, 

supplemented by the personality and work of Tshar 

chen Blo gsal rgya mtsho (1502–1566). 

The sixteenth century was a high-water mark for 

scholarship in other traditions as well. Karma pa VIII, 

Mi bskyod rdo rje (1504–1557), questioned the basis 

for Dga’ ldan pa confidence and provided a critique of 

the Rnying ma as well. The Bka’ brgyud pa historians 

Dpa’ bo Gtsug lag phreng ba (1504–1566) and ‘Brug 

chen Pad ma dkar po (1527–1592) forcefully established 

their readings of Tibetan history and the tantric 

movement. Mnga’ ris pan chen Pad ma dbang rgyal 

(1487–1542) formulated the classic Rnying ma statement 

of the triple discipline. Sog bzlog pa Blo gros rgyal 

mtshan (b. 1552) compiled the statements of Rnying 

ma opponents and established a defense of Rnying ma 

and treasure legitimacy. 

The Dalai Lamas and Rnying ma revitalization 

in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 

The Tibetan religious landscape changed dramatically 

again in the seventeenth century. Clans in the 

provinces of Dbus and Gtsang had been warring 

for several decades, and each had its associated religious 

affiliation. In Dbus, the fifth Dalai Lama— 

affectionately known to Tibetans as the Great Fifth (Za 

hor ban de Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, 

1617–1682)—had developed a base of power in ’Bras 

spung Monastery. The Great Fifth Dalai Lama was extraordinarily 

learned, with teachers from the Dga’ ldan, 

Sa kya, Zha lu, and Rnying ma traditions. He was also 

highly ambitious and built on the previous Dalai 

Lamas’ Mongolian connections, finally using the military 

might of Gushri Khan’s Qoshot Mongols to solidify 

control over Tibet in 1642, inaugurating the reign 

of the Dalai Lamas. 

Some traditions favored by the Great Fifth were 

greatly benefited. Because of his strong Rnying ma 

connections (he was one of the very few Dgan’ ldan 

pa treasure finders) the Rnying ma tradition prospered. 

This was an important time for treasure traditions, 

with visionaries like Mi ’gyur rdo rje 

(1647–1667) and U rgyan gter bdag gling pa 

(1616–1714) revealing new textual cycles. Likewise, 

Rnying ma scholarship flourished, with scholars like 

Lo chen Dharma śr (1654–1717). Virtually all the 

greatest Rnying ma monasteries were built during this 

period—Rdo rje brag (1632), Kah tog (originally 1159 

but resurrected in 1656), Dpal yul (1665), O rgyan 

smin grol gling (1670), Rdzogs chen (1685), and Zhe 

chen (1735). Despite a short-lived suppression from 

1717 to 1720, the Rnying ma tradition in the eighteenth 

century was graced by exceptional figures as 

well, especially the historian Kah tog rig ’dzin Tshe 

dbang nor bu (1698–1755) and the Omniscient ’Jigs 

med gling pa (1730–98). ’Jigs med gling pa was to 

dominate Rnying ma meditative traditions for the 

next two centuries with his Klong chen snying thig 

revelations. 

Conversely, traditions not favored by the Great Fifth 

experienced significant problems. Most notoriously, 

he suppressed the Jo nang order, which had been undergoing 

a revival through the profound influence of 

Jo nang Taranatha (1575–1634), an erudite scholar and 

historian. However, after 1642 the monastery was 

placed in Dga’ ldan pa hands, the literature of the Jo 

nang pa was suppressed, and the order survived only 

in a few minor convents in far northeastern Tibet. The 

works of scholars critical of Tsong kha pa or his disciples 

were also suppressed, so that copies survived only 

in rare collections. The unfortunate sectarianism displayed 

by the Dga’ ldan pa at this time was embodied 

in the literary form of the monastic syllabus (yig cha), 

the obligatory textbook of sectarian principles. Sectarianism 

was occasionally mitigated by open-minded 

Dga’ ldan scholars like Lcang skya rol pa’i rdo rje 

(1717–1786). 

This period was the great printing period for Tibetan 

Buddhism. Despite Tibetan forays into woodblock 

printing as early as the thirteenth century in 

Mongolia, the entire Tibetan canon (Bka’ ’gyur and 

Bstan ‘gyur) was not completely printed until the eighteenth 

century. The first Bka’ ’gyur editions were 

printed under Chinese patronage, which continued 

through the eighteenth century (Yongle, 1410; Wanli, 

1606; Kangxi, 1684–1692, 1700, 1717–1720; Qianlong, 

1737). Editions produced in Tibet included the Li tang 

(1608–1621), Snar thang (1730–1732), Sde dge (1733), 

Co ni (1721–1731), and the Lha sa (1930s). The Bstan 

’gyur editions include the Qianlong (1724), Sde dge 

(1737–1744), Snar thang (1741–1742), and Cho ni 

(1753–1773). In this same period, the collected works 

of the Sa skya masters were printed in Sde dge (ca. 

1737), and ’Jigs med gling pa reorganized and expanded 

the Old Tantric Canon; it was eventually 

printed from 1794 to 1798. 


T IBET 

Tibetan Buddhists prostrate themselves before the Jo khang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet. © Paula Bronstein/Getty Images. Reproduced by 

permission. 

The modern nonsectarian movement and 

monastic intransigence in the nineteenth 

and twentieth centuries 

The nineteenth century saw the rise of a nonsectarian 

movement in Eastern Tibet (Khams), where the Sa skya 

and the Rnying ma orders were especially supported. 

This movement tried to move Tibetans from a narrow 

view of lineage toward an ecumenical vision of Buddhist 

study and practice and specialized in the collection 

and publication of compendia of religious practice 

and ideas. ’Jam dbyang Mkhyen brtse’i dbang po 

(1820–1892) received training in both Sa skya and 

Rnying ma schools, and he promoted the study of their 

esoteric systems. Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas 

(1813–1899) developed a synthetic vision of treasure, 

one that integrated Rnying ma, Bon po, and Bka’ 

brgyud systems all together in his great Rin chen gter 

mdzod (Treasury of Gems). In the Sa skya order, ’Jam 

dbyang Blo gter dbang po (1847–ca. 1914) brought together 

two great compendia of new translation practices, 

as well as editing and publishing the Sa skya 

esoteric system of the Lam ’bras in the face of criticism 

about the loss of secrecy. Two Rnying ma scholars established 

specifically Rnying ma scholastic syllabi: ‘Ju 

Mi pham (1846–1912) and Mkhan po Gzhan dga’ 

(1871–1927), the former studied by Rnying ma students, 

while Gzhan dga’ was also favored by the Ngor 

pa subsect of the Sa skya. 

By the turn of the twentieth century, Tibetans were 

becoming exposed to the wider world, especially 

through the Younghusband expedition (1904). With a 

British trade agent forcibly placed in Tibet, the Chinese 

responded, and the thirteenth Dalai Lama alternatively 

took refuge with the Chinese and the British, 

with Tibetans becoming aware that the world was unexpectedly 

changing. Sometimes this awareness had 

unforeseen consequences, and the scholar Dge ’dun 

chos ’phel (1901–1951) was especially provocative, as 

a monk with an interest in journalism, erotic literature, 

and intellectual criticism. 

Communism and the Tibetan diaspora 

The Communist Chinese military success of 1949 and 

subsequent invasion of Tibet in 1950 succeeded in subduing 

Tibet, where centuries of prior Chinese efforts 

had failed. For Buddhist traditions, the initial destruction 

of temples and monasteries in Eastern Tibet was 

still relatively modest, and many believed that Tibet 

could negotiate with Mao Zedong. The Great Proletarian 

Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976 changed 

everything, with the resultant massive destruction of 


857

T IBET 

virtually all monastic institutions and much of the religious 

art and literature. Some had read the signs, and 

Tibetans carried out or hid an astonishing amount of 

their portable art and books. 

The fourteenth Dalai Lama had already fled Tibet 

in 1959, and over the next decade a steady stream of 

refugees began to populate the camps on Indian soil— 

perhaps 100,000 in all. Ever true to their traditions, Tibetans 

immediately set about to construct temples, 

monasteries, monastic schools, and print their sacred 

books. The latter project was assisted by the Public Law 

480 Program of the United States, especially when directed 

by the brilliant Tibetologist E. Gene Smith, so 

that Tibetan (and other) books were purchased as part 

of Indian debt servicing to the United States. The Public 

Law 480 Program allowed foreign scholars access to 

Tibet’s great literature for the first time, while publishers 

could provide monasteries with discounted 

copies of their literature. 

Post-Maoist Tibet 

Since the opening of Tibet after the Cultural Revolution, 

there has been a resurgence of Buddhist practice. 

The Chinese have resurrected religious buildings—the 

POTALA, Norbulinka, the Jo khang, and so on—as museums 

for tourism, and Tibet’s cities have become Han 

Chinese enclaves, but Buddhism is thriving in the 

countryside. Ever suspicious of religion, the Chinese 

have sought to control monastic construction and the 

number of clergy. The participation of monks (and 

foreign sympathizers) in insurrections has exacerbated 

Beijing’s mistrust. Even then, individual teachers have 

temporarily managed against great obstacles, although 

their building efforts are often dismantled. Certain 

lamas find allies in Han businessmen, who provide 

capital and political legitimacy to construction projects. 

China has also played politics with the process of 

reincarnation, installing its own PANCHEN LAMA and 

incarcerating the Dalai Lama’s choice. More curiously, 

Tibetan publishing has taken off in the People’s Republic 

of China since Mao’s death, making many rare 

chronicles available for the first time. 

The continued tug-of-war between the Dalai Lama’s 

government in Dharamsala and Beijing over human 

rights and religious freedom is in part incomprehension 

by Beijing, in part stalling tactics until the Dalai 

Lama’s death. Many young Tibetans in diaspora chafe 

at the Dalai Lama’s pacifism, and there is unhappiness 

among some Tibetans in India or Nepal about either 

the Dalai Lama’s policies or his ecumenical religious 

position. Some Dga’ ldan pa sectarianism continues 

and promotes Rdo rje shugs ldan, a divinity representing 

the dominance of the Dga’ ldan pa. American 

movie stars and the 1989 Nobel Prize for peace for the 

Dalai Lama have provided legitimacy to Tibetan aspirations, 

at the cost of some integrity. Yet, despite tensions 

inside Tibet and elsewhere, there can be little 

doubt that Buddhism and national identity are so intertwined 

in Tibetans’ minds that the continuation of 

some sort of Buddhist practice by Tibetans is assured. 

See also: Apocrypha; Communism and Buddhism; Himalayas, 


Bibliography 

Cabezón, José Ignacio, and Jackson, Roger R. Tibetan Literature: 

Studies in Genre. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996. 

Dreyfus, Georges B. J. Recognizing Reality: Dharmaklrti’s Philosophy 



Ekvall, Robert B. Religious Observances in Tibet: Patterns and 

Function. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. 

Huber, Toni. The Cult of the Pure Crystal Mountain: Popular 

Pilgrimage and Visionary Landscape in Southeast Tibet. New 


Jackson, David. Enlightenment by a Single Means. Vienna: Der 



Conversion, Contestation, and Memory. New York: Oxford 


Nebesky-Workowitz, René de. Oracles and Demons of Tibet: The 

Cult and Iconography of the Tibetan Protective Deities. The 


Powers, John. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. Ithaca, NY: 


Ruegg, David Seyfort. Buddha-nature, Mind, and the Problem of 

Gradualism in a Comparative Perspective. London: School of 

Oriental and African Studies, 1989. 

Shakabpa, Tsepon W. D. Tibet: A Political History. New Haven, 

CT: Yale University Press, 1967. 


the Himalayan Plateau. Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 2001. 


and Their Tibetan Successors. Boston: Shambhala, 1987. 

Stein, R. A. Tibetan Civilization. Stanford, CA: Stanford University 

Press, 1972. 

Thondup, Tulku. Hidden Teachings of Tibet: An Explanation of 

the Terma Tradition of the Nyingma School of Buddhism. London: 

Wisdom, 1986. 


T IBETAN B OOK OF THE D EAD 

Tucci, Giuseppe. Tibetan Painted Scrolls. Rome: La Libreria 

Dello Stato, 1949. Reprint, 3 vols., Bangkok, Thailand: SDI, 

1999. 

Tucci, Giuseppe. The Religions of Tibet, tr. Geoffrey Samuel. 


TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD 


The Tibetan Book of the Dead is the title created by 

Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz (1878–1965), its first 

Western-language editor, for a collection of Tibetan 

ritual and literary texts concerned with DEATH, INTER- 

MEDIATE STATES (Sanskrit, antarabhava; Tibetan, bar 

do), and REBIRTH. In Tibetan the collection is actually 

titled Bar do thos grol chen mo (Great Liberation upon 

Hearing in the Intermediate State) and belongs to a 

much larger body of ritual and yogic literature called 

Zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol (Self Liberated Wisdom of 

the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities). Tradition attributes 

authorship of this cycle of funerary literature to the 

eighth-century Indian yogin PADMASAMBHAVA, who is 

believed to have concealed it as a religious “treasure” 

(Tibetan, gter ma) so that it could later be revealed at 

a more appropriate time. The basic texts of this hidden 

treasure were excavated by an obscure fourteenthcentury 

“treasure-revealer” (Tibetan, gter ston) named 

Karma Gling pa. His “Tibetan Book of the Dead” tradition 

originated and was initially fostered in the 

southeastern Tibetan region of Dwags po and attracted 

followers from both the RNYING MA (NYINGMA) and 

BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU) orders. Its rituals were refined 

and institutionalized sometime in the late fifteenth 

century in nearby Kong po, from where it was eventually 

transmitted throughout other parts of Tibet, 

Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, India, and later Europe and the 

United States. 

The literature of the Tibetan Book of the Dead contains 

esoteric yoga teachings and liturgical directives 

focused on a MAN D ALA of one hundred peaceful and 

wrathful deities (Tibetan, zhi khro rigs brgya) and includes 

detailed religious instructions to be employed 

at the moment of death and during the perilous intermediate 

state leading to a new existence. Its combination 

of ideas and practices are founded upon older 

conceptions originating in late Indian Buddhist tantra 

and in Tibetan Buddhist and non-Buddhist indigenous 

formulations that began to emerge in Tibet around the 

eleventh century. The literature’s fundamental conceptual 

premises are derived essentially from the religious 

doctrines of the Great Perfection (Tibetan, rdzogs 

chen) tradition, an innovative Tibetan system 

standardized in the late fourteenth century and promoted 

especially by followers of the Rnying ma and 

non-Buddhist BON orders. According to this tradition, 

dying persons and those already deceased are presented 

during their last moments and in the interim period 

between lives with a series of diminishing opportunities 

for recognizing the true nature of reality. It is held 

that if the dying and deceased are capable of perceiving 

correctly the confusing and often terrifying death 

and postmortem visions as mental projections reflective 

of previous habitual thoughts and KARMA (AC- 

TION), then enlightened liberation can be attained, 

leading directly to buddhahood. Failure to recognize 

the nature of these visions, however, leads eventually 

to rebirth and further suffering in the cycle of existence 

(SAM SARA). Traditionally, to help the dying and the 

dead regain clarity of awareness at the moment of 

death and in the intermediate state, a LAMA (Tibetan, 

bla ma) or lay religious specialist will recite guiding instructions 

and inspirational prayers from the ritual cycle 

of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. 

The Evans-Wentz edition of the Tibetan Book of the 

Dead, first published in 1927, was compiled from original 

Tibetan translations drawn up by the Sikkimese 

teacher Kazi Dawa Samdup (1868–1922). The book includes 

translations of only a small number of texts belonging 

to the literary tradition of the Bar do thos grol 

chen mo. The formal arrangement of this small group 

of texts as a unified and coherent “book” is misleading 

and obscures the fact that in Tibet there exists a 

variety of arrangements of this large ritual and literary 

cycle, each reflecting a different lineage of transmission 

and the localized interpretations of specific religious 

communities. 

Popular enthusiasm for the Tibetan Book of the Dead 

has grown to such proportions that it now stands arguably 

as the most famous Tibetan book in the West. 

The Evans-Wentz edition has gone through numerous 

reprints in America and Europe, and it has inspired 

since 1927 several new translations from the original 

Tibetan texts. 


Bibliography 

Blezer, Henk. Kar gliṅ Zí khro: A Tantric Buddhist Concept. Leiden, 

Netherlands: Research School CNWS, 1997. 


859

T IME 

Cuevas, Bryan J. The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the 

Dead. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 

Evans-Wentz, W. Y., and Kazi Dawa Samdup, ed. and trans. 

The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927). Reprint, New York: 


Fremantle, Francesca, and Chögyam Trungpa, trans. The Tibetan 

Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing 

in the Bardo. Boston: Shambhala, 1975. 

Lauf, Detlef Ingo. Secret Doctrines of the Tibetan Books of the 

Dead, tr. Graham Parkes. Boston: Shambhala, 1977. 

Thurman, Robert, trans. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Liberation 

through Understanding in the Between. New York: Bantam, 

1994. 


TIME. See Cosmology; Decline of the Dharma; Millenarianism 

and Millenarian Movements 

TO DAIJI. See Horyuji and Todaiji 

TOMINAGA NAKAMOTO 

Tominaga Nakamoto (1715–1746) has often been included 

among a diverse group of rationalist or 

enlightenment (keimo ) thinkers who emerged in 

eighteenth-century Japan. Counted among their numbers 

are medical doctors, scientists, economists, and 

others, all of whom shared a critical stance toward traditional 

religious authority and who believed that reliable 

knowledge could come only from the rigorous 

application of reason. 

Born into the merchant class in Osaka, Tominaga 

was educated in a Confucian school, the Kaitokudo or 

Pavilion of Virtues, that his father and four other merchants 

had established. Tominaga was a brilliant student 

and by the age of fifteen he had completed his 

first study, Setsuhei (Failings of the Classical Philosophers), 

for which he was expelled from the school. The 

text is no longer extant, but passing references to it in 

later works suggest that it was a critical treatment of 

Confucianism. After his expulsion, he studied with 

other Confucian teachers, but he may also have read 

Buddhist texts at Manpukuji, a Zen monastery in 

Kyoto, where some believe he worked as a proofreader. 

The monastery was publishing a new edition of the 

Buddhist CANON at the time. 

Tominaga died at the early age of thirty-one, but his 

breadth of knowledge of Confucianism, Buddhism, 

and Shinto enabled him to write two works that, after 

his death, had a revolutionary impact on Japanese religious 

history. In the short essay “Okina no fumi” 

(“The Writings of an Old Man,” 1738) and in the much 

longer Shutsujo go go (Talks after Emerging from Meditation, 

1745), he advanced the view that Japan’s traditional 

religions were so historically and culturally 

conditioned that their claims to teach ultimate truth 

were untenable. In Shutsujo go go he focused his analysis 

on Buddhism in particular, contending that the 

texts of MAHAYANA Buddhism, the dominant branch 

in Japan, were so different in language and content 

from the other sutras that they could not be the direct 

teachings of the Buddha. Tominaga was the first person 

to systematically make this case in Japan. Viewed 

as a threat to the entire tradition, his position 

prompted numerous counterarguments from the Buddhist 

community. By the late nineteenth and early 

twentieth centuries, however, most Japanese Buddhist 

scholars accepted Tominaga’s assertion about the later 

origins of Mahayana sutras and embraced the critical 

historical approach to the study of texts that he had 

advanced. 

See also: Buddhist Studies; Confucianism and Buddhism; 

Japan 

Bibliography 

Kato, Shuichi. “Okina no fumi: The Writings of an Old Man.” 

Monumenta Nipponica 22, nos. 1–2 (1967): 194–210. 

Kato, Shuichi. “Tominaga Nakamoto, 1715–1746: A Tokugawa 

Iconoclast.” Monumenta Nipponica 22, nos. 1–2 (1967): 

177–193. 

Najita, Tetsuo. Visions of Virtue in Tokugawa Japan: The Kaitokudo 

, Merchant Academy of Osaka. Chicago: University of 

Chicago Press, 1987. 

Pye, Michael. Emerging from Meditation: Tominaga Nakamoto. 


TONSURE. See Hair 

PAUL B. WATT 

TRIPITAKA. See Abhidharma; Canon; Commentarial 

Literature; Scripture; Vinaya 


T SONG KHA PA 

TRIRATNA. See Refuges 

TSONG KHA PA 

Although Tsong kha pa (1357–1419) is considered by 

many as a seminal figure, the nature of his contribution 

is not always well understood. He is often presented 

as a reformer of Tibetan Buddhism or as being 

hostile to tantric practice. To correct these misapprehensions, 

he must be placed within his historical context 

before sketching some of his key ideas. 

Tsong kha pa was born during a crucial period in 

the second development (phyi dar) of Tibetan Buddhism, 

which had started at the end of the tenth century. 

One of the important questions debated during 

this period was the relation between monasticism and 

tantric practice. A solution was initiated by the famous 

Indian teacher ATISHA (982–1054) and further developed 

by other Tibetan thinkers such as ‘Brom ston 

(1055–1064) and SA SKYA PAN D ITA (SAKYA PAN D ITA) 

(1182–1251). According to this model, monasticism 

and tantric practices are included in the PATH of the 

BODHISATTVA, which provides the ethical framework 

for the entire range of Buddhist practices. In this perspective, 

higher tantric practices, ethically subordinated 

to the bodhisattva ideal, are the most effective 

way to realize this ideal, while monasticism is the best 

way of life to embody it. 

Tsong kha pa devoted much of his work to the continuation 

of this moral tradition, as is made clear in 

his masterful Lam rim chen mo (Extensive Stages of the 

Path to Enlightenment). He regarded the promotion of 

monasticism as one of his central missions, as illustrated 

by his establishment in 1409 of the Great Prayer 

(smon lam chen mo) festival in Lhasa, which is said to 

have brought together eight thousand monks. Tsong 

kha pa’s biographers consider this one of his most important 

deeds. It laid the ground for the foundation 

during the same year of the monastery Dga’ ldan, one 

of the three main monasteries near Lhasa. The other 

two monasteries, ‘Bras spung (pronounced Drepung) 

and Se ra, were founded shortly thereafter by two of 

Tsong kha pa’s direct disciples, thus creating the famous 

three seats, the institutional basis for the future 

growth of his tradition. 

Tsong kha pa’s fame is also due to the quality of his 

works and the power of his ideas. He lived during the 

period in which Tibetans developed their own systematic 

presentation of the range of Buddhist materials 

they had received from India. Tsong kha pa’s synthesis, 

which brings together the exoteric and esoteric 

aspects of the tradition, is not only masterful in the 

quality of its scholarship, it is also highly original and 

distinctive in its interpretations, particularly in the 

fields of the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL and TANTRA, which 

Tsong kha pa considered his specialties. 

Tsong kha pa’s interpretation of Indian Madhyamaka 

is characterized by his strong preference for 

the Prasaṅgika (consequentialist) approach of CAN- 

DRAKIRTI (ca. 600–650 C.E.), which Tsong kha pa sees 

as the only fully correct view. In asserting the superiority 

of the Prasaṅgika, Tsong kha pa adopts the views 

of earlier thinkers such as Spa tshab (b. 1055) and his 

followers, as well as Tsong kha pa’s own main teacher 

Red mda ba (1349–1412). These teachers extolled Candrakrti’s 

Prasaṅgika view of ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) as 

being utterly beyond any description and hence beyond 

the reach of logical thinking. Tsong kha pa, however, 

insists on retaining a place for the traditional tools 

of Buddhist logic within this radical view, arguing that 

even in the context of the search for the ultimate one 

needs probative arguments. 

This trust in Buddhist logic in a Prasaṅgika context 

is unique to Tsong kha pa. Earlier thinkers such as Phya 

pa (1109–1169) had insisted on the importance of 

Buddhist LOGIC in Madhyamaka, but they followed the 

Svatantrika of BHAVAVIVEKA (ca. 500–570 C.E.). Tsong 

kha pa adopted Phya pa’s realist interpretation of Buddhist 

logic but integrated it into Candrakrti’s interpretation. 

This led to the creation of an audacious 

synthesis, which conciliates a radical undermining of 

essentialism and a realist confidence that thinking can 

apprehend reality, at least partly, and therefore can lead 

to insight into the ultimate nature of things. 

For Tsong kha pa, this conviction is reflected in the 

development of the three types of critical acumen 

(prajña; Tibetan, shes rab or) articulated by the Indian 

Buddhist tradition. First, one should study extensively 

both sutras and tantras. Then one should start the 

process of internalization of the teachings by reflecting 

inwardly on them. This is the stage at which probative 

arguments are essential, because without proper 

inferences understanding remains superficial and fails 

to reach conviction in the Buddhist teaching in general 

and in the validity of the Prasaṅgika view in particular. 

Finally, one should enter into prolonged 

meditative retreats to attain the experiential realization 

of the studied teachings, as Tsong kha pa did at 


861

T ULKA 

‘Ol khar chos lung during the winter of 1392 to 1393. 

There he underwent several tantric retreats and received 

important visions, particularly that of Manjuśr, 

his tutelary deity. This progression was particularly significant 

for Tsong kha pa, who saw his entire life accordingly. 

As his practice makes clear, Tsong kha pa’s work is 

not limited to the exoteric domains. In fact, the majority 

of his famous eighteen volumes of collected 

works are devoted to the study of tantras. For Tsong 

kha pa, the most important tantra is the Guhyasamaja 

cycle, which provides the key to the interpretation 

of the entire tantric corpus. Together with the 

Yamantaka and Cakrasam vara, this tantra provides a 

map of the entire tantric practice, thus completing the 

vast synthesis of the tradition, from the most basic 

practices of monasticism to the highest yogic practices. 

For Tsong kha pa, tantric practice is central, but it is 

essential that it be undertaken gradually, as advocated 

by Atisha, after extensive preliminaries involving the 

study and assimilation of the entire exoteric path. 

Bibliography 

Dreyfus, Georges B. J. Recognizing Reality: Dharmaklrti’s Philosophy 

and Its Tibetan Interpreters. Albany: State University 


Hopkins, Jeffrey. Meditation on Emptiness. Boston: Wisdom, 1983. 

Napper, Elizabeth. Dependent-Arising and Emptiness: A Tibetan 

Buddhist Interpretation of Madhyamika Philosophy Emphasizing 

the Compatibility of Emptiness and Conventional Phenomena. 


Snellgrove, David, and Richardson, Hugh. A Cultural History of 

Tibet. Boston: Shambala, 1968. 

Thurman, Robert, ed. Life and Teachings of Tsong Khapa, tr. 

Sherpa Tulku. Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works 

and Archives, 1982. 



Tsong kha pa. The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, 

tr. the Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee. 


GEORGES B. J. DREYFUS 

See also: Dalai Lama; Dge Lugs (Geluk); Panchen 

Lama; Tantra; Tibet 

TULKU. See Lama 


U 

ŬICH’ŎN 

Ŭich’ŏn (Taegak kuksa, 1055–1101) was the fourth son 

of King Munjong (r. 1047–1083) of the Korean Koryŏ 

dynasty. Ŭich’ŏn became the head of Buddhist saṅgha 

in Koryŏ at the age of thirteen. Well versed in Buddhist 

scriptures, particularly the teachings of the 

Hwaŏm (Huayan) school, he nevertheless decided to 

further his study in China after a long period of correspondence 

with the Song monk Jinshui Jingyuan 

(1011–1088). In 1085, after leaving a letter to his 

mother and his brother, the new King Sŏnjong (r. 

1083–1094), Ŭich’ŏn surreptitiously boarded a merchant’s 

ship and sailed to Song dynasty China to embark 

on his pilgrimage. During his fourteen-month 

sojourn in China, he met and consulted some fifty 

leading masters on the Chan, Huayan, and Tiantai 

schools of Buddhism, while studying with Jingyuan at 

Hiuyin Monastery in Hangzhou. 

Ŭich’ŏn brought a number of important Huayan 

texts to China, which enabled Jingyuan to redefine the 

Huayan lineage. As Jingyuan’s favorite disciple, Ŭich’ŏn 

was a prominent figure whose celebrity also helped 

boost the popularity of the master’s monastery, which 

became known as the Koryŏ Monastery. After returning 

to Koryŏ and becoming the abbot of Hŭngwangsa, 

he managed to synthesize the Sŏn (Chinese, Chan; 

Japanese, Zen) school and the Kyo (scholastic) forms 

of Buddhism in Korea. He also founded a revitalized 

Ch’ŏnt’ae (Chinese, Tiantai) Buddhism in Koryŏ. In 

his monastery, Ŭich’ŏn built a library and a collection 

of important Buddhist texts, for which he compiled a 

catalogue called Sin’pyŏn chejong kyojang ch’ongnok 

(New Catalogue of Buddhist Sectarian Writings). The 

catalogue and his writings, the Taegak kuksa munjip 

and the Taegak kuksa woejip, remain important sources 

for the study of Korean Buddhism. 

See also: Huayan School; Tiantai School 

Bibliography 

Huiyinsi zhi (Record of Huiyin Monastery). Taipei, Taiwan: 

Mingwen shuju, 1981. 

Taegak kuksa munjip and Taegak kuksa woejip (Collected Works 

of the National Preceptor Taegak). Seoul: Kongguk University, 

1974. 

ŬISANG 


Ŭisang (625–702) was the founder of the Hwaŏm 

school and an influential thinker in Korea and China. 

In 644 he was ordained a monk at Hwangboksa in 

Kyŏngju, the capital of Silla. Together with WŎNHYO 

(617–686), Ŭisang decided to study under Chinese 

masters. After a first unsuccessful attempt in 650, 

Ŭisang finally reached Tang China in 661, where he 

studied under Zhiyan (602–668), the second patriarch 

of the HUAYAN SCHOOL. Together with FAZANG 

(643–712), the future third patriarch of the Huayan 

school, Ŭisang became one of Zhiyan’s chief disciples. 

In 668 Ŭisang wrote the Hwaŏm ilsŭng pŏpkye to (Diagram 

of the Dharmadhatu According to the One Vehicle 

of Hwaŏm), a poem epitomizing his understanding 

of Huayan philosophy. During the same year, Zhiyan 

died and Ŭisang took over teaching the disciples of his 

deceased master. 

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In 670 Ŭisang returned to Korea, warning King 

Munmu about an impending invasion of Silla by Tang 

army forces. In 676 Pusŏksa on Mount T’aebaek was 

built under royal decree and functioned as Ŭisang’s 

main center for the propagation of the Hwaŏm school 

in Korea. Purportedly, Ŭisang gathered more than 

three thousand disciples and subsequently founded 

other monasteries throughout the country, further 

promoting Hwaŏm studies. Ŭisang’s erudition was 

known both inside and outside of Korea. Fazang continued 

to correspond with Ŭisang, asking him to correct 

his manuscripts. 

During the subsequent Koryŏ dynasty, CHINUL 

(1158–1210) copiously cited Ŭisang’s works and King 

Sukjong conferred on him a posthumous title. Ŭisang’s 

Hwaŏm ilsŭng pŏpkye to is often recited in modern Korean 

Buddhist liturgy. 

Bibliography 

Forte, Antonino. A Jewel in Indra’s Net: The Letter Sent by Fazang 

in China to Ŭisang in Korea. Kyoto: Instituto Italiano di Cultura 

Scuola di Studi Sull’Asia Orientale, 2000. 

Lee, Peter H., ed. Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, Vol. 1. New 


Odin, Steve. Process Metaphysics and Hua-yen Buddhism: A Critical 

Study of Cumulative Penetration vs. Interpretation. Albany: 


UNITED STATES 

PATRICK R. UHLMANN 

The American encounter with Buddhism dates from 

the start of systematic trade between China and the 

United States in 1784, when ships that docked along 

the eastern seaboard from Charleston, South Carolina, 

to Salem, Massachusetts, began to unload Asian artifacts. 

But during this period Americans, and Westerners 

more generally, had not yet identified Buddhism as 

a distinct religious tradition, perused translations of 

Buddhist sacred texts, or witnessed large-scale emigration 

of Buddhists from Asia. In that sense, the American 

contact with Buddhism did not begin in earnest 

until the 1840s and 1850s. In 1844 transcendentalist 

writer Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804–1894) translated 

an excerpt from a French edition of a Buddhist 

sacred text, the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA- 

SU TRA), and that excerpt and commentary appeared in 

the magazine The Dial as “The Preaching of the Buddha.” 

In the same year Edward Elbridge Salisbury 

(1814–1901), a professor of Sanskrit at Yale, read a paper 

on the history of Buddhism at the first annual 

meeting of the American Oriental Society, a group of 

scholars dedicated to the study of Asian cultures. These 

two events—Peabody’s translation and Salisbury’s 

paper—initiated systematic U.S. contact with Buddhism, 

and that encounter took on more significance 

in the next decade as Chinese immigrants landed on 

American shores. This initial period in the history of 

Buddhism in the United States would last until 1924, 

when Congress passed a restrictive immigration act. 

And the most recent era in America’s encounter with 

Buddhism opened in 1965, when the immigration laws 

loosened to allow more Asians of Buddhist heritage to 

settle in the United States. 

Encounters: 1844–1923 

The public conversation, which began in the 1840s and 

peaked in the 1890s, included a wide range of voices— 

Christian travelers and missionaries, European and 

American scholars, as well as Buddhist sympathizers 

and converts. Much of the discussion—in magazines 

and books, in parlors and classrooms, in churches and 

lecture halls—focused on the sources of Buddhism’s 

attraction (advocates claimed it was tolerant, egalitarian, 

and scientific) and the extent of its discontinuity 

with mainline Protestant beliefs and Victorian American 

values (critics found it pessimistic, atheistic, and 

passive). In books such as Samuel Henry Kellogg’s The 

Light of Asia and the Light of the World (1885) Protestant 

critics of the Asian religion worried aloud about 

the increasing influence of Buddhism and countered 

with praise for Christianity. Henry M. King (1838– 

1919), a prominent Baptist clergyman who was troubled 

by the claims that it was “a most favorable time 

for the dissemination of Buddhistic views,” even asked 

readers of one Christian periodical, “Shall We All Become 

Buddhists?” King offered a decisive no, and he 

and other Christian critics highlighted the ways that 

Buddhism seemed to diverge from widely shared beliefs 

and values—theism, individualism, activism, and 

optimism. But Buddhist sympathizers defended the 

tradition, as Paul Carus (1852–1919) did passionately 

in Buddhism and Its Christian Critics (1897). 

Carus, one of the most influential participants in 

the public discussion, never affiliated formally or fully 

with Buddhism, but several thousand European Americans 

did during the first Buddhist vogue, from the 

1880s to the 1910s. Attracted by Edwin Arnold’s sympathetic 

life of the Buddha in verse, The Light of Asia 

(1879), and fascinated by the lectures and writings of 


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two Asian Buddhists who spoke at Chicago’s World 

Parliament of Religions in 1893, ANAGARIKA DHARMA- 

PALA (1864–1933) and Soen Shaku (1859–1919), some 

Americans turned East. Some in that first generation 

of American converts even traveled to Asia. Henry 

Steel Olcott (1832–1907), the first American convert 

in 1880, and Marie De Souza Canavarro (1849–1933), 

the first female convert in 1897, traveled to Ceylon (Sri 

Lanka). William Sturgis Bigelow (1850–1926) and 

Ernest Francisco Fenollosa (1851–1903) went to Japan, 

where they stayed for years and received the bodhisattva 

PRECEPTS of Tendai Buddhism at Homoyoin 

Monastery in 1885. 

During this period, most Americans who would 

have claimed Buddhist identity never had the chance 

to encounter the tradition in Asia, and there were few 

Buddhist leaders, translations, and institutions to support 

their practice, which focused more on reading 

than meditation or chanting. Those who lived in San 

Francisco could take advantage of the Dharma Sangha 

of Buddha, a small Caucasian group founded in 1900 

by Japanese Jodo Shinshu (or True Pure Land Sect) 

missionaries, who also published a sophisticated 

English-language magazine, the Light of Dharma 

(1901–1907), which could boast of subscribers in 

twenty-five states. More than a decade earlier some 

readers encountered a distinctive blend of Swedenborgianism 

and Buddhism in another periodical, the 

Buddhist Ray (1888–1894), which was published in 

Santa Cruz, California, by a self-proclaimed convert, 

Herman C. Vetterling (1849–1931), who called himself 

Philangi Dasa. Yet most European Americans who 

sympathized with the tradition or thought of themselves 

as Buddhists had little support for their practice 

during this period. 

Asian-American Buddhists, especially the Japanese, 

were a little less isolated. Immigrants from East Asia 

(China, Korea, and Japan) brought Buddhism to the 

United States during this period, starting with the Chinese 

in the 1850s. They settled along the West Coast 

to work as railroad laborers, miners, farmers, and domestics. 

In the 1850s and 1860s emigrants from China 

also landed in Hawaii to work on sugar plantations. 

And Buddhism was a part of the religious life of many 

of these Chinese migrants on the islands and on the 

mainland. It is difficult to say how many, since the 

Chinese did not keep clear records, establish vigorous 

organizations, or enjoy strong religious leadership. 

Further, as in their homeland, Buddhist beliefs and 

practices blended with Daoist, Confucian, and folk traditions 

in Chinese-American homes and temples. The 

Chinese established the first temple in the United 

States in 1853, in San Francisco’s Chinatown. By the 

1860s, tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants had 

some allegiance to Buddhism, and by the 1890s there 

were 107,488 Chinese in the United States. They could 

visit fifteen San Francisco temples, which enshrined 

Buddhist as well as Daoist images. Although no one 

could offer fully reliable figures, officials from the U.S. 

Bureau of the Census reported in 1906 that there were 

62 Chinese temples and 141 shrines in 12 states, many 

of them in California. 

The Japanese were the next Asian Buddhists to arrive. 

They began to travel to Hawaii in significant 

numbers during the 1860s, and by 1889 a Jodo Shinshu 

priest, Soryu Kagahi, was ministering to Buddhist 

field workers there. In the next decade, the 1890s, thousands 

of Japanese migrants arrived in the American 

West, and almost from the start Japanese Buddhists 

were more organized than the Chinese. Religious leaders 

traveled from the homeland and formed religious 

institutions to support Buddhist practice. On September 

2, 1899, the Honganji True Pure Land Buddhist 

organization in Kyoto sent two missionaries—Shuye 

Sonoda and Kakuryo Nishijima. By 1906 Japanese Pure 

Land Buddhists reported 12 organizations, 7 temples, 

and 14 priests in the United States. They also reported 

3,165 members, although many more Japanese would 

have been loosely affiliated with the religion. Meanwhile, 

Buddhism continued to flourish among the 

Japanese in the Hawaiian Islands, which had become 

a U.S. possession in 1898. Chinese and Koreans on the 

islands also practiced Buddhism in this early period. 

For example, one scholar has estimated that at least 

half of the 7,200 Koreans who moved to Hawaii to 

labor on sugar plantations between 1903 and 1905 

were Buddhists. 

But, as they soon would discover, these pioneer 

Asian immigrants were not welcomed by all other 

Americans. They were, as some scholars have suggested, 

the ultimate aliens. Not only were they legally 

unable to become naturalized citizens, but they also 

were racially, linguistically, culturally, and religiously 

distinct from their neighbors. If Buddhism provided a 

source of identity and comfort, it also set them apart 

in a predominantly Christian nation. U.S. lawmakers 

targeted first the Chinese and later the Japanese. The 

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 set the tone, and by the 

time legislators passed the restrictive and racist 1924 

immigration act, which included national quotas that 

in practical terms excluded Asians, the pattern was 

clear for the next period in U.S. Buddhist history. 


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Exclusions: 1924–1964 

From the 1920s to the 1960s borders were closed to 

Asian immigrants, and interest contracted among 

European-American sympathizers and converts. Very 

few new Asian Buddhists arrived. The Chinese population 

fell, thriving Chinatowns declined, and some 

temples closed. Jodo Shinshu, Sotoshu, and Nichirenshu 

temples formed during the several decades after 

the Japanese arrival in the 1890s, but the immigrant 

population did not grow. The Japanese also suffered 

internment during World War II, when President 

Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 incarcerated 

more than 120,000 Japanese Americans in assembly 

centers and internment camps in the Western 

states. Some Japanese stopped practicing Buddhism for 

fear of being labeled un-American, although most continued 

their religious practice and the Jodo Shinshu 

mission, renamed the Buddhist Churches of America 

in 1944, survived the camps. 

Japanese Buddhism even expanded between the 

1920s and the 1960s. Soto and Rinzai Zen leaders began 

to build on the foundations constructed earlier. 

Soen, the first Zen teacher in America, had made a lecture 

tour in 1905 and 1906 and then published Sermons 

of a Buddhist Abbot (1906), the first book on Zen 

in the English language. Between 1925 and 1931 two 

of Soen’s students—Nyogen Senzaki (1876–1958) and 

Shigetsu Sasaki (later known as Sokei-an)—went on to 

establish Zen centers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, 

and New York. Other East Asian teachers, including 

Shunryu Suzuki, later founded Zen centers. Suzuki arrived 

in San Francisco in 1959 to serve the elderly 

Japanese-American congregation at Sokoji, the Soto 

Zen temple that Hosen Isobe had built in 1934. Suzuki 

later established the San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara 

Zen Mountain Center, the first Zen monastery 

in America. In 1960 SO KA GAKKAI’s president, Daisaku 

Ikeda, brought the practices of that Japanese religious 

movement to American shores. 

If these and other teachers helped to build the institutions 

that nurtured Buddhist practice among converts 

and sympathizers after the 1960s, another 

Japanese Buddhist, D. T. SUZUKI (1870–1966), generated 

interest, especially in Zen, among intellectuals and 

artists. Suzuki, who had penned articles for the Light 

of Dharma and served as Soen’s translator at the Parliament 

and during his 1905 speaking tour, first 

stepped into the spotlight in 1927 when he published 

Essays in Zen Buddhism. Through his writings, translations, 

and lectures over the next four decades he influenced 

musicians, poets, choreographers, painters, 

theologians, and psychologists, including John Cage, 

Erich Fromm, and Thomas Merton—as well as Beat 

movement writers Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and 

Jack Kerouac, who looked to Buddhism as a spiritual 

alternative to their inherited traditions. 

Another influence on the Beat generation was 

Dwight Goddard (1861–1939), a Baptist missionary 

who sailed for China to save the “heathen” and returned 

as a Buddhist convert committed to spreading 

the Asian tradition in the United States. It was Goddard’s 

anthology of Buddhist scriptures, The Buddhist 

Bible (1932), that Kerouac’s “dharma bums” carried 

with them on their spiritual journeys in Eisenhower’s 

America. But neither Goddard, who had proposed an 

American Buddhist monastic community as early as 

1933, nor Suzuki, who popularized Zen, could secure 

an enduring institutional foundation for Buddhist 

practice among converts. That would happen only after 

1965. 

Crossings: After 1965 

Many things changed after 1965, even if cultural shifts 

in the preceding decades had helped prepare the way. 

Not only did the number of American converts swell, 

but more Buddhists arrived from Asia. All Buddhists 

also enjoyed increased support for their practice as 

more temples and centers dotted the American landscape. 

At the same time, Buddhism grew in visibility 

as it shaped elite and popular culture. There were multiple 

reasons for the changes. Cultural discontent during 

the tumultuous 1960s had opened Americans to 

new spiritual alternatives just as new translations of 

Buddhist texts made their way to bookstores and revised 

immigration laws opened the gates for Asian immigrants, 

including Buddhist teachers and followers. 

Starting in the 1970s, war-weary Buddhist refugees 

from Southeast Asia also began to settle in America after 

escaping political disruptions in their homelands. 

So by the opening decade of the twenty-first century 

the United States was home to every form of 

Asian Buddhism—THERAVADA, MAHAYANA, and VAJ- 

RAYANA. Cradle Buddhists, those born into the faith, 

and convert Buddhists, those who embraced it as 

adults, could practice in more than fifteen hundred 

temples or centers. No one knows for certain how 

many Americans think of themselves as Buddhists, 

since the U.S. census no longer gathers information 

about religious affiliation. Recent estimates range 

from 500,000 to over 5 million, with the average estimate 

about 2.3 million. Surveys in 2000—the General 

Social Survey (GSS), Monitoring the Future (MF), the 


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American Freshman (AF), and the American Religious 

Identification Survey (ARIS)—concluded that 

1 million to 2.1 million adults (61% Asian American) 

and 1.4 million to 2.8 million in the total population 

affiliated with Buddhism. Scholars who defend the 

lower figure (1.4 million) argue that only the surveys 

of high school seniors and college freshmen (MF and 

AF) point toward the higher end. Those who concur 

with the larger estimate (2.8 million) note that the 

other studies (GSS and ARIS) were telephone surveys 

that excluded those who did not speak English and, 

therefore, undercounted Asian refugees and immigrants. 

Other evidence, or lack of evidence, also inclines 

some toward the high-end estimates: the religion 

survey (ARIS) failed to contact residents of Hawaii, 

which had the counties with the highest concentrations 

of Asian Americans according to the 2000 U.S. census, 

and the survey of high school seniors (MF) failed to 

include California, a state with a significant Buddhist 

presence. 

To put these estimates in perspective, if we assume 

the lowest available figures, Buddhists still outnumbered 

more than seventeen U.S. Christian denominations, 

including the Disciples of Christ and the Quakers 

(ARIS). And even if the highest estimates—more than 

five million—seem exaggerated, they revealed two important 

features of the contemporary religious context, 

as demographer Tom Smith pointed out. First, observers 

might unwittingly inflate estimates of adherents 

because the building of Asian-American temples 

and the media’s celebration of celebrity converts have 

made Buddhism more visible. Second, there are many 

sympathizers, or nightstand Buddhists, who read Buddhist 

popular books and practice meditation sporadically 

but do not affiliate formally or fully. 

By almost any measure Buddhism had found its 

place in the American religious landscape by the start 

of the twenty-first century, and of those Americans 

who identified themselves as Buddhist adherents, approximately 

one-third were converts (ARIS). A small 

proportion were Asians who discovered or reaffirmed 

Buddhism in the United States, but most of the 341,000 

(ARIS) to 800,000 (Baumann) converts were Americans 

of European or African descent. There was more 

diversity among converts who affiliated with Soka 

Gakkai, the Japanese sect that venerates the teachings 

of NICHIREN (1222–1282). They were more ethnically 

diverse than both the U.S. population and other Buddhist 

converts: 15 percent African American, 15 percent 

“other,” 23 percent Asian, and 6 percent Latino. 

However, most Buddhist converts tended to be white, 

Thai-American Buddhists celebrate the Thai New Year festival at 

a temple in New York City, 2001. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced 


as James William Coleman’s study revealed. Converts 

also were middle and upper middle class, with a very 

high level of education: more than half (51%) held advanced 

degrees. Their range of religious backgrounds 

made them typical of the American population, except 

that convert Buddhists were disproportionately of Jewish 

heritage (16.5%, as compared with 3% in the U.S. 

population). 

Although converts have embraced almost every 

form of Buddhism, since 1965 most have affiliated with 

one of several traditions. Through the efforts of American 

converts who had studied in Burma and Thailand 

during the 1960s, Theravada Buddhism attracted interest, 

and efforts to transplant Southeast Asian Buddhism, 

especially VIPASSANA (or insight) meditation, 

took institutional form during the 1970s and 1980s. In 

1975 Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, 

and others founded the Insight Meditation Society 

in Barre, Massachusetts. Soon after, teachers 

extended the movement to California: In 1977 Ruth 

Denison, who also had practiced in Asia, purchased 


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property that would eventually become Dhamma 

Dena in Joshua Tree, and in 1988 Kornfield helped to 

establish another teaching, retreat, and training center 

at Spirit Rock, in Marin County. 

Although W. Y. Evans-Wentz translated the TIBETAN 

BOOK OF THE DEAD in 1927 and Geshe Wangyal incorporated 

the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in 

New Jersey in 1958, larger numbers of converts started 

turning to Vajrayana traditions only in the late 1960s 

and early 1970s, when teachers such as Tarthang Tulku 

Rinpoche (1935– ) in Berkeley, California, and Chogyam 

Trungpa Rinpoche (1939–1987) in Boulder, Colorado, 

established practice centers associated with the 

four main orders or schools of Tibetan Buddhism: 

BKA’ BRGYUD (KAGYU), SA SKYA (SAKYA), RNYING MA 

(NYINGMA), and DGE LUGS (GELUK). And because the 

number of Tibetan exiles in the United States remains 

relatively small, Vajrayana traditions are represented 

in America mostly by European-American converts 

and the Tibetan (or, increasingly, American) teachers 

who guide their practice. 

Since the 1960s American converts also have practiced 

in centers associated with forms of Mahayana 

Buddhism. Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a lay organization 

within Nichiren Shoshu until the bitter split 

in 1991, grew from its American origins in 1960 to attract 

approximately thirty-six thousand devotees, who 

chanted the title of the Lotus Su tra in homes and centers 

across the United States by the turn of the century. 

Asian-born Zen teachers—Shunryu Suzuki (1904– 

1971) and Taizan Maezumi (1931–1995)—built on 

the foundations established earlier in the century, and 

their American-born “dharma heirs” went on to lead 

existing centers and found new ones. Philip Kapleau 

(1912– ), Robert Aitken (1917– ), Maurine Stuart 

(1922–1990), John Daido Loori (1931– ), Richard 

Baker (1936– ), and Bernard Glassman (1939– ) all 

played important roles, and by 2000 their lineages had 

been extended, with later generations of Americanborn 

Soto and Rinzai teachers, including many women, 

assuming positions of leadership. 

Finally, Vietnamese Zen teacher THICH NHAT 

HANH (1926– ) attracted sympathizers and converts, 

who are guided by the fourteen mindfulness trainings 

of his “ENGAGED BUDDHISM.” He founded the Order 

of Interbeing (Tiep Hien) in the mid-1960s, when he 

was an internationally known peace activist, but the 

“core community” (the ordained) and the “extended 

community” (the unordained) began to grow in number 

and influence during the 1980s and 1990s through 

the writings and visits of the founder, who consecrated 

the Maple Forest Monastery in Hartland, Vermont, 

in 1997. 

Nhat Hanh, the DALAI LAMA, and many other 

Asian- and American-born Buddhist teachers also 

shaped elite and popular culture. They filled bookstore 

shelves with accessible introductions to Buddhist practice 

that were read by tens of thousands of sympathizers 

who do not sign membership lists or formally take 

refuge in the Buddha but still find the tradition’s teachings 

attractive. Buddhism also inspired American 

painters, architects, and sculptors. It shaped modern 

dance and contemporary music, from Philip Glass’s 

new music to the Beastie Boys hip-hop. The pop star 

Tina Turner reported that chanting, a practice she 

learned from Nichiren Buddhism, granted her peace 

and prosperity. Buddhism influenced the sports world 

too: Phil Jackson, the professional basketball coach, 

credited Zen with his success in the game. How-to 

books promised improvement in everything from sex 

to business, if only readers would apply the principles 

of Zen or Tantric Buddhism. Inspired by Nhat Hanh’s 

Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation (1975) 

and other texts and teachers, Duke University Medical 

Center and many other hospitals offered classes in 

“meditation-based stress reduction.” Advertisers, 

fashion designers, scriptwriters, and filmmakers also 

used Buddhist images to move an audience or sell a 

brand. After celebrities confessed Buddhist affiliation 

and four films during the mid-1990s highlighted Buddhist 

themes (Heaven and Earth, Little Buddha, Kundun, 

and Seven Years in Tibet), a 1997 cover story in 

Time magazine celebrated “America’s Fascination with 

Buddhism.” A century after the peak of Victorian- 

American interest, a more intense and widespread 

Buddhist vogue seemed to have set in. 

But cultural vogues come and go, and it is not yet 

clear whether the baby boomer converts will successfully 

pass on Buddhism to the next generation. So in 

many ways, the most culturally significant shift after 

1965 has been the increased visibility and numbers of 

Buddhist immigrants and refugees from Asia. The 1965 

revision of immigration laws swelled the foreign-born 

population. According to the 2000 U.S. census, 28.4 

million Americans (10.4% of the population) were 

born outside the nation. Of those, 7.2 million emigrated 

from Asia, and approximately 665,000 foreignborn 

Asian Americans might be Buddhist, if we apply 

and extend the findings of the ARIS. In any case, if the 

same proportions hold as in that 2001 survey—61 percent 

of Buddhists were Asian American and 67 percent 


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were born into the tradition—then about two-thirds 

of U.S. Buddhists are of Asian descent. 

A small proportion of those Asian-American Buddhists 

trace their lineage to the Japanese, Koreans, and 

Chinese who arrived in the first wave of Asian migration, 

which brought forms of Mahayana Buddhism 

to the nation. Those third- and fourth-generation 

Japanese-American communities continue to practice 

their faith, as at the Seattle Buddhist Church (organized 

1901), the fourth-oldest Jodo Shinshu temple in 

the United States. But more recent immigrants and 

refugees have transplanted almost every form of Asian 

Buddhism. First-generation Americans from Sri 

Lanka, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia have established 

Theravada temples and retreat centers in more 

than thirty states, including Wat Carolina (dedicated 

1988) in rural Bolivia, North Carolina, although temples 

predominate in cities in California, Texas, New 

York, and Illinois. In addition, Chinese, Koreans, and 

Vietnamese practice multiple forms of Mahayana 

Buddhism in hundreds of remodeled homes and new 

buildings, such as Oklahoma City’s Chua Vien Giac, 

a Vietnamese temple dedicated in 1982, and Southern 

California’s Hsi Lai Temple, a structure built by Chinese 

Americans in 1988 and still the largest Buddhist 

temple in America. More temples appear in the 

American landscape all the time. Asian-American 

Buddhists continue to organize groups, renovate 

homes, and build temples in urban, rural, and suburban 

communities across the nation. And many confront 

obstacles—from bomb threats to zoning laws. 

Contemporary cradle and convert Buddhists also 

face many other issues. U.S. Buddhists must fashion 

identity and negotiate power in a culturally Christian 

nation, although Buddhism often has adapted to new 

cultures as it crossed cultural boundaries during its 

twenty-five-hundred-year history. Yet by the twentyfirst 

century, American Buddhists had to confront not 

only divergent cultural values and the cultural clout of 

Christianity, but also an unprecedented array of others 

from the same tradition, for example at regular 

meetings of inter-Buddhist organizations across the 

country, including the Buddhist Sangha Council of 

Southern California (1980), the Buddhist Council of 

the Midwest (1987), and the Texas Buddhist Council 

(1992). Like other American immigrants before them, 

many post-1965 Asian-American Buddhists also face 

the challenges of intergenerational tensions and ponder 

how much to accommodate and how much to resist 

cultural practices in the United States—from meat 

eating to MTV. Some observers have trumpeted convert 

Buddhism’s “democratic” impulses, which have 

opened participation and leadership to WOMEN and 

LAITY more than in most Asian cultures, but it remains 

to be seen how effectively they will extend that egalitarianism 

as they try to bridge racial divides among 

Asian, Caucasian, Latino/a, and African-American 

Buddhists. And it is not clear that the cultural dissenters 

who have been attracted to Buddhism will be 

able to build institutions that nurture children and 

youth and, thereby, assure the future vitality of the 

convert centers. 

Finally, Buddhists encounter the U.S. legal and political 

systems. The federal courts have decided that 

even though they do not venerate a “supreme being,” 

Buddhist conscientious objectors are protected under 

the Selective Service Training Act (U.S. v. Seeger) and 

that the First Amendment guarantees Buddhist prisoners 

“a reasonable opportunity” to practice the faith 

(Cruz v. Beto). There are even Buddhist chaplains serving 

soldiers in the U.S. military. But in a nation that 

still celebrates a theistic civil religion on its coins— 

“In God We Trust”—American Buddhists continue to 

struggle to make a place for those who take refuge in 

Buddha. 

See also: Buddhist Studies; Christianity and Buddhism; 

Europe; Zen, Popular Conceptions of 

Bibliography 

Baumann, Martin. “The Dharma Has Come West: A Survey of 

Recent Studies and Sources.” Critical Review of Books in Religion 

10 (1997): 1–14. 

Boucher, Sandy. Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating 

the New Buddhism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. 

Coleman, James William. The New Buddhism: The Western 

Transformation of an Ancient Tradition. New York and Oxford: 


Eck, Diana. On Common Ground: World Religions in America, 

2nd ed. CD-ROM. New York: Columbia University Press, 

2002. 

Hammond, Phillip, and Machacek, David. Soka Gakkai in 

America: Accommodation and Conversion. New York and 


Kosmin, Barry A.; Mayer, Egon; and Keysar, Ariela. “The American 

Religious Identification Survey 2001.” Graduate Center 

of the City University of New York, updated December 19, 

2001. 

Levinson, David, and Ember, Melvin, eds. American Immigrant 

Cultures, 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1997. 

Morreale, Don, ed. The Complete Guide to Buddhist America. 



869

U PAGUPTA 

Numrich, Paul David. Old Wisdom in the New World: Americanization 

in Two Immigrant Theravada Buddhist Temples. 

Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996. 

Prebish, Charles S., and Tanaka, Kenneth K., eds. The Faces of 

Buddhism in America. Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1998. 

Seager, Richard Hughes. Buddhism in America. New York: Columbia 


Smith, Tom W. “Religious Diversity in America: The Emergence 

of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Others.” Journal for the 

Scientific Study of Religion 41 (2002): 577–585. 

Tweed, Thomas A. “Night-stand Buddhists and Other Creatures: 

Sympathizers, Adherents, and the Study of Religion.” 

In American Buddhism: Methods and Findings in Recent 

Scholarship, ed. Duncan Ryuken Williams and Christopher 

S. Queen. Surrey, UK: Curzon, 1999. 

Tweed, Thomas A. The American Encounter with Buddhism, 

1844–1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent. 

Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 

2000. 

Tweed, Thomas A., and Prothero, Stephen, eds. Asian Religions 

in America: A Documentary History. New York and Oxford: 


UPAGUPTA 

THOMAS A. TWEED 

Upagupta was a Buddhist saint and dharma master 

from Northwest India. He is unknown in the Pali 

canon, but Sanskrit legends portray him as the fifth patriarch 

of the Buddhist tradition, in a line that stretches 

back through the disciples A NANDA and MAHAKAŚYAPA 

to the Buddha. He is associated with King AŚOKA (ca. 

300–232 B.C.E.), whom he is said to have accompanied 

on a pilgrimage, but he is most famous for having 

tamed (some say converted) MARA. He is also said to 

have been cremated in Mathura with the wooden tallysticks 

(śalaka) of his many disciples. 

In Myanmar (Burma), Upagupta is thought not to 

have died but to live on, in a meditative trance, in a 

pavilion in the midst of the southern ocean. From 

there, devotees invite him to come to their village to 

protect Buddhist festivals and rituals from disruptions 

caused by Mara, and to give people an opportunity to 

make merit. When his services are completed, devotees 

return Upagupta to his watery abode by floating 

his image downstream on a raft. His association with 

water and nagas is also found in northern Thailand 

and Laos, where he is thought to reside in swamps or 

river bottoms. 

Images of Upagupta commonly depict him as a 

seated monk looking up at the sun while eating from 

his alms bowl. He is said to have the power to stop the 

sun in its course, thus allowing him to eat after noon. 

In parts of Southeast Asia, it is thought that, on occasion, 

he may appear in person as a rough-looking 

monk. At such times, it is particularly beneficial to give 

him alms. 

See also: Arhat; Disciples of the Buddha 

Bibliography 



UPA LI 


Upali, a disciple of Śakyamuni Buddha, attained the 

enlightened status of an ARHAT, or saint. Renowned for 

his knowledge of monastic discipline, he recited the 

VINAYA at the first Buddhist council in Rajagrha. 

Originally, Upali had been a low-caste barber in the 

service of the Śakyan princes. When the princes leave 

in order to become monks, Upali also decides to seek 

ORDINATION. Upali attains a higher status in the 

monastic community than the princes because he is 

ordained before them. There are different accounts of 

Upali’s ordination in Buddhist literature. According to 

the Pali vinaya, the high-caste Śakyan princes request 

that Upali be ordained first so that they can learn to 

abandon their attachment to social status. In some Tibetan 

accounts, the arhat and disciple ŚARIPUTRA encourages 

Upali to seek ordination when Upali hesitates 

to do so because of his caste status. 

Upali’s mother is credited in the Sanskrit MAHAVASTU 

(Great Story) with arranging her son’s first meeting 

with the Buddha. All accounts emphasize that caste has 

no bearing on a person’s status in the monastic community. 

Upali appears in the literature of different 

Buddhist schools as an expert on monastic and BO- 

DHISATTVA discipline. Like other arhats, he was the focus 

of worship already in ancient and medieval India. 

He figures in different Buddhist schools as the patron 

saint of specialists in vinaya. In Burma (Myanmar), 

Upali is one of a set of eight arhats propitiated in protective 

rituals. 



U PA YA 

Bibliography 

Malalasekera, G. P. “Upali Thera.” In Dictionary of Pali Proper 

Names (1937–1938), 2 vols. New Delhi: Munshiram 




UPA YA 


Upaya is a central term in Buddhist HERMENEUTICS, 

SOTERIOLOGY, and ETHICS, especially in the MAHAYANA 

tradition, where it refers to methods skillfully employed 

by BUDDHAS and BODHISATTVAS to assist SEN- 

TIENT BEINGS toward enlightenment. 

In THERAVADA and Śravakayana texts, upaya generally 

denotes a means or stratagem, and only occasionally 

refers to techniques employed by teachers on 

behalf of disciples. Still, the Buddha clearly was regarded 

as a masterful guide for sentient beings, adapting 

his message to the capacity of his audience, and 

encouraging promulgation of his doctrine in various 

languages. 

Upaya gained prominence in early Mahayana sutras, 

often as part of the compound upaya-kauśalya, which 

translates as skillful means, skill in means, or expedient. 

In many Prajñaparamita sutras, skillful means 

refers to the multiple techniques used by buddhas or 

bodhisattvas to help worldly beings, and is explicitly 

linked with perfect wisdom as a requisite on the path. 

In the Upayakauśalya-su tra, immoralities attributed to 

bodhisattvas and weaknesses displayed by the Buddha 

are explained as the skillful means of beings whose 

compassion and insight preclude any immorality. In 

the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa, the layman VIMALAKIRTI uses 

“inconceivable skillful means” to convert Vaiśal’s 

townsfolk. He enters such places as gambling halls and 

brothels to wean their denizens from vice, and he feigns 

illness so as to converse with śravakas and bodhisattvas, 

who fear his stinging rebukes, and puzzle 

at his insistence that passions be utilized rather than 

avoided. The LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA- 

SU TRA) uses both exposition and parables to describe 

the Buddha’s skillful means for drawing beings to the 

One Vehicle (the Mahayana), including his promulgation 

of provisional truths that do not represent the 

“true” situation, but are appropriate to the capacities 

of certain disciples in certain contexts. 

As Mahayana was systematized, upaya became increasingly 

central. In hermeneutics, the term explains 

apparent contradictions among the Buddha’s teachings 

as rooted in his skillfully teaching his listeners 

what they needed to hear at a particular time, so that 

they would persevere on the path and eventually see 

things properly. Thus, Mahayanists regarded HINAYANA 

teachings (and those of other traditions) as mere preludes 

to the definitive greater vehicle, and the Mahayana 

itself as containing more and less definitive 

doctrines. One source of this view was the SAM DHINIR- 

MOCANA-SU TRA (Su tra Setting Free the [Buddha’s] Intent), 

which divides the Buddha’s teachings into 

provisional and definitive. The scripture claims that, 

exercising skillful means, the Buddha turned the 

dharma-wheel thrice: provisionally in Hnayana scriptures 

(which incline to eternalism) and the Prajñaparamita 

sutras (which incline to nihilism), and definitively 

in the Sam dhinirmocana (which balances negation 

and affirmation). The three-wheel scheme became 

widespread in India and Tibet, though opinions varied 

as to the contents of the third turning (e.g., as YO- 

GACARA, TATHAGATAGARBHA, or TANTRA). In East Asia, 

the most influential hermeneutical scheme was that attributed 

to the Tiantai master ZHIYI (538–597), whose 

panjiao system identified five progressively higher 

stages of the Buddha’s teaching, culminating in the Lotus 

Su tra. 

In mature Mahayana soteriology, upaya is, with wisdom, 

one of the two “sides” of the PATH perfected by 

bodhisattvas en route to buddhahood. Here, upaya 

refers to nearly any religious method not related directly 

to wisdom, and so includes the perfections of 

generosity, morality, patience, and effort; the practice 

of multifarious ritual and meditative techniques; and, 

above all, the development of the compassionatelymotivated 

aspiration to achieve enlightenment for the 

sake of all beings (BODHICITTA). As perfecting wisdom 

or gnosis leads to attainment of a buddha’s dharmakaya, 

the perfection of method results in the two 

“form bodies” that manifest for the sake of beings, the 

sam bhogakaya and nirmanakaya. In some tantric traditions, 

where one “takes the result as path,” wisdom 

and method were practiced simultaneously, for example 

as an cognition of emptiness appearing as a deity, 

or as a gnosis that sees emptiness while experiencing 

great bliss. 

In Mahayana ethics, skillful means generally refers to 

compassionately motivated activity that benefits others, 

and corresponds well with traditional Buddhist morality. 

Certain texts suggest, however, that an advanced 


871

U SURY 

bodhisattva or buddha not only may, but must, break 

conventional precepts (including monastic vows) if 

doing so will be beneficial. Thus, sex, violence, lying, 

and stealing are sometimes claimed to be permissible. 

This “situational” ethic leaves moral decision making 

less rule-bound and more flexible, and defines virtue 

in terms of motive rather than conduct, thereby hinting 

at relativism and complicating judgments regarding 

one’s own or others’ behavior. Nevertheless, it was 

widely influential throughout the Mahayana world, 

where it was used to justify a range of actions, including 

trends toward laicization, particular political and 

military policies, erotic and terrifying elements in 

Tantra, and the behavior of spiritual masters. Especially 

in tantric and Chan traditions, training sometimes 

contravened standard morality and disciples 

were advanced using unorthodox techniques that 

sometimes included violence. 

In contemporary Buddhism, upaya remains a crucial 

concept, helping to shape ongoing debates about how 

the dharma is to be expressed and transmitted, what 

range of practices is appropriate for Buddhists, how ethical 

decisions are to be made and judged, where WAR 

and politics fit into Buddhism, and what constitutes 

proper behavior by teachers toward their disciples. 

See also: Paramita (Perfection); Prajña (Wisdom) 

Bibliography 

Keown, Damien. The Nature of Buddhist Ethics. New York: Palgrave, 

2001. 

Lopez, Donald S., Jr., ed. Buddhist Hermeneutics. Honolulu: 


Pye, Michael. Skilful Means: A Concept in Mahayana Buddhism. 

London: Duckworth, 1978. 

Tatz, Mark, trans. The Skill in Means (Upayakauśalya) Su tra. 


Thurman, Robert A. F., trans. The Holy Teaching of Vimalaklrti: 

A Mahayana Scripture. University Park: Pennsylvania State 


Watson, Burton, trans. The Lotus Su tra. New York: Columbia 


USURY 


Money lending is one of many business ventures practiced 

by Buddhist monks. Although commercial activities 

are not usually associated with Buddhism, from the 

inception of Buddhist communities as landowners to 

restaurants run by American Zen communities, monasteries 

have long been involved in a wide variety of economic 

enterprises. Because Buddhism identifies DESIRE, 

rather than the objects of desire, as a source of suffering, 

wealth per se is not condemned; on the contrary, 

the proper use and enjoyment of wealth is encouraged. 

Commercial operations within the monastery also reflect 

Buddhism’s origins in the urban, mercantile centers 

of ancient India and in the systems of exchange, 

trade, and commerce, as well as the legal status of property 

and ownership, that developed there. The spread 

of Buddhism along trade routes meant that Buddhism 

and commerce traveled hand-in-hand. In China, for example, 

the innovation of lending banks was introduced 

by Buddhists traveling from India. The material needs 

of Buddhist devotional practice also encouraged the development 

of various crafts and guilds, as well as construction, 

agriculture, and other technologies. 

Capital resources were provided by a model of the 

pure gift in which the laity contributed material goods 

to the monastic community (dana) in return for religious 

merit (punya) that would enable better circumstances 

in future rebirths. As the wandering community 

of Buddhist renunciants quickly came to live the settled 

life of the vihara (monastery), monastic regulations 

began to allow the accumulation of donations beyond 

the immediate needs of the community. Some communities 

permitted such surplus to be used to endow 

funds that would generate interest for the purchase of 

clothing, food, and other community needs, or even for 

reinvestment. Because the funds generated interest 

and the principal investment was not depleted, they 

were called “inexhaustible” or “permanent” goods 

(aksayanlvl; Chinese, wujinzai). With the lands, serfs, 

livestock, grains, oil, cloth, gold, and silver thus acquired, 

renunciant communities were able to undertake 

a great variety of investment and commercial 

ventures. Later Chinese pilgrims reported that Indian 

monks supported themselves primarily by their land 

holdings and interest-bearing investments, rather than 

by daily rounds of alms seeking. 

Lending at interest was one such practice. The assets 

lent from the inexhaustible goods could be commodities 

such as cloth, food, oils, seed, and other 

goods donated to the monastery. The lendable assets 

may also have included monies generated from land 

rents, commercial activities, and investments. The 

PRECEPTS of the various Indian schools give permission 

and rudimentary procedures for these lending 


U SURY 

practices. The MU LASARVASTIVADA-VINAYA (Monastic 

Code of the Mu lasarvastivada [Group that Teaches that 

All Exists]), for example, gives specific instructions for 

lending the inexhaustible goods of the monastery, including 

details on the amount of collateral required 

(double the value of the loan), the form of the contract, 

the number of witnesses and guarantors needed, 

provisions for property seizure in the event of forfeiture, 

and other contractual details. The interest collected 

from monetary loans varied from as little as 

nothing to as high as 100 percent of the principal, but 

typically 50 percent of the principal was charged. 

Although interest rates were frequently usurious, 

Buddhist monasteries were often the only source of 

large amounts of capital, so they performed an important 

and necessary social function that peasants, 

merchants, the gentry, and even monks took advantage 

of. At the same time, however, the vast wealth of 

the monasteries put them into competition for revenue 

with the state, so Buddhist economic enterprises were 

often attacked as corrupt and fraudulent. This was particularly 

true in China, where charges of financial impropriety 

were frequently raised during periods of 

imperial suppression of Buddhism. 

The commercial activities of monasteries were not 

conducted solely for the purpose of economic gain— 

charitable lending and other social welfare institutions 

also developed. In China, for example, the SANJIE JIAO 

(THREE STAGES SCHOOL; late sixth–early eighth centuries), 

which operated several famous “Inexhaustible 

Storehouses,” combined rules that provided for the endowment 

of inexhaustible funds with teachings from 

the Huayan (Flower Garland) and VIMALAKIRTI sutras 

about the bodhisattva’s inexhaustible storehouse of 

compassion for living beings. Their Inexhaustible 

Storehouse at the Huadu Monastery in Chang’an received 

donations from the faithful that were then lent 

out free of interest to the poor and needy of the empire. 

Because the goods of the storehouse were “inexhaustible,” 

the donor acquired inexhaustible merit. 

This type of social welfare program was also seen in 

the development of pawnshops, another type of lending 

operation run by Buddhist monasteries. 

Although in modern times many of the commercial 

ventures of Buddhist monasteries have been taken over 

by secular enterprise, the scope of Buddhist economic 

activities remains wide, and includes mutual-aid societies 

and cooperative banks, as well as modern forms of 

investment like credit cards and nonprofit corporations. 

See also: China; Economics; India; Monasticism 

Bibliography 

Ch’en, Kenneth. The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism. 





Miller, Robert J. “Buddhist Monastic Economy: The Jisa Mechanism.” 

Comparative Studies in Society and History 3, no. 4 

(1961): 427–438. 

Schopen, Gregory. “Doing Business for the Lord: Lending on Interest 

and Written Loan Contracts in the Mu lasarvastivada- 

Vinaya.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 114, no. 4 

(1994): 527–554. 




1997. 




JAMIE HUBBARD 


873


V 

VAJRAYA NA 

Vajrayana is an umbrella designation that denotes the 

final form of Buddhism to evolve in India; this term 

first comes into evidence in the eighth century. The 

Vajrayana is often taken to be identical with Mantrayana 

or Guhyamantrayana, the vehicle of secret 

spells or incantations. In a very general sense, Vajrayana 

means the vehicle (yana) of the thunderbolt or 

of the adamantine scepter (vajra), although the designation 

of the male member as the vajra sometimes 

caused the Vajrayana to be interpreted as the erotic vehicle, 

wherein sensuality may be employed for liberation. 

The modern attempt to proliferate terms with 

-yana as a final element —(e.g., Kalacakrayana, Sahajayana, 

etc.) —is in error and none of these inauthentic 

neologisms appears in the literature. The Vajrayana 

scriptures are the TANTRAS, and they with their commentaries 

present several different strategies to discuss 

the theoretical nature of this latest vehicle: Vajrayana 

as a subset of the MAHAYANA, Vajrayana as the 

fruitional or advanced vehicle, and Vajrayana as the 

third discipline of the sorcerer. Each of these will be 

considered in order. 

Maha ya na subset 

According to this schematism, normative Indian Mahayana 

revealed two distinct ways (naya): the method 

of the perfections (paramitanaya) and the method of 

MANTRAS (mantranaya). The former consists of the 

standard six or ten PARAMITA (PERFECTIONS) of the Mahayana 

and requires three incalculable eons to achieve 

the condition of buddhahood—the highest perfect 

awakening at the tenth or eleventh stage of the Mahayanist 

path. The method of mantras, however, is said 

to confer this state in a single lifetime: buddhahood in 

this very body, as the literature affirms. This accelerated 

progress is possible because of the very powerful 

techniques associated with the use of mantras, so that 

the activity of the yogin’s entire body, speech, and 

mind are employed in the process. Thus, the yogin visualizes 

BUDDHAS, BODHISATTVAS, or esoteric DIVINI- 

TIES either before him or identical to himself, recites 

mantras associated with such figures, and employs 

breathing techniques and other forms of physical yoga 

to accelerate the process of identification. Those following 

the esoteric path often maintain that the difference 

between the methods of perfection and the 

methods of mantras stems from their respective attitudes 

toward defilement. Whereas the method of perfections 

requires the elimination of defilement, in the 

method of mantras none of the physical or psychological 

functions are abandoned, but they are transformed 

into forms of the gnosis of awakening. In this 

light, the method of mantras was considered an easy 

path, without the difficulties inherent in the method 

of perfections. Similarly, the Vajrayana was sometimes 

said to be preached as a response to the needs of those 

with inferior ability, who could not renounce the world 

but had to maintain a householder’s position. However, 

as a subset of the Mahayana, a follower of the 

method of mantras is also expected to adhere to the 

vows of the bodhisattva, to practice the perfections as 

well and to operate on a continuum with the decorum 

expected of the bodhisattva. 

Fruitional vehicle 

The Vajrayana may also be called the fruitional vehicle 

(phalayana), with the Mahayana classified as the 

causal vehicle (hetuyana). In this schematism, the 

875

V AJRAYA NA 

Mahayana is a prelude to the Vajrayana, for the latter 

is an advanced practice. Accordingly, one of the more 

important of the tantric scriptures, the Guhyasamaja 

Tantra, proclaims that the reason it had not been 

preached before was that there were no beings sufficiently 

advanced to hear it. It became revealed in the 

world once bodhisattvas with advanced practice arose 

to receive it. This means that the Vajrayana is not just 

another, albeit faster, method but is inherently superior 

to normative Mahayana and not to be revealed to 

those of inferior faculties. In this way, the awakening 

conferred by the Vajrayana was also different, for while 

the Mahayana led to the tenth or eleventh stage of the 

bodhisattva path, the citadel of the Eternal Buddha Vajradhara 

was said to be on the thirteenth stage, far advanced 

over the Mahayanist idea of buddhahood. 

The sorcerer’s discipline 

As the sorcerer’s discipline (vidyadharasam vara), 

the Vajrayana is laid out on a hierarchy of practice. 

The neophyte begins with the monastic discipline 

(pratimoksasam vara), which may be formally that of 

the monk or of the devout layman (upasaka) who has 

taken refuge and the five vows of the LAITY. Concomitantly, 

the views of the ABHIDHARMA and SAU- 

TRANTIKA school may be studied. Once this practice 

is correctly established, then the practitioner may take 

the precepts of the bodhisattva (bodhisattvasam vara) 

and study the views of the YOGACARA SCHOOL and 

MADHYAMAKA SCHOOL. Finally, the precepts of the 

sorcerer may be taken through the rite of INITIATION, 

and they qualify the yogin to become the universal 

conqueror of the sorcerers (vidyadharacakravartin) so 

long as the PRECEPTS are scrupulously maintained. 

There are different lists of the precepts for the sorcerer’s 

discipline, but the two most frequently encountered 

are vows to guard against the fourteen root 

transgressions: 

1. Contempt for the teacher. 

2. Transgressing the message of the Tathagata. 

3. Anger at members of the feast family. 

4. Abandoning loving kindness. 

5. Rejecting the thought of awakening. 

6. Abusing the three vehicles. 

7. Revealing secrets to unprepared people. 

8. Disparaging the victor’s body of instruction. 

9. Doubt about the pure-natured dharma. 

10. (Improper) love or dispassion toward evil people. 

11. Imposition of other than nonduality upon reality. 

12. Disparaging those with faith. 

13. Not relying on the sacraments and vows. 

14. Disparaging insight-filled women. 

and the eight gross transgressions: 

1. Seeking to take a consort who is without sacramental 

preparation. 

2. Relying on unauthorized sacraments. 

3. Arguing in the tantric feast. 

4. Showing the secret dharma. 

5. Teaching another dharma to those of faith, causing 

confusion. 

6. Staying with śravakas for seven days. 

7. Claiming the status of a mantrin without sufficient 

realization. 

8. Teaching secrets to the unprepared. 

The sorcerer’s PRECEPTS were considered superior 

to those of the monk and bodhisattva, so that they took 

precedence in a hierarchy of value. If a yogin determined 

that observance of the sorcerer’s precepts required 

the abandonment of one of the others, then 

some authorities considered this to be without fault, 

and many of the siddha hagiographies feature instances 

of exactly this behavior. Like other issues, though, this 

position was disputed, and much effort was expended 

by commentators to arrive at resolution of these problems. 

This question had a social component, for if the 

householder siddha was superior to the monk, then the 

latter should bow to him, despite the fact that prostrating 

before any layman is a clear violation of the 

monastic precepts. 

The above analyses of the Vajrayana reveal much 

inconsistency and a variety of opinions, which is not 

surprising for a complex and multifaceted system continuing 

to evolve over several centuries. As a result, 

among the many controversies that stirred discussion 

and polemical debate was whether the buddhahood of 

the Mahayana and the buddhahood of the Vajrayana 

were in fact the same, or whether the latter was superior, 

with many subtle alternatives expressed. The re- 


V AM SA 

lationship between practices and vehicles continued to 

be problematic so that as new practices arose, their precise 

placement and the shifting theoretical dynamic between 

the vehicles were extended topics of discussion. 

Particularly in Tibet, there tended to be a proliferation 

of vehicles, so that genres of literature came to represent 

new vehicles in the pages of some authors, although 

this was decidedly a minority opinion, found 

especially among the RNYING MA (NYINGMA). 


Bibliography 



Press, 2002. 


Rje’s Fundamentals of the Buddhist Trantras. The Hague and 

Paris: Mouton, 1968. 


and Their Tibetan Successors, 2 vols. Boston: Shambhala, 1987. 

Sobisch, Jan-Ulrich. The Three-Vow Theories in Tibetan Buddhism: 

A Comparative Study of Major Traditions from the 

Twelfth through Nineteenth Centuries. Wiesbaden, Germany: 

Reichert, 2002. 

Strickmann, Michel. “The Consecration Sutra: A Buddhist Book 

of Spells.” In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha., ed. Robert E. 


Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme 


VAM SA 


The Pali word vam sa literally refers to “lineage” or 

“bamboo,” but it acquired the technical meaning of a 

“chronicle” early in the first millennium C.E. among 

THERAVADA Buddhists on the island of Sri Lanka. 

While many historical texts authored by Theravada 

Buddhists in the ancient and medieval periods include 

the word vam sa in their titles, not all narrative accounts 

of the past are referred to in this way, nor do all vam sas 

share the same style and content. The Mahavam sa 

(Great Chronicle) is arguably the best-known vam sa in 

modern times, yet its open-ended narrative, which has 

been periodically extended since the fifth century C.E., 

deviates from many other Theravada vam sas whose 

narratives follow a discernible plot and reach a point 

of closure. 

Modern scholars deduce that the vam sa genre of 

Buddhist literature grew out of ancient commentaries 

written on the Pali CANON. The Theravada tradition 

holds that these commentaries were brought to Sri 

Lanka by a monk named Mahinda in the third century 

B.C.E. Within a few centuries, excerpts dealing with the 

history of Buddhism in India and the events surrounding 

its establishment in Lanka were crafted into 

independent vam sas that recount events connected 

with the life of the Buddha and the historical instantiation 

of his teaching (śasana; Pali, sasana). While Pali 

vam sas appear well-suited to legitimate monastic lineages 

and inspire devotion in Buddhist communities, 

European scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth 

centuries valued these texts for their detailed and 

fairly reliable accounts of South and Southeast Asian 

history. Still, many scholars point out that these texts 

mix historical facts with legendary embellishments. 

Theravada vam sas typically convey information 

about the life and death of the Buddha, the transmission 

of the dharma, and the establishment of the 

SAṄGHA (community of monks) and relics in other 

lands. Pious and sometimes heroic kings such as 

Dutthagaman (161–137 B.C.E.) in Sri Lanka and 

Tilakapanattu (1495–1525 C.E.) in Thailand are regularly 

extolled, suggesting that the vam sas also provided 

images of virtuous and powerful Buddhist kings for 

later individuals to emulate. The oldest extant vam sas, 

the Mahavam sa and its fourth-century predecessor the 

Dlpavam sa (Chronicle of the Island), recount the establishment 

of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Other Sri 

Lankan vam sas written between the tenth and fourteenth 

centuries, such as the Mahabodhivam sa (Chronicle 

of the Bodhi Tree) and the Thu pavam sa (Chronicle 

of the Relic Shrine), often focus their narratives on 

particular relics of the Buddha that were purportedly 

brought from India and enshrined in Sri Lanka. The 

Anagatavam sa (Chronicle of the Future Buddha) is distinguished 

by the fact that it narrates future events 

connected with the coming of the next Buddha MAI- 

TREYA (Pali, Metteyya). Several of these vam sas were 

subsequently translated into a literary form of the vernacular 

Sinhala language, and their narratives were 

often substantially revised in the process. 

The vam sa genre was passed along from Sri Lanka 

to the Buddhist lands of Southeast Asia, fulfilling 

many similar functions in legitimating Theravada 

monastic lineages, deepening piety, and extolling 

kings. The sixteenth-century Pali chronicle titled 

Jinakalamall (Sheaf of Garlands of the Epochs of 

the Conqueror) details some of the historical events 


877

V ASUBANDHU 

associated with the establishment of Theravada 

Buddhism in Thailand. In Burma (Myanmar), the 

nineteenth-century Sasanavam sa (Chronicle of the 

Dispensation) performs an analogous role, connecting 

Burmese Buddhist traditions with those found in 

India and Sri Lanka from an earlier age. 

See also: History; Sinhala, Buddhist Literature in 

Bibliography 

Berkwitz, Stephen C. “Emotions and Ethics in Buddhist History: 

The Sinhala Thu pavam sa and the Work of Virtue.” Religion 

31, no. 2 (2001): 155–173. 

Geiger, Wilhelm, trans. The Mahavam sa: Or the Great Chronicle 

of Ceylon (1912), assisted by Mabel Haynes Bode. Reprint, 


Jayawickrama, N. A., trans. The Sheaf of Garlands of the Epochs 

of the Conqueror: Being a Translation of Jinakalamallpakaranaṁ. 



Lanka. Chambersburg, PA: Anima Books, 1978. 

Walters, Jonathan S. “Buddhist History: The Sri Lankan Pali 

Vam sas and Their Commentary.” In Querying the Medieval: 

Texts and the History of Practices in South Asia, ed. Ronald 

Inden, Jonathan Walters, and Daud Ali. Oxford: Oxford 


VASUBANDHU 

STEPHEN C. BERKWITZ 

While there is much disagreement concerning Vasubandhu’s 

exact dates, most scholars agree that he 

lived sometime between the mid-fourth and mid-fifth 

centuries. Born in Purusapura (present-day Peshawar, 

Pakistan) to the same mother as his half-brother 

ASAṄGA, the putative founder of the YOGACARA 

SCHOOL, Vasubandhu left his Brahman upbringing to 

join the Vaibhasika Buddhists in their Kashmiri 

stronghold. While there he brilliantly and comprehensively 

summarized Vaibhasika doctrines in a 

roughly seven-hundred-stanza verse text entitled Abhidharmakośa 

(Treasury of Abhidharma). The prose 

autocommentary, ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHASYA, that he 

wrote for these verses demonstrates his intellectual 

restlessness and growing dissatisfaction with 

Vaibhasika teachings as it critiques numerous Vaibhasika 

positions while siding with the positions of 

other Buddhist groups, most notably the SAUTRAN- 

TIKA. Vasubandhu eventually abandoned the teachings 

of the MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS for MA- 

HAYANA, and he became a Yogacara adept under 

Asaṅga’s influence. 

Vasubandhu’s literary output was prodigious, and 

his works have had a deep impact on subsequent Buddhist 

developments. The Abhidharmakośabhasya continues 

to receive serious study by East Asian, Tibetan, 

and modern Western scholars, all of whom treat it as 

a major sourcebook for medieval Indian Buddhist doctrinal 

positions and terminology. Texts written during 

Vasubandhu’s transitional period include Karmasiddhiprakarana 

(Investigation Establishing [the Correct 

Understanding] of Karma), Vadavidhi (Debate Methods), 

and the Pañcaskandhaprakarana (Investigation of 

the Five Aggregates). Vasubandhu’s Yogacara texts include 

the Vim śatika (Twenty Verses), the Trim śika (Thirty 

Verses), a crucial commentary on Maitreya-Asaṅga’s 

Madhyantavibhaga (Madhyantavibhagabhasya), and a 

commentary on Asaṅga’s Mahayanasam graha. In addition, 

he is credited with commentaries on several Mahayana 

sutras, including the DIAMOND SUTRA, the 

NIRVAN A SUTRA, the Mañjuśrl Su tra, Daśabhu mika-su tra 

(Ten Stages Su tra), and the LOTUS SUTRA (SADDHARMA- 

PUN DARIKA-SUTRA). The latter two commentaries were 

especially influential in East Asian Buddhism. 

Bibliography 

Anacker, Stefan, trans. and ed. Seven Works of Vasubandhu: The 

Buddhist Psychological Doctor. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1984. 

Kochumuttom, Thomas. A Buddhist Doctrine of Experience: A 

New Translation and Interpretation of the Works of Vasubandhu 

the Yogacarin. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1982. 


La Vallée Poussin, Louis de. Abhidharmakośabhasyam, 4 vols., 

tr. Leo M. Pruden. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 

1988–1990. 

VIDYA DHARA 

DAN LUSTHAUS 

Vidyadhara (Pali, vijjadhara; possessor of magical 

power) is a master of esoteric knowledge, a magician 

or sorcerer. In Indian Buddhist and Hindu sources the 

vidyadhara is depicted as a human or supernatural being 

who, by means of various occult sciences, develops 

the ability to perform marvelous feats like flying 

through the air, transmuting base metals into gold, be- 


V IETNAM 

coming impervious to weapons, and so on. In the MA- 

HAYANA tantric tradition of Bengal, the term vidyadhara 

became a synonym for the MAHASIDDHA or “great 

accomplished one,” a tantric master who attains liberation 

as an immortal wonder worker. Classically eightyfour 

in number, mahasiddhas either ascend alive to the 

paradise of the DAKINIS or remain among humans until 

the advent of the Future Buddha MAITREYA (Pali, 

Metteyya). From either abode, mahasiddhas continuously 

protect the Buddha’s religion and instruct worthy 

disciples in their liberating mysteries. 

A similar tradition from Southeast Asia is the esoteric 

weikza cult of Burma (Myanmar). The Burmese 

weikza or weikza-do (from Pali vijjadhara) is a kind of 

semi-immortal sorcerer committed to the protection 

of Buddhism and destined to remain alive until the 

coming of Metteyya. Possessed of an incorruptible 

body, the weikza teaches human disciples how to 

attain magical power and extraordinarily long life 

through such means as the recitation of spells, the casting 

of runes, and alchemy. It is a premise of the system 

that these techniques depend for the efficacy on a 

simultaneous mastery of meditative trance (dhyana; 

Pali, jhana). While almost certainly descended from 

the tantric tradition of Bengal, the weikza cult has long 

been domesticated to the dominant worldview of 

Burmese THERAVADA Buddhism and no longer retains 

any overt Mahayana elements. 

Bibliography 

Ferguson, John P., and Mendelson, E. Michael. “Masters of the 

Buddhist Occult: The Burmese Weikzas.” Contributions to 

Asian Studies 16 (1981): 62–80. 


and Their Tibetan Successors. Boston: Shambhala, 1987. 

VIETNAM 


Although both THERAVADA and MAHAYANA Buddhism 

exist in Vietnam, the kind of Buddhism that is most 

influential and most widely practiced by the majority 

of Vietnamese Buddhists is Sinitic Mahayana Buddhism. 

Indian and Chinese scholastic traditions have 

had little if any impact, while Chinese Chan and Pure 

Land are the only major schools that provide philosophical 

and religious foundations for the ideas and 

practices of Buddhism in Vietnam. Incorporation of 

popular religions and Vietnam’s political involvement 

with China and France were also instrumental in shaping 

certain characteristics of Vietnamese Buddhism. 

History 

From the beginning to independence. Evidence indicates 

that Buddhism had come to Jiaozhou (as Vietnam, 

a Chinese protectorate, was then called) by the 

second century of the common era. Scattered hints in 

Chinese history inform us that Buddhism in Jiaozhou 

was consistent with the cultural and religious influences 

to which the religion was exposed in the first millennium 

C.E. The presence and activities of figures such 

as Mou Bo (second century C.E.) and Kang Senghui 

(third century C.E.) were indicative of the integration 

of Jiaozhou into the cosmopolitan Buddhist world of 

the time. 

By the late sixth century C.E., Buddhism was already 

a part of the cultural and religious life of many people 

in Jiaozhou. Monks from various parts of Asia were 

regular visitors to Jiaozhou, and they contributed to 

Buddhist studies and activities there. They also inspired 

native monks to go on PILGRIMAGE to India or 

China to study the dharma. Little record of Buddhism 

in Vietnam during the Tang period (618–907) remains, 

but there are hints of a continuing pattern of links between 

Vietnam and other parts of the Buddhist world: 

visits to China by monks from Vietnam, or Chinese 

and Central Asian monks who stopped in Jiaozhou on 

their way to India. In addition, monks from Jiaozhou 

who made prolonged stays in China and India were 

well versed in Sanskrit and they assisted Indian and 

Central Asian monks in translation work. 

Early Vietnamese dynasties (968–1010). By the 

time Vietnam gained independence from Chinese political 

hegemony in the tenth century, Buddhism had 

existed in Vietnam for nearly a millennium. The early 

Vietnamese dynasties found in the Buddhist clergy a 

cultural force that could assist them with their political 

agenda. The founder of the Ðinh dynasty (968–980) 

instituted a system of hierarchical ranks for court officials, 

Buddhists monks, and Daoist priests. This indicates 

that Buddhist monks already held a recognized 

place in the social and cultural order of Vietnamese 

life, requiring the Ðinh dynasty to integrate Buddhism 

into the structure of the state. 

Lý dynasty (1010–1225). The Lý kings continued 

to draw support from Buddhism, and in return they 

patronized Buddhism on a large scale. Eminent monks 

served at court and exerted great influence in political 


879

V IETNAM 

Monks dry rice at the Bat Temple at Soc Trang in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, 1994. © Steve Raymer/Corbis. Reproduced by 

permission. 

matters. The Lý kings also sent envoys to China to 

bring back Buddhist texts so that copies could be made 

and placed in the major monasteries. Some Chan classics, 

particularly those of the chuandeng lu (transmission 

of the lamp) and yulu (recorded sayings) genres, 

found their way to Vietnam and attracted the attention 

of learned monks. In brief, under the Lý, Chan 

became an integral part of the Vietnamese Buddhist 

worldview. 

Trâ`n dynasty (1225–1400). Under the Trâǹ, Chan 

learning became more established with the arrival of 

Chinese Chan monks and literature. Starting from 

around the end of the Lý period, a number of Chinese 

Chan monks belonging to the Linji and Caodong 

schools came to Vietnam to spread Buddhism. Among 

their disciples were members of the Trâǹ aristocracy, 

including the kings themselves. The Trúc Lâm Thiền 

(Chan) School, the first Vietnamese Chan Buddhist 

school, was founded by Trâǹ Nhân Tông (1258–1309), 

the third king of the Trâǹ dynasty. Unfortunately, only 

fragments of writings by the first three patriarchs of 

this school are extant. Through these writings we can 

see that Trúc Lâm Thiê`n modeled itself on Chinese patriarchal 

Chan. The most extensive Buddhist writing 

from the Trâǹ is the Khóa Hu , Luc (Instructions on 

Emptiness) composed by Trâǹ Thái Tông (1218–1277), 

the founder of the Trâǹ dynasty. The Khóa Hu Luc was 

the first collection of prose works on Buddhism in 

Vietnam. It includes essays written in different literary 

styles on a variety of subjects on Buddhist teachings 


The most important accomplishment for Buddhism 

under the Trâǹ was the composition of the Thiền Uyê n 

Tâp Anh (Outstanding Figures of the Chan Community) 

by an unknown author around the mid-fourteenth 

century. The author of the Thiền Uyê n portrays Vietnamese 

Buddhism as the offshoot of Chinese Chan, an 

approach that left indelible traces on subsequent generations 

of historians of Vietnamese Buddhism. 

The (later) Lý dynasty and the Northern-Southern 

dynasties (1428–1802). The advent of the Lý dynasty 

(1428–1527) marked a resurgence of Confucianism 

and the waning of Buddhist fortunes. Under 


V IETNAM 

the Lý and Trâǹ, civil service examinations based on 

the Chinese classics were given to select men who were 

chosen to serve at court. This created a Confucian intelligentsia 

who became extremely influential and rivaled 

the influences of Buddhist monks. The Lý kings 

were ardent supporters of Confucianism and they 

passed restrictive measures on Buddhism, but they 

continued to support popular Buddhist activities. The 

period of the Northern/Southern division (1528– 

1802) was one of political turmoil, but Thiê`n Buddhism 

was not idle during this period, and there were 

efforts to revive Trúc Lâm Thiê`n. Chinese Linji and 

Caodong monks also came to Vietnam to teach, and 

several new Thiê`n schools were founded. The most influential 

were the two Linji sects: the Nguyên Thiê`n 

and the Liê˜u Quán in the south. 

Nguyê ~ n dynasty (1802–1945). The Nguyêñ kings 

considered Confucianism to be a useful force in their 

efforts to centralize power, and there was an attempt 

to depoliticize Buddhism because it was considered 

detrimental to the Confucian hierarchy. Although the 

majority of court officials were Confucian and were 

averse to Buddhism, Buddhism was still appealing to 

aristocratic women and did not lose its grip on the 

masses. Buddhism also exerted great influence on some 

of the most eminent literati of the time, and the 

Nguyêñ was a period of ardent Buddhist scholarly activity. 

However, the contributions of eminent monks 

of this period consisted mostly in compiling, editing, 

and publishing texts. 

The French period. Vietnam was under French rule 

from 1883 to 1945, and French dominion presented 

new pressures for the Vietnamese Buddhists. Under 

foreign rule, Vietnamese Buddhists felt the need to create 

a more socially and politically engaged Buddhism. 

Many eminent monks were ardent patriots and leaders 

of insurgent movements; intellectual Vietnamese 

Buddhists were inspired by reformed movements in 

other East Asian countries in the 1920s and, in particular, 

by the Chinese monk TAIXU (1890–1947). 

Buddhist magazines and periodicals in colloquial Vietnamese 

(quôć ngũ , ) began to appear with a view to addressing 

political and social issues. 

During the 1930s three new associations of Buddhist 

studies were established in the three parts of Vietnam. 

All were guided and supported by learned clergy and 

laypeople with exposure to Western culture. There 

were attempts at consolidating the three associations 

into a unified SAṄGHA, but the efforts were hindered 

by the repressive policy of the French and a lack of 

communication. 

Postcolonial struggle. When Emperor Ba o Ðai 

(1913–1997) assumed the role of head of state of South 

Vietnam he signed Decree No. 10, which followed the 

French policy of relegating all religions to the status of 

“public associations,” with the exception of Catholic 

and Protestant missions. On assuming power in 1955, 

Ngô Ðình Diêm (1901–1963) retained Decree No. 10. 

In 1957 Diêm also eliminated the Buddha’s birthday 

(Vesak) from the list of official holidays. 

Diêm’s policy toward Buddhism led to many Buddhist 

resistance movements during the 1960s, which 

ultimately resulted in the overthrow of his government 

and inspired a Buddhist revival. The Vietnamese Unified 

Buddhist Church was founded in South Vietnam, 

Van Hanh University, the first Buddhist university, 

was established in Saigon, and eminent monks such as 

Thích Trí Quang and Thích Tâm Châu became household 

names. A charismatic young monk with an American 

education, THICH NHAT HANH (1926– ), the 

founder of School of Youth for Social Service at Van 

Hanh University, became an overnight celebrity. However, 

due to inexperience on the part of the monks, division 

among the leadership, and a lack of a capable 

lay elite class, Vietnamese Buddhists failed to seize a 

rare opportunity to reform and explore the potential 

of Buddhist culture in their country. 

From 1975 to the beginning of the twenty-first 

century. Vietnamese refugees began migrating to Europe 

and North America in 1975 in the aftermath of 

the fall of South Vietnam. In a relatively short time 

many temples were built as part of the emigrants’ efforts 

to preserve their Vietnamese way of life. Buddhist 

practices at most such temples continued the patterns 

the patrons had followed in Vietnam. However, there 

has been a renewed interest in Thiê`n in the West, inspired 

by the popularity of Nhat Hanh. Some eminent 

Thiê`n teachers such as Thích Thanh Tù , have been invited 

to the United States to give instructions on Chan 

meditation. 

Practice 

Little change or sectarian development has taken place 

in the practice of Vietnamese Buddhists since medieval 

times. This is probably due to the limited repertoire of 

Buddhist literature to which the tradition has been exposed. 

In brief, Vietnamese Buddhism is basically nonsectarian, 

and most Vietnamese Buddhists—cleric and 


881

V IETNAM 

A monk sounds a bell at a Buddhist temple at My The in the 

Mekong Delta area of Vietnam. © Tim Page/Corbis. Reproduced 


lay—regardless of their intellectual disparities, practice 

a composite form of Buddhism that runs the gamut of 

popular Buddhist practices in other East Asian countries. 

Although most clergy and educated lay Buddhists 

maintain that Vietnamese Buddhism is predominantly 

Chan with elements of Pure Land and TANTRA, Chan 

elements actually figure very little, if at all, in the practice 

of most Vietnamese Buddhists. 

Vietnamese Buddhist practices can be conveniently 

outlined under two major headings: those that are limited 

to the clergy and those that involve lay participation. 

The first group of practices includes ritual 

ordinations, religious disciplines, monastic rituals, accession 

ceremonies, and summer retreats. The second 

group consists of religious observances and rituals that 

occur on a regular or occasional basis. 

Occasional observances include celebrating the vía 

day of buddhas and bodhisattvas (i.e., their birthday 

or awakening day) and commemorative rituals relating 

to Śakyamuni Buddha (his birthday, his enlightenment, 

and his decease), taking the Bodhisattva precepts, 

taking the eight precepts (bát quan trai), participating 

in prayer services for peace (câù an) and for 

rebirth in AMITABHA’s Pure Land (câù siêu), engaging 

in repentance, and freeing captured animals. Among 

these practices, praying for peace for the country and 

the world can be an individual or communal act. Repentance 

is a liturgy that takes place in the evening 

twice a month at the full moon and new moon. It consists 

of, among other things, the recitation of the names 

of 108 buddhas and bowing each time a buddha’s name 

is recited. Freeing captured animals (phóng sinh) is one 

of the ways to accumulate merit (phu , ó , c), an essential 

element of Vietnamese Buddhist practice. It is fair to 

say that most Vietnamese Buddhists are more concerned 

with accumulating merit than with cultivating 

wisdom. The most common forms of merit-making 

are contributing to the printing of Buddhist books, to 

the building and upkeep of temples, and to the support 

of monks and nuns. 

Also included in this category of special practices 

are ceremonies and festivals that incorporate elements 

of folk beliefs, such as the New Year festival (Tê´t) and 

the Ullambana festival celebrating filial piety and 

commemorating past ancestors. These festivals and 

various death rituals involve the widest participation 

of the populace, including those who are only nominal 

Buddhists. 

The most essential regular practice is daily chanting, 

which consists of three intervals of service performed 

at dawn, noon, and dusk. This practice includes chanting 

sutras, reciting MANTRAs and DHARAN Is and buddhas’ 

names, and circumambulation. A number of the 

principal Mahayana sutras have been translated into 

Vietnamese, but not every sutra is chanted. In most 

cases, only devotional sutras or chapters from them are 

chanted. The three most chanted sutras are the HEART 

SU TRA, LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), 

and Amitabha Su tra. 

Meditation is also an integral part of the Buddhist 

program of practice in Vietnam, and tends to include 

sitting quietly contemplating the magnificence of 

Amitabha Buddha’s Pure Land or mentally reciting the 

names of buddhas and bodhisattvas. Most monks, 

nuns, and a number of laypeople sit in meditation occasionally, 

only a few regularly, but not every Vietnamese 

monastic is an adept in meditation. 

See also: Chan School; Festivals and Calendrical Rituals; 

Ghost Festival; Merit and Merit-Making; Pure 


V IETNAMESE, BUDDHIST I NFLUENCES ON L ITERATURE IN 

Land Buddhism; Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in; 

Vietnamese, Buddhist Influences on Literature in 

Bibliography 

Lê Manh Thát. Lich Su , Phât Giáo Viêt Nam (History of Vietnamese 

Buddhism), 3 vols. Hue, Vietnam: Thuân Hóa Publishing 

House, 1999–2000. 

Mât Thê . Viêt Nam Phât Giáo Su , Lu , o , c (A Brief History of Vietnamese 

Buddhism). Reprint, Saigon, Vietnam: Minh Ðú , c, 

1960. 

Nguyen Cuong Tu. Zen in Medieval Vietnam: A Study and 

Translation of the Thiền Uyê n Tâp Anh. Honolulu: University 


Nguyêñ Lang. Viêt Nam Phât Giáo Su , Luân (Essays on History 

of Vietnamese Buddhism). Hanoi, Vietnam: Literature Publishing 

House, 2000. 

Nguyêñ Tài Thu , . Lich Su , Phât Giáo Viêt Nam (History of Vietnamese 

Buddhism). Hanoi, Vietnam: Social Science Publishing 

House, 1988. 

Thanh Tù , Thích et al., eds. Thiền Hoc Ðò , i Trâǹ (Zen in the 

Tran Dynasty). Saigon, Vietnam: Saigon Institute of Vietnamese 

Buddhist Studies, 1992. 

Thien-An Thich. Buddhism and Zen in Vietnam. Rutland, VT, 

and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1975. 

Trâ`n Hô`ng Liên. Ðao Phât trong Công Ðồng Ngu , ò , i Viêt o , Nam 

Bô – Viêt Nam: Tù , Thê´Ky XVII êń 1975 (Buddhism in the 

Vietnamese Communities in South Vietnam: From 17th 

Century to 1975). Hanoi, Vietnam: Social Science Publishing 

House, 2000. 

CUONG TU NGUYEN 

VIETNAM, BUDDHIST ART IN. See Southeast 

Asia, Buddhist Art in 

VIETNAMESE, BUDDHIST INFLUENCES 

ON LITERATURE IN 

Vietnam was ruled by the Chinese from 111 B.C.E. to 

the tenth century C.E. As a result, classical Chinese was 

the official language of Vietnam until around the middle 

of the nineteenth century. During the Trâǹ dynasty 

(1225–1400) in medieval Vietnam there were sporadic 

efforts to create a system of demotic script (Nôm) to 

be used for transcribing vernacular Vietnamese. However, 

this script was based on Chinese radicals and phonetics 

and required fluency in classical Chinese, so it 

was never able to replace classical Chinese. 

Vietnam came into contact with European countries, 

particularly France, in the seventeenth century. 

Within three centuries, and after various modifications, 

Vietnamese was written exclusively in the Roman 

alphabet, partly as a result of the work of Catholic 

missionaries. This romanized Vietnamese was referred 

to as quôć ngũ , (national language) and it became the 

official language of the country in the middle of the 

nineteenth century. 

From the thirteenth century C.E., when the first 

Buddhist writings were composed, to the early twentieth 

century, most Buddhist literature in Vietnam was 

in classical Chinese, although a number of texts contain 

chapters, glosses, or afterwords in Nôm. There 

were also some writings entirely in Nôm, but these 

works did not gain as wide a circulation as those written 

in Chinese. 

Magazines and newspapers in quôć ngũ , were first 

published in Vietnam as early as 1865, but most of 

these early quôć ngũ , periodicals were published by the 

government and advanced particular political and propagandistic 

agendas. Buddhist literature in quôć ngũ , 

did not appear until the 1920s; it was inspired by motivations 

to modernize Buddhism and to make it more 

appealing to the general populace. It was a time when 

classical Chinese studies was on the wane and educated 

Vietnamese Buddhists, both clerical and lay, believed 

that the use of quôć ngũ , would help people through 

the transitional period. 

Magazines and periodicals 

The Pháp Âm (Sounds of Dharma) and Phât Hóa 

Thanh Niên (Buddhist Teachings for the Youth) were 

the first two Buddhist magazines published in quôć 

ngũ , in the 1920s. In the 1930s, three more magazines, 

the Tù , Bi Âm (Sounds of Compassion), the Viên Âm 

(Sounds of Perfection), and the Ðuôć Tuê (Torch of Wisdom), 

were launched by the three associations of BUD- 

DHIST STUDIES in Saigon, Hue, and Hanoi, the major 

cities in the three parts of Vietnam. The articles in these 

magazines covered topics beyond the boundary of 

Buddhist doctrines and practices to address issues such 

as Buddhism and society, Buddhism and science, and 

Buddhism and modernization. This pattern continued 

in subsequent decades and reached a high point 

between 1954 and 1975. For example, Tu , Tu o , , ng 

(Thought), a journal published by Van Hanh Buddhist 

University in Saigon in the late 1960s, was a pioneering 

effort in the comparative studies of Buddhism and 

continental philosophy. 


883

V IJN A NA 

Books 

Vernacular Buddhist literature in the form of books 

can be divided into two categories: books on a variety 

of topics on Buddhism and translations, mostly from 

Chinese, of Buddhist texts. Around 1932 in Saigon, 

the lay Buddhist scholar Ðoàn Trung Còn founded a 

publishing house named Phât Hoc Tùng Thu , (Buddhist 

Publications), which published a number of 

books covering a wide range of Buddhist topics. In 

1940 the Phât Hoc Tùng Thu , began publishing books 

aimed at a young audience. Some of the most prolific 

authors in this period, such as the monk Thiên Chiêú, 

aimed at explaining Buddhism from a modern perspective 

to a new generation of intellectuals with a 

Western education. In sum, the majority of Vietnamese 

books on Buddhism were written with a view 

to making Buddhism accessible to the general populace. 

They range from Buddhist catechism to instructions 

on niêm Phât (contemplating the name of 

Amitabha Buddha, NENBUTSU). 

Translations of Buddhist texts 

Most Buddhist literature in quôć ngũ , consists of translations 

of Buddhist texts from Chinese. Quôć ngũ , 

translations of Buddhist texts began in the 1920s with 

the translation of the Guiyuan zhizhi (Returning to the 

Sources), a Chinese text on the practice of Pure Land 

Buddhism. During the 1930s the Phât Hoc Tùng Thu , 

published translations of the major Mahayana sutras 

and philosophical treatises such as the LOTUS SU TRA 

(SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA), the Amitabha Su tra, 

the LIUZU TAN JING (Platform Su tra), the DIAMOND SU- 

TRA, and the AWAKENING OF FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN 

LUN). This effort continued in subsequent decades, and 

eventually other principal Mahayana sutras, such as 

the Perfection of Wisdom Su tras, the Ratnakuta-su tra, 

and the Śuraṅgama–su tra, were also translated into 

Vietnamese. In the 1970s the monk Thích Minh Châu, 

then rector of Van Hanh Buddhist University, translated 

the Pali nikayas into quôć ngũ , . Given the fact that 

Vietnamese Buddhism is predominantly Mahayana, 

Minh Châu’s work was a remarkable contribution to 

the country’s Buddhist literature. Since the fall of 

South Vietnam in 1975, there have been massive 

reprints of Buddhists texts, mostly quôć ngũ , translations 

by Vietnamese Buddhists living overseas. 

The most important vernacular Buddhist works in 

Vietnamese, however, are manuals for daily chanting 

and occasional rituals. These manuals vary from one 

temple to another, but they contain almost the same 

materials: complete or partial quôć ngũ , translations or 

transliterations of the Buddhist texts that are used in 

daily and special rituals and observances. 

In sum, Buddhist literature in quôć ngũ , includes an 

array of writings on a variety of topics covering basic 

Buddhist teachings and practices, together with translations 

of the major Buddhist sutras. Most were published 

for practical religious use and to address the 

immediate needs of Vietnamese Buddhists. Occasionally, 

books on aspects of Buddhist philosophy or translations 

of philosophical treatises are published. For 

instance, there are quôć ngũ , translations of some principal 

treatises of the MADHYAMAKA and YOGACARA 

schools (the two major philosophical schools of Mahayana 

Buddhism), but these are intended more for 

personal intellectual gratification than as part of a 

larger systematic program of sectarian learning or 

practice. 

See also: Pure Land Buddhism; Ritual; Vietnam 

Bibliography 

Nguyêñ Khăć Kham. So -tha , o muc-luc thu -tich , về Phât-Giáo 

Viêt-Nam (A Bibliography on Vietnamese Buddhism). 

Saigon, Vietnam: Ministry of National Education, 1963. 

Nguyêñ Lang. Viêt Nam Phât Giáo Su , Luân (Essays on History 

of Vietnamese Buddhism). Hanoi, Vietnam: Literature Publishing 

House, 2000. 

Pham Thê´ Ngũ. Viêt Nam Văn Hoc Su , Gia n U , ó , c Tân Biên (A 

New Concise History of Vietnamese Literature), Vol. 1. 

Saigon, Vietnam: Quôć Hoc Tùng Thu , , 1961–1965. 

Tran, Van Giap. Contribution à l’Etude des Livres Annamites conservés 

à l’Ecole Francaise d’Extrême-Orient. Tokyo: La Societe 

Internationale du Bouddhisme au Japon, 1943. 

Trần Hô`ng Liên, Phât Giáo Nam Bô Tù , Thê´ Ky 17 êń 1975 

(Buddhism in the South: From 17 th Century to 1975). Ho 

Chi Minh City, Vietnam: Phô´ Hồ Chí Minh City Publishing 

House, 1996. 

CUONG TU NGUYEN 

VIJÑA NA. See Consciousness, Theories of 

VIJÑA NAVA DA 

The label Vijñanavada (consciousness school) was applied 

to the epistemological and ontological positions 

of the YOGACARA SCHOOL and the Buddhist logic tradition 

in the polemical debate literature of their medieval 


V INAYA 

Indian opponents. These Buddhist and non-Buddhist 

disputants used the term vijñanavada to emphasize the 

Yogacara assertion that external objects do not exist, 

but consciousness does, thus inviting an idealist interpretation 

that these opponents (especially the realist 

schools, such as Nyaya, Mmam sika, and SAUTRAN- 

TIKA) refuted at great length. Aspects of Buddhist epistemology 

associated with the Vijñanavada position 

include claims that parts, not wholes, are real; claims 

that particulars are real, not universals; the notion of 

momentariness; and the assertion that sense-objects 

(visaya), because they appear only within cognitive 

acts, are not external to the consciousness in which 

they appear. 

The term Vijñanavada was a misnomer because Yogacara 

epistemology actually claimed that while cognitive 

objects (visaya) appearing in consciousness were 

real, the thing-itself (vastu)—which is singular, momentary, 

and causally produced—was not apprehended 

by ordinary perception. Yogacara denies the 

realist claim that the perceptible object (visaya) has a 

corresponding vastu as its referent (artha), since a referent, 

whether perceptual or linguistic, is always a cognitive 

construction. However, once the consciousness 

stream is purified of emotional and cognitive obstructions 

(kleśavarana and jñeyavarana, respectively), a 

vastu can be cognized by direct, immediate cognition 

(jñana), unmediated by cognitive, conceptual overlays 

(prapañca, kalpana, parikalpita). This type of cognition 

is called nirvikalpa (devoid of conceptual construction). 

Bibliography 

Shastri, D. N. The Philosophy of Nyaya-Vaiśesika and Its Conflict 

with the Buddhist Dignaga School (Critique of Indian Realism). 

Reprint, New Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1976. 

Stcherbatsky, F. Theodore. Buddhist Logic (1930), 2 vols. 

Reprint, New York: Dover, 1962. 

VIMALAKIRTI 

DAN LUSTHAUS 

Vimalakrti is a nonhistorical human BODHISATTVA 

known primarily as the main protagonist of an early 

MAHAYANA sutra called the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa (The 

Teaching of Vimalaklrti). Although a layman, Vimalakrti 

is depicted as possessing the highest wisdom 

and attainment. Out of sympathy with the suffering 

of all beings and as a strategy for teaching (UPAYA), he 

feigns a serious illness and, knowing this, the Buddha 

instructs each of his śravaka and bodhisattva disciples 

to ask after his health. All are reluctant to go, having 

been humiliated by Vimalakrti’s greater wisdom before, 

and only Mañjuśr agrees. All the others follow 

to watch the encounter, the climax of which is a discussion 

in which Vimalakrti asks each bodhisattva in 

turn how one enters nondualism. Mañjuśr offers the 

ultimate insight that all dharmas are beyond discourse, 

but is trumped by Vimalakrti, who remains 

silent when asked for his own answer. Vimalakrti also 

displays a dry sense of humor, directed primarily 

against ŚARIPUTRA, as the main representative of the 

śravaka community. 

As a spiritually accomplished layman Vimalakrti 

offered an influential model for Buddhists in East Asia, 

where Indian Buddhist monasticism conflicted with 

Chinese social values. His popularity led to his depiction 

in painting and a number of lesser known texts in 

which he was the protagonist. The Vimalaklrtinirdeśa 

is also popular amongst Western Buddhists and has 

been translated into English several times. 

See also: Laity 

Bibliography 

Lamotte, Étienne. The Teaching of Vimalaklrti, tr. Sara Boin. 


Watson, Burton. The Vimalaklrti Su tra. New York: Columbia 


VINAYA 


The word vinaya is derived from a Sanskrit verb that 

can mean to lead or take away, remove; to train, tame, 

or guide (e.g., a horse); or to educate, instruct, direct. 

All these meanings or shades of meaning intermingle 

in the Buddhist use of the term, where it refers both 

to the specific teachings attributed to the Buddha that 

bear on behavior, and to the literary sources in which 

those teachings are found. Vinaya is, in short, the body 

of teachings and texts that tell the ordained follower 

of the Buddha how he or she should or must behave. 

An ordained follower of the Buddha is one who has 

undergone a formal ritual of ORDINATION as a part of 

which he or she proclaims himself or herself able to 

follow the established rules. He or she does not—it is 

important to note—take a vow to do so. In fact, vows 


885

V INAYA 

of the type that characterize Western monastic groups 

are unknown, at least in the Indian Buddhist world. 

Having undertaken the formal act of ordination, an individual 

becomes a bhiksu (male) or bhiksun (female), 

and the vinaya, strictly speaking, applies only to 

bhiksus and bhiksuns, although there are also rules for 

“novices.” 

Bhiksu literally means a beggar or mendicant, but it 

is clear from their contents that by the time the vinaya 

texts that we have were compiled, many, perhaps most, 

bhiksus did not beg for their food. This and the kind 

of commitment required by Buddhist ordination is 

nicely illustrated by the section in an ordination ceremony 

dealing with food. The officiant says to the individual 

seeking ordination: “Are you, named so-and-so, 

able to subsist, for as long as you live, with alms food?” 

The newly ordained must say: “I am able.” Then the 

officiant immediately says: “Extra allowable acquisitions 

are boiled rice or porridge made from flour, water, 

melted butter, and pomegranate, etc., or made 

from milk, or soup made from cream, etc., or food 

provided on the fifth day festival, or the eighth or the 

fourteenth or the fifteenth day festival, or food regularly 

provided by donors . . . or again any other allowable 

alms food that might arise from the religious 

community itself or an individual—in regard to your 

acceptance of that, due measure must be practiced. 

Will you be fully and completely cognizant of such a 

condition?” The newly ordained must say: “I will be 

fully and completely cognizant.” 

Since all extant vinayas appear to have similar provisions, 

it must be obvious that Buddhist bhiksus need 

not be—by virtue of their own rules—beggars. They 

had, or were allowed, rich foods, permanent provisions 

offered by the LAITY, and their religious community 

could also provide their food. In fact, both Buddhist 

vinaya texts and non-Buddhist literary sources indicate 

that Buddhist bhiksus had a reputation for eating very 

well indeed. In the former there are stories of more 

than one Buddhist MONK dying as a result of 

overindulging in rich foods, and even accounts that 

suggest that the group’s fine fare could motivate outsiders 

to seek admission. In the Pravrajyavastu of the 

MU LASARVASTIVADA-VINAYA, for example, a text begins, 

“A member of another religious group came to 

the Jetavana monastery. He saw that lovely seats had 

been arranged there and excellent food and drink 

had been prepared. He thought to himself: ‘The enjoyment 

of worldly things by these Buddhist śramanas 

is lovely. . . . I am going to enter their order too.’” The 

text goes on to make a rule against admitting someone 

who also belonged to another religious group, but does 

not deny or criticize the characterization of Buddhist 

facilities as well appointed and possessed of “excellent 

food and drink.” (The diet of most Western Christian 

monks also appears to have been far superior to that 

of ordinary people.) 

But if a Buddhist bhiksu was not—at least in the period 

of the vinaya texts—what he was called (e.g., a 

beggar), the question of what he was still remains. The 

term bhiksu is usually, and conventionally, translated 

into English as “monk,” and this rendering should help 

in understanding what a bhiksu was, but it does so only 

with the addition of clear qualifications, in part, at 

least, because even in the West there has never been 

agreement on what a monk was—the entire history of 

Western monasticism can be viewed as a long, sometimes 

acrimonious, and unresolved debate about just 

this question. Moreover, most MONKS in the West were 

also not what they were called. The English word monk 

is derived from a Greek word that meant “(living) 

singly or alone,” and yet almost all Western monks 

lived collectively in ordered, formally structured 

groups. In spite of that—and this is a particularly important 

obstacle to understanding the Buddhist 

bhiksu—the figure of the monk in the modern West 

has been almost hopelessly romanticized as a simple, 

solitary figure given up to deep contemplation. The 

possibilities for misunderstanding here are very great. 

Western monks—insofar as one can generalize— 

not only lived communally in usually well-endowed, 

permanent, and architecturally sophisticated complexes 

with an assured and usually abundant diet, they 

were also almost exclusively occupied with communally 

chanting or singing religious texts for the religious 

benefits or “merit” of their living and deceased 

donors and benefactors. If this is what a monk is understood 

to be, then a Buddhist bhiksu might indeed 

be called a kind of monk. Certainly their vinayas are 

almost obsessed with avoiding any behavior that might 

alienate lay followers and donors, and they are saturated 

with rules designed, it seems, to make bhiksus 

acceptable to donors as worthy objects of support and, 

consequently, as reliable means for donors to make 

merit. These “monks” too are in the service of the laity. 

Indeed, all Buddhist vinayas, it seems, contain detailed 

rules about a bhiksu’s obligations to the laity, one of 

which is to recite daily, both communally and individually, 

religious verses for the merit of their benefactors. 

Much to the chagrin of those modern scholars 

who want to maintain that MEDITATION was an important 

part of Buddhist monastic practice, moreover, 


V INAYA 

the vinaya texts that we have say very little about meditation 

and allow very little room for its practice. They 

are equally chary of radical ASCETIC PRACTICES. This 

literature—and we have a very great deal of it—is concerned 

with maintaining and promoting a successful 

institution. 

The extent of vinaya literature 

The vinaya literature that has survived is enormous 

and still very little studied. It is commonly said that 

the vinayas of six Buddhist orders or schools have 

come down to us. Apart, however, from small fragments 

in Sanskrit from Central Asian manuscript 

finds, and the shortest section called the PRATIMOKSA, 

the vinayas of four of these orders—the 

MAHASAM GHIKA, Sarvastivada, DHARMAGUPTAKA, and 

MAHIŚASAKA—have survived exclusively in Chinese 

translations. The Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya has fared 

better: Large parts of it are available in a relatively early 

Sanskrit manuscript, large parts in a Chinese translation, 

and what may be the whole of it in a very literal 

Tibetan translation. The vinaya of the THERAVADA order, 

finally, is preserved entirely in Pali, an Indian language, 

but scholars now agree that it too is a 

“translation” from some more original version. 

At least two points, however, need to be noted in 

regard to all these vinayas. We do not know if any of 

these vinayas are complete because we do not actually 

know what a complete vinaya is. Until very recently 

the Theravada or Pali Vinaya, even though it was 

redacted in Sri Lanka, was taken as a model of what a 

complete vinaya in India would have looked like. Now, 

however, as the other vinayas are becoming better 

known, this has become problematic, and it is beginning 

to appear that the Pali Vinaya is missing some 

potentially old sections that are found elsewhere under 

titles such as Nidana (introductions) or Matrka (matrices). 

This remains to be worked out, but the other 

important thing that needs to be noted is that none of 

the vinayas as we have them is early. The four vinayas 

preserved only in Chinese were all translated in the 

fifth century and consequently can represent only what 

these vinayas had become by that time—they do not 

necessarily tell us anything about what they looked like 

before then. The shape of the Theravada-vinaya too 

cannot be taken back prior to the fifth century—its actual 

contents can only be dated from BUDDHAGHOSA’s 

roughly fifth-century commentary on it, and even then 

both this commentary and the canonical text are 

known almost exclusively only on the basis of extremely 

late (eighteenth- and nineteenth-century) 

manuscripts. The Mu lasarvastivada-vinaya was not 

translated into Chinese until the eighth century, and 

into Tibetan only in the ninth, but it is the only vinaya 

for which we have significant amounts of actual manuscript 

material from, perhaps, the fifth, sixth, or seventh 

centuries. Regardless, then, of how one looks at 

it, the material we now have represents vinaya literature 

in a uniformly late stage of its development, and 

it can tell us very richly what it had become, and very 

poorly what it had earlier been. 

The structure of vinaya literature 

Perhaps not surprisingly almost all of these late vinayas 

look alike in broad outline. Almost all are, or were, 

structured in the same way and have basically the same 

component parts or sections. The shortest section, and 

the one that most scholars consider to be the oldest, is 

called the Pratimoksa, a term that has been interpreted 

in a variety of ways. The Pratimoksa is a list of graded 

offenses that begins with the most serious and continues 

with groups of offenses that are of lesser and lesser 

severity. The number of offenses for monks differs 

somewhat from order to order, the longest list (Sarvastivada) 

contains 263, the shortest (Mahasam ghika) 

has 218, but all use the same system of classification 

into named groups. 

The most serious offenses, in the order given, are 

unchastity (in a startling variety of ways), theft, intentionally 

taking human life or instigating the taking of 

a life, and claiming to have religious attainments or supernatural 

powers that one does not have. The last of 

these is, of course, the only one that is unique to Buddhist 

vinaya, and is one that could have been a source 

of considerable friction and disruption for the communal 

life. It involved monks claiming a full understanding 

and perception of truths that they did not 

have; claims to stages of meditations and psychic powers 

that had not been achieved; and, interestingly, 

claims of regular and close relationships with DIVINI- 

TIES and a host of local spirits. 

These four offenses are called parajikas, a term commonly 

translated as “defeats,” and it is still commonly 

asserted that the commission of any one of these by a 

bhiksu or bhiksunl resulted in his or her immediate 

and definitive expulsion from the order. This, however, 

was almost certainly not the case in India. Every 

vinaya except the Pali Vinaya contains clear rules and 

ritual procedures that allowed a bhiksu (and it seems 

a bhiksunl) who had committed a parajika to remain 

a member of the community, at a reduced status to be 

sure, but still with many of the rights and privileges of 


887

V INAYA 

an ordained bhiksu (or bhiksunl). This is just one more 

way in which the Pali Vinaya appears to be unrepresentative. 

In addition to the parajikas, the Pratimoksa lists six 

further categories of offenses (a seventh outlines certain 

procedures), again in decreasing order of seriousness. 

These again involve issues of SEXUALITY and 

property, but overwhelmingly, perhaps, matters of 

proper decorum. Actual ethical concerns are surprisingly 

underdeveloped. 

A second component part of the vinaya is called the 

Vibhaṅga, or explanation, and is closely related to the 

first. It is a kind of commentary on each of the rules 

listed in the Pratimoksa, which typically describes the 

incident that gave rise to each of the rules, the conditions 

under which they must be applied, or in light of 

which an infraction of the rule does not actually constitute 

an offense. There are an impressive number of 

loopholes, and the dialectical ingenuity applied to the 

interpretation of the rules here is easily a match for 

that found in the higher reaches of Buddhist scholastic 

philosophy. 

Although the bare Pratimoksa was regularly recited 

at the fortnightly communal assembly of monks, it is 

unlikely that the rules themselves were ever actually 

applied without recourse to a Vibhaṅga, and this 

makes all the difference in the world. The Mulasarvastivada 

Pratimoksa, for example, has—like all the 

Pratimoksas—a rule that would seem to forbid the engagement 

of bhiksus in money transactions, but its 

Vibhaṅga unequivocally states that they must, for religious 

purposes, accept permanent money endowments 

and lend that money out to generate interest. 

This is but one of many possible examples. 

A third component of Buddhist vinayas is what is 

called the Vinayavastu or Khandhaka, both vastu and 

khandhaka meaning here something like “division” or 

“chapter.” There are generally between seventeen and 

twenty vastus, and they are named according to the 

main topic that they treat. There is, for example, a chapter 

on entering the religious life (Pravrajyavastu), a 

chapter on the rainy season retreat (Varsavastu), a 

chapter on medicine (Bhaisajyavastu), a chapter on 

bedding and seats (Sayanasanavastu), and so on. Like 

the Vibhaṅga, this part of a vinaya is large and very rich 

in both details and illustrative stories. The name of a 

vastu is, however, by no means an exhaustive indication 

of what it contains. The chapter on robes (Cvaravastu), 

for example, does indeed deal with robes, but 

it also contains a good deal of material on Buddhist 

monastic inheritance law and the proper handling of a 

deceased monk’s estate, which, in some cases at least, 

appears to have been very large. One of these vastus, 

the chapter on small matters (Ksudrakavastu), is, ironically, 

so large that it sometimes is treated as a separate 

component. 

What has so far been described refers strictly speaking 

to a vinaya for bhiksus. But another component 

of a vinaya is both a separate Pratimoksa and a separate 

Vibhaṅga for bhiksunls, a term that is usually 

translated as “nun.” Although the number of rules for 

bhiksunls, or NUNS, in their Pratimoksas is significantly 

larger than the rules for monks, the literature dealing 

with them is considerably smaller, and, for example, 

there appears not to have been a separate Vinayavastu 

for nuns, although the Pali Khandhaka does contain 

a chapter on nuns, and a large part of one of the two 

volumes of the Mulasarvastivada Ksudrakavastu also 

is devoted to them. 

Not so long ago a description of canonical vinaya 

literature would have ended here, with perhaps a nod 

toward the Pali Parivara, which is usually, but probably 

wrongly, described simply as an appendix. But very 

recent work has begun to look more carefully at the 

group of texts preserved in Chinese that are called 

Nidanas and Matrkas, and their counterparts preserved 

in the Tibetan translation of a large two-volume work 

called the Uttaragrantha. These texts seem to represent 

an independent ordering and treatment of vinaya 

rules, and there are some indications that this treatment 

may be older than that found in the betterknown 

parts of the vinaya. This research, however, has 

only just begun, and the relative age of even the 

better-known parts of the vinaya is itself unresolved. 

Theories on the date of vinaya literature 

There are two general and opposed theories concerning 

the development of vinaya literature, both of 

which at least start from one of its most obvious characteristics: 

Although belonging to different orders or 

schools, the vinayas that have come down to us have, 

as already noted, a great deal in common, both in 

terms of their structure and their general contents. 

One theory would see these shared elements as early 

and argue that they predate the division of the Buddhist 

community into separate orders or schools. Another 

theory would see these same elements as late, as 

the result of mutual borrowing, conflation, and a 

process of leveling. There are, of course, arguments 

and evidence to support both theories. 


V IPASSANA (SANSKRIT, VIPAŚYANA ) 

Ancillary vinaya texts 

In addition to canonical vinaya texts, there are, finally, 

large numbers of commentaries, subcommentaries, 

and handbooks. The last of these may have been particularly 

important since it seems likely that most 

monks did not actually read the enormous canonical 

vinayas, but relied instead on summaries, manuals, and 

such handbooks. But this too is a literature that has 

been very little explored and remains largely accessible 

only to specialists. 

See also: Festivals and Calendrical Rituals; Precepts; 

Robes and Clothing; Sarvastivada and Mulasarvastivada 

Bibliography 

Frauwallner, E. The Earliest Vinaya and the Beginnings of Buddhist 

Literature. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo 

Oriente, 1956. 

Hinüber, Oskar von. “Buddhist Law According to the Theravada- 

Vinaya. A Survey of Theory and Practice.” Journal of the International 


7–45. 

Hinüber, Oskar von. A Handbook of Pali Literature. Berlin and 

New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996. 

Hirakawa, Akira. Monastic Discipline for the Buddhist Nuns. 

Patna, India: Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute, 1982. 

Horner, I. B., trans. The Book of the Discipline. London: 

Humphrey Milford, 1938–1966. 


to the Saka Era, tr. Sara Webb-Boin. Louvain, Belgium, and 

Paris: Peeters Press, 1988. 

Pruitt, William, and Norman, K. R., eds. and trans. The 

Patimokkha. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 2001. 

Schopen, Gregory. Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks: Collected 



1997. 

Schopen, Gregory. “Hierarchy and Housing in a Buddhist 

Monastic Code. A Translation of the Sanskrit Text of the 

Sayanasanavastu of the Mulasarvastivadavinaya. Part One.” 

Buddhist Literature 2 (2000): 92–196. 

Schopen, Gregory. Buddhist Monks and Business Matters: Still 

More Papers on Monastic Buddhism in India. Honolulu: University 



VIPASSANA (SANSKRIT, VIPAŚYANA ) 

Vipassana (Sanskrit, vipaśyana; insight) is direct intuition 

of the three marks that characterize all worldly 

phenomena: anitya (Pali, anicca; impermanence), 

duhkha (Pali, dukkha; suffering), and anatman (Pali, 

anatta; no-self). Buddhism classifies the cultivation 

of vipassana as one of two modes of MEDITATION 

(bhavana), the other being tranquility (śamatha; Pali, 

samatha). Vipassana meditation entails perfecting the 

mental faculty of MINDFULNESS (smrti; Pali, sati) for the 

purpose of analyzing objects of meditation, such as 

mental states or the physical body, for manifestations 

of the three marks. When fully developed, vipassana 

leads to the attainment of liberating prajña (Pali, 

pañña; wisdom) and the ultimate goal of NIRVAN A 

(Pali, nibbana) or the cessation of suffering and freedom 

from REBIRTH. Samatha meditation entails the 

cultivation of mental concentration (samadhi) for the 

purpose of strengthening and calming the mind. When 

fully developed it leads to the attainment of dhyana 

(Pali, jhana), meditative absorption or trance, and the 

generation of various abhijña (Pali, abhiñña; higher 

knowledges). 

The most common method of meditation described 

in the Pali canon relies on vipassana and samatha practiced 

together. In this method, jhana is first induced 

through samatha. The meditator then exits from that 

state and reflects upon it with mindfulness to see that 

it is characterized by the three marks. In this way jhana 

is made the object of vipassana meditation. One who 

uses this method is called a tranquility worker (samatha 

yanika), and all buddhas and their chief disciples are 

described as having practiced in this way. A less common 

method found in the canon relies on vipassana 

alone. Developing concentration to a lesser degree than 

jhana, the meditator examines ordinary mental and 

physical phenomena for the three marks as described 

above. The meditator who uses this method is called a 

bare insight worker (suddhavipassanayanika). 

By the tenth century C.E., vipassana meditation appears 

to have fallen out of practice in the THERAVADA 

school. By that time it was commonly believed that the 

religion of Gautama Buddha had so declined that liberation 

through insight could no longer be attained 

until the advent of the future Buddha Metteyya (Sanskrit, 

MAITREYA) many eons from now. In the early 

eighteenth century, however, renewed interest in the 

SATIPAT T HANA-SUTTA (Discourse on the Foundations of 

Mindfulness) led to a revival of vipassana meditation 


889

V IPAŚYIN 

in Burma (Myanmar). After encountering initial resistance, 

the practice of vipassana was endorsed by the 

Burmese SAṄGHA and embraced by the royal court. By 

the late nineteenth century, a distinct praxis and organizational 

pattern had emerged that set the stage for 

the modern vipassana movement of the twentieth century. 

Led chiefly by reform minded scholar-monks, a 

variety of simplified meditation techniques were devised 

based on readings of the Satipatthana-sutta, the 

Visuddhimagga (Path to Purification), and related texts. 

These techniques typically follow the method of bare 

insight. The teaching of vipassana also prompted the 

development of new Buddhist institutions called 

wipathana yeiktha or insight hermitages. Initially attached 

to monasteries, these evolved into independent 

lay oriented meditation centers. A related development 

was the rise of personality cults devoted to the veneration 

of prominent meditation teachers as living 

arhats. In terms of impact, the popularization of vipassana 

represents the most significant development in 

Burmese Buddhism in the twentieth century. Thailand 

has also witnessed a revival of vipassana practice in the 

modern period, and both Burmese and Thai meditation 

teachers have been instrumental in propagating 

vipassana in Sri Lanka, India, and the West. 

See also: Abhijña (Higher Knowledges); Anatman/ 

A tman (No-Self/Self); Anitya (Impermanence); 

Dhyana (Trance State); Duhkha (Suffering); Prajña 

(Wisdom) 

Bibliography 

Kornfield, Jack. Living Buddhist Masters. Santa Cruz, CA: Unity, 

1977. 

Mahasi Sayadaw. The Progress of Insight through the Stages of 

Purification: A Modern Pali Treatise on Buddhist Satipatthana 

Meditation, tr. Nyanaponika Thera. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Forest 

Hermitage, 1965. 

Mendelson, E. Michael. Sangha and State in Burma: A Study of 

Monastic Sectarianism and Leadership, ed. John P. Ferguson. 


Swearer, Donald K. “The Way to Meditation.” In Buddhism in 

Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton 


eons (kalpas) ago. His career is discussed at length in 

the Mahapadana-suttanta (Dlghanikaya, no. 14) and 

more briefly in the Buddhavam sa. Despite his prominence 

in the list of seven, Vipaśyin does not appear to 

have become a major cultic figure. 

See also: Buddha(s) 

Bibliography 

Horner, I. B., trans. The Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, 

Part 3: Buddhavam sa and Cariyapitaka. London: Pali Text 


Walshe, Maurice, trans. Thus Have I Heard: The Long Discourses 

of the Buddha. London: Wisdom Press, 1987. 

VISN U 

JAN NATTIER 

Visnu is the Brahmanical god who preserves the universe, 

frequently as an avatara, or descent. The Buddha 

is incorporated into Visnu’s mythology, most 

clearly in the Gaya-mahatmya (Praises of the Greatness 

of Gaya) section of the Vayu-purana (Ancient Book of 

Vayu), in which Visnu assumes the form of the Buddha 

and preaches false teachings to a group of asuras. 

Visnu himself is not a particularly important textual 

presence, but in Sri Lanka he is frequently worshiped 

by Buddhists, often as one of the protectors of the religion 

and as a powerful, active force. 

See also: Divinities; Folk Religion, Southeast Asia; 


Bibliography 

Gonda, Jan. Aspects of Early Visnuism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1965. 

The Vayu Purana, tr. G. V. Tagare. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 

1987. 



VIŚVANTARA 

VIPAŚYIN 

The first of the so-called seven buddhas of the past, 

Vipaśyin is said to have lived in this world ninety-one 

The story of Prince Viśvantara (Pali, Vessantara) is 

perhaps the most popular and well-known JATAKA 

(past-life story of the Buddha). It exists in many 

different versions and languages, and is a frequent sub- 


V OWS 

ject of Buddhist art, ritual, and performance, particularly 

in THERAVADA countries of Southeast Asia. 

In brief, the story involves a prince named Viśvantara 

who demonstrates the virtue of selfless generosity 

through a series of extraordinary gifts. First, he gives 

away his kingdom’s most valuable elephant, an act that 

angers the citizenry and causes his father, King 

Sam jaya, to reluctantly banish Viśvantara from the 

kingdom. After giving away all of his material possessions, 

Viśvantara embarks on a life of exile in the forest, 

accompanied by his wife and two children. When 

a cruel brahmin asks for the children as servants, 

Viśvantara willingly gives them away while his wife is 

off gathering food. Shortly thereafter, another brahmin 

supplicant asks for his wife, and Viśvantara again complies. 

This last supplicant reveals himself to be the god 

Śakra in disguise and immediately returns Viśvantara’s 

wife to him. Meanwhile, full of remorse, King Sam jaya 

ransoms Viśvantara’s children from the cruel brahmin 

and then invites Viśvantara back from exile. In celebration, 

Śakra rains a shower of jewels from the sky. 

Viśvantara never wavers from the harsh demands 

of universal generosity—giving children, wife, and 

material gifts to any and all who ask—yet everything 

is restored to him in the end. The story thus highlights 

the bodhisattva’s “perfection of generosity,” while also 

offering its listeners the promise of karmic rewards. 

Since Viśvantara loses his wife and children and becomes 

an ascetic in the forest (if only temporarily), 

the story also calls to mind the monk’s renunciation 

of the world, as well as the life-story of the Buddha. 

Indeed, it has an especially close connection with the 

latter, for the birth as Viśvantara is understood to be 

the culmination of the Buddha’s BODHISATTVA career 

and his last human rebirth before the final life as Siddhartha 

Gautama. Moreover, when Siddhartha battles 

against MARA underneath the Tree of Enlightenment, 

it is the merit acquired during his life as Prince Viśvantara 

that he invokes in order to secure Mara’s defeat 

and thus attain buddhahood. 

In line with its importance, the story of Viśvantara 

has been a popular subject of sermons, rituals, folk operas, 

dramas, and other forms of performance in many 

Buddhist cultures. In Thailand, for example, the Pali 

Vessantara-jataka is recited annually by monks during 

the Thet Mahachat festival, an act understood to produce 

abundant spiritual merit. 

See also: Buddha, Life of the; Entertainment and Performance; 

Folk Religion: An Overview; Folk Religion, 

Southeast Asia; Paramita (Perfection) 

Bibliography 

Collins, Steven. “The Vessantara Jataka.” In Nirvana and Other 

Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali Imaginaire. Cambridge, 


Cone, Margaret, and Gombrich, Richard, trans. The Perfect Generosity 

of Prince Vessantara: A Buddhist Epic. Oxford: Clarendon 

Press, 1977. 

VOWS. See Ordination; Precepts 

REIKO OHNUMA 


891


W 

WAR 

The list of the laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize in the 

twentieth century contains the names of two wellknown 

Buddhist activists: Tenzin Gyatso (b. 1935), the 

fourteenth DALAI LAMA of Tibet, and Myanmar’s Aung 

San Suu Kyi (b. 1945). Both have been deeply influenced 

by the rich traditions of Buddhist teachings and 

values. Their individual traditions may differ considerably, 

yet common to both figures is their rigorous 

stand against the employment of any kind of physical 

violence in pursuit of their aims for their people: religious 

freedom for the people of Tibet on the one hand 

and democratic structures and dignity for the people 

of Myanmar on the other. War as a legitimate means 

of acting in or reacting to a particular situation would 

not seem to harmonize with their understanding and 

practice of the Buddhist teaching. Nevertheless, history 

has known Buddhist kings and monks who engaged in 

warfare and, what is more telling, the transmitted literature 

of Buddhism is not devoid of stories and scattered 

textual passages that display a less vehement 

opposition to violence. Even warfare can, under certain 

circumstances, become a necessity. 

The early times: Political neutrality 

Hints about the political climate during the lifetime of 

the Buddha and a feel for his convictions may be found 

in the Pali canon of the THERAVADA tradition of Buddhism. 

The first of the five major PRECEPTS taught by 

the Buddha, to refrain from injuring or killing any living 

being, would imply strict abstention from engaging 

in warfare, where the immediate practical aim usually 

involves the injury or annihilation of an enemy force. 

When asked by a military leader about the belief that a 

soldier who dies on the battlefield goes to heaven, the 

Buddha disappoints him with his response: Such a soldier 

will go to a specially prepared hell, owing to his 

evil state of mind, as manifested in his exerting himself 

to injure or kill his enemies (Sam yuttanikaya, Woodward, 

vol. 4, pp. 216–219). This view must be judged 

as in sharp opposition to the dominant view of the time, 

according to which it was the particular duty of a 

ksatriya, a member of the warrior caste, to fight and, if 

at all possible, to die on the battlefield. This would guarantee 

him the best karmic outcome. 

This radical denial of the warrior ethic on an individual 

basis does not imply, however, that the Buddha 

necessarily tried to persuade rulers (in the main, 

ksatriya kings) to refrain from all military activity, be 

it in defense of their realm or, as was the rule throughout 

India’s history, in a war of aggression aimed at extending 

their territory. This may simply have been a 

pragmatic response to the realpolitik of those days. The 

rulers described in classical Indian literature, Machiavellian 

as they were, would hardly have welcomed a 

sermon on current power politics, much less advice on 

actual military operations, from a wandering ascetic. 

André Bareau describes this relationship between the 

spiritual power of the Buddha and the worldly concerns 

of contemporary sovereigns as an “equilibrium 

of forces” (p. 39). The Buddha would have realized the 

futility of interference in royal affairs. Moreover, wandering 

around the Ganges plain with his followers, he 

was mindful of the need to foster good relations with 

the rulers of the various realms in order to be granted 

entry and right of abode in their territories. Involvement 

in the political affairs of a neighboring kingdom 

could raise suspicion and might eventually put the 

whole community of his followers at risk. 

893

W AR 

One episode found in the Pali recension of the MA- 

HAPARINIRVAN A-SU TRA (Great Discourse on the Extinction; 

Collins, pp. 437–440) is typical of the kind of 

political neutrality the Buddha seems to have observed. 

In this passage, the wicked King Ajatasattu sends his 

chief minister to the Buddha in order to learn about 

his reaction to a planned attack on a neighboring people, 

the Vajjis. The chief minister informs the Buddha 

about the king’s aggressive plan, but the text does not 

depict the Buddha as criticizing this cunning. Instead 

it has the Buddha listing seven kinds of behavior that, 

as long as the Vajjis stick to them, would keep them 

safe from the king’s attack. The minister draws his own 

conclusion: The Vajjis cannot be overcome by warfare; 

other means have to be applied. And in fact, as the commentary 

explains, these means are undertaken by the 

minister, leading to the complete defeat of the Vajjis. 

It is impossible to know whether this meeting between 

the chief minister and the Buddha ever took 

place. Nevertheless, the tradition has preserved this 

episode, which demonstrates that the Buddha’s reported 

reaction was thought not to be unsuitable for 

him. There are, however, other transmitted passages in 

which the Buddha is confronted with conflicts of war; 

one of the best known, albeit from a considerably later 

source (Kunalajataka [Former Birth Story of the Buddha 

as Prince Kunala]), describes the conflict between 

the Sakyas and the Koliyas (Cowell, vol. 5, pp. 

219–221). Here the Buddha is portrayed as a mediator 

between the two parties, who are on the verge of war 

over water rights. In this case, thanks to the Buddha’s 

intervention, the conflict comes to an end. 

From nonviolence to compassion 

With the idea, which started to evolve in the first centuries 

of the common era, that the spiritual career of 

a BODHISATTVA is available to all, a clear shift in values 

becomes perceptible. If, until then, the principle of 

nonviolence (ahim sa) had governed the code of Buddhist 

ethics, KARUN A (COMPASSION) now comes to the 

fore as the most essential element. The bodhisattva acts 

with compassion for the benefit of all living beings. 

The bodhisattva’s own final awakening becomes secondary. 

It is against the background of this fundamental 

shift of values that violence became a more or 

less accredited means of action—unwholesome for its 

performer but benefiting the “victim.” Take the case 

of a robber who tries to kill a group of spiritually highly 

developed persons. A bodhisattva aware of the situation 

and motivated by compassion will, if necessary, 

kill the potential wrongdoer in order to save him from 

the bad karmic consequences the murder would bring 

upon him. The bodhisattva, for his part, is willing to 

suffer the bad consequences caused by his violent act 

as part of this spiritual maturation (see the Bodhisattvabhu 

mi [Bodhisattva Stages], a text dating from 

the first centuries C.E.; in Tatz, pp. 70–71). As easily 

imaginable, this shift in values paved the way for justifying 

further means of violence, including war. 

A Buddhist war ethic? 

Throughout the more than two thousand years of compilation 

of literature among Buddhists, there is not a 

single text that could claim absolute authority in the 

matter of a “just war.” As discussed above, Pali texts 

portray the Buddha as reluctant to address the issue of 

war, thereby affirming the balance of powers. This lack 

of finality may have contributed to the very different 

stances on the issue of war that arose from early times 

on. Although there is no text dealing exclusively with 

the question of war and its ethical dimensions, relevant 

passages appear scattered throughout the literature. 

Their positions can vary between (1) an uncompromising 

rejection of any kind of participation in military 

activities; (2) a pragmatic approach shaped by the 

needs of a realistic royal policy, yet restricted by certain 

ethical considerations; and (3) a straightforward 

call for engagement in war in order to achieve a clearly 

defined goal. 

Examples of the last position are extremely rare and 

not found in the earliest sources. One version of the 

Mahayana NIRVAN A SU TRA, a text composed before the 

fifth century C.E., demands that lay followers protect 

the “true Buddhist teaching” with weapons. The killing 

of persons who oppose Mahayana is put on the same 

level as mowing grass or cutting corpses into pieces 

(Schmithausen, pp. 57–58). Similarly, the Bodhisattvabhu 

mi sanctions the overthrow of pitiless and otherwise 

oppressive kings and high officials, though it is 

quick to state that the bodhisattva is acting out of compassion 

so as to prevent these officials’ accumulation 

of further demerit (Tatz, p. 71). Here, the shift from 

nonviolence to compassion is already fully operative. 

A typical representative of the second position is a 

long chapter on royal ethics in the Bodhisattvagocaropayavinayavikurvananirdeśa-su 

tra (Su tra That Expounds 

Supernatural Manifestations That Are Part of the 

Realm of Stratagems in the Bodhisattva’s Field of Action). 

This text, which probably originated in the fifth 

century C.E., propounds the bodhisattva ideal, although 

its actual influence on politics in India, Tibet, 

and China still remains to be investigated. The rele- 


W AR 

Buddha statues in the wreckage of Nagasaki, Japan, after the atomic bombing in 1945. © Getty Images. Reproduced by permission. 

vant chapter is best read against the background of the 

traditional Machiavellian principles of rule in India to 

which it refers, and which it denounces as harmful and 

as a distortion of Buddhist morals. It is likely that the 

text aimed at supplying a practicable alternative and a 

more ethical set of rules for kings. It therefore had to 

come up with standards relating to war. 

Surprisingly, the text includes no explicit prohibition 

against a war of aggression. The details, however, 

strongly suggest that what is being described are the 

rules for a defensive war. The king is advised to confront 

the hostile army with an attitude of kindness and 

to grant favors to the enemy. If this does not help, he 

should try to threaten his adversary by demonstrating 

(or pretending) military superiority. Such an approach, 

the text makes clear, is intended to prevent a 

war. If these actions prove futile, the king must remember 

his duty to protect his family and subjects, 

and so he may try to conquer the enemy by taking the 

hostile soldiers captive. As the next step, the king is described 

as addressing his army. The passage on war 

ends with the statement that even though a king may 

wound or slay his enemy, he will be without any blame. 

Immeasurable merit will fall to him who has done all 

this in a compassionate spirit and without resignation. 

This passage allows for different interpretations. It 

likely expresses no more than the wish that a king fight 

and win a war by taking the enemy alive. But in the 

end, the text is ambiguous in that it absolves the king 

of blame in case he does kill somebody. Compassion 

is the essential element, and compassion automatically 

frees the king from the unwholesome consequences 

such acts would otherwise entail. Fighting a defensive 

war thus took on the guise of a morally correct endeavor, 

as long as the above rules were followed. Such 

an approach would enable a king to survive in hostile 


895

W AR 

surroundings, while still basing his actions on Buddhist 

ethical foundations, which for pragmatic reasons had 

come to accommodate the needs of Indian realpolitik. 

The first precept against killing mentioned above 

emphatically rejects the notion that somebody could 

become actively involved in a war without violating basic 

Buddhist tenets. This category tends to orthodoxy, 

and would not sanction compromises in the form of 

mechanisms undermining the precept of nonviolence 

for the sake of success in mundane affairs. Typically, 

compassion too is considered important, yet its incompatibility 

with violent actions is taken for granted. 

Buddhist royal politics that included guidelines for 

warfare could not evolve from this first position, as it 

could under the second pragmatic approach outlined 

above. In the final analysis, to be a Buddhist meant to 

refrain from any responsibilities or actions involving 

violence, let alone warfare. 

CANDRAKIRTI, a seventh-century Buddhist philosopher, 

consequently judges a king’s presence on the battlefield 

as highly untoward, given that he “rushes 

around with rage and without affection, raising the 

weapon directed to the enemy’s head in order to kill 

without any affection towards the other men” (Zimmermann, 

pp. 207–208). And a commentary on the 

ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHASYA, an extremely influential 

Buddhist treatise of the fifth century C.E., states that 

even a soldier who has not killed anybody in a war is 

guilty, since he and his comrades have been inciting 

each other, and it would not matter who, in the last 

instance, has killed the enemy (Harvey, p. 254). 

An even more orthodox approach is found in the 

FANWANG JING (BRAHMA’S NET SU TRA), a sutra most 

probably composed in Central or East Asia, which expounds 

the bodhisattva ideal. This text categorically 

forbids killing, ordering others to kill, and, with great 

forethought, the possession of weapons, contact with 

armies, and the instigation to war (Heinemann, pp. 

114–123). 

Compassionate killing 

Given the plurality of positions described above, it is 

not surprising that Asia has experienced wars that have 

been fought on the basis of Buddhist arguments. It 

must be said, however, that these wars reached a degree 

of intensity and extent far lower than those witnessed 

by Christianity or Islam. Similarly, history 

knows of no ruler who engaged in war on the pretext 

of spreading Buddhism into non-Buddhist regions. 

However, one should not ignore the fact that Buddhist 

texts can be interpreted so as to serve as a reservoir of 

arguments for the justification of territorial expansion 

or economic and nation-building ambitions. Like most 

religious doctrines, Buddhist teachings can be turned 

into effective instruments in pursuit of highly mundane 

interests. 

In Zen at War (1997), Brian Victoria demonstrates 

how the leaders and chief ideologists of Japan’s Buddhist 

denominations hoped to gain the military government’s 

sympathy before and during World War II 

by providing them with interpretations of scriptures 

that supported the country’s war of expansion (pp. 

79–94). The notion of a “war of compassion” appears 

frequently in their arguments. Such a “war which also 

benefits one’s enemy” (pp. 86–91) was supposed to 

put an end to injustice and lawlessness and promote 

the advancement of society. One was not to go off and 

fight out of hatred or anger but—like a father punishing 

his child—out of compassion. To fight for a 

good reason would thus be in accord with the “great 

benevolence and compassion of Buddhism” (p. 87). 

The war’s purpose would determine its rightfulness. 

In practice, however, this “just war” theory, based on 

Buddhist arguments, could easily be used to justify any 

armed conflict. 

Other examples from the history of Buddhist countries 

that engaged in warfare might be added. Yet it 

must not be forgotten that besides the two Nobel laureates 

mentioned earlier, there is an incalculable number 

of individuals and organizations worldwide who, 

inspired by living Buddhist masters and the whole of 

the Buddhist tradition, take a clear stand in favor of a 

peace policy that advocates strict nonviolence as the 

only noble path. 

See also: Colonialism and Buddhism; Kingship; 

Modernity and Buddhism; Monastic Militias; Nationalism 

and Buddhism; Politics and Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Bareau, André. “Le Bouddha et les rois.” Bulletin de l’École 

Française d’Extrême-Orient 80, no. 1 (1993): 15–39. 

Collins, Steven. Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias 

of the Pali Imaginaire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1998. 

Cowell, Edward B., ed. The Jataka: Or, Stories of the Buddha’s 

Former Births, 6 vols., 1895–1907. Vol. 5 tr. Robert Chalmers. 


Demiéville, Paul. “Le Bouddhisme et la guerre.” In Choix d’ 

Études Bouddhiques. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1973. 


W ILDERNESS 

M ONKS 


Values and Issues. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 2000. 

Heinemann, Robert K. Der Weg des Übens im ostasiatischen Mahayana. 


Lang, Karen C. “A ryadeva and Candrakrti on the Dharma of 

Kings.” Asiatische Studien 46, no. 1 (1992): 232–243. 

Schmidt-Leukel, Perry. “Das Problem von Gewalt und Krieg in 

der Buddhistischen Ethik.” Dialog der Religionen 6, no. 2 

(1996): 122–140. 

Schmithausen, Lambert. “Aspects of the Buddhist Attitude towards 

War.” In Violence Denied: Violence, Non-Violence and 

the Rationalization of Violence in South Asian Cultural History, 

ed. Jan E. M. Houben and Karel R. Van Kooij. Boston, 

Leiden, and Cologne: Brill, 1999. 

Tatz, Mark, trans. Asanga’s Chapter on Ethics with the Commentary 

of Tsong-Kha-Pa, the Basic Path to Awakening, the 

Complete Bodhisattva. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 1986. 

Victoria, Brian. Zen at War. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 

1997. 

Woodward, Frank L., trans. The Book of the Kindred Sayings or 

Grouped Suttas: Sam yutta-Nikaya, 5 vols. London: Pali Text 

Society, 1917–1930. 

Zimmermann, Michael. “A Mahayanist Criticism of Arthaśastra: 

The Chapter on Royal Ethics in the Bodhisattvagocaropaya-vinaya-vikurvana-nirdeśa-su 

tra.” Annual Report 

of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology 

at Soka University for the Academic Year 1999 (2000): 

177–211. 

WILDERNESS MONKS 

MICHAEL ZIMMERMANN 

Wilderness plays three roles in early Buddhist texts: a 

place, a mode of livelihood, and an attitude toward 

practice. First, the wilderness is a place whose solitude, 

dangers, and rugged beauty provide an ideal environment 

for practice. The Buddha himself is said to have 

gained BODHI (AWAKENING) in the wilderness and to 

have encouraged his disciples to practice there as well. 

Monks could wander there during the dry season and 

settle there any time of the year. Nuns, though forbidden 

from settling or wandering alone in the wilderness, 

were required to go on a brief group wilderness 

tour annually after the Rains Retreat. 

In addition to its role as a place, the wilderness functioned 

as a mode of livelihood. Monks and nuns, wherever 

they lived, were forbidden from engaging in the 

activities—farming, herding, and mercantile trade— 

that historically have set domestic civilization apart 

from the wilderness life of hunters and gatherers. Third 

and most important, monks and nuns were enjoined 

to cultivate wilderness as an attitude, an inner solitude 

and non-complacency transcending all external environments. 

Combined, this attitude and mode of livelihood 

provided the means by which Buddhist 

monastics were taught to straddle the line between civilization 

and the wilds. 

Nevertheless, early texts show a division between 

monks who specialized in living either in the cities or 

in the wilderness. Although the portrayal of each type 

mixes criticism with praise, wilderness or forest monks 

on the whole enjoy the better press. MAHAKAŚYAPA, one 

of the Buddha’s strictest and most respected disciples, 

is their model and ideal type, whereas city monks can 

claim no similar exemplar. Wherever the two types are 

directly compared—as in the accounts of the controversy 

at Kauśamb and of the Second Council—city 

monks are portrayed as intent on comfort and political 

power, contentious, unscrupulous, and undisciplined. 

The monks in Vaiśal, whose behavior sparks 

the Second Council, are lax in their observance of the 

VINAYA (monastic rules). The Kauśamb monks, having 

split over a minor infraction, abuse the Vinaya to 

create an escalating war of accusations. Wilderness 

monks, in contrast, are portrayed as harmonious and 

unassuming, earnest meditators, strict and wise in their 

discipline. 

The first praise for city monks appears in early MA- 

HAYANA texts. Whereas conservative versions of the 

bodhisattva path, derived from the early canons, take 

the wilderness monk living strictly by the Vinaya as 

their exemplar, more radical versions extol the city 

monk living in luxury as one who is not to be judged 

by outside appearances. 

There are also reports, beginning with the early 

canons, of wilderness monks gone bad, using the psychic 

powers developed in their meditation for their individual 

fame and fortune to the detriment of the 

SAṄGHA (monastic community) as a whole. Although 

jealous city monks may have concocted these reports, 

they speak to a fear that has repeatedly been borne out 

in Buddhist history: that the respect shown for wilderness 

monks could create an opening for abuse. This 

possibility, combined with a general mistrust for the 

wilderness and the misfits who tended to settle there, 

led to an ambivalent attitude toward wilderness monks, 

which vacillated between reverence and wariness. During 

periods of relative stability, the uncertainty as to 

whether wilderness monks were charlatans, saints, or 

insane tended to discourage contact with them. 


897

W ISDOM 

Their main role in shaping Buddhist history thus 

came in periods of crisis, when people in the centers of 

power lost faith in the domesticated Buddhism of the 

cities and, overcoming their fears, turned to wilderness 

monks to spearhead reforms. This pattern is especially 

marked in the THERAVADA tradition. In the thirteenth 

century, for instance, after a foreign invasion had 

threatened the revival of Theravada in Sri Lanka, King 

Parakramabahu II placed a contingent of forest/scholar 

monks, lead by a Sariputta Bhikkhu, in charge of the 

saṅgha’s unification. The system of governance and 

standards of scholarship thus formulated for the 

saṅgha proved influential in Theravada countries well 

into the twentieth century. They also ensured that the 

traditions of the Mahavihara—the sect to which 

Sariputta belonged—became the Theravada norm. 

Similarly, in the nineteenth century, when King 

Mindon of Burma (Myanmar), tried to revive classical 

Burmese culture in response to the British colonial 

threat, he invited wilderness monks to teach insight 

mediation (vipaśyana; Pali, VIPASSANA) to his court, 

in hopes that the resulting spiritual superiority of his 

government would dispel the barbarians at the gate. 

Despite its failure in this regard, his patronage of 

vipassana established a precedent for high-ranking 

Burmese throughout the colonial period and for the 

Burmese government when it regained independence. 

This in turn fostered the development of distinct 

schools of vipassana practice, such as the Mahasi 

Sayadaw and U Ba Khin methods, that have since 

spread around the world. 

As the twenty-first century dawns, wilderness monk 

movements thrive in all the major Theravada countries, 

examples being the forest/scholar brotherhoods 

founded in the twentieth century by Kadavädduve Jinavaṁsa 

in Sri Lanka and Buddhadasa Bhikkhu in 

Thailand. The most prominent wilderness movement, 

however, is the Kammatthana (Meditation) tradition 

founded in Thailand in the late nineteenth century by 

A c∧han Sao Kantaslo and A c∧han Man Bhuridatto. 

Building on the Dhammayut sect’s reforms earlier in 

the century, this movement differed in two ways from 

the tantric wilderness movements extant in Thailand 

at its inception, both in its strict adherence to the 

Vinaya and in its championing of meditation techniques 

drawn from the Pali canon. Before the close of 

the twentieth century, the movement spread beyond 

Thailand into other parts of Asia and the West. 

Although some wilderness movements have left 

long-lasting marks on Buddhist history, they themselves 

have tended to be short-lived. Their very success 

in gaining support leads directly to their domestication 

and decline. In the past, the ubiquitous forest has 

served as the testing ground for new wilderness movements 

in Asia as older ones pass away. With the rapid 

deforestation of the continent, this source of regeneration 

and reform is in danger of disappearing. At the 

same time, with the spread of Buddhism beyond Asia, 

there is the question of whether wilderness in its three 

roles—as place, mode of livelihood, and attitude—will 

counterbalance the inevitable domestication of Buddhism 

as it settles into its new homes. 

See also: Ascetic Practices; Monasticism; Monks 

Bibliography 


and Historical Study. Delhi: Oxford University 

Press, 1983. 



1994. 

Swearer, Donald K., ed. Me and Mine: Selected Essays of Bhikkhu 

Buddhadasa. Albany: State University of New York Press, 

1989. 


the Cult of Amulets. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1984. 

Taylor, J. L. Forest Monks and the Nation-state: An Anthropological 

and Historical Study in Northeastern Thailand. Singapore: 

Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, 1993. 

Teich, Anne, ed. Blooming in the Desert: Favorite Teachings of 

the Wildflower Monk Taungpulu Sayadaw. Berkeley, CA: 

North Atlantic Books, 1996. 

Tiyavanich, Kamala. Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in 



Thanissaro Bhikkhu. “The Customs of the Noble Ones” (1999). 

Available from Access to Insight: Readings in Theravada Buddhism 

www.accesstoinsight.org. 

THANISSARO BHIKKHU (GEOFFREY DEGRAFF) 

WISDOM. See Prajña (Wisdom) 

WOMEN 

A consideration of the role of women in Buddhism— 

as distinct from the symbolic role of the female— 


W OMEN 

proceeds in tension with several challenges. First, in 

much of Buddhist literature, female characters tend to 

function symbolically; their relationship to Buddhist 

women, by no means transparent, is contested within 

both academic and Buddhist communities. Secondly, 

the primacy of men in most historical Buddhist communities 

corresponds to a relative dearth of historical 

sources regarding the lives of women. Thirdly, women 

have been defined quite differently and have occupied 

quite distinct roles in different Buddhist cultures; the 

blanket term women can obscure this diversity. Finally, 

contemporary perspectives and controversies fundamentally 

shape our approach to this topic. With these 

caveats, however, a great deal can still be said. 

Women and normative constructions of the female: 

Mothers, wives, objects of desire 

Throughout the history of Buddhist communities, images 

of the feminine have played a central role in Buddhist 

thought and practice, and surely such images had 

a significant impact upon the lives of Buddhist women. 

It must be kept in mind, however, that these images 

were, for the most part, constructed by and for men. 

Still, conceptions of the female shaped and were 

shaped by the experiences of actual women in Buddhist 

communities, and thus represent an important, 

if problematic, resource for understanding the role of 

women in Buddhism. 

Almost universally in premodern Buddhist communities, 

to be born a woman was considered a sign 

of unfavorable karmic propensities from past lives, 

and many texts portray REBIRTH as a man as a laudable 

soteriological goal, as, for instance, in the 

“Bhaisajyaraja” (Medicine King) chapter of the LOTUS 

SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA). According to 

most normative texts, one of the eight conditions for 

receiving a prediction to buddhahood is a male body, 

and although women were often portrayed as capable 

of attaining BODHI (AWAKENING), many Buddhist 

sources suggest that final release requires rebirth in 

male form. Arguably, the female body’s connection to 

birth (and thus to SAM SA RA itself) and its often noted 

capacity to arouse desire in men render it unfit for the 

highest soteriological attainments. 

The death of the Buddha’s own mother one week 

after his birth might be taken to signify not only the 

sam saric taint of giving birth, but also the great power 

of the bond between mother and child, one that had 

to be broken if the Buddha was to be able to renounce 

all worldly attachments. Pali and MAHA YA NA sources 

often mention the infinite debt to one’s mother and 

father; even if one were to carry one’s parents on one’s 

back for one hundred years, the Kattaññu-sutta of the 

An . guttaranikaya asserts, one could never repay the 

debt. Mothers, too, frequently figure in narrative literature 

as ultimate embodiments of attachment and 

the grief it brings (see, for instance, the chapter on “The 

Tigress” in the SUVARNAPRABHASOTTAMA-SU TRA). In 

such tales, the position of the mother remains ambiguous: 

The mother’s experience of terrible grief because 

of her attachment to her children is presented 

very sympathetically, even as the goal of nonattachment 

is praised; sometimes the pain of motherhood 

itself becomes the basis for the realization of impermanence. 

Such sentiments are echoed in the colophons 

of manuscripts from DUNHUANG that were commissioned 

by mothers and wives to ensure the good rebirth 

of their deceased children and husbands. 

The depth of a mother’s love for her children is also 

the basis for the use of the figure of the mother as the 

paradigm of selfless compassion embodied in (usually 

male) BODHISATTVAS and BUDDHAS. In the bodhisattva 

vows of the MAHAYANA, for instance, the bodhisattva 

is exhorted to be like a mother to all beings, and the 

Buddha himself is not infrequently described in motherly 

terms. The notion of the compassionate, loving 

mother is surely also at work in the characterization 

of certain prominent female bodhisattvas, such as 

Prajñaparamita (the “mother of all buddhas”) and 

Tara (embodiment of compassionate action) in Indo- 

Tibetan Buddhism, and female representations of 

Avalokiteśvara bodhisattva (Guanyin) in China. The 

latter bodhisattva appears in the form of “the giver of 

sons,” and is propitiated to this day for assistance in 

obtaining (usually male) children. 

Perhaps one of the most powerful normative images 

is that of the female as the primary object of male 

desire, and thus as the symbol of desire par excellence. 

Numerous passages in Buddhist canonical literature of 

all regions and schools warn monastic men against the 

dangers of sexual desire (almost always assumed to be 

heterosexual); a few virulently misogynistic passages 

attribute male desire to the degeneracy of women 

(Sponberg, pp. 18–23). Consideration of female sexual 

desire or its effect upon women, by contrast, is generally 

limited to the characterization of women as uncontrollable 

sexual beings that threaten male celibacy. 

Women are objects, not subjects, in many normative 

Buddhist constructions of desire; they are the lesser 

(and dangerous) “other” in relation to the male subject 

position, as discussed in further detail below. 


899

W OMEN 

But these normative constructions of the position of 

the female are not uncontested; tales of highly accomplished 

women—even stories of the bodhisattva in female 

form—are also found among Buddhist literary 

sources (for instance, the tale of “Rupavat” in the 

DIVYAVADANA, and the “Padpadana-jataka” in the 

Paññasa-jataka collection). Inscriptions and colophons 

in the broader Buddhist world attest both to the power 

of normative constructions and to alternative conceptions 

of women. Among the colophons of manuscripts 

at DUNHUANG, for instance, are found both women’s 

prayers to leave behind a woman’s “vile estate,” and 

the dedications of wealthy and powerful female patrons 

whose words attest to their central role in lay life. Taking 

into account not only literary sources but also 

social-historical and anthropological materials enables 

a fuller and more complex appreciation of the position 

of women in Buddhist communities. 

Women as patrons and rulers 

Women have played central roles throughout Buddhist 

history as patrons of Buddhist institutions and practices. 

Indeed, this is the role of women most clearly attested 

in historical sources. Laywomen and NUNS (who 

clearly had access to economic resources in some Buddhist 

communities) figure prominently among the 

donors whose inscriptions and colophons survive 

across the Buddhist world, and they are depicted in 

murals such as those found at Dunhuang and AJAN TA. 

Female patronage was not only motivated by religious 

goals, but also by the relative freedom from social constraints 

that, in some Buddhist communities, association 

with Buddhism could offer. For instance, Jacques 

Gernet demonstrates how the support of Buddhist figures 

and institutions by aristocratic women during the 

Tang dynasty (618–907) in China could give such 

women access to considerable social and political 

power. Such instances make clear that, whatever the 

normative rhetoric about women may have been, individual 

women could appropriate Buddhist tropes 

and institutions for their own benefit. 

Among the most famous female patrons of Buddhism 

is Empress Wu Zetian, whose occupation of the 

Tang dynasty throne in 690 C.E. (she had ruled unofficially 

since 665) heralded a time of great flourishing 

for Buddhism in China. For Empress Wu, Buddhism 

appears to have been both religiously fulfilling and politically 

expedient. Through the skillful reinterpretation 

of Buddhist texts that helped to identify her as 

both bodhisattva and cakravartin (wheel-turning 

monarch), her reign was legitimized and glorified. At 

the same time, her extremely generous patronage of 

Buddhist institutions, scholars, festivals, and arts 

greatly enhanced the wealth, power, and influence of 

Buddhists in the realm. While much maligned by premodern 

Chinese historians as a ruthless dictator, Empress 

Wu made extremely significant contributions not 

only to the development of Buddhist culture in China, 

but also to the betterment of the status of women at 

the time. Other powerful women, such as Queen 

Camadev, the quasi-historical first ruler of the kingdom 

of Haripuñjana in present-day northern Thailand, 

are also believed to have had a significant 

influence on the florescence of Buddhist culture in 

other times and places. 

Women as renunciants 

Due to the paucity of contemporaneous historical 

sources, the position of women in Buddhist renunciant 

communities prior to the first millennium of the 

common era must largely be surmised from literary 

sources, although inscriptional evidence should also be 

taken into account. Narratives in Pali and Sanskrit 

canonical sources—perhaps most famously, the story 

of how the Buddha’s stepmother, MAHAPRAJA PATI 

GAUTAMI, became the first nun—suggest that the position 

of women in the Buddhist community was 

viewed from multiple and often contradictory perspectives. 

Women were considered capable of attaining 

enlightenment, and were admitted, if somewhat grudgingly, 

into the community of renunciants. Canonical 

texts (see especially the Therlgatha) tell of many prominent 

and accomplished female renunciants. 

On the other hand, to be reborn a women was undeniably 

viewed as a lower birth, the fruit of negative 

KARMA (ACTION). According to the VINAYA, the most 

senior of female renunciants is inferior even to the 

youngest male novice, and must defer to him; in general, 

male monastic institutions have controlled 

monastic women. Moreover, the institution of female 

renunciation was undermined from the outset by the 

assertion that male renunciants represented a more 

fertile field of merit for the lay community than did 

female renunciants, as a result of which female renunciants 

appear frequently to have suffered from insufficient 

material and social support from the laity, as is 

confirmed by the eventual disappearance of the order 

of nuns in most of South and Southeast Asia. In Tibet, 

as well, the full ordination of women died out; only 

the novice (śramanerika) level of ordination has been 

maintained to the present day. The full ordination of 

women has been preserved only in East Asia. Still, sev- 


W OMEN 

eral contemporary movements seek to reestablish 

strong communities of female renunciants, with or 

without full ordination. Indeed, as Sid Brown indicates 

regarding Thai maechi (female renunciants), many 

women feel that renunciation without ordination is 

preferable, since they can thereby remain independent 

of male-dominated monastic institutions. 

Women and the valorization of the female 

Construed as the symbolic “other” of the male, feminine 

images have a potent function in Buddhist literature 

and practice. Since desire is conceived of as the 

fundamental cause of human suffering, the female, the 

paradigmatic object of male desire, frequently comes 

to represent the entrapment of sam sara itself. At the 

same time, the paradigmatic quality of the male/female 

hierarchical dichotomy lends itself to numerous other, 

quite different, manipulations. In the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa, 

for instance, a wise female deity transforms 

the hapless ŚARIPUTRA into a woman in order to demonstrate, 

through the apparent arbitrariness of GENDER, 

the principle of nonduality. While some scholars 

would see in this episode both a powerful female figure 

and the dismantling of gender categories (Schuster), 

it should also be noted that the female deity might 

be powerful in this context precisely because she is so 

unusual, so unconventional, and that gender breakdown 

might function as such a trenchant symbol of 

nonduality precisely because the gender hierarchy/ 

dichotomy was so deeply entrenched in Buddhist communities. 

Herein lies the difficulty of interpreting female 

symbols in relation to women’s lives: This story 

could be seen either as empowering women, or as revealing 

their social disempowerment—or both. 

The role of women in tantric Buddhist contexts, 

where the symbol of the female is most highly valorized, 

is complex and controversial. While it is tempting 

to conflate the valorization of the female with the 

valorization of women, the texts of tantric Buddhism 

indicate that the glorification of the female most often 

presumes the perspective of the male practitioner 

and functions for his benefit. For instance, in the 

VAJRAYANA vows, the practitioner is exhorted not to 

disparage women; such an injunction indicates not 

only that women were likely disparaged, but also that 

the vows assume a male audience. Similarly, it is problematic 

to interpret the ubiquitous tales of highly realized 

(and usually very attractive) female figures, both 

human and divine, as corresponding to a historical 

reality, since these tales likely functioned primarily for 

male audiences. As is the case with Śariputra’s gender 

transformation, the valorization of the female may gain 

much of its potential symbolic power precisely from 

its transgression of historical realities. The construal of 

the female as the paradigmatic object of male desire 

likely underlies the manipulation of powerful female 

symbols by male practitioners: If the female is other, 

then the (male) self can be transformed through ritual 

identification or union with that symbolic other, an 

other that could be embodied in actual women who 

acted as sexual consorts. 

On the other hand, the existence of such positive 

and powerful female symbols, whether or not they 

were intended to function primarily for men, obviously 

provided (and provides) productive resources 

for women wishing to subvert societal gender norms. 

While women within monastic institutions were generally 

subservient to men, legends of powerful female 

tantric practitioners open a space for virtuoso Buddhist 

women outside the monastic system—a space that 

many women surely occupied. Quasi-historical tales 

such as that of MA GCIG LAB SGRON (MACHIG LAPDÖN), 

the extraordinary female tantric practitioner who is 

said to have founded the practice of gcod (offering up 

one’s body to undermine the notion of self) in Tibet, 

may attest to the relative freedom of some women. Virtuoso 

women, however rare, are still known to live itinerant 

(and highly esteemed) lives in contemporary 

Tibet; their existence points to a tradition that, for all 

the difficulty of locating its historical traces in Indo- 

Tibetan tantric literature, has a long lineage. 

Contemporary appropriations and subversions 

As notions of the equality of women in the contemporary 

world gain more widespread acceptance, female 

Buddhists not only in Europe and America but across 

the Buddhist world are grappling with the symbolic 

and institutional legacies of widely varied Buddhist 

conceptions of women. Buddhist women are beginning 

to ask how female symbols that were designed primarily 

for male practitioners relate to the lived 

religious experience of contemporary women. Can 

such images be appropriated to serve the religious goals 

of women, or are they inextricable from maledominated 

thought and practice? Should women seek 

equality by attempting to gain recognition from institutions 

controlled by men, or should they establish 

their own communities and institutions that are not 

dependent on the still-pervasive authority of male figures? 

Can contemporary women simply dismiss as historical 

and cultural artifacts the ubiquitous references 

in Buddhism to the female body as an inherently lower 


901

W ŎN 

B UDDHISM 

form of birth? How do women, so often figured as the 

objects of male desire, create a subject position for 

themselves as Buddhist practitioners—or should this 

lack of a fully articulated “self” be viewed as an advantage 

on the Buddhist path? Such questions are hotly 

debated among practitioners and scholars alike; the 

fruits of these debates, whatever they may be, will 

surely herald significant shifts in the thought and practice 

of Buddhism for people of all genders. 

Bibliography 

Barnes, Nancy. “Buddhist Women and the Nuns’ Order in 

Asia.” In Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements 

in Asia, ed. Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King. Albany: 


Bartholomeusz, Tessa. Women under the Bo Tree. New York: 


Brown, Sid. The Journey of One Buddhist Nun: Even against the 

Wind. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 

Edou, Jérôme. Machig Labdrön and the Foundations of Chöd. 


Falk, Nancy Auer. “The Case of the Vanishing Nuns.” In Unspoken 

Worlds: Women’s Religious Lives in Non-Western Cultures, 

ed. Nancy Falk and Rita Gross. San Francisco: Harper, 

1980. 

Findly, Ellison Banks, ed. Women’s Buddhism, Buddhism’s 

Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 

2000. 




Klein, Anne Carolyn. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, 

Feminists, and the Art of the Self. Boston: Beacon, 1995. 

Lefferts, H. Leedom, Jr. “Textiles in the Service of Tai Buddhism.” 

In Textiles and the Tai Experience in Southeast Asia, 

by Mattiebelle Gittinger and H. Leedom Lefferts, Jr. Washington, 

DC: Textile Museum, 1992. 

Paul, Diana. “Empress Wu and the Historians.” In Unspoken 

Worlds: Women’s Religious Lives in Non-Western Cultures, ed. 

Nancy Falk and Rita Gross. San Francisco: Harper, 1980. 

Paul, Diana. Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in the 

Mahayana Tradition, 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of 





1997. 

Schuster, Nancy. “Changing the Female Body: Wise Women 

and the Bodhisattva Career in Some Maharatnakutasutras.” 

Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 4, 

no. 1 (1981): 24–69. 

Sponberg, Alan. “Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine 

in Early Buddhism.” In Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. 

José Ignacio Cabezón. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1992. 

Strong, John S. The Buddha: A Short Biography. Oxford: 

Oneworld, 2001. 

Swearer, Donald K. “Bimba’s Lament.” In Buddhism in Practice, 

ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1995. 

Swearer, Donald K., and Premchit, Sommai. The Legend of 

Queen Cama: Bodhiram si’s Camadevvaṃsi, a Translation 

and Commentary. Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1998. 



Van Esterik, Penny, ed. Women of Southeast Asia. DeKalb, IL: 

Southeast Asia Publications, 1996. 

Willis, Janice D., ed. Feminine Ground: Essays on Women and 

Tibet. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1995. 

WŎN BUDDHISM. See Wŏnbulgyo 

WŎNBULGYO 

NATALIE D. GUMMER 

Wŏnbulgyo, a compound of the Korean wŏn (circle) 

and pulgyo (Buddhism), means literally “Circular Buddhism,” 

or “Consummate Buddhism.” It is the name 

of an indigenous religion founded in Korea in the 

twentieth century. 

History 

Pak Chung-bin (1891-1943; “Sot’aesan”) attained 

great enlightenment in 1916 and had a precognition of 

the world entering an era of advancing material civilization, 

to which humans would be enslaved. The only 

way to save the world was by expanding spiritual power 

through faith in genuine religion and training in sound 

morality. With the dual aims to save sentient beings 

and cure the world of moral ills, Sot’aesan began his 

religious mission. He opened a new religious order 

with the buddhadharma as the central doctrine, establishing 

the Society for the Study of the Buddha-dharma 

at Iksan, North Cholla province, in 1924. He edified 

his followers with newly drafted doctrine until his 

death in 1943. The central doctrine was published in 

the Pulgyo chŏngjŏn (The Correct Canon of Buddhism) 

in 1943. In 1947 Song Kyu (1900–1962; “Chŏngsan”), 


W ŎNCH’ ŬK 

the second patriarch, renamed the order Wŏnbulgyo 

(Wŏn Buddhism) and published the new canon, 

Wŏnbulgyo kyojŏn (The Scriptures of Wŏn Buddhism), 

in 1962. 

Doctrine 

The central doctrine lies in the tenets of Irwŏnsang 

(unitary circular form), Four Beneficences, and Threefold 

Practice. Just like a finger pointing at the moon, 

Irwŏnsang, enshrined as the symbol of the dharmakaya 

of the Buddha, refers to the Buddha-nature of the 

TATHAGATHA and the fundamental source of the four 

beneficences (heaven and earth, parents, fellow beings, 

laws) to which one owes one’s life. Irwŏn (unitary circle), 

the Wŏnbulgyo name for the Dharmakaya Buddha, 

is the noumenal nature of all beings of the universe, 

the original nature of all buddhas and patriarchs, 

and the Buddha-nature of all sentient beings. The worship 

of Irwŏn lies in requiting the four beneficences, as 

stated in the motto: “Requiting beneficence is making 

offerings to Buddha.” The practice of Irwŏn lies in 

PRAJN A (WISDOM), fostering (samadhi), and using 

(ślla), upon enlightenment to the Buddha-nature in 

mundane, daily life. 

Practice 

The requital of the four beneficences is carried out: (1) 

for heaven and earth, harboring no thought after rendering 

beneficence; (2) for parents, protecting the 

helpless; (3) for fellow beings, benefiting oneself by 

benefiting others; and (4) for laws, doing justice and 

forsaking injustice. The threefold practice is perfected 

by: samadhi, cultivation of spirit; prajña, inquiry into 

facts and principles; and ślla, the heedful choice in 

karmic action. The threefold practice is carried out 

through timeless Zen, which holds as its central principle 

that when the six sense organs are at rest, one 

should nourish One Mind by clearing the mind of 

worldly thoughts; when they are at work, one should 

forsake injustice and cultivate justice. 

Ceremonies 

On Sundays, followers attend the dharma meeting at 

a Wŏn Buddhist temple, which includes seated meditation, 

prayers to the Dharmakaya Buddha, chanting, 

hymnals, and sermons. Two yearly memorial services 

(June 1 and December 1) for ancestors and four festival 

ceremonies (New Year’s Day, the day of Sot’aesan’s 

enlightenment and foundation of Wŏnbulgyo, Śakyamuni 

Buddha’s birthday, and the day of Dharma authentication) 

are observed. 

See also: Chinul; Festivals and Calendrical Rituals; 

Hyujŏ˘ng; Korea; Wŏ˘nhyo 

Bibliography 

Chong, Key-ray. Wŏn Buddhism: A History and Theology of Korea’s 

New Religion. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 1997. 

Chung, Bongkil. The Scriptures of Wŏn Buddhism: A Translation 

of Wŏnbulgyo kyojŏn with an Introduction. Honolulu: University 


Park, Kwang Soo. The Wŏn Buddhism (Wŏnbulgyo) of Sot’aesan. 

Bethesda, MD: International Scholars Publication, 1997. 

WŎNCH’ŬK 

BONGKIL CHUNG 

Wŏnch’ŭk (Chinese, Yuance; Tibetan, Wen tshegs, 

613–696) was a Korean expatriate scholar monk who 

lived in seventh-century China. Wŏnch’ŭk traveled 

to Tang China at the age of fifteen and studied YOGA- 

CARA SCHOOL texts based on PARAMARTHA’s (499–569) 

translations under Fachang (567–645) and Sengbian 

(568–642). Later studying under XUANZANG (ca. 

600–664), Wŏnch’ŭk joined the comprehensive project 

to translate Indian Buddhist texts into Chinese, 

marking the start of the so-called New Yogacara. This 

movement was based specifically on these new translations 

and especially the compilation of the Cheng 

weishi lun (Demonstration of Consciousness-Only), 

in contrast to the so-called Old Yogacara, which 

was based on Paramartha’s earlier translations. 

Wŏnch’ŭk’s work appears to be an attempt to reconcile 

the doctrinal differences between those two distinctive 

trends of Chinese Yogacara doctrine. His 

interpretation of Yogacara diverges from the interpretations 

of KUIJI (631–682) and Xuanzang, while sometimes 

resonating with the work of Paramartha. This 

led to severe criticism from the later disciples of Kuiji 

who started the FAXIANG SCHOOL, which took Kuiji as 

their first patriarch. Wŏnch’ŭk’s extant works include 

the Haesimmilgyŏng so, a commentary on the 

SAM DHINIRMOCANA-SU TRA (the tenth and last fascicle 

is missing, but is available in Tibetan translation); the 

Inwanggyŏng so, a commentary on the RENWANG JING 

(HUMANE KINGS SU TRA); and the Pulsŏl panya 

paramilta simgyŏng ch’an, a eulogy to the HEART 

SU TRA. Unfortunately, Wŏnch’ŭk’s Sŏngyusingnon so, 

a commentary on the Cheng weishi lun, which was 

probably his most representative work, is no longer extant 

and is known only through quotations. 


903

W ŎNHYO 

With his vast scholarship on Yogacara Buddhist 

doctrine and other philosophical trends within the Indian 

tradition, Wŏnch’ŭk significantly contributed to 

the development of Chinese Buddhism, influencing 

the doctrines of the Chinese HUAYAN SCHOOL and the 

especially the thought of FAZANG (643–712). However, 

Wŏnch’ŭk’s influence was not limited to China. Even 

though he never returned to Korea, Wŏnch’ŭk’s theories 

were inherited by the Korean monks Tojŭng (ca. 

640–710) and T’aehyŏn (fl. 753), despite their lack of 

any direct contact with him. Wŏnch’ŭk also played an 

important role in the formation of the Japanese branch 

of Yogacara, the Hosso (Chinese, Faxiang) school, and 

his works were admired by Gyosin (ca. 750), Genju 

(723–797), and Gomyo (750–834). The controversies 

and debates surrounding the issues that Wŏnch’ŭk and 

other Faxiang scholars explored in China challenged 

Japanese Yogacara exegetes at the very moment that 

the school was founded during the Nara period. This 

admiration for Wŏnch’ŭk’s scholarship changed 

around the end of Heian and into the Kamakura periods. 

At that time, the Hosso school instead took as 

authoritative the three patriarchs of Chinese Faxiang— 

namely Kuiji, Huizhao (650–714), and Zhizhou 

(668–723)—and Hosso monks designated some views 

as “orthodox” and others as “heretical.” In addition, 

Wŏnch’ŭk’s commentary on the Sam dhinirmocanasu 

tra was translated into Tibetan during the ninth century 

and was cited extensively by TSONG KHA PA 

(1357–1419) and his DGE LUGS (GELUK) successors. 

Wŏnch’ŭk’s views were therefore influential in the 

subsequent development of Tibetan Buddhism. 

Bibliography 

Cho, Eunsu. “Wŏnch’ŭk’s Place in the East Asian Buddhist Tradition.” 

In Currents and Countercurrents: Korean Influences 

on the East Asian Buddhist Traditions, ed. Robert E. Buswell, 


WŎNHYO 

EUNSU CHO 

Wŏnhyo (Break of Dawn, 617–686) is widely considered 

to be the most influential thinker, writer, and 

commentator in Korean Buddhist history. Arguably 

the first major contributor to the development of an 

indigenous approach to Korean Buddhist doctrine and 

practice, Wŏnhyo wrote over eighty treatises and commentaries 

on virtually every influential MAHAYANA 

scripture then available in Korea, of which over twenty 

are extant. Reflecting the dynamic cultural exchanges 

and flourishing doctrinal scholarship and meditative 

practice occurring within East Asian Buddhism during 

his time, Wŏnhyo’s scholarship embraced the full spectrum 

of East Asian Buddhism, from the Mahayana PRE- 

CEPTS to the emblematic teachings of Madhyamaka, 

Yogacara, Tiantai, Pure Land, NIRVAN A, TATHAGATA- 

GARBHA, and Huayan. Wŏnhyo’s writings were disseminated 

throughout East Asia and made important 

contributions to the development of Buddhist doctrinal 

exegesis. 

Wŏnhyo’s life has fascinated readers even in modern 

times and his biography has been the subject of 

novels, film, and television drama in Korea. Spending 

the early part of his career as a monk in Korea, Wŏnhyo 

made two attempts to travel to Tang China (618–907) 

with his lifelong friend ŬISANG (625–702) to study under 

XUANZANG (ca. 600–664), a Chinese scholarpilgrim 

who was the most respected doctrinal teacher 

of his time. On the second attempt, Wŏnhyo’s biographies 

state that he had an enlightenment experience 

that was intimately related to the mind-only theory of 

the YOGACARA SCHOOL. The accounts vary, but they all 

revolve around Wŏnhyo having a revelation after 

falling asleep one evening during his travels. In the 

most drastic version, recorded in a later Chan hagiographical 

collection, Wŏnhyo takes refuge from a 

storm in a sanctuary, but awakens thirsty in the middle 

of the night and looks in the dark for water. Finding 

a bowl of water, he drinks it and, satisfied, goes 

back to sleep. The next morning after he awakens, he 

finds to his disgust that the place where he had slept 

was in fact a crypt and what he had taken to be a bowl 

of water was actually offal in a human skull. Realizing 

that what he thought was thirst-quenching the night 

before was disgusting now, he reveled, “I heard that 

the Buddha said the three worlds are mind-only and 

everything is consciousness-only. Thus beauty and unwholesomeness 

depend on my mind, not on the water.” 

The narrative power of this story helped shape 

East Asian images of enlightenment as a dramatic 

awakening experience. After this experience Wŏnhyo 

turned back from his journey, proclaiming that there 

was no need to search for truth outside one’s mind. 

His friend Ŭisang, however, continued on to China, 

later returning home to found the Korean branch of 

the HUAYAN SCHOOL (Korean, Hwaŏm). 

Wŏnhyo’s later affair with a widowed princess produced 

a son, Sŏl Ch’ong (d.u.), one of the most famous 

literati in Korean history, and helped to seal his reputation 

as someone who transcended such conventional 


W ORSHIP 

distinctions as secular and sacred. After an illustrious 

career as a writer and Buddhist thinker, Wŏnhyo lived 

primarily as a mendicant, wandering the cities and 

markets as a street proselytizer. As his biography in the 

SAMGUK YUSA (MEMORABILIA OF THE THREE KING- 

DOMS) states, “He used to . . . sing and dance his way 

through thousands of villages and myriad hamlets, 

touring while proselytizing in song. Thus, everyone in 

the country came to recognize the name ‘Buddha’ and 

recite ‘Homage to Buddha.’” This same source relates 

that Wŏnhyo died in a hermitage in March 686, leaving 

no direct disciples. The Samguk sagi (Historical 

Records of the Three Kingdoms) also notes that he died 

as a householder (kŏsa), a male lay Buddhist. 

Wŏnhyo’s thought system is structured around the 

concept of “one mind,” as illustrated in his commentaries 

to the AWAKENING OF FAITH (DASHENG QIXIN 

LUN). One mind is another term for the mind of SEN- 

TIENT BEINGS, which is intrinsically pure and unchanging, 

but appears externally to be impure and 

ephemeral. Even though every deluded thought arises 

from the mind, at the same time, it is that mind itself 

that provides the capacity to achieve enlightenment. 

Wŏnhyo outlines a threefold structure for experiencing 

enlightenment: ORIGINAL ENLIGHTENMENT 

(HONGAKU), nonenlightenment, and actualizing enlightenment, 

which are mutually contingent and mutually 

defining. Original enlightenment provides the 

theoretical basis for enlightenment; nonenlightenment 

is the misconception about the nature of original 

enlightenment; and actualizing enlightenment is 

the incitement to practice. Practice here is based on 

the conditional definition of nonenlightenment, that 

is, the insubstantiality of defilements. Practice, therefore, 

does not really involve removing something; it 

instead is correct knowledge that the defilements we 

experience in daily life are unreal. The distinction 

Wŏnhyo draws between original and nonenlightenments, 

and the attempts he makes to integrate the two, 

set the stage for notions of the universality of buddhahood 

in later East Asian Buddhism. The Awakening 

of Faith itself originally provided the conceptual 

frame for this notion, but it was Wŏnhyo’s elaboration 

in his commentary to that treatise that provided 

a more coherent interpretation of this construct and 

proposed a solution to the tensions inherent in the definition 

of enlightenment in Buddhist history. This 

elaboration helped to establish a unique cognitive 

framework for East Asian Buddhism, and made 

Wŏnhyo’s commentary one of the most influential 

texts in the East Asian Buddhist tradition. 

See also: Faxiang School; Korea; Madhyamaka School; 


Bibliography 




Buswell, Robert E., Jr. “Hagiographies of the Korean Monk 

Wŏnhyo.” In Buddhism in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. 


WORSHIP 

EUNSU CHO 

Worship in the Buddhist tradition takes many forms 

and is directed toward many different beings and objects, 

from images of the Buddha, to his physical remains 

(relics), to visualized BODHISATTVAS. 

The question of the proper form and purpose of 

worship is addressed in several places in early Buddhist 

texts. Some texts stress that the Buddha should not be 

worshiped at all, but rather that the dharma (Pali, 

dhamma) should be the focus of Buddhist practice. 

Thus, in the Sam yuttanikaya (Connected Discourses), a 

monk named Vakkali expresses his desire to see and 

worship the Buddha, who sharply rebukes him: “What 

is the sight of this putrid body to you? He who sees the 

dhamma, Vakkali, he sees me; he who sees me, he sees 

the dhamma” (SN 3.120). Variations of this attitude 

toward worship of the Buddha can be found in a variety 

of early texts. In the Dlghanikaya (Group of Long 

Discourses), for instance, there is a scene in which the 

Buddha, having been showered by flowers from a blossoming 

tree, tells his chief disciple and faithful attendant, 

A NANDA, that such outward displays of worship 

are not appropriate; rather, the best form of worship 

of the Buddha is following the dharma (DN 2.138). 

Likewise, in the MAHAPARINIRVAN A-SU TRA (Pali, 

Mahaparinibbana-sutta; Great Discourse on the Nirvana), 

when A nanda learns that the Buddha is about 

to die and is in anguish at the thought of the loss of 

his beloved teacher, the Buddha tells him that his physical 

presence is not necessary, for he has left the 

dharma, and that is the only guiding light that A nanda 

and the other disciples will need. Scholars and Buddhists 

alike have frequently taken this famous episode 

as indicative of the Buddha’s own attitude toward worship: 

Focus on learning and following the dharma, not 

on worshiping the physical form of the Buddha, which 

leads only to grasping. 


905

W ORSHIP 

Lotus petals strewn on a sculptural representation of the Buddha’s footprints at Bodh Gaya, site of the Buddha’s enlightenment. © Hulton 

Archive by Getty Images. Reproduced by permission. 

However, in another famous episode in the 

Mahaparinirvana-su tra, A nanda asks the Buddha what 

should be done with his bones after his cremation, and 

he tells him that his remains should be gathered up 

and placed inside a STU PA (Pali, thu pa) built at the intersection 

of four great roads. There, the Buddha says, 

his followers can come to “offer a garland, or scent, or 

paint, or make a salutation, or feel serene joy in their 

heart, which will be to their benefit and well-being for 

a long time” (DN 2.142). This clearly sets a different 

precedent for worship, one that encourages worship of 

the physical objects related to the Buddha as an opportunity 

to honor the departed teacher and to establish 

an emotional connection to him. This practice, 

called buddhanusmrti (Pali, buddhanusati; recollection 

of the Buddha), involves the worshiper in creating 

through MEDITATION a mental image of the Buddha 

that can, then, be mentally worshiped. This form of 

worship is common in both the THERAVADA and MA- 

HAYANA school traditions. 

The great Buddhist ruler AŚOKA (third century 

B.C.E.) is credited with having spread the relics and thus 

their worship by dividing the original eight portions 

into eighty-four thousand parts and enshrining them 

in stupas throughout India. Such relics are often said 

to embody the Buddha, and thus are worshiped as extensions 

of his person. From at least the third century 

B.C.E. relic veneration has been one of the most important 

forms of worshiping the Buddha, and it continues 

to be at the core of worship in much of the 

Buddhist world. In contemporary Sri Lanka, for example, 

the Temple of the Tooth, which houses what is 

said to be one of the Buddha’s canines, is visited by 

thousands of Buddhists daily and is perhaps the most 

important religious structure in the country. 

In addition to the worship of the Buddha’s physical 

remains, sculptural images are important objects of 

worship. Early Buddhism tended to represent the Buddha 

in iconic forms—via his footprints, an empty 

throne, the tree under which he attained enlightenment, 

the wheel of dharma—in order to emphasize his 

physical absence from the world and to prevent his followers 

from grasping on to the person of the Buddha. 

At both SAN CI and Bharhut, two of the earliest Indian 


W ORSHIP 

sites from which there are sculptural remains, there is 

evidence that such objects were worshiped in much the 

same way that the Buddha describes the proper worship 

of his relics: Offerings are made of flowers and the 

worshipers bow down in respect, forming the añjali 

mudra, or gesture of reverence and respect. 

Sculptural images of the Buddha himself began to 

appear sometime around the turn of the first millennium. 

These images focus on significant moments in 

the biography of the Buddha, such as his enlightenment 

or his defeat of MARA. In medieval India, a set 

of eight episodes from the Buddha’s life—the astamahapratiharya—became 

a common sculptural motif, 

and allowed the worshiper to honor and venerate the 

entire life of the Buddha in a single image. 

Perhaps the most common form of worship in the 

Buddhist world is buddha pu ja, literally “honoring the 

Buddha,” which can be performed both in the formal 

setting of a monastery or at a home shrine. It typically 

involves making some sort of offering to a Buddha image 

or relic or stupa—a flower, a small lamp, food, or 

even money. When buddha pu ja is performed in a 

monastery, the worshiper first removes his or her 

shoes, washes the object to be offered to purify the offering, 

and then approaches the image or stupa with 

hands clasped in the añjali gesture of respect. The object 

is then offered, and the worshiper bows down or 

prostrates before the image or stupa. Such worship focuses 

the mind of the worshiper on the Buddha and 

his teachings and also generates merit. Although buddha 

pu ja can be performed at any time, it is particularly 

important to worship the Buddha in this manner 

on posadha (Pali, uposatha) days and on special holidays, 

such as the Buddha’s birthday, Vesak. 

In the Mahayana tradition, in addition to worship 

that is directed toward the Buddha, bodhisattvas and 

other DIVINITIES (such as Tara and Prajñaparamita) are 

objects of great devotion. In the PURE LAND SCHOOLS, 

AMITABHA in particular is worshiped; proper veneration 

of and faith in Amitabha, in some schools attained 

through the fervent recitation of his name, leads to rebirth 

in his Pure Land. 

Finally, not only are buddhas and bodhisattvas the 

object of worship, but also MONKS, since one should 

honor and worship one’s teacher as a living embodiment 

of the Buddha’s teachings. In Thailand, the relics 

of famous monks are often objects of great devotion 

and worship. Likewise, in China and Japan, the mummified 

bodies of important monks are sometimes preserved 

as living presences, and in many Buddhist 

schools in Tibet, one worships one’s LAMA in the same 

way that one would honor the Buddha himself. 

See also: Buddha Images; Buddhanusmrti (Recollection 

of the Buddha); Dharma and Dharmas; Merit and 

Merit-Making; Relics and Relics Cults 

Bibliography 

Eckel, Malcom David. To See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest 

for the Meaning of Emptiness. San Francisco: Harper, 1992. 

Kinnard, Jacob N. Imaging Wisdom: Seeing and Knowing in the 

Art of Indian Buddhism. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 1999. 


Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition. Cambridge, 




907


X 

XUANZANG 

Xuanzang (Ci’en, ca. 600–664) was a renowned Chinese 

pilgrim to India and one of the most prolific Chinese 

translators. Due to his encompassing knowledge 

of Buddhist traditions, he was honored as sanzang fashi 

(Trepitaka Dharma Master). 

Xuanzang became engrossed in Yogacara thought 

at an early age, but came to realize that the scriptures 

of that school were only partially available in Chinese. 

It was particularly the absence of a full translation of 

the encyclopedic Yogacarabhu ml-śastra (Treatise on 

the Stages of the Yoga Masters) that Xuanzang felt 

painfully. Therefore, he decided that in order to obtain 

an authentic interpretation of the teachings of the 

YOGACARA SCHOOL he had to travel to India. In 627 

Xuanzang set out on his hazardous journey. On the 

way he relied on the support of many, lay and cleric, 

humble and noble, as well as on the saving power of 

the BODHISATTVAS, particularly of MAITREYA. Xuanzang 

spent fourteen years in India (629–643), venerating 

virtually all important sacred sites, collecting texts, and 

studying with teachers. The most important of his instructors 

was Ślabhadra, a disciple of Dharmapala, under 

whose guidance Xuanzang studied for five years at 

the monastic university of Nalanda. Besides Yogacara, 

he studied Sarvastivada, Madhyamaka, and hetuvidya 

(Buddhist LOGIC), as well as the Vedas and Sanskrit 

grammar. In Nalanda, Xuanzang figured among the 

most exalted scholars of his time, and he was enthusiastically 

entertained by the Indian kings Bhaskaravarman 

and Harsa. After his return to Chang’an in 645, 

he was received by Emperor Tang Taizong, who 

funded Xuanzang’s academy for the translation of 

sutras and had him compile the Da Tang xiyu ji (Record 

of Travels to the Western Regions). This record, together 

with his biography, the Ci’en zhuan (Biography of Xuanzang) 

by Huili, remains the most important source for 

the Buddhism of his time. 

During the nineteen years after his return, Xuanzang 

translated seventy-five of the 657 works he 

brought home. Among these his translations of AB- 

HIDHARMA, Yogacara, and hetuvidya texts have secured 

him a foremost place in the annals of dharma transmission. 

Xuanzang did not work alone. The sources 

provide names of more than sixty major collaborators, 

some of them scholars famed for their exegetic work, 

including KUIJI, Jingmai, Shentai, WŎNCH’ŬK, Wenbei, 

Puguang, and Xuanying. 

According to Xuanzang’s biographers, among the 

questions he sought to answer were whether all beings 

possess an innate capacity to attain buddhahood, what 

awakening meant, and how the PATH is to be conceived. 

Whereas PARAMARTHA’s translations supported the 

TATHAGATAGARBHA (buddha-nature), the Yogacara 

(Faxiang) teachings transmitted by Xuanzang included 

the notion of the Five Lineages (pañcagotra), one of 

which, the so-called ICCHANTIKA, was said not to possess 

the capacity for awakening. To many of Xuanzang’s 

contemporaries, this sounded awkward. But, in 

fact, this teaching represented just one aspect of the 

highly sophisticated Yogacara exegesis, which at the 

time constituted the sum of Buddhist learning because 

it incorporated the Abhidharma learning on a MA- 

HAYANA foundation. Xuanzang considered the faithful 

transmission and preservation of these teachings to be 

his duty. For him, it was pointless and an excessive 

simplification to assume that one should disregard the 

most refined teachings of the Indian sages. He summarized 

these teachings in the seminal Cheng Weishi 

909

X UANZANG 

lun (Establishing the Exclusivity of Vijñana) a synoptic 

discussion of the Yogacara doctrine following Dharmapala’s 

interpretation. 

See also: China; India; Pilgrimage; Silk Road 

Bibliography 


World. London: Kegan Paul, 1906. 

Grousset, René. In the Footsteps of the Buddha. London: Routledge, 

1932. 

La Vallée-Poussin, Louis de, trans. and ed. Vijñaptimatratasiddhi: 

La Siddhi de Hiuan-tsang. Paris: Geuthner, 1928–1929. 

Li, Rongxi, trans. A Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great 

Ci’en Monastery of the Great Tang Dynasty. Berkeley, CA: 

Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 

1995. 

Mayer, Alexander L., trans. Xuanzang: Übersetzer und Heiliger. 




Y 

YAKSA 

Yaksa (Pali, yakkha) are indigenous Indian tree spirits 

that are included in the list of the occupants of the lowest 

of the HELLS, where they torture beings, sometimes 

quite graphically. Either male or female, most yaksas 

are wild, demonic, sexually prolific beings who live in 

solitary places and are hostile toward people, particularly 

monks and nuns, whose meditation they disturb 

by making loud noises. Yaksas are associated variously 

with fertility, the earth, water, and trees, as well as with 

lust and delusion (maya). Frequently, however, they 

are converted to Buddhism and “tamed,” becoming 

active, positive forces in the world. Yaksas appear in 

various JATAKA tales. In the Devadhamma-jataka, for 

instance, the Buddha-to-be explains to a vicious 

yakkha that he has attained his lowly state due to his 

past KARMA (ACTION), and the yakkha converts to Buddhism 

and becomes a protector of the king. Vajrapani, 

who becomes a particularly prominent divinity in the 

MAHAYANA, is in early texts a yaksa who protects Buddhism 

and serves as the Buddha’s bodyguard. In other 

texts, though, yaksas are considerably more fierce. In 

the Valahassana-jataka, for instance, there is a yaksa 

city on an island (Sri Lanka) inhabited by female 

yaksinls who lure sailors with their apparent beauty, 

only to enslave, torture, and devour the sailors before 

they are rescued by the bodhisattva. In other early texts, 

such as the A lavaka-sutta of the Sutta-nipata, the yaksa 

frequently plays the role of the skeptic or reluctant convert, 

and thus serves as both a foil for the Buddha to 

preach the dharma and a metaphor for the power of 

the dharma to reform even the most wicked. Yaksas 

are represented in Buddhist sculpture as early as the 

Mathura period (fourth through second centuries 

B.C.E.), frequently as caurl-holding attendants and servants 

of the Buddha. They are especially prominent at 

SAN CI and Bharhut. 

See also: Divinities; Ghosts and Spirits 

Bibliography 

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. Yaksas. New Delhi: Munshiram 


Sutherland, Gail Hinich. The Disguises of the Demon: The Development 

of the Yaksa in Hinduism and Buddhism. Albany: 


YANSHOU 


Yongming Yanshou (Zhijue, 904–975) was a major figure 

in the development of Chinese Buddhism after the 

Tang dynasty (618–907). Yanshou is particularly esteemed 

in the CHAN SCHOOL and PURE LAND SCHOOLS, 

where his memory is frequently invoked as an initiator 

of the Chan–Pure Land synthesis that dominated 

Chinese Buddhism after the Song dynasty (960–1279). 

Yanshou lived during a period of upheaval between 

the Tang and Song, when China was divided into a 

number of de facto independent principalities, or kingdoms. 

In many respects, Yanshou represents a culmination 

of the scholastic style of Tang Buddhism. In 

other respects, Yanshou epitomized the syncretic style 

of Buddhism that became dominant during the Song. 

While Yanshou identified himself and was regarded as 

a Chan master, his scholastic style is more reminiscent 

of the major Tang Buddhist schools, Huayan and 

911

Y IJING 

Tiantai. His conception of Chan as the culmination of 

the Buddhist scriptural tradition, often rendered as 

“harmony between Chan and Buddhist teaching,” 

stands in contrast to the independent claims of “a special 

transmission outside the teaching” identified particularly 

with the Linji lineage of Chan. 

Within the Chan school, Yanshou is regarded as the 

third patriarch of the Fayan lineage. During the tenth 

century, Fayan monks played major roles at the courts 

of many southern kingdoms, especially Wuyue, where 

Tiantai Deshao (891–972) served as national preceptor 

or spiritual adviser to the Wuyue court. With the 

support of the Wuyue ruler, Deshao orchestrated the 

Buddhist revival in the region, most notably on Mount 

Tiantai, one of China’s sacred mountains and Wuyue’s 

spiritual center. Yanshou is regarded as Deshao’s successor 

in the Fayan lineage; following Deshao’s example, 

he served as a major prelate in Wuyue. 

Little is known of Yanshou’s life. Buddhist biographers 

suggest that Yanshou was a talented and pious 

youth who initially entered the civil service as a garrison 

commander (or an official in charge of military 

provisions, according to one source) at a sensitive border 

post in Wuyue. Moved by his Buddhist aspirations, 

Yanshou renounced his official duties to become a 

Chan monk. Later sources claim that Yanshou illicitly 

used government funds to buy captured fish and set 

them free as an expression of Buddhist altruism. Sentenced 

to death for his crime, Yanshou was eventually 

freed by the Wuyue ruler, who judged that Yanshou’s 

motives were sincere when he faced death serenely. 

Yanshou’s altruism became a major feature of his 

mythological image as a Buddhist savior, one who was 

able to escape death himself and to free others from 

the fate of purgatorial suffering. In this capacity, Yanshou 

became a devotional figure among Chinese Buddhists 

who enlisted Yanshou’s assistance to gain birth 

in the Pure Land of AMITABHA Buddha. Yanshou’s association 

with the Pure Land schools is largely the result 

of this. 

After being granted official permission to leave government 

service and enter the Buddhist clergy, Yanshou 

studied and practiced for many years on Mount 

Tiantai. He commenced teaching on Mount Xuedou 

in 952. In 960 he was invited to serve as abbot of 

Lingyin Monastery, a major Buddhist institution in the 

Wuyue capital of Qiantang (present-day Hangzhou). 

The following year he was invited to assume abbot’s 

duties at the recently constructed Yongming Monastery, 

also located in the capital and a major symbol of the 

Buddhist revival in Wuyue. In addition to his Chan 

scholasticism, Yanshou is particularly noted for his devotion 

to the LOTUS SU TRA (SADDHARMAPUN D ARIKA- 

SUTRA) and his promotion of Buddhist altruism through 

the performance of good deeds. He passed away on 

Mount Tiantai in 975 and was granted the posthumous 

name Zhijue by the Song emperor. Among his numerous 

works are the massive one-hundred-fascicle 

Zongjing lu (Records of the Source-Mirror), devoted to 

his vision of Chan as a pan-sectarian ideology espoused 

throughout Buddhism and not exclusive to the Chan 

lineage, and the Wanshan tonggui ji (The Common End 

of Myriad Good Practices), regarded in the later tradition 

as a testament to Chan–Pure Land syncretism, but 

actually espousing a broader syncretism encompassing 

the aims of the entire Buddhist tradition. 


Bibliography 

Shih, Heng-ching, The Syncretism of Chan and Pure Land Buddhism. 

New York: Peter Lang, 1992. 

Welter, Albert. “The Contextual Study of Chinese Buddhist 

Biographies: The Example of Yung-ming Yen-shou (904- 

975).” In Monks and Magicians: Religious Biographies in Asia, 

ed. Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara. Oakville, ON: 

Mosaic Press, 1988. 

Welter, Albert. The Meaning of Myriad Good Deeds: A Study of 

Yung-ming Yen-shou and the Wan-shan t’ung-kuei chi. New 

York: Peter Lang, 1993. 

YIJING 

ALBERT WELTER 

Yijing (635–713), together with FAXIAN and XUAN- 

ZANG, is one of the most important Chinese pilgrims 

to travel to India. Yijing, who was honored during his 

lifetime with the title sanzang fashi (Master of the 

Tripitaka), was a prolific translator, particularly of the 

Sarvastivada Vinaya. In 671 he sailed to Śrvijaya 

(Sumatra) and traveled from there to Tamralipt (eastern 

India), then to the monastic Buddhist university 

at Nalanda, where for nine years he studied hetuvidy a 

(logic), ABHIDHARMAKOŚABHA SYA, VINAYA, and MAD- 

HYAMAKA SCHOOL and YOGACARA SCHOOL philosophies. 

After further studies in Śrvijaya, he returned to 

China in 695 and worked with ŚIKSANANDA at his 

translation bureau in Luoyang. From 700 to 713 Yijing 

headed his own academy of translation. Altogether he 


Y IXUAN 

translated approximately fifty-six works in 230 fascicles, 

including Agama, AVADANA, and MAHAYANA 

scriptures and treatises, tantras, and vinaya texts, particularly 

of the SARVA STIVA DA, thus preserving one of 

the most important monastic traditions. His translations 

of Yogacara texts and of Buddhist reasoning are 

equally important. 

Yijing also wrote exegetic works and the earliest extant 

Sanskrit-Chinese dictionary (Fanyu qianzi wen). 

His two most important writings are Nanhai jigui neifa 

zhuan (An Account of the Dharma Sent Back from the 

Southern Seas, T 2125), which gives an account of Buddhist 

practices, showing the Chinese perceptions of the 

monastic regulations prevalent in India, and Da Tang 

xiyu qiufa gaoseng zhuan (Record of Eminent Monks 

Who [Traveled to] India in Search of the Dharma during 

the Tang, T 2066). 

See also: China; India; Pilgrimage; Silk Road 

Bibliography 

Chavannes, Edouard, trans. Mémoire composé à l’époque de la 

grande dynastie T’ang sur les religieux éminents qui allèrent 

chercher la loi dans les pays d’occident, par I-Tsing. Paris: E. 

Leroux, 1894. 

Takakusu Junjiro, trans. A Record of the Buddhist Religion as 

Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago (A.D. 671–695) 

by I-Tsing. Oxford: Clarendon, 1896. 

YINSHUN 


Widely considered to be the primary successor of the 

reform legacy of his teacher TAIXU (1890–1947), Yinshun 

Shengzheng (1906– ) is an influential Buddhist 

scholar in modern Chinese Buddhist academe and a 

key architect of the Chinese Buddhist reform movement. 

He reformulated and added academic sophistication 

to the content of his late teacher’s rallying 

rhetoric of “Buddhism for Human Life” (Rensheng 

fojiao) and coined the new slogan “Humanistic Buddhism” 

(Renjian fojiao) to promote his refined version 

of a modern “engaged” form of Buddhism. 

In his writings, Yinshun proposed various periodization 

schemes outlining Buddhist doctrinal evolution, 

and polemically assessed the relevance of the 

different periods to modern Buddhist spirituality, as 

well as to what he considered to be the central, defining 

tenets of Buddhism. His positions challenged 

deeply cherished beliefs of Chinese Buddhists: his unsympathetic 

treatment of both the “transcendentalized” 

TATHAGATAGARBHA or buddha-nature tradition, 

and the “vulgarized” popular Chinese schools like Pure 

Land and Chan. 

No less impassioned and idealistic than his teacher 

Taixu in advancing his version of the bodhisattva path, 

Yinshun’s copious works have left an indelible mark 

on the academic and religious discourse of modern 

Chinese Buddhist communities. Most of these works 

are collected in the massive Miaoyun ji (Anthology of 

the Wondrous Clouds) and the Huayu ji (Anthology of 

the Flower Rains). Other stand-alone volumes contain 

groundbreaking research on the Sarvastivada treatises 

and the Chinese Samyuktagama. 

See also: China; Engaged Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Pittman, Don A. Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s 

Reforms. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. 

Qiu Minjie. Yinshun daoshi de foxue sixiang. Taipei: Fajie, 1990. 

YIXUAN 

WILLIAM CHU 

Yixuan (Linji Yixuan; Japanese, Rinzai Gigen; ?–866) 

was a famous Chinese master and an emblematic figure 

of the putative “golden age” of the CHAN SCHOOL 

of Buddhism. Early biographical sources agree on only 

a few details about his life. Linji’s family name before 

becoming a monk was Jing; he was born in southwest 

Shandong province, studied under master Huangbo 

Xiyun (died ca. 850), visited various monasteries during 

his pilgrimage years, and finally taught at a 

monastery “near the ford” (linji, the origin of his 

name) in Hebei province, where he died. Most sources 

offer May 27, 866, as the date of his death. 

In Chan circles, Linji’s reputation as a forceful 

teacher fond of deafening shouts and unconventional 

teaching methods grew rapidly after his death. Notes 

of his sermons and conversations circulated, and such 

phrases as “Linji’s True Man of No Rank” achieved 

wide renown. Nevertheless, almost three centuries 

passed before, in 1120, Yuanjue Zongyan (ca. late 

eleventh–twelfth century) compiled the Linji lu 

(Record of Linji), the most important extant source for 


913

Y OGA 

Linji’s teaching. When this gem of a Chan text was 

published, Linji’s reputation was already established as 

the founder of one of Chan’s Five Houses, and his life 

story had become thoroughly embellished with colorful 

details. 

Bibliography 

Demiéville, Paul, trans. and ed. Entretiens de Lin-tsi. Paris: Fayard, 

1972. 

Miura, Isshu, and Sasaki, Ruth Fuller. Zen Dust. Kyoto: First 

Zen Institute of America in Japan, 1966. 

Sasaki, Ruth Fuller, trans. The Record of Lin-chi. Kyoto: Institute 

for Zen Studies, 1975. 

Watson, Burton, trans. The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi. 

Boston: Shambhala, 1993. 

Yanagida, Seizan. “The Life of Lin-chi I-hsüan.” Eastern Buddhist 

vol. V, no. 2 (1972): 70–94. 

YOGA. See Meditation 

YOGA CA RA SCHOOL 

URS APP 

The Yogacara school, whose name is taken from one 

of its foundational texts, the Yogacarabhu mi (Stages of 

Yoga Practice), provided perhaps the most sophisticated 

examination and description in all of Buddhism 

of how the mind works—in psychological, epistemological, 

logical, emotional, cognitive, meditative, developmental, 

and soteriological modes. At once a 

rigorous, rational philosophy and an elaborate system 

of practice, it provided methods by which one could 

identify and correct the cognitive errors inherent in the 

way the mind works, since enlightenment meant direct, 

immediate, correct cognition. 

The founding of Yogacara, one of the two major Indian 

MAHAYANA schools, is usually attributed to the 

half-brothers ASAṄGA and VASUBANDHU (fourth to 

fifth century C.E.), but most of its unique concepts had 

been introduced at least a century earlier in scriptures 

such as the SAM DHINIRMOCANA-SU TRA (Su tra Elucidating 

the Hidden Connections or Su tra Setting Free the 

[Buddha’s] Intent). Yogacara forged novel concepts 

and methods that synthesized prior Buddhist teachings 

into a coherent antidote (pratipaksa) for eliminating 

the cognitive problems that prevented liberation from 

the karmic cycles of birth and death. 

Historical overview 

Key Yogacara notions such as only-cognition 

(vijñaptimatra), three self-natures (trisvabhava), the 

ALAYAVIJNANA (warehouse consciousness), overturning 

the basis (aśrayaparavrtti), and the theory of eight consciousnesses 

were introduced in the Sam dhinirmocanasu 

tra and received more detailed, systematic treatment 

in the writings of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. Born Brahmans 

in Purusapura (present-day Peshawar, Pakistan) 

to the same mother but different fathers, Asaṅga and 

his half-brother Vasubandhu became Buddhists, 

Asaṅga entering the MAHIŚASAKA school, while Vasubandhu 

joined the Vaibhasikas in their stronghold 

in Kashmir. The literary core of Mahśasaka practice 

was the A GAMA/NIKAYA corpus of the MAINSTREAM 

BUDDHIST SCHOOLS, while the Vaibhasikas excelled at 

ABHIDHARMA. The brothers’ later writings reflect these 

backgrounds, since even Asaṅga’s book on abhidharma, 

the Abhidharmasamuccaya (Abhidharma Compilation), 

cites only agamas, not abhidharma texts. 

According to tradition, after many years of fruitless 

practice and solitary meditation, in a moment of 

utter despair, Asaṅga began receiving instruction from 

the future Buddha, MAITREYA, who resides in the 

Tusita heaven. Maitreya dictated new texts for Asaṅga 

to disseminate. Asaṅga also composed works under 

his own name, though the Chinese and Tibetan traditions 

disagree about the attribution of these texts. 

For instance, both ascribe the Mahayanasam graha 

(Mahayana Compendium), Abhidharmasamuccaya, and 

Mahayanasu tralam kara (Ornament of Mahayana Su tras) 

to Asaṅga, and Madhyantavibhaga (Distinguishing the 

Middle and Extremes) to Maitreya, but Chinese tradition 

attributes the Yogacarabhu mi to Maitreya, whereas 

Tibetans credit Asaṅga with this text. What gave the 

Maitreya-Asaṅga texts their lasting importance was not 

their mode of composition—receiving sacred scriptures 

from nonhuman sources is not uncommon in 

Asian traditions—but their content, that is, how they 

rethought Buddhism on a grand scale, as well as in its 

most minute details. 

Vasubandhu grew dissatisfied with Vaibhasika doctrine 

and, after exploring other forms of Buddhism, became 

a Yogacara through Asaṅga’s influence. Asaṅga’s 

magnum opus, the Yogacarabhu mi, is a comprehensive 

encyclopedia of Buddhist terms and models mapped 

according to a Yogacara view of how one progresses 

along the stages of the path to enlightenment. Vasubandhu’s 

pre-Yogacara magnum opus, the ABHI- 

DHARMAKOŚABHASYA (Treasury of Abhidharma), also 

provides a comprehensive, detailed overview of the 


Y OGA CA RA 

S CHOOL 

Buddhist path with meticulous attention to nuances 

and differences of opinion on a broad range of exacting 

topics. 

Vasubandhu’s two main disciples (though they 

probably encountered his writings through intermediary 

generations of teachers) were DIGNAGA (ca. 480–540 

C.E.), who revolutionized Indian logic and epistemology, 

and Sthiramati (ca. 510–570), who wrote important 

commentaries on the works of Asaṅga and 

Vasubandhu, notably Abhidharmasamuccayabhasya, 

Trim śikavijñaptitlka, and a subcommentary on Vasubandhu’s 

commentary on the Madhyantavibhaga. 

After Vasubandhu, Yogacara developed into two distinct 

directions or branches: (1) a logico-epistemic tradition, 

exemplified by such thinkers as Dignaga, 

DHARMAKIRTI, Śantaraksita, and Ratnakrti; and (2) an 

abhidharma-style psychology, exemplified by such 

thinkers as Sthiramati, Dharmapala, XUANZANG, and 

Vintadeva. While the first branch focused on questions 

of epistemology and LOGIC, the other branch refined 

and elaborated the abhidharma analysis 

developed by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. These branches 

were not entirely separate, and many Buddhists wrote 

works that contributed to both. Dignaga, for instance, 

besides his works on epistemology and logic, also wrote 

a commentary on Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa. 

What united both branches was a deep concern with 

the process of cognition, that is, analyses of how people 

perceive and think. The former branch approached 

that issue epistemologically, whereas the latter branch 

approached it psychologically and therapeutically. 

Both identified the root of all human problems as cognitive 

errors that needed correction. 

The abhidharma branch faded in importance by the 

eighth century in India, while the logico-epistemic 

branch remained vital until the demise of Buddhism 

in India around the thirteenth century. Nonetheless, 

various Hindu and Jain schools have continued up to 

the present day to study and write about its arguments 

and contributions to Indian philosophy. Such literature 

usually labels the Yogacara positions VIJNANA- 

VADA (consciousness school). 

Yogacara outside India 

In the early sixth century in China, while translating 

Vasubandhu’s commentary on the Ten Stages Su tra 

(Sanskrit, Daśabhu mikasu tropadeśa; Chinese, Dilun), 

the two translators, Bodhiruci and Ratnamati, parted 

due to irreconcilable differences of interpretation. 

Bodhiruci favored a more orthodox Yogacara approach, 

while Ratnamati was drawn to a Yogacara- 

TATHAGATAGARBHA hybrid ideology. The former emphasizes 

removing mental obstructions, whereas the 

latter stresses an ontological pure nature that shines 

forth once defilements are removed. Their feud had an 

immediate and lasting impact on Chinese Buddhism, 

with followers of Bodhiruci’s interpretation developing 

into the so-called Northern Dilun school and Ratnamati’s 

followers becoming Southern Dilun. That 

feud dominated contemporary Chinese Buddhism, and 

it intensified when in the mid-sixth century the Indian 

translator PARAMARTHA (499–569) introduced another 

version of Yogacara, amenable to the tathagatagarbha 

ideology, that reified a ninth consciousness (amalavijñana, 

pure consciousness) that would emerge with 

enlightenment, even though no Indian text attests to 

this concept. Asaṅga’s Mahayanasam graha (Chinese, 

Shelun) became the key text for Paramartha’s followers, 

so their school was dubbed Shelun. 

In 629, seeking to resolve the disputes between these 

schools, Xuanzang (ca. 600–664) traveled to India, returning 

in 645 with over six hundred texts—seventy-four 

of which he translated—and a better understanding of 

Indian Yogacara as taught at Nalanda (the prime seat 

of Buddhist learning at that time). His successor, KUIJI 

(632–682), founded the Weishi school (Sanskrit, Vijñaptimatra), 

also called FAXIANG (Dharma Characteristics). 

Students who had come from Korea and 

Japan to study with Xuanzang and Kuiji brought the 

teaching back to their countries, where it thrived for 

many centuries, and survives today in Japan as Hosso 

(the Japanese pronunciation of Faxiang). Although the 

Weishi school came under attack from the newly emerging 

sinitic Mahayana schools, such as the HUAYAN 

SCHOOL, for challenging ingrained orthodoxies, ironically 

those orthodoxies were themselves largely 

grounded in developments from the earlier Yogacaraoriented 

Dilun and Shelun schools. The CHAN SCHOOL, 

which started to institutionalize around the time of 

Xuanzang and Kuiji, initially drew on the LAṄKAVATARA- 

SU TRA, a Yogacara-tathagatagarbha hybrid text, as one 

of its main scriptures. Thus, much of the later developments 

in East Asian Buddhism can be seen as arising 

out of inter-Yogacara rivalries. 

Yogacara entered Tibet in the eighth century with 

Śantaraksita (ca. 725–790) and his disciple Kamalaśla 

(ca. 740–795), who were among the earliest Buddhist 

missionaries there. While never established in Tibet as 

an independent school, Yogacara teachings became 

part of the curriculum for other Tibetan schools, and 

exerted an influence on RNYING MA (NYINGMA) and 

Dzogs chen thought. TSONG KHA PA (1357–1419), 


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founder of the DGE LUGS (GELUK) school, devoted considerable 

attention to Yogacara, especially the works of 

Asaṅga and the Sam dhinirmocana-su tra, with particular 

attention to the Korean monk WŎNCH’ŬK’s 

(613–696) commentary on the latter. Wŏnch’ŭk was a 

Korean disciple of Xuanzang; the final chapters of his 

Sam dhinirmocana commentary are no longer extant in 

the original Chinese, the complete work surviving only 

in its Tibetan translation. The Tibetan understanding 

of Yogacara, therefore, is drawn from East Asian as well 

as Indian sources. Many of the Tibetan debates on Yogacara 

thought, which have continued until today, appear 

to be replays of the controversies that raged in 

China and East Asia centuries earlier, sometimes with 

new wrinkles. 

Classic texts 

The Maitreya-Asaṅga texts tend to be vast compendiums 

of models, technical terminology, and doctrinal 

lists that come alive only when one pays attention to 

their minutest details and contemplates their implications. 

The Yogacarabhu mi, which comprises one hundred 

fascicles in Xuanzang’s Chinese translation (the 

complete Sanskrit is not available), describes seventeen 

stages (bhu mis) of practice, beginning with an exposition 

of what it means to have a body with the five sensory 

consciousnesses, and moving on to instructions 

on developing a vast array of mental and meditative 

capacities and on engaging the śravaka (HINAYANA), 

PRATYEKABUDDHA (one who achieves enlightenment 

independently without relying on Buddhism), and 

BODHISATTVA vehicles, culminating in NIRVAN A without 

remainder (nirupadhikabhu mi). 

The first part of the Abhidharmasamuccaya, the 

laksanasamuccaya (compilation of definitions), offers 

detailed abhidharma lists and definitions of the five 

SKANDHAS (AGGREGATES), twelve sense-realms, and so 

on. The second part, viniścayasamuccaya (compilation 

of determinations), teaches how to activate the plethora 

of abhidharma lists and models, so that when applied 

to each other (rather than taken in isolation), they effect 

changes in the practitioner by deconstructing one’s 

delusions, greed, and anger. The Mahayanasam graha 

details how hearing, thinking, and contemplating the 

Mahayana teachings destroys the alayavijñana from 

within, like a germ infecting a host, since the Buddha’s 

word (buddhavacana) is ultimately irreducible to mental 

constructions; eliminating the alayavijñana therefore 

results in buddhahood. The Madhyantavibhaga, 

implicitly deploying the theory of three natures 

(trisvabhava) to define and explicate Buddhist practice, 

illustrates how ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) and cultivating 

positive insight (parinispanna) act as an antidote 

(pratipaksa) to the pervasive false mental constructions 

(parikalpita) one projects as lived experience, resulting 

in reality being experienced just as it is (purified 

paratantra). 

Vasubandhu’s Karmasiddhiprakarana (Investigation 

Establishing [the Correct Understanding] of 

Karma) discusses various Buddhist theories on how 

karma works, concluding that all is momentary but 

held together by causal chains, consequences of actions 

requiting their doer through mental causal 

chains embodied in the alayavijñana. The Vadavidhi 

(Debate Methods) is a proto-logic text on reasoning in 

arguments and debates, and a precursor of Dignaga’s 

innovations in logic. Pañcaskandhaprakarana (Investigation 

of the Five Aggregates) breaks down the aggregates 

into abhidharma categories and their 

constituents (dharmas), constructing a dharma system 

in transition between the seventy-five dharmas of 

his Vaibhasika Abhidharmakośa and his fully mature 

Yogacara system of one hundred dharmas, later enumerated 

in his Mahayanaśatadharmaprakaśamukhaśastra 

(One Hundred Dharma Treatise). One can trace 

Vasubandhu’s development from Vaibhasika to Yogacara 

through these texts. 

Vasubandhu’s most important Yogacara texts are 

his Vim śatika (Twenty Verses) with autocommentary 

and Trim śika (Thirty Verses), together sometimes 

called the Vijñaptimatra treatises. The Trim śika 

densely packs the entire Yogacara system into thirty 

short verses. The Vim śatika refutes realist objections 

to Yogacara. The realists contend that the objects in 

our perception exist outside of consciousness just as 

we perceive them, which is why they remain stable 

through (1) time and (2) space; why (3) people with 

different perceptions of a thing can reach a consensus 

about it; and why (4) the objective world operates by 

determinate causal principles, not through unreal, ineffective 

fantasies. Vasubandhu responds with numerous 

arguments to these four points, and he offers an 

analogy to DREAMS. Seemingly external objects appear 

in dreams, even though such objects are only mental 

fabrications with nothing external corresponding to 

them, proving that consciousness is a necessary and 

sufficient condition for objects to appear, but actual 

external objects are neither necessary nor sufficient. 

Ordinary perception is like a dream, a mental projection; 

that different beings perceive the supposed same 

thing differently proves this. To update Vasubandhu’s 

example, that humans and flies perceive and react to 


Y OGA CA RA 

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excrement in radically different ways demonstrates 

that what each perceives is a projection based on its 

own conditioning, or its own mental “seeds” (bljas) acquired 

from past experiences (perhaps in past lives). 

KARMA (ACTION) is collective, in that we gravitate toward 

beings or types who perceive as we do, erroneously 

justifying the seeming universality of our 

group perspective. Thus the “varying perception” argument 

supports rather than undermines the Yogacara 

position. Vasubandhu uses the example of a wet 

dream to demonstrate causal efficacy: Though the 

erotic cognitive object is a mental construction, without 

external or physical reality, it causes actual seminal 

emission, a physical effect produced outside the 

dream and recognized as such upon awakening. This 

means that even though dreams are only fantasies, 

they have real karmic consequences. The deluded 

mind produces real effects that can only be known after 

awakening, once delusion has ceased. Awakening 

means enlightenment—BODHI (AWAKENING) can also 

mean enlightenment—the cessation of the deluded 

mind. Even though we act in a collective deluded 

world of our own construction, our actions have real 

causal consequences. 

To the objection that dream objects are usually not 

as stable as objects perceived while awake, Vasubandhu 

replies that objects and events seem less clear, less consistent 

in dreams than when awake because during 

sleep the mind is overcome by sleepiness and, thus, it 

is not “thinking clearly.” Therefore, in a dream one 

does not know that the objects therein are only dreamobjects 

until one awakens. Similarly, to the question of 

whether we can know other minds, Vasubandhu replies 

that even our own minds are opaque to us, since our 

mental capacities are dim and sleepy. An awakened one 

(the literal meaning of buddha), however, can know 

other minds more clearly than we know our own. So, 

not only can we know other minds (if we awaken), but 

we constantly influence each other for better and for 

worse (though we may not notice that within our 

individual dreams). Thus, karma is intersubjective. 

Moreover, since the more awake one is, the more 

causally effective one’s mind becomes, sages and buddhas 

can exert powerful effects on the world, including 

devastating destruction, and even life and death. 

Vijñaptimatra 

Yogacara encapsulates its doctrine in the term 

vijñaptimatra (often rendered “consciousness-only” or 

“representation-only”), which is not meant to suggest 

that only the mind is real. Consciousness (vijñana) is 

not the ultimate reality or solution for Yogacara, but 

rather the basic problem, as Vasubandhu’s Twenty 

Verses illustrated. Vijñapti is grammatically a causative 

form, “what makes known,” and thus indicates that 

what appears in cognition is constructed, projected by 

consciousness, rather than passively received from 

outside by consciousness. Since nothing appears to 

us except within our acts of consciousness, all is 

vijñaptimatra. The inability to distinguish between our 

interpretations of the world and the world itself is what 

Yogacara calls vijñaptimatra. This problem pervades 

ordinary mental operations and can be eliminated only 

when those operations are brought to an end. 

It is not that there is nothing real outside an individual 

mind. Yogacara rejects solipsism and theories 

of a universal mind that subsumes individuals. According 

to Yogacara, each individual is a distinct consciousness 

stream or mental continuum (cittasantana), 

and individuals can communicate with each other, 

teach and learn from each other, and influence and affect 

each other. If this were not the case, learning about 

Buddhism would be impossible. Even ru pa (sensorial 

materiality) is accepted, if one realizes that physicality 

is only known as such through sensation and cognition. 

Everything we know, conceive, imagine, or are 

aware of, we know through cognition, including the 

notion that entities might exist independent of our 

cognition. Although the mind does not create the 

physical world, it generates the interpretative categories 

through which we know and classify the physical 

world, and it does this so seamlessly that we mistake 

our interpretations for the world itself. Those interpretations, 

which are projections of our desires and 

anxieties, become obstructions (avarana) preventing 

us from seeing what is actually the case. In simple 

terms, we are blinded by our own self-interests, our 

own prejudices, our desires. Unenlightened cognition 

is an appropriative act. Yogacara does not speak about 

subjects and objects; instead, it analyzes perception in 

terms of graspers (grahaka) and what is grasped 

(grahya). 

The Buddhist notion of karma is intimately connected 

to the notion of appropriation (upadana). As 

the earliest Buddhist texts explained, suffering and ignorance 

are produced by karma. Karma, according to 

Buddhism, consists of any intentional activity of body, 

speech, or mind. Intention is the crucial factor, and intention 

is a cognitive condition, so whatever is devoid 

of cognition must be nonkarmic and nonintentional. 

Thus, by definition, whatever is noncognitive can have 

no karmic implications or consequences. Intention 


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means desiring something. Physically, linguistically, or 

mentally, we try to “get it.” Stated another way, only 

cognitive acts can have karmic repercussions. This 

would include meaningful bodily gestures that communicate 

intentions (such gestures are also called 

vijñapti). Since Buddhists seek to overcome ignorance 

and suffering by eliminating karmic conditioning, 

Buddhists need focus only on what occurs within the 

domain of cognitive conditions (cittagocara). Categories 

such as external object and materiality (ru pa) 

are cognitive constructions. Materiality is a word for 

the colors, textures, sounds, and so on that we cognize 

in acts of perception, and it is only to the extent that 

they are perceived and ideologically grasped, thereby 

becoming objects of attachment, that they have karmic 

significance. There is nothing intrinsically good or bad 

about gold, for example; rather our ideas about gold’s 

value and uses, which we project and then act upon, 

lead to good or bad consequences. Materialism is not 

the problem. The incessant propensity (anuśaya) to 

appropriate (upadana) what consciousness projects is 

the problem. These projections are not just things, but 

moral qualities, status, ideals, religious and national 

doctrines and identities, the holding of opinions, whatever 

we can make our own, or make ourselves to be. 

A deceptive trick is built into the way consciousness 

operates at every moment. Consciousness constructs a 

cognitive object in such a way that it disowns its own 

creation, pretending the object is “out there,” in order 

to render that object capable of being appropriated. 

Even while what we cognize is occurring within our 

act of cognition, we cognize it as if it were external to 

our consciousness. Realizing vijñaptimatra means exposing 

this trick at play in every act of consciousness, 

catching it in the act, as it were, and thereby eliminating 

it. Consciousness engages in this deceptive game 

of projection, dissociation, and appropriation because 

there is no “self.” The deepest-seated erroneous view 

to which SENTIENT BEINGS cling, according to Buddhism, 

is atmadrsti, the view that a permanent, eternal, 

immutable, independent self exists. No such self 

exists, and deep down we know that. This makes us 

anxious, since it entails that no self or identity endures 

forever. In order to alleviate that anxiety, we attempt 

to construct a self, to fill the anxious void, to do or acquire 

something enduring. The projection of cognitive 

objects for appropriation is consciousness’s main tool 

for this construction. If I own things (ideas, theories, 

identities, material objects), then “I am.” If there are 

eternal objects that I can possess, then I too must be 

eternal. To undermine this erroneous appropriative 

grasping, Yogacara texts say: Negate the object, and the 

self is also negated (e.g., Madhyantavibhaga, 1:4, 8). 

Intentional acts also have moral motives and consequences. 

Since effects are shaped by their causes, an 

act with a wholesome intent would tend to yield wholesome 

fruits, while unwholesome intentions produce 

unwholesome effects. 

Three natures (trisvabha va) 

Yogacara devised a model of three self-natures 

(trisvabhava) to explain vijñaptimatra more concisely. 

The pervasive mental constructions that obstruct our 

view of what truly is the case are called parikalpita 

(imaginative construction). The actual webs of causes 

and conditions at play are called paratantra (dependent 

on other [causes]). Other-dependence is so-called 

to emphasize that no thing exists as an independent, 

eternal self; everything arises dependent on causes and 

conditions other than itself, in the absence of which it 

ceases to be. Ordinarily paratantra is infested with 

parikalpita. Parinispanna (consummation) is the removal 

of parikalpita from paratantra, leaving only purified 

paratantra. 

Since the notion of “self-nature” is itself a parikalpic 

idea that presumes self-hood, it too must be eliminated. 

Thus the three self-natures are actually three 

non-self-natures (tri-nihsvabhava). Parikalpita is devoid 

of self-nature since it is unreal by definition. 

Paratantra lacks self-nature, since other-dependence 

precludes “self” nature. Parinispanna—the Yogacara 

counterpart to the Madhyamaka notion of śunyata 

(emptiness), which stands for the lack of self-nature in 

everything—is the antithesis of self-nature. Thus the 

three self-natures are ultimately understood as three 

non-self-natures. 

Eight consciousnesses 

Prior to Yogacara, Buddhists discussed six types of 

consciousness: the five sensory consciousnesses (visual, 

auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile) and mental 

consciousness (manovijñana). The consciousnesses 

were said to be produced by contact between a sense 

organ (e.g., the eye) and its corresponding sense field 

or objects (e.g., colors, shapes). The mind (manas) operated 

like the other senses, mental consciousness arising 

from the contact between manas and mental 

objects (thoughts, ideas), though it could think about 

what the other senses perceived, while the five senses 

could not cognize each other’s objects. Yogacara found 

this theory sound but inadequate because it did not ex- 


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plain the origin of the sense of self-hood with its appropriative 

propensities, various problems with continuity 

of experience, or the projective activity of 

consciousness. If causality requires temporal contiguity, 

how can consciousness temporarily cease during 

sleep, unconscious states, certain forms of meditation, 

or between lives, and then suddenly recommence? 

Where did it reside in the interim? If karmic consequences 

occur long after the act they are requiting was 

committed, and there is no substantial self, what links 

the act to its eventual karmic effect, and in what does 

this linkage reside? Most importantly, how can consciousnesses 

that are derivative of contact between organs 

and objects become projective? 

Yogacara’s eight consciousnesses theory answered 

these questions. Manovijñana became the organ of the 

sixth consciousness, rather than its by-product; manas 

became the seventh consciousness, responsible for appropriating 

experience as “mine” and thus infesting 

experience with a sense of self-hood (and thus also 

called adanavijñana, “appropriative consciousness,” 

and klistamanas, “defiled mind”). The eighth consciousness, 

the alayavijñana (warehouse consciousness), 

was Yogacara’s most important innovation. 

Experiences produce seeds (blja) and perfumings 

(vasana) that are deposited in the alayavijñana. These 

seeds, embodying wholesome or unwholesome implications, 

regenerate new seeds each moment. These 

causal seed chains remain latent until a new conscious 

experience causes the seed to sprout, infusing a new 

cognition. Hence the alayavijñana was also called 

vipakavijñana (karmic requital consciousness). Like a 

warehouse, the alayavijñana serves as a repository for 

seeds that are stored there, across a lifetime or many 

lifetimes, until dispatched. So it was also called allseeds 

consciousness (sarvabljakavijñana). Vasanas 

“perfume” the alayavijñana, like the smell of incense 

perfumes a cloth in its proximity. The smell may seem 

intrinsic to the cloth, but it is adventitious and can be 

removed, returning the cloth to its original state. Various 

Yogacara texts debate whether seeds and perfuming 

describe the same phenomenon with different 

metaphors, or whether they are different types of mental 

events. In either case, the alayavijñana flows onward 

like a constant stream, changing each moment 

with each new experience, thus providing karmic continuity 

as the seeds reach fruition. The alayavijñana 

continues to function even while the other consciousnesses 

become temporarily inoperative, unconscious. 

Hence it is also called “foundational consciousness” 

(mu lavijñana). Although it stores karmic seeds and engenders 

their projection, the alayavijñana is a karmically 

neutral mechanical process (anivrta, avyakrta). 

Manas appropriates the activities of the other consciousnesses, 

thinking they are “my” experience, and 

it appropriates the alayavijñana as a “self.” 

Karmic continuity ceases by overturning the basis 

(aśrayaparavrtti), in which the alayavijñana and the 

other consciousnesses cease to function. The consciousnesses 

(vijñana) become direct cognitions (jñana). 

A layavijñana becomes the “great mirror cognition” 

(mahadarśanajñana), no longer holding on to or 

engendering new seeds, but reflecting everything impartially 

in the present moment, like an unobstructed 

mirror. Manas loses its self-prejudicial nature and 

becomes the immediate cognition of equality 

(samatajñana), equalizing self and other. Manovijñana, 

which discriminates cognitive objects, becomes immediate 

cognitive mastery (pratyaveksanajñana), in which 

the general and particular characteristics of things are 

discerned just as they are. The five sense consciousnesses, 

now devoid of mental constructions, become 

immediate cognitions that accomplish what needs to 

be done (krtyanusthanajñana), thereby engaging the 

world effectively. Yogacara texts differ on which overturning 

occurs at which stage of practice, but they 

agree that full enlightenment entails accomplishing all 

of them. 

Purification of the mental stream 

Yogacara practice consists of analyzing cognitive 

processes in order to purify the mental stream of pollutants 

(aśrava), removing all obstructions to unexcelled 

complete enlightenment (ANUTTARASAM YAKSAM BODHI). 

Bad seeds and perfumings need to be filtered out, while 

good seeds need to be watered and cultivated, so they 

will reach fruition. Mental disturbances (kleśa), such as 

greed, hatred, delusion, arrogance, wrong views, envy, 

shamelessness, and so on, are gradually eliminated, 

while karmically wholesome mental conditions, such 

as nonharming, serenity, carefulness, and equanimity, 

are strengthened. As the obstructions from emotional 

and mental obstructions (kleśavarana) are eliminated, 

purification continues until the deepest seated cognitive 

obstructions (jñeyavarana) are finally extinguished. 

Yogacara provides a vast and detailed literature on 

the various practices, meditations, and stages the Yogacara 

adept undertakes. The details differ greatly 

across texts, with the Yogacarabhu mi enumerating seventeen 

stages, the Daśabhu mikasu tropadeśa ten stages, 

and other texts, such as the Mahayanasam graha and 

Cheng weishi lun, five stages. The five stages are: 


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1. The “provisioning” stage (sam bharavastha), during 

which one gathers and stocks up on “provisions” 

for the journey. These provisions 

primarily consist of orienting oneself toward the 

pursuit of the PATH and developing the proper 

character, attitude, and resolve to accomplish it. 

This stage commences at the moment the aspiration 

for enlightenment (BODHICITTA) arises. 

One relies on the four excellent powers (the 

causal force of one’s seeds, good friends, focused 

attention, and provisions of merit and wisdom). 

2. Next is the “experimental” stage (prayogavastha), 

where one begins to experiment with various 

Buddhist theories and practices, and doctrines 

are converted from theory to praxis. Prayoga also 

means “intensifying effort,” or applying oneself 

with increasing vigilance. One trains in the fourstage 

samadhi (meditation): (1) meditation 

achieving initial illumination (into an issue), 

(2) meditation to increase that illumination, 

(3) meditation producing sudden insights, and 

(4) maintaining meditative awareness continuously 

and uninterruptedly. During this stage one 

begins to suppress the grasper-grasped relation 

and commences on a careful and detailed study 

of the relation between things, language, and 

cognition. 

3. Continually honing one’s discipline, eventually 

one enters the third stage, “deepening understanding” 

(prativedhavastha). Some texts refer 

to this as the path of corrective vision (darśanamarga). 

Here one works on realizing the emptiness 

of self and dharmas while reducing the 

obstructions (kleśavarana and jñeyavarana). This 

stage ends once one has acquired some insight 

into nonconceptual cognition (nirvikalpajñana), 

that is, cognition devoid of interpretive or imaginative 

overlay. 

4. In this stage, the “path of cultivation” (bhavanamarga), 

nonconceptual cognition deepens. The 

grasper-grasped relation is utterly eliminated, as 

are all cognitive obstructions. This path culminates 

in the full overturning of the basis, or enlightenment. 

5. In the “final stage” (nisthavastha), one abides in 

unexcelled, complete enlightenment and engages 

the world through the four immediate 

cognitions (mirror cognition, etc.). At this stage, 

all of one’s activities and cognitions are “postenlightenment” 

(prsthalabdha), and other beings 

become one’s sole concern because Mahayana 

adepts devote themselves not only to attaining 

enlightenment for themselves, but to 

helping all sentient beings to attain enlightenment 

as well. As Kuiji puts it in his Heart Su tra 

Commentary: “This is the stage of liberation 

which comprises the three buddha bodies, the 

four kinds of perfect nirvana, and the perfect 

fruition of buddhahood.” 

See also: Consciousness, Theories of; Psychology 

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Commentary on the Heart Sutra: Translated from the Chinese 

of K’uei-chi. Berkeley, CA: Numata Center, 2001. 

Sparham, Gareth, trans. Ocean of Eloquence: Tsong kha pa’s 

Commentary on the Yogacara Doctrine of Mind. Albany: State 


Tat, Wei, trans. Ch’eng Wei-Shih Lun: The Doctrine of Mere Consciousness. 

Hong Kong: Ch’eng Wei-Shih Lun Publication 

Committee, 1973. 

Tatz, Mark. Asaṅga’s Chapter on Ethics with the Commentary of 

Tsong-kha-pa: The Basic Path to Awakening, the Complete 

Bodhisattva. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986. 

YUJŎNG 

DAN LUSTHAUS 

The Korean Buddhist monk Yujŏng (1544–1610), better 

known as Samyŏng taesa (Great Master), lived during 

the middle of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), a 

period in which the country was invaded by the Japanese 

twice, in 1592 and 1597. Together with his teacher, 

HYUJŎNG (1520–1604), Yujŏng became a leader of the 

Buddhist MONASTIC MILITIA that defended the kingdom, 

and he remains an exemplar of patriotism. 

Yujŏng was also known as Songun, and his secular 

name was Im Ŭnggyu; Yujŏng was his dharma name. 

Like many other Buddhist monks during the Chosŏn, 

when Confucianism was the orthodoxy, Yujŏng was 

educated in Confucian classics in his childhood. He 

was orphaned at age fifteen and became a Buddhist 

monk under Monk Shinmuk at Chikchisa. Early in his 

career as a monk Yujŏng studied both Buddhist and 

Confucian texts and he communicated with Confucian 

scholars. In 1557, no earlier than age thirty, he declined 

the king’s appointment to become the abbot of Pongun 

Monastery, the head monastery of the Sŏn school, and 

he joined Hyujŏng at Mount Myohyang to practice 

meditation. Yujŏng is said to have attained enlightenment 

in 1586 at age forty-two. 

In 1592 Yujŏng organized the monastic militia and 

helped lead a number of campaigns against the Japanese 

invasion. During and after the war he was appointed 

as a royal envoy and participated several times 

in peace negotiations with Japan. In 1604, after peace 

was established with Japan, Yujŏng returned to Korea 

with more than thirty-five hundred Korean war prisoners 

released by the Japanese. He petitioned the 

throne several times on what should be done for the 

defense of the country, including “building mountain 

fortresses” and “developing military weapons.” Because 

of such patriotic activities, he appears in the 

Korean folk tradition as a heroic figure who uses supernatural 

powers to save the country. Even today, 

Yujŏng is related to various fascinating patriotic legends 

about the security of the country and the welfare 

of the people. One of the most compelling of these 

holds that whenever Korea is in danger, as it was during 

the Korean War or the time of the assassination of 

President Park Chung Hee in 1979, Yujŏng’s posthumous 

stele in his hometown of Miryang (South 

Kyŏngsang province) sheds tears. 

Yujŏng left only a few writings, which are published 

in his posthumous work, Samyŏngdang taesajip (The 

Collected Works of Venerable Master Samyŏng), in seven 

rolls. 

Bibliography 

An Kyehyŏn. “Chosŏn chŏn’gi ŭi sŭnggun” (The Monastic Militia 

in the Early Chosŏn Period). In Han’guk Pulgyo sasangsa 

yŏn’gu (Studies on the History of Korean Buddhist Thought). 

Seoul: Dongguk University Press, 1983. 

U Chŏngsang. “Chosŏn pulgyo ŭi hoguk sasang e taehayo” (On 

State Protection Buddhism in the Chosŏn Period). In Chosŏn 

chŏn’gi Pulgyo sasang yŏn’gu (Studies on Buddhist Thought in 

the Early Chosŏn Period), ed. U Chŏngsang. Seoul: Dongguk 


YUN’GANG 

SUNGTAEK CHO 

The Yun’gang CAVE SANCTUARIES are located sixteen 

kilometers west of Datong in Shanxi province in China. 

Begun around 460 C.E. as an attempt to atone the Buddhist 

PERSECUTION of 444, Yun’gang was associated 

with the imperial patronage of Buddhism of the Northern 

Wei dynasty, a nomadic empire that ruled China 

from 386 to 534. The colossal buddha images of caves 

16 to 20 are said to commemorate the founder rulers 

of the Northern Wei, while members of the imperial 

family built many cave chapels until 494, when the capital 

was moved from Datong to Luoyang in central 


921

Y UN’ GANG 

China. Thereafter local Buddhists continued to dedicate 

small chapels until about 520. Carved into the 

sandstone cliffs are niches that contain statues of buddhas 

such as Śakyamuni and MAITREYA, as well as carvings 

of other Buddhist motifs. Passageways behind 

large statues or the construction of central pillars allow 

for ritual circumambulation. In sculptural style 

and iconography, strong Indian and Central Asian influences 

commingled with local elements to create a 

unique Yun’gang idiom, characterized by a robust figural 

form and an archaic smile. This idiom gradually 

gave way to a more elongated sinicized style that was 

associated with the sinification policies of the Northern 

Wei. 

See also: China, Buddhist Art in; Monastic Architecture 

Bibliography 

Mizuno Seiichi, and Nagahiro Toshio. Unko sekkutsu (Yun’gang 

Cave-Temples), 16 vols. Kyoto: Kyoto daigaku jimbun kagaku 

kenkyu sho, 1951–1956. 

Su Bai. Zhongguo shikusi yanjiu (A Study of the History of Chinese 

Cave-Temples). Beijing: Wenwu Press, 1996. 

Yungang Cave-Temples Cultural Relics Institute. Yungang shiku 

(Yun’gang Cave-Temples), 2 vols. Beijing: Wenwu Press, 

1991. 

DOROTHY WONG 


Z 

ZANNING 

Zanning (Tonghui dashi, 919–1001) was a Buddhist 

scholar-official renowned for his knowledge of Buddhist 

history and institutions in China, although his 

knowledge extended beyond Buddhism to Confucian 

matters and details of Chinese history and culture. As 

an official and scholar, Zanning played a critical role 

in explaining and defining Buddhism for Song officials. 

Biographical records indicate that Zanning rose from 

humble beginnings and embarked on a monastic career 

at a young age, probably in 929 or 930. He received 

full ordination on Mount Tiantai while still in 

his teens and distinguished himself as a master of the 

VINAYA tradition. He became a leader of literary (wen) 

studies in his native Wuyue region (present-day Zhejiang 

province), and served in key government positions 

in Wuyue. Zanning also played a key role as the 

Wuyue representative in the return of the Wuyue region 

to Song control in 978. 

Zanning reportedly made a great initial impression 

on the Song emperor Taizong (r. 976–997), who 

awarded him a high rank, an honorific robe, and a title. 

Buddhist sources report that Zanning was appointed 

to the prestigious Hanlin Academy of academicians, an 

extremely rare honor for a Buddhist, but this cannot be 

confirmed in non-Buddhist accounts. Zanning was also 

a member of the Society of Nine Elders, an elite group 

of literati-officials at the Song court responsible for 

managing imperially sponsored editorial projects. 

Among the surviving Buddhist works compiled by Zanning, 

two are of great interest to contemporary scholars: 

the Song gaoseng zhuan (Song Biographies of Eminent 

Monks) and the Seng shilue (Historical Digest of the Buddhist 

Order). As an official at the Song court, Zanning 

became the leading Buddhist cleric of the Song empire, 

first through appointment as chief lecturer on Buddhist 

sutras and ultimately as Buddhist registrar of the right 

and left precincts of the capital, the leading position in 

the administration of Buddhist affairs. 

See also: Biographies of Eminent Monks (Gaoseng 

Zhuan); China 

Bibliography 

Dahlia, Albert. “The ‘Political’ Career of the Buddhist Historian 

Tsan-ning.” In Buddhist and Taoist Practice in Medieval Chinese 

Society, ed. David Chappell. Honolulu: University of 


Welter, Albert. “Zanning and Chan: The Changing Nature of 

Buddhism in Early Song China.” Journal of Chinese Religions 

23 (1995): 105–140. 

Welter, Albert. “A Buddhist Response to the Confucian Revival: 

Tsan-ning and the Debate Over Wen in the Early Sung.” In 

Buddhism in the Sung, ed. Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. 

Getz, Jr. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. 

ZEN. See Chan School 

ZEN, POPULAR CONCEPTIONS OF 

ALBERT WELTER 

Zen is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character 

chan, itself a truncated transliteration of the Sanskrit 

term DHYANA (TRANCE STATE). In contemporary 

Japan, three monastic traditions, the Rinzai, Soto, and 

O baku, now use the term to identify themselves as 

923

Z EN, POPULAR C ONCEPTIONS OF 

belonging to the common heritage of the CHAN 

SCHOOL, which they call Zen (zenshu ). The word Zen, 

however, has also become part of the secular lexicon. 

Often appearing in the form of “the Zen of x” or “Zen 

and the art of x,” the idea of Zen is pervasive in popular 

culture. In this context, Zen often denotes a 

sense of liberation, spontaneity, and oneness with the 

world that can be sought not only in highly technical 

forms of meditative practice but also in archery, 

gardening, tea ceremonies, and even the most mundane 

matters, such as motorcycle maintenance. No 

longer referring in a more technical sense to any specific 

Buddhist tradition in Asia, Zen is, as Alan Watts 

(1915–1973) puts it, “an ultimate standpoint from 

which ‘anything goes.’ ” 

This highly romanticized vision of Zen owes much 

to the writings of D. T. SUZUKI (1870–1966) and Beat 

generation authors, such as Watts, Gary Snyder 

(1930– ), Jack Kerouac (1922–1969), and Allen Ginsberg 

(1926–1997). In his now classic novel, The 

Dharma Bums, Kerouac, for instance, sings of a “rucksack 

revolution” led by young American “Zen lunatics” 

armed with nothing but poetry and “visions 

of eternal freedom.” Above all else, those who promoted 

this ideal of Zen as an alternative lifestyle 

vehemently opposed the rampant consumerism, materialism, 

and positivism of mid- to late-twentiethcentury 

America and bemoaned the growing sense of 

alienation from nature and spirituality. Beatniks, hippies, 

and countercultural intellectuals celebrated a 

new “Zen” spirituality that ostensibly relied less on 

rational thought and more on the immediate, “mystical” 

experience of being. 

Historians generally locate the origins of this particular 

understanding of Zen in a Buddhist reform 

movement that took place in Meiji (1868–1912) and 

post-Meiji Japan. Shortly after the emperor was restored 

to power in 1868, Buddhism came under heavy 

attack as a foreign, corrupt, and superstitious creed. As 

a result, numerous temples were abandoned and thousands 

of monks were returned to lay status under the 

slogan of haibutsu kishaku, “exterminate Buddhism 

and destroy Śakyamuni.” In response to this threat, 

Zen apologists sought to defend their faith by advocating 

what they called a New Buddhism (shin bukkyo ) 

that was thoroughly modern, nonsectarian, and socially 

engaged. In order to demonstrate their support 

of the colonial policies and military expansion of the 

newfound Japanese empire, adherents of New Buddhism 

went so far as to portray their new faith as consistent 

with bushido (the way of the warrior), which 

they defined as the essence of Japanese culture. 

A leading figure of this movement was the Rinzai 

priest Shaku Soen (1859–1919) who, in 1893, visited 

Chicago as a representative of Zen at the World Parliament 

of Religions. In his Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot, 

the first book on Zen to appear in English, Soen 

presented Buddhism as a rational and scientific religion 

well-suited to modern sensibilities. As in the case 

of all other so-called universal religions, Zen was no 

longer a strictly clerical concern but rather a spiritual 

insight accessible to all. Like his teacher Imagita 

Kosen (1816–1892) before him, Soen taught lay disciples 

at a zazen (seated meditation) society known as 

Ryomokyokai in Tokyo and at the monastery Engakuji 

in Kamakura, where he served as abbot. Among 

those who found themselves studying meditation under 

Soen at Engakuji was the young D. T. Suzuki. 

With the help of Paul Carus (1852–1919), a strong 

proponent of “religion of science,” Suzuki carried on 

Soen’s efforts to bring Zen into the modern world. 

Drawing upon the notion of “pure experience” (junsui 

keiken) from the writings of the American philosopher 

William James (1842–1910) and Nishida Kitaro 

(1870–1945), Suzuki moved beyond Carus’s and 

Soen’s interest in the unity of rationality and faith and 

began to emphasize instead the importance of a mystical 

experience that underlies all religious truth. As the 

unmediated, direct experience of being, or what he 

called “isness” (kono mama), Zen experience, according 

to Suzuki, was beyond dualism and intellectualization, 

and hence was superior to all other forms of 

religious experience. Furthermore, by identifying Zen 

experience with the uniqueness of Japanese culture 

Suzuki was able to firmly establish a nationalistic discourse 

couched in seemingly benign and universalistic 

religious terms. 

Hisamatsu Shin’ichi (1889–1980), a fellow Zen nationalist, 

similarly argued that the Japanese mind, unlike 

the discursive and logical mind of the West, was 

predisposed toward an “intuitive” mode of understanding 

and an innate love for nature and tranquility. 

Despite the lack of historical evidence to substantiate 

their claims, Suzuki and Hisamatsu described traditional 

Japanese art, most notably haiku poetry, stone 

gardens, and Noh drama, as quintessential expressions 

of Zen awakening (SATORI). For both Suzuki and Hisamatsu, 

Zen, and therefore Japanese culture, are unique 

in that they express the experience of awakening directly 

and immediately without having recourse to established 

conventions or discursive thought. 


Z HANRAN 

As cultural relativism and gnosticism displaced rationalism 

and Judeo-Christian values as the reigning 

ideology among twentieth-century intellectuals, many 

Americans and Europeans increasingly sought a viable 

alternative in Zen, oblivious of its nationalistic and 

racist overtones. The transcultural, unmediated status 

of Zen mysticism, for instance, offered dismayed 

Catholics like Kerouac an alternative to their own stifling 

tradition, yet paradoxically allowed them to remain 

loyal to their original faith. Similarly, large 

communities of lay practitioners who had little or no 

interest in monasticism flocked to Zen centers established 

by Yasutani Hakuun (1885–1973) and by his 

American disciples Philip Kapleau (1912– ) and 

Robert Aitken (1917– ), where the rapid attainment 

of kensho (seeing one’s true nature) and its certification 

known as inka were the only priority. This, however, 

stood in stark contrast to the disciplined lifestyle 

of a traditional Zen monk for whom such a certification 

bears more of an institutional than a personal significance. 

Zen, as we know it in the West, is thus 

significantly different from its more traditional counterpart; 

this difference, as we have seen, emerged from 

a cross-cultural dialogue that belongs exclusively neither 

to Japan nor to the West. 

See also: Critical Buddhism (Hihan Bukkyo); Engaged 

Buddhism; Meiji Buddhism Reform; Modernity and 

Buddhism; Nationalism and Buddhism 

Bibliography 




Fields, Rick. How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History 

of Buddhism in America, 3rd edition. Boston: Shambhala, 

1992. 

Hisamatsu, Shin’ichi. Zen and the Fine Arts, tr. Gishin Tokiwa. 

Tokyo: Kodansha, 1971. 

Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. New York: American Library, 

1959. 

Ketelaar, James Edward. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: 

Buddhism and Its Persecution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press, 1990. 

Sharf, Robert H. “Sanbokyodan: Zen and the Way of the New 

Religions.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22, nos. 3–4 

(1995): 417–458. 

Sharf, Robert H. “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism.” In Curators 

of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism, 

ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1995. 

Soyen, Shaku. Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot. Chicago: Open 

Court, 1906. 

Suzuki, Daisetz T. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton, NJ: 


ZHANRAN 

JUHN AHN 

Zhanran (Jingqi Zhanran and Miaole dashi, 711–782) 

is the ninth patriarch of the TIANTAI SCHOOL of Chinese 

Buddhism and the sixth patriarch following ZHIYI 

(538–597), the de facto architect of the tradition. Author 

of the first authoritative commentaries on the major 

works of Zhiyi, Zhanran revitalized and reformed 

Tiantai during the Tang dynasty (618–907). 

Zhanran trained for twenty years on Mount Zuoji 

in Zhejiang under Xuanlang (673–754), who became 

the eighth patriarch, and he remained active in the 

southeast both in his native Jiangsu and in the environs 

of Mount Tiantai in Zhejiang. Avoiding the northern 

political centers, Zhanran declined several imperial 

invitations, but made pilgrimage to Mount Wutai in 

Shanxi and instructed the Huayan adept CHENGGUAN 

(738–838/840) in Suzhou, returning to Mount Tiantai 

in 775 for the last time. The veracity of his travels in 

the north has been challenged in the late-twentieth century. 

Included among Zhanran’s disciples are the 

literati figures Li Hua (d.u.–ca. 774) and Liang Su 

(753–793), who wrote his memorial inscription. 

Zhanran’s most influential works are his Zhiguan 

fuxing zhuanhong jue (Decisions on Supporting Practice 

and Broadly Disseminating [the Teachings of the Great] 

Calming and Contemplation) and the Jin’gangbei (Diamond 

Scalpel). The first is a commentary on Zhiyi’s 

MOHE ZHIGUAN (Great Treatise on Calming and Contemplation), 

which for the first time identifies that 

practice-oriented text with the LOTUS SU TRA (SAD- 

DHARMAPUN D ARIKA-SU TRA) and connects it to Zhiyi’s 

two doctrinal commentaries on the Lotus to become 

the three quintessential texts of Tiantai. The Jin’gangbei 

is a polemical treatise on insentient TATHAGATA- 

GARBHA, an idea not articulated in early Tiantai. Since 

the last quarter of the twentieth century, scholars have 

also recognized that the famous Tiantai “five periods 

and eight teachings” (wushi bajiao) taxonomy attributed 

to Zhiyi, which elevates the Lotus as supreme 

among scriptures and emphasizes a transmission based 

on the received teaching, is not found in the writings 

of Zhiyi in the form relied upon by later Tiantai. Rather, 


925

Z HAO 

LUN 

it is a product of the times of Zhanran when issues of 

self-definition came to the fore. Zhanran’s interpretations 

of Tiantai, which debate with the Buddhism of 

the mid-eighth century (in particular, the Huayan and 

Chan schools), further catalyzed much of the Tiantai 

on-mountain/off-mountain (shanjia/shanwai) debates 

of the Song dynasty (960–1279). 


Bibliography 

Chen, Jinhua. Making and Remaking History: A Study of Tiantai 

Sectarian Historiography. Tokyo: International Institute for 

Buddhist Studies, 1999. 

Penkower, Linda. “Making and Remaking Tradition: Chanjan’s 

Strategies toward a T’ang T’ien-t’ai Agenda.” In Tendai 

daishi kenkyu , ed. Tendai Daishi Kenkyu Henshu I-inkai. 

Kyoto: Tendai Gakkai, 1997. 



Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000. 

ZHAO LUN 

LINDA PENKOWER 

Zhao lun (The Treatises of [Seng]zhao) is a collection 

of writings by Shi SENGZHAO (374–414), a primary disciple 

of KUMARAJIVA (344–409/413). Zhao lun contains 

the following documents, considered to be chapters by 

some scholars and independent treatises by others: 

“Wu buqian lun” (“A Treatise on the Immutability of 

Things”); “Wu buzhen kong lun” (“A Treatise on the 

Emptiness of the Unreal”); “Bojo wuzhi lun” (“A Treatise 

on Prajña as Distinguished from Ordinary Knowledge”); 

and “Niepan wuming lun” (“A Treatise on 

Nameless [Nature] of Nirvana”). 

The first document dwells, for the most part, on 

the mysteries of time. It exposes NAGARJUNA’s (ca. second 

century C.E.) view that the dharmas are essentially 

beyond definition and without definite nature. Since 

all phenomena are dharmas, but dharmas themselves 

cannot be created or destroyed—they are without beingness 

or nonbeingness—the category of time is 

meaningless. 

The second document illuminates Nagarjuna’s 

ideas about ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS) from a different perspective. 

In this treatise Sengzhao uses a renowned 

simile of a man created through magic. Since the person 

has been created through magic, he is not a real 

man, but within the frame of knowing that the man 

has been created through magic, such a man does exist. 

The simile explains how all phenomena are both 

existent and nonexistent at the same time. 

The third treatise seeks to delineate prajñaparamita 

(perfection of wisdom) as a different state of mind 

than knowledge. Knowledge is obtained through the 

investigation of things that are believed to be real. It 

is marked by a struggle to reconcile beginnings and 

ends, past and future, and so on. The equality of all 

things can only be seen through prajñaparamita, 

where the oppositions of existence and nonexistence, 

future and past, and sorrow and joy are no longer relevant. 

Similar ideas are presented in the fourth piece 

in which NIRVAN A is approached through the use of 

core Madhyamaka terminology and epistemological 

devices. Adapting the principle of the four negations 

used by Buddha Śakyamuni, Nagarjuna, and Kumarajva 

(nirvana is not a form of existence; nirvana 

is not a form of nonexistence; nirvana is not both existence 

and nonexistence; nirvana is not neither existence 

nor nonexistence), Sengzhao speaks about 

nirvana as being ultimately indefinable, that is, nameless. 

Along with this classical treatment of the subject, 

we find the beginnings of a new understanding of this 

important concept, in which nirvana is equated with 

the TATHAGATAGARBHA (rulaizang). 

See also: China; Prajñaparamita Literature 

Bibliography 



Liebenthal, Walter, trans. and ed. Chao lun: The Treatises of 

Seng-chao, a Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Appendices, 

2nd edition, vols. 1–2. Hong Kong: Hong Kong 


ZHILI 

TANYA STORCH 

Zhili (Siming Fazhi fashi, 960–1028) reestablished the 

TIANTAI SCHOOL during China’s Northern Song dynasty 

period by leading the Shanjia (orthodox) attack 

on the Shanwai (heterodox) interpretations of Tiantai 

doctrine and practice. Zhili stressed the uniqueness of 

Tiantai teaching as opposed to those of the HUAYAN 

SCHOOL and CHAN SCHOOL. He emphasized the doctrines 

of evil inherent in the buddha-nature, the con- 


Z HIYI 

templation of the deluded mind, the inherent entailment 

of all quiddities in each other, the existence of 

differentiated characteristics even in the absence of 

delusion, the simultaneous validity of both mind-only 

and matter-only doctrines, and “the ultimacy of the 

dung-beetle.” The last-named doctrine was rooted in 

his claim that enlightenment was a state that made 

more explicit all determinate realities, good and evil, 

and disclosed each sentient being’s identity not only 

with the Buddha, but with all other possible SENTIENT 

BEINGS in all their aspects, all of which were the ultimate 

reality. 

Zhili was instrumental in combining Tiantai doctrine 

with Pure Land practice, and much of his doctrinal 

work can be understood as an attempt to provide 

an adequate framework for understanding the necessity 

and legitimacy of Buddhist ritual practice in the 

face of certain interpretations of “sudden enlightenment” 

that might threaten it. In 1017 he made a vow 

to commit SELF-IMMOLATION after three years of practicing 

the Lotus Repentance with a group of junior 

monks. He vowed to be reborn in AMITA BHA’s Pure 

Land. After defending his intention to commit this arguably 

sinful act in a series of letters, in which Zhili 

makes the notorious claim that “there is no Buddha 

but the Devil, and no Devil but the Buddha,” he finally 

abandoned his plan, and was given a purple robe and 

the honorific name Fazhi (Dharma-wisdom) by the 

emperor. 

See also: Pure Land Buddhism 

Bibliography 

Chan, Chi-wah. “Chih-li (960–1028) and the Crisis of T’ien-t’ai 

Buddhism in the Early Sung.” In Buddhism in the Sung, ed. 



Ziporyn, Brook. “Anti-Chan Polemics in Post-Tang Tiantai.” 


17, no. 1 (1994): 26–63. 




ZHIYI 

BROOK ZIPORYN 

Zhiyi (Tiantai Zhizhe dashi) (538–597) was the nominal 

third patriarch of the Chinese TIANTAI SCHOOL, 

but he was, in fact, its eponymous founder. Zhiyi was 

born in Jingzhou (present-day Hubei), and became a 

monk at the age of eighteen, taking the full precepts 

two years later. At the age of twenty-three, he went to 

study with Nanyue Huisi (d. 577), under whom he 

practiced the Lotus Samadhi, during which he had a 

breakthrough experience. At thirty, he went to Jinling, 

capital of the Chen kingdom, and began to lecture 

extensively. 

Zhiyi taught for the rest of his life, his lectures transcribed 

by his disciples, most notably Guanding 

(561–632), who recorded the “three great works of 

Tiantai”: Fahua wenju (Commentary on the Lotus 

Su tra), Fahua xuanyi (Profound Meaning of the Lotus 

Su tra), and MOHE ZHIGUAN (Great Calming and Contemplation), 

the first based on lectures given in 587 and 

the latter two based on lectures given in 593 and 594. 

Zhiyi also composed several works by his own hand, 

most notably a commentary on the Vimalaklrtinirdeśa, 

written at the request of the Jin ruling house. 

Zhiyi’s teaching stresses the simultaneous and equal 

development of both doctrinal understanding and 

meditative practice. He devised an elaborate system of 

classification of Buddhist teachings, making a coherent 

whole of the mass of Buddhist scriptures translated into 

Chinese, in accordance with his development of the 

true meaning of UPAYA (skillful means) as expounded 

in the LOTUS SU TRA and NIRVAN A SU TRA. His teaching 

combined the Lotus notion of upaya and mutual entailment 

with Madhyamaka notions of ŚU NYATA 

(EMPTINESS) and conventional truth and the buddhanature 

concept from the Nirvana Su tra, by which Zhiyi 

devised the doctrine of the three truths—emptiness, 

provisional positing, and the mean—as a comprehensive 

template for understanding Buddhist teachings and 

practices. This doctrine holds that every element of experience 

is necessarily and simultaneously (1) determinate, 

(2) ambiguous, and (3) absolute, and that these 

three predicates are ultimately synonymous. This led to 

a distinctive understanding of the interpervasion of all 

dharmas as suggested in the HUAYAN JING, which in 

Zhiyi’s understanding led to the doctrine of “the three 

thousand quiddities inherently entailed as each moment 

of experience,” as well as the further doctrines of 

“the evil inherent in the Buddha-nature,” the nonobstruction 

of enlightenment between delusion, and 

the equal ultimacy of all possible doctrinal positions, as 

mediated by the Lotus doctrine of upaya. Zhiyi also 

rewrote the Indian mind-only doctrine so that it could 

be equally restated as a claim that all reality is matteronly, 

or alternately scent-only, taste-only, touch-only, 


927

Z HUHONG 

and so on. His ideas were influential in every aspect of 

later East Asian Buddhism; they were commented on 

and reinterpreted in every generation within the Tiantai 

school, and recast and responded to by the HUAYAN 

SCHOOL, which amended his classification scheme and 

reinterpreted the interpervasion of all dharmas in a new 

way. Zhiyi’s hermeneutical technique, in particular his 

metaphorical “mind-contemplation gloss” for reading 

the scriptures, was instrumental in the early development 

of the CHAN SCHOOL. 

Bibliography 













Ideas of a Chinese Buddhist Monk. Brussels: Institut Belges 

Des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1980. 

Ng Yu-kwan. T’ien-t’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika. Honolulu: 

University of Hawaii, 1993. 




Press, 1986. 

ZHUHONG 

BROOK ZIPORYN 

Zhuhong Fohui (1532–1612) is known as one of the 

“Four Eminent Monks of the Ming Dynasty,” who actively 

promoted the syncretistic fusion of Chan and 

Pure Land practices in China. Zhuhong’s adolescence 

was steeped in Confucian learning and he only took 

refuge in Buddhism during his middle age. 

Zhuhong’s moral reputation and diligent practice 

of the “samadhi of Buddha-name recitation” (nianfo 

sanmei) was said to have transformed a dilapidated 

monastary in Mount Yunqi of Hangzhou, where he 

temporarily took up residence in 1571 as an itinerant 

novice, into a famous cultivation center to which people 

flocked to receive his tutelage. 

Zhuhong associated widely with Confucian elites 

and, through his clout and eloquence, popularized 

what became prevailing modes of Buddhist pietistic activities 

in the late Ming. These included the institution 

of release grounds and protected reservoirs for animals 

and fish, observance of the Tantric ritual “relieving the 

sufferings of the hungry ghosts,” and the use of a genre 

of “morality book” called “ledger of merit and demerit” 

(gongguo ge) for recording personal offenses 

and meritorious deeds by assigning prescribed numerical 

values of “merits” and “demerits” to each 

recorded action. 

Zhuhong also started the practice of using Buddha 

statues as replacements for the living preceptors, whose 

presence was otherwise required by the VINAYA 

(monastic disciplinary codes) to transmit the full set 

of monastic precepts to novice monks. He did this to 

circumvent the political restrictions on the ordination 

of monks and nuns. 

His writings spanned many subject matters including 

Chan, Pure Land, Huayan, Yogacara, vinaya, and 

even non-Buddhist classics. They are preserved in the 

anthology Yunqi fahui (Collected Dharma [Works by 

Venerable] Yunqi). 

See also: Chan School; China; Pure Land Schools 

Bibliography 

Greenblatt, Kristin. “Chu-hung and Lay Buddhism in the Late 

Ming.” In The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism, ed. William 

de Bary and the Conference on Seventeenth-Century Chinese 

Thought. New York and London: Columbia University 

Press, 1975. 

Yü, Chun-fang. Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-Hung and 

the Late Ming Synthesis. New York: Columbia University 

Press, 1981. 

ZONGGAO 

WILLIAM CHU 

Dahui Zonggao (Miaoxi; posthumous name Pujue; 

1089–1163), a Chan master in the Yangqi branch of 

the Linji school in Song China (960–1279), played a 

pivotal role in the development of Chan gong’an 

(KO AN) practice. Zonggao was born in Xuancheng in 

Anhui Province in southeast China. He left home in 

1101 to join the monastic order, and in 1105 he received 

full ordination as a Buddhist monk. After seeking 

instructions from various Chan teachers, he 


Z ONGMI 

became a disciple of the Linji master Yuanwu Keqin 

(1063–1135), the author of the famous gong’an anthology, 

the Biyan lu (Blue Cliff Record). 

As one of the most influential Chan masters of his 

time, Zonggao had close associations with many powerful 

Confucian scholar-officials. His connection with 

the antipeace party led to his involvement in Song 

court factional strife, which resulted in his exile from 

1143 to 1156 to the remote Hunan and Guangdong 

provinces. After the exile, however, Zonggao regained 

his prominence. He was summoned by the emperor to 

the court, where he was presented with a purple robe 

and given the cognomen Dahui (Great Wisdom). He 

spent his last years at Mount Jing in Zhejiang and died 

in 1163. 

Dahui Zonggao is best known for his contribution 

to the evolution of Chan gong’an meditation. He advocated 

the use of huatou, the critical phrase of a 

gong’an, as a meditative object, and he emphasized the 

peculiar role of DOUBT in his teaching of huatou investigation. 

He believed that the practice of huatou was 

not only the most effective means to enlightenment 

but also a Chan practice that laypeople could easily 

adopt in the midst of their mundane activities. It was 

under Daihui Zonggao that gong’an Chan came to be 

known as kanhua Chan (Chan of investigating the 

[critical] phrase). 

The chronology of Dahui Zonggao’s life was 

recorded in detail by one of his disciples and attached 

to the Dahui Pujue chanshi yulu (Discourse Record of 

the Chan Master Dahui Pujue). Other works attributed 

to Dahui Zonggao include Zongmen wuku (Arsenal of 

the Chan School) and Zhengfayan zang (Treasury of the 

True Dharma Eye). 


Bibliography 

Buswell, Robert E., Jr. “The ‘Short-cut’ Approach of K’an-hua 





Cleary, Christopher, trans. Swampland Flowers: Letters and Lectures 

of Zen Master Ta Hui. New York: Grove Press, 1977. 

Levering, Miriam L. “Ch’an Enlightenment for Laymen: Ta-hui 

and the New Religious Culture of the Sung.” Ph.D. diss. Harvard 



ZONGMI 

Guifeng Zongmi (780–841) is a unique figure in the 

CHAN SCHOOL, who sought to bridge Chan and the 

canonical teachings (jiao) of Buddhism. His early education 

at home and at a Confucian academy gave him 

a background in the classical canon unknown to the 

typical Tang-dynasty Chan master. He trained under 

a master in the Shenhui lineage of Chan and practiced 

intense Chan sitting in remote settings for a decade, 

yet he also studied canonical exegesis for two years under 

the exceedingly erudite HUAYAN SCHOOL scholar 

CHENGGUAN (738–840). 

Zongmi collected Chan texts into an enormous 

Chanzang (Chan Pitaka), which has since been lost. 

His two most important extant works are his introduction 

to the Chan Pitaka, titled Chanyuan zhuquanji 

duxu (Prolegomenon to the Collection of Experience of 

the Chan Source), and a short treatise titled Pei Xiu shiyi 

wen (Imperial Redactor Pei Xiu’s Inquiry [on Chan]). 

Originality, creativity, and lack of bias are the hallmarks 

of these two works. The former propounds the 

identity of the canonical teachings and Chan, and 

champions all-at-once awakening and step-by-step 

practice; the latter provides a synopsis of the histories, 

teachings, and practices of the Chan houses of the day. 

The Chan Prolegomenon postulates three “theses” 

(zong) of Chan: Mind-Only Chan; Voidness Chan; and 

Dharma Nature Chan, which are expressions, geared 

to Chinese propensities and preferences, of the corresponding 

three types of Indian sutras and treatises. 

Zongmi’s influence on later Chan was exceptionally 

strong in Korea, where the Chan tradition is known as 

Sŏn. Korean Sŏn’s absorption of all the traditions of 

Buddhism coincides with Zongmi’s orientation. 

CHINUL (1158–1210), one of the greatest figures of the 

Sŏn tradition, was a transmitter of Zongmi’s stance; 

his magnum opus is based on Pei’s Inquiry. 


Bibliography 



Kamata Shigeo, ed. Zengen shosenshu tojo, tr. Kamata Shigeo. 

Zen no goroku 9. Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1971. 



929


APPENDIX 

TIMELINES OF BUDDHIST HISTORY 

India 


China 

Japan and Korea 

Tibet and the Himalayas 

931


INDIA 

ca. 566–486 or 488–368 B.C.E. 

ca. 386 or 268 B.C.E. 

ca. 268–232 B.C.E. 

ca. 100 B.C.E. 

ca. 100 C.E. 

ca. 200 

Possible dates of the Buddha’s life. When the Buddha 

may have lived is a matter of scholarly debate; these 

time frames represent only two of many suggestions. 

Traditional dates—one hundred years after the Buddha’s 

death—on which the first Buddhist Council is 

said to have been held at Vaiśall , resulting in the first 

schism of the SAṄGHA or monastic community. 

Reign of King AŚOKA of India, who converted to 

Buddhism and became an important patron of the 

religion. Aśoka is said to have sent out missionaries 

to various lands after holding a Buddhist Council at 

Pataliputra. 

 

Great stupa at SA NCI built. 

LOTUS SUTRA (SADDHARMAPUN DARIKA-SU TRA) and other 

influential Mahayana texts composed. 

Philosopher and scholar NA GA RJUNA writes about 

ŚU NYATA (EMPTINESS), establishing the MADHYAMAKA 

SCHOOL (the Middle Way). 

ca. 320 Indian scholar and monk ASAṄGA (ca. 320–390) 

born. He becomes the founder of the YOGA CA RA 

SCHOOL of Buddhism. 

ca. 320–550 

ca. 500 

ca. 673 

Gupta Empire, during which Buddhism flourishes 

throughout the subcontinent. 

Buddhist monastic university founded at Nalanda. 

Chinese pilgrim YIJING (635–713) arrives in India. 

1197 Destruction of the great monastic universities of 

Nalanda and Vikramaśl la, signaling the decline of 

Buddhism as a religious institution in India. 

933

I NDIA 

1891 ANAGA RIKA DHARMAPA LA (1864–1933) founds the 

Maha Bodhi Society to restore the famous site of the 

Buddha’s enlightenment. 

1956 B. R. AMBEDKAR (1891–1956) renounces Hinduism 

and converts to Buddhism. 


SOUTHEAST ASIA 

247 B.C.E. King AŚOKA of India (r. 268–232 B.C.E.) putatively 

sends his son, Mahinda, to SRI LANKA to introduce 

Buddhism to the island. King Devanam piya Tissa of 

Sri Lanka converts to Buddhism. 

240 B.C.E. Mahinda establishes the Mahavihara (Great 

Monastery) in Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. Mahinda’s 

sister, Saṅghamitta, establishes the order of NUNS. 

25 B.C.E. Famine and schisms in Sri Lanka emphasize the need 

for the Buddhist CANON to be committed to writing. 

King Vattagamini oversees the recording of the Pali 

canon on palm leaves. 

ca. 100 C.E. 

ca. 200 

ca. 425 

ca. 500 

Monks from Sri Lanka first transmit THERAVA DA Buddhism 

to Burma (MYANMAR) and THAILAND. 

Chinese Buddhist missionaries travel to VIETNAM, 

establishing MAHA YA NA and non-Mahayana schools. 

Buddhist scholar BUDDHAGHOSA collects Sinhalese 

COMMENTARIAL LITERATURE and oversees translation of 

this work into Pali. With this translation, Sinhalese 

scholarship reaches the entire Theravada world. 

Indian Mahayana monks establish Buddhist communities 

throughout Indonesia on the islands of Java, 

Sumatra, and Borneo. 

1057 King Anawartha of Pagan in Burma (Myanmar) 

conquers neighboring Thaton. Buddhist literature and 

arts flourish. 

ca. 1153–1186 

Reign of Sri Lankan king Parakramabahu I. His rule 

reconstitutes the Buddhist SAṄGHA exclusively as a 

Theravada order. Buddhist architecture and literature 

flourishes throughout the Polonnaruva era. 

1181 King Jayavarman VII begins his reign in CAMBODIA. 

Under his orders the BAYON at Angkor is built. 

935

S OUTHEAST 

A SIA 

1236 MONKS from Kañcipuram, INDIA, revive the Theravada 

monastic line in Sri Lanka. 

1279 Last extant inscriptions of any Theravada nunnery in 

Burma (Myanmar). 

1287 Pagan in Burma (Myanmar) looted by Mongol invaders; 

decline of Pagan monuments begins. 

ca. 1300 

ca. 1500 

A Sri Lankan tradition of WILDERNESS MONKS arrives in 

Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. Theravada Buddhism 

spreads to Laos. Thai Theravada monasteries appear 

in Cambodia shortly before the Thais win their independence 

from the Khmers of Cambodia. 

In Cambodia, Visnuite Temple at Angkor Wat 

(founded in the twelfth century as a site of Hindu 

worship) becomes a Buddhist center. 

1753 King Kl rti Śrl Rajasim ha reinstates Buddhism in Sri 

Lanka by inviting monks from the Thai court. 

1777 King Rama I founds the current dynasty in Thailand. 

1803 Sri Lankans ordained in the Burmese city of Amarapura 

found the Amarapura Nikaya in Sri Lanka. 

1829 Thailand’s Prince Mongkut (later King Rama IV) 

founds the Thammayut sect. 

ca. 1862 

Wilderness monks travel from Sri Lanka to Burma 

(Myanmar) for reordination, returning to establish the 

Ramañña Nikaya. 

1871 Fifth Theravada Council is held at Rangoon in Burma. 

1873 Mohottivatte Gunananda defeats Christian missionaries 

in a public debate, sparking a nationwide revival 

of pride in Sri Lankan Buddhist traditions. 

1879 Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, founders of 

the Theosophical Society, arrive in Sri Lanka from 

America and assist in a revival of Buddhism. 

ca. 1900 

Two wilderness monks, A c∧han Sao Kantasl lo and 

A c∧han Man Bhuridatto, revive the forest monk traditions 

in Thailand. 

1956 The Sri Lanka Freedom Party wins a pivotal election in 

a landslide by promising that Sinhalese would become 

the national language and Buddhism the state religion. 

1967 THICH NHAT HANH (1926– ) is nominated for the 

Nobel Peace Prize, an acknowledgement of his antiwar 

work in Vietnam. Hanh coined the term ENGAGED 

BUDDHISM to describe practices that emphasize social 

service and nonviolent activism. 

1970s 

Refugees from war in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos 

settle in North America, Australia, and Europe, where 

they establish Buddhist communities. 


CHINA 

67 C.E. Two Indian Buddhist missionaries are reputed to arrive 

at the court of Emperor Ming (r. 58–75 C.E.) of 

the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), where they 

translate the first Buddhist sutras into Chinese. 

148 The Parthian AN SHIGAO arrives in the Chinese capital 

of Luoyang; he translates forty-one scriptures of 

MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS into Chinese. 

366 Construction of Buddhist cave shrines at DUNHUANG 

begins. 

399 Chinese scholar–pilgrim FAXIAN (ca. 337–ca. 418) 

departs for INDIA in search of Buddhist teachings. 

401 KUMA RAJIVA (350–409/413), a Buddhist master 

from Kucha, arrives in the Chinese capital of 

Chang’an. He introduces numerous MAHA YA NA texts 

to CHINA. 

402 HUIYUAN (334–416) assembles a group of monks 

and laymen before an image of the Buddha 

AMITA BHA on Mount Lu and vows to be born in the 

Western Paradise of Sukhavatl , starting the PURE 

LAND SCHOOLS of Buddhism. 

460 The Northern Wei (386–534) begins to construct 

Buddhist cave sanctuaries at YUN’GANG and 

LONGMEN. 

ca. 520 

ca. 585 

BODHIDHARMA, putative founder of the CHAN SCHOOL, 

is reputed to arrive in China from India. 

ZHIYI (538–597) systematizes the TIANTAI SCHOOL of 

Chinese Buddhism, providing a distinctively Chinese 

conception of the Buddhist PATH in such texts as the 

MOHE ZHIGUAN (Great Calmness and Contemplation). 

601 The Sui (581–618) court distributes the Buddha’s 

relics throughout the country and begins a wave of 

pagoda construction. 

937

C HINA 

645 XUANZANG (ca. 600–664) returns from his journey to 

India with twenty horse-loads of Buddhist texts, images, 

and relics and begins epic translation project. 

699 FAZANG (643–712) lectures at the Wu Zetian court 

on the newly translated HUAYAN JING, signaling the 

prominence of the HUAYAN SCHOOL. 

720 The arrival of Indian masters Vajrabodhi and 

Amoghavajra in the capital cities of China leads to a 

surge in popularity of the MIJIAO (ESOTERIC) SCHOOL. 

745 Shenhui (684–758) arrives in the Eastern Capital and 

propagates the sudden-enlightenment teachings of 

HUINENG (638–713), the putative sixth patriarch of 

the CHAN SCHOOL. 

845 Emperor Wuzong (r. 841–847) initiates the Huichang 

suppression of Buddhism, one of the worst PERSECU- 

TIONS in Chinese Buddhist history. 

972 The Song dynasty initiates a national project to prepare 

a woodblock printing of the entire Buddhist 

canon (completed 983). 

ca. 1150 

ZONGGAO (1089–1163) formalizes the KO AN system 

of Chan MEDITATION. 

1270 The Mongol Yuan dynasty (1234–1368) supports 

Tibetan Buddhist traditions in China. 

ca. 1600 

ZHUHONG (1532–1612) seeks to unify Chan and 

Pure Land strands of Chinese Buddhism. 

1759 A compendium of Buddhist incantations in Chinese, 

Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan is compiled during 

the Qianlong reign (1736–1795) of the Manchu 

Qing dynasty (1644–1911). 

1929 TAIXU (1890–1947) leads the Chinese Buddhist 

Association as part of his reform of Chinese Buddhist 

institutions. 

1949 The communist victory in China forces many Buddhist 

MONKS, such as YINSHUN (1906– ), to flee to TAIWAN. 

1965 The Cultural Revolution is initiated by communist 

leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976), leading to widespread 

destruction of Buddhist sites in China. 


JAPAN AND KOREA 

372 C.E. Buddhism is officially introduced to KOREA with the 

arrival of Chinese envoy and monk Sundo at the 

Koguryŏ court. 

ca. 538 or 552 

Buddhism is first introduced from the Korean peninsula 

to the rulers of JAPAN. 

594 Prince SHO TOKU (574–622), a major patron of 

Buddhism and national cultural hero, becomes regent 

in Japan. 

ca. 670 

WŎNHYO (617–686), a prolific and influential 

Korean commentator, seeks to reconcile doctrinal 

positions of different Buddhist texts. 

668 The Silla kingdom (ca. 57 B.C.E.–936 C.E.), defeating 

Paekche (663) and Koguryŏ (668), unifies the Korean 

peninsula; Silla dynasty supports Buddhism as the 

state religion. 

710 The Japanese capital of Nara is established with 

seven major Buddhist monasteries; the court later 

sponsors six official schools of NARA BUDDHISM. 

822 SAICHO (767–822) establishes the Tendai school (the 

Japanese TIANTAI SCHOOL). 

ca. 823 

The Japanese monk KUKAI (774–835) establishes 

SHINGON BUDDHISM. 

828 The first mountain site in the NINE MOUNTAINS 

SCHOOL OF SŎN (the Korean CHAN SCHOOL) is 

founded; eight other sites are established over the 

next century. 

918 Buddhism flourishes in Korea under the state patronage 

of the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392). 

939

J APAN AND K OREA 

1010 The Korean king Hyŏnjong (r. 1009–1031) orders 

the carving of woodblocks for a complete Buddhist 

CANON. This monumental undertaking is finished in 

1087, but the woodblocks are destroyed by the 

Mongols in 1232. 

1090 The Korean monk–prince ŬICH’ŎN (1055–1101) 

publishes a catalogue of 1,010 indigenous East 

Asian Buddhist works; woodblocks of these works 

are carved as a supplement to the first Koryŏ Buddhist 

canon, but these are burned by the Mongols 

in 1232. 

1175 HO NEN (1133–1212) founds Jodoshu, an independent 

sect of Japanese PURE LAND BUDDHISM. 

1200 CHINUL (1158–1210) revives Sŏn (Korean Chan 

school) and seeks to reconcile the doctrinal and 

meditative strands of Korean Buddhism. 

1202 Eisai (1141–1215), with support of the Kamakura 

government, establishes the new Rinzai Zen sect (of 

the Japanese Chan school). 

1233 DO GEN (1200–1253) founds the Soto Zen sect. 

1236 The Korean court orders the preparation of a second 

set of woodblocks for printing the Buddhist canon; 

this set of more than 80,000 woodblocks is completed 

in 1251 and is now stored at Haeinsa. 

1253 NICHIREN (1222–1282), founder of NICHIREN SCHOOL 

of Japanese Buddhism, begins teaching. 

1392 The Korean dynasty of Chosŏn (1392–1910) is 

founded; the new kingdom adopts neo-Confucianism 

as the state ideology, leading to some five centuries 

of persecution of Buddhism in Korea. 

ca. 1570 Japanese general Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) 

undertakes a military campaign to destroy Buddhism 

in Japan, eventually defeating Pure Land and 

Nichiren strongholds and burning Tendai head 

monasteries on Mount Hiei. 

1592 Korea is invaded by Japanese general Hideyoshi 

Toyotomi (1536–1598), leading to widespread destruction 

of Buddhist sites; Korean monks HYUJŎNG 

(1520–1604) and YUJŎNG (1544–1610) establish a 

monk’s militia, which played a major role in defeating 

the Japanese. 

1868 The new Meiji government in Japan orders separation 

of Buddhism from Shinto, creating Shinto as an independent 

“ancient” state cult and suppressing Buddhism; 

the regime reduces the status of Buddhist 

clergy to that of ordinary “imperial subjects,” and requires 

clergy to assume Japanese family names, attend 

compulsory education, eat meat, and marry. 


J APAN AND K OREA 

1910 Japan colonizes Korea; the Japanese governmentgeneral 

eventually institutes Meiji-style reforms of the 

Buddhist order in Korea. 

1955 After the Japanese defeat in World War II and the 

end of the Korean War, Korean monks launch a 

purification movement to remove all vestiges of 

Japanese colonial influence on Korean Buddhism 

and to restore celibacy and vegetarianism within the 

SAṄGHA. 

1964 SO KA GAKKAI sponsors foundation of the Komeito 

(Clean Government) political party in Japan. 


941


TIBET AND THE HIMALAYAS 

641 C.E. King Srong btsan sgam po unifies TIBET and marries 

Chinese princess Wencheng, who putatively brings to 

Tibet an image of Śakyamuni Buddha, later enshrined 

at the JO KHANG. 

775 King Khri srong lde btsan (r. 755–797) of Tibet 

invites yogin PADMASAMBHAVA to Tibet, and construction 

of BSAM YAS (SAMYE) Monastery begins. 

ca. 797 

Supporters of Indian Buddhism putatively prevail in 

debate with Chinese Buddhists (the BSAM YAS DEBATE), 

establishing an Indian Buddhist basis for Tibetan 


840 King Dar ma ‘U dum btsan (also known as Glang 

dar ma; r. 838–842) persecutes Tibetan Buddhists. 

A period of conflict and decline of Buddhist institutions 

begins. 

1039 Tibetan translator MAR PA (MARPA) 

(1002/1012–1097), founder of the BKA’ BRGYUD 

(KAGYU) school, travels to India and studies under 

NA ROPA (1016–1100). 

1042 Indian scholar ATISHA (982–1054) arrives in Tibet. 

1073 SA SKYA (SAKYA) Monastery established in Tibet. 

ca. 1200 

Buddhist MONKS flee INDIA in the wake of the 

destruction of such Buddhist centers as Nalanda, 

bringing their traditions to NEPAL and Tibet. 

1247 SA SKYA PAN DITA (SAKYA PAN DITA) (1182–1251) 

submits to Gödan Khan, beginning the first 

priest/patron relationship between a Tibetan LAMA 

and a Mongol Khan. 

1357 TSONG KHA PA (1357–1419) is born. He becomes 

an important Tibetan reformer and founder of DGE 

LUGS (GELUK; Yellow Hat) order. 

943

T IBET AND THE H IMALAYAS 

1642 Gushri Khan enthrones the fifth DALAI LAMA as 

temporal ruler of Tibet. 

1904 British troops enter Tibet and occupy Lhasa. 

1912 Thub bstan rgya mtsho (Thubten Gyatso; 

1876–1933), the thirteenth Dalai Lama, proclaims 

Tibet a “religious and independent nation.” 

1940 The five-year-old Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho (Tenzin 

Gyatso) is enthroned as the fourteenth Dalai Lama. 

1950 Chinese Communist troops invade Tibet. 

1959 The Dalai Lama flees to India; thousands of Tibetans 

die in anti-Chinese revolt. 

1989 The Dalai Lama receives the Nobel Peace Prize. 

1995 The Dalai Lama recognizes six-year-old Dge ’dun 

chos kyi nyi ma (Gedhun Choekyi Nyima) as the 

eleventh PANCHEN LAMA. China denounces the choice, 

in favor of Rgyal mtshan nor bu (Gyaltsen Norbu). 

2000 The seventeenth KARMA PA, O rgyan ’phrin las rdo rje 

(Orgyan Trinle Dorje), flees Tibet to join the Dalai 

Lama in exile at Dharamsala, India. 


INDEX 

Page numbers in boldface point to the main text entry for each subject; 

page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. 

A 

Abadai Khan, 562–563 

abbots, Chan, 129, 133, 136, 559 

portraits, 662 

Abhayadatta, Caturaśltisiddhapravrtti, 491 

Abhayagiri, 801, 807 

Abhayagirivasins, 506, 795 

Abhayagirivihara, 644 

Abhidhammapitaka, 223, 627 

Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha (Anuruddha), 

3, 670 

Abhidhammavatara (Buddhadatta), 3, 

223 

abhidharma, 1–7, 10, 75, 113, 183–187, 

203, 299–300, 495, 505, 523, 649, 

681, 746, 756, 914–915 

Abhidharmadlpa (Dlpakara), 4 

Abhidharmahrdaya (Gandhara), 7, 220 

Abhidharmahrdayaśastra 

(Dharmaśresthin), 4 

Abhidharmahrdayaśastra (Upaśanta), 4 

Abhidharmakośabhasya (Vasubandhu), 4, 

7–8, 21, 204, 220, 377–378, 

416–417, 424, 602–603, 670, 748, 

878, 914–915 

Abhidharmapitaka, 220 

Abhidharmasamayapradlpika 

(Saṅghabhadra), 4 

Abhidharmasamuccaya (Asaṅga), 32, 914, 

916 

abhidharma texts, 2–4 

Abhidharmavatara (Skandhila), 220 

abhijña (higher knowledge), 8–9, 29, 51 

abhipraya, 320 

abhiseka, 178, 375 

abortion, 9–10 

in Japan, 533, 544 

abortion rate, in Buddhist countries, 9 

abstract analysis, in abhidharma, 5 

abundance, iconography of, 361–362 

accumulation, 243–245, 872–873 

A c∧han Man Bhuridatto, 832, 898 

A c∧han Sao Kantasllo, 832, 898 

acquired enlightenment (shijue, shikaku), 

619–620, 770 

action, concept of. See karma (action) 

activism. See engaged Buddhism 

actualizing enlightenment, 905 

adana, 681 

adhikarana-śamatha, 667 

adhimukti, 277–278 

A di-buddha, 87 

administrators, monks as, 566–567 

Adzhina-tepe, 120 

Afghanistan, 41, 366–368, 454, 640–642 

cave sanctuaries, 117–118 

manuscript caches, 120 

Afghanistan, Buddhist art in, 150 

afterlife, 20 

in apocrypha, 27 

in Chinese folk religion, 290 

in Japanese folk religion, 292 

agama collections, Sanskrit, 746, 756 

agama/nikaya, 10–12, 112, 218, 354–356, 

358, 616, 668, 741–742, 744, 914. See 

also mainstream Buddhist schools 

A gamaśastra (Gaudapada), 331 

Aggañña-sutta, 269–271, 302 

Aggavamsa 

Saddanlti, 628 

Agni, 121 

Agrawala, V. S., 425 

agriculture, 243–244 

ahim sa (nonviolence), 893–894 

Aihole, 369 

Airtam, 120 

Aitken, Robert, 248, 868, 925 

Ajanta, 12–13, 117, 118, 360, 361, 365, 

402, 550, 789, 806 

Ajataśatru, King, 84, 86, 233, 238, 424 

A jlvikism, 415–416 

A jñatakaundinya, 232 

Akamatsu Renjo, 531 

Akhbar al-Sln wa-l-Hind, 381 

Aksobhya, 13, 73–74, 497, 698 

images, 260, 326 

Aksobhyavyuha, 73–74, 698 

Alagiyavanna Mohottala 

Dahamson∧da kavya, 778 

Kusa Jataka, 778 

Subhasita, 778 

Alahena, 796 

A lavaka-sutta , 911 

alayavijñana, 13, 20, 38–39, 176, 224, 

683, 919 

Al-Biruni, 642 

Alchi, 13–14, 322, 323, 324, 325 

Alexander the Great, 364, 366 

Altan Khan, 193, 562 

Aluvihare, 777 

Amarapura, 579, 797 

Amaravatl, 363, 369, 550, 805–806 

Amaravatl style, 800–801 

Amarbayasgalant khiid, 563, 565 

Amaterasu, 274 

Amavatura (Gurueugomi), 778, 796 

945

I NDEX 

VOLUME 1, PP. 1–478: VOLUME 2, PP. 479–929 

Ambedkar, B. R., 14, 248–249, 359, 448, 

661 

American Oriental Society, 864 

Amitabha, 14–15, 59, 73, 79, 808. See also 

nenbutsu; Pure Land art; Pure Land 


cult of, 497, 526–528, 766 

images, 74, 124, 260, 394, 437, 438, 493, 

650–651, 705 

in Pure Land Buddhism, 412–413, 704 

“Amitabha Crossing the Mountains,” 697 

Amitabha Sutra, 707, 882 

“Amitabha with Fifty Bodhisattvas,” 694 

Amituo, 167 

Amoghasiddhi, 260 

Amoghavajra, 511, 534, 721, 824 

A mrapall, 84 

amulets and talismans, 15–16, 181, 227, 

255, 292, 534, 634, 734, 757, 840, 842 

anagamins, 233, 723, 740 

Anagarika Dharmapala, 16, 50, 165, 266, 

359, 448, 585, 798, 865 

Anagatavam sa, 877 

A nanda, 16–17, 84, 112, 188, 206, 232, 

238, 513 

Ananda Coomaraswamy, 802–803 

A nandakutl, 591 

Ananda Temple, Pagan, 17, 402, 

786–787, 787 

Anathapindada, 18, 232 

anatman (no-self), 5–6, 18–19, 23, 239, 

262, 296, 416, 665. See also body, 

perspectives on the 

and death, 203 

Pudgalavada and, 504 

and rebirth, 712 

in Śramana movement, 329 

and śunyata, 809 

and vipassana, 889 

anatomy. See body, perspectives on the 

Anavataptagatha, 300 

Anawrahta, King, 460, 575 

ancestors, 20–23, 22, 292 

ancestor veneration, 20, 281, 289, 308, 

461–462, 464, 468, 532. See also 

ghosts and spirits 

Andhra Pradesh, India, 369–370 

Ang Duong, King, 108 

Angkor, 785. See Cambodia 

Angkor Thom, 260, 783, 784, 789 

Angkor Wat, 106, 107, 109, 787, 789 

Aṅgulimala Prison Ministry, Britain, 249 

Anguosi, 253, 535 

Aṅguttaranikaya, 75, 627, 669 

Anige, 153 

animal sacrifice, 641, 724 

animism, 105, 430, 467–468, 767 

Aniruddha, King, 838 

anitya (impermanence), 6, 18, 23, 203, 

239, 397–398, 505, 648, 889 

aniyatadharma, 667 

añjali, 265 

ankokuji, 678 

Ankokuji Temple, 351 

Anle ji (Daochuo), 707 

Añña-Kondoñña (arhat), 29 

Annen, 273, 475 

An Shigao, 24, 146, 454, 776 

antarabhava, 204 

anthropology, 261–262, 466 

and Buddhist studies, 99–100 

studies of ethics, 261–263 

anti-art, Chan school and, 129 

antinomianism, 618–620 

Anuradhapura, 188, 795–796, 800–802, 

807 

Anuruddha, Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, 3, 

670 

anuśaya, 682 

anusmrti, 93 

anuttara, 87 

anuttarasamyaksam bodhi (complete, 

perfect awakening), 24, 51, 58, 

919–920 

Anuttarayoga Tantras, 305 

Aoki Bunkyo, 98 

Apadana, 36 

apocrypha, 24–28, 38–39, 47, 143, 198, 

281–282, 538, 720–721, 730, 744, 

756. See also catalogues of 

scriptures; titles of texts 

Arabic translations, 380 

A rada Kalama, 83 

arama, 84 

archaeology. See also names of sites 


and reliquary deposits, 719–720 

architecture. See also monastic architecture 

of Borobudur, 68 

of stupa, 803–804, 809 

Arhaṅ Janakabhivam sa 

Kuiy kyaṅ abhidamma, 102 

arhat(s), 28–29, 65, 87, 188, 261, 290, 

301, 487, 572, 636, 723, 740, 749, 

761, 769, 890. See also buddha(s); 

disciples of the Buddha 

female, 303, 489, 607 

arhat images, 30–31, 181 

arhatship, 8, 636 

Ari monks, 575 

“aristocratic Buddhism,” 388 

Ariyaratne, A. T., 798 

Arnold, Edwin, 864 

art, Buddhist. See cave sanctuaries; 

painting; sculpture; names of countries 

arthakriya, 225 

art historians, and Buddhist studies, 100 

A ryadeva, 31, 480–481, 581 

Catuhśataka, 31, 480–481 

Arya Maitreya Mandala order, 268 

aryas, 740 

A ryaśura, 32 

Jatakamala, 32, 401–402, 748 

Paramitasamasa, 748 

Asaṅga, 32, 59–60, 227, 456, 496, 649, 

683, 738, 878, 914–915 

Abhidharmasamuccaya, 32, 916 

Mahayanasam graha, 915–916 

Yogacarabhumi, 914–916 

ascetic practices, 32–33, 117, 214, 313, 

671, 675, 701, 718, 741, 887 

and accumulation, 244–245 

Buddha and, 45, 83, 90 

and diet, 228–229 

Jains and, 383, 416 

and Mahayana, 494–495 

monks and, 565–566 

self-immolation, 758–759 

Shugendo and, 772–774 

Ashikaga Tadayoshi, 678 

Ashikaga Takauji, 678 

Asian Americans, 865, 868–869 

Aśoka, King, 34, 71, 80, 82, 97, 120, 188, 

366–367, 502–503, 542, 870. See also 

inscriptions 

as ideal of kingship, 262, 424–425, 657 

and relics cult, 49, 83, 205, 355, 641, 

651, 717, 803, 906 

Aśokavadana, 717 

aśraya (basis), 683 

assimilation, of esoteric imagery, 256 

Astagrantha, 220 

Astasahasrikaprajñaparamita-sutra, 492, 

717, 746 

Asukadera, 554 

asuras, 184, 233, 467 

Aśvaghosa, 35, 38, 188 

Buddhacarita, 75, 86, 88, 512, 656, 748 

Śariputraprakarana, 251 

Saundarananda, 656 

Aśvajit, 232 

Atharva Veda, 204 

Atisha, 35–36, 288, 371, 588, 853, 861 

Bodhipathapradlpa, 484, 853 


I NDEX 


Byang chub sgron me, 36 

Atiyoga (Rdzogs chen), 730 

atman (self), 18–19, 63, 680–681, 692–693. 

See also body, perspectives on the 

Atthakatha, 37, 627 

Atthakavagga, 601 

attributes, 403 

of bodhisattvas, 61–62, 570–572 

of buddhas, 569–570 

Atu-ma-shi Monastery, 580 

Aum Shinrikyo, 385, 449 

Aung San Suu Kyi, 163, 165, 248, 893 

Auraṅgabad, 117, 365, 511 

Austria, Buddhism in, 268 

authenticity, scriptural, 453, 755–756. See 

apocrypha 

authority, scriptural, 25, 94, 111, 321, 

451–452, 755–756. See also panjiao 

autocremation, 758–759 

Ava, 579 

avadana, 36–37, 36–37, 38, 299–300, 495, 

593 

Avadanakalpalata (Ksemendra), 748 

Avadanaśataka, 36–37, 38, 747 

Avalokiteśvara, 474, 498, 570, 613–614, 

772, 853. See also Guanyin 

and Amitabha, 15, 74 

cult of, 234, 420, 593 

and Dalai Lama, 59, 193, 417 

as Guanyin, 290–292, 314–315, 571, 899 

images, 42, 61–62, 62, 106, 149, 

151–152, 253–254, 322–323, 323, 

372, 393, 403, 437, 783–784, 784 

Avatam saka-sutra, 59. See also Huayan jing 

avidya (ignorance), 219, 665 

avijñapti (unmanifest processes), 681–682 

avijñaptirupa, 221 

Avukana, 801 

awakening. See bodhi (awakening); 

bodhicitta (thought of awakening) 

Awakening of Faith (Dasheng qixin lun), 

26–27, 35, 38–39, 52, 167, 269, 432, 

619, 631, 827, 904–905 

awareness (zhi), and Tiantai school, 849 

axis mundi, 362 

ayatana (sense faculties), 19, 175, 177, 

220–221, 526, 680–681 

A yurveda, 518 

Ayutthaya, 39, 580, 787 

B 

Bactria, 120, 366–368 

Bagaya Kyaung, 580 

Bagyidaw, 580 

bahas, 591 

Bahuśrutlya, 504 

Bai ro tsa na, 853 

Baisheng, 817 

Baizhang, 708 

bala, 51, 632 

Bala (monk), 80–81 

Bali, 372 

Balligave, 369 

Bamiyan, 41, 117–118, 121, 367–368, 

380, 641. See also Central Asia, 

Buddhist art in 

destruction of Buddha statues, 640–641 

Bandaranaike, S. W. R. D., 799 

Bangkok, 108, 533 

Bankei Yotaku, 135 

Baodingshan, 318–319 

Baoliang, 167 

Baolin zhuan, 463 

Baozhi, 567 

Bare, 590 

Bareau, André, 85, 893 

“bare insight worker,” 889 

Ba ri lo tsa ba, 854 

Barlaam and Josaphat, 160, 380 

’Ba’ rom Dar ma dbang phyug, 48 

Basham, A. L., 424 

Bat Temple, Soc Trang, Vietnam, 880 

Bayon, 42, 106, 783, 784 

Bdud ’dul rdo rje, 418 

Bedsa, 363, 805 

Beihai Park, Beijing, 553 

Beijing, 153, 171 

Beik-than-myo, 577 

Bell, Sir Charles, 194 

Benji jing, 199 

Benn, James, 65 

Bentor, Yael, 717 

Bezeklik, 118, 125, 551 

Bhadda, 607 

Bhaddanta Indacara Antimakharl, 102 

bhadrakalpa, 73 

Bhadrakalpavadana, 593, 748 

Bhadrayanlya, 692 

Bhadrika, 232 

Bhagavadglta, 18 

bhagavat, 87 

Bhaisajyaguru, 292, 393, 437, 497, 695–696 

Bhaisajyaguruvaiduryaprabharaja-sutra, 

513 

Bhaisajyara, 65 

Bhaja, 117, 363, 550, 805 

Bhaktapur, 591 

Bharatamuni, Natyaśastra, 251 

Bharhut, 361–362, 364, 402, 651, 804, 

906–907, 911 

Bhartrhari, 331, 451 

bhavana, 682 

Bhavanakrama (Kamalaślla), 70, 483, 525 

Bhavaviveka, 42, 111, 481–482 

Madhyamakahrdayakarika, 481–482 

Tarkajvala, 95, 482 

bhiksu/bhiksunl, 353, 489, 558, 606, 615, 

741, 885–887. See also monks; nuns; 

ordination 

Bhiksunlpratimoksa, 667 

Bhiksunlpratimoksa-sutra, 606, 668 

Bhiksunl Saṅgha, 84 

Bhiksupratimoksa, 667 

Bhrkutl, 851 

Bhutan, 260 

Bhutan, Buddhist art in, 327 

bianwen, 43, 155, 319 

bianxiang, 43–44, 319, 693–695 

Bigandet, Paul Ambrose, 160 

Bigelow, William Sturgis, 865 

Bimbisara, King, 45–46, 84, 233, 657 

bindu, 56 

Binglingsi, 118, 125, 693 

biography, 45, 45–47, 72, 101–102, 235, 

395, 450, 491, 662, 702. See also 

Buddha, life of the 

“Biographies of Eminent Monks,” 44, 47 

Bird’s Nest, 127 

Biyan lu (Keqin), 132, 427 

Biyun-si, 816 

Bizot, François, 108, 830 

Bka’ babs bdun ldan (Taranatha), 491 

Bka’ brgyud (Kagyu), 47–49, 71, 151, 

407, 488, 513, 536, 562, 583, 701, 

822, 854, 859 

and karma pa, 417–419 

Bka’ gdams sect, 36, 324, 853 

Bka’ ’gyur, 67, 103–104, 114, 563 

Bkra shis lhun po, 629, 855 

Bkra shis rnam rgyal, 488 

Black Hat Lama, 417 

Bla ma dam pa Bsod nams rgyal mtshan, 

Rgyal rabs gsal ba’i me long, 855 

bliss perfection, 632 

Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 193, 629 

Blo bzang dpal ldan ye shes, 629 

Blo bzang ye shes, 629 

“blowing out,” nirvana as, 600–602 

Blue Annals, 103 

blue-robe sect, 644 

boat people, 844 


947

I NDEX 


Bodhanath Stupa, 589 

Bodh Gaya, 16, 49–50, 85, 231, 358, 359, 

364, 365, 486–487, 789, 807, 906 

bodhi (awakening), 24, 33, 38, 50–53, 58, 

76, 83, 131, 305, 684, 754, 763, 904. 

See also Bodh Gaya; bodhicitta 

(thought of awakening); buddha(s); 

original enlightenment (hongaku) 

arhats and, 28–29 

and Bsam yas Debate, 69–71 

and four noble truths, 295–296 

and koan, 427–428 

and path, 637–638 

sudden vs. gradual, 52–53, 157–158, 

201–202, 346, 348, 432, 599, 638–639 

Bodhibhadra, 35 

Bodhicaryavatara (Śantideva), 53, 54–55, 

420, 482–483, 525, 603, 748–749 

bodhicitta (thought of awakening), 

52–53, 54–56, 743 

and compassion, 420 

bodhicittotpada, 54–55 

Bodhidharma, 57, 57–58, 62, 126, 126, 128, 

130, 334, 463–464, 516–517, 659 

Bodhidharma Anthology, 57 

bodhimanda, 49, 790 

bodhipaksikadharma, 51 

bodhipaksyadharma, 541 

Bodhipathapradlpa (Atisha), 484, 853 

Bodhiruci, 707, 724, 915 

bodhisattva(s), 52, 58–60, 65, 72, 82, 196, 

233, 290, 304, 375, 401, 403, 474, 

498, 743, 846, 885. See also names of 

bodhisattvas 

and ascetic practices, 32–33 

and bodhicitta, 54–56 

and ethics, 262–264 

and hell, 316–317 

as kami, 769–770 

and karuna, 419–420 

lay, 445–446 

and nirvana, 603–604 

and paramita, 631–632 

Bodhisattvabhumi, 58–59, 894 

Bodhisattvagocaropayavinayavikurvananirdeśa-sutra, 

894–895 

bodhisattva ideal, 894–896 

bodhisattva images, 60–63, 123–124, 149, 

151–152, 153, 316, 361, 437, 486, 

782–783. See also mandala 

at Ajanta, 12–13 

in China, 146, 151 

and consecration, 178–181 

in Japan, 392–394 

in Kashmir, 322 

in Korea, 437 

and mudras, 570–572 

in Nepal, 323 

in Tibet, 326 

bodhisattva movement, 356 

bodhisattva path, 58, 77, 282, 341, 351, 

356, 420, 479–483, 636, 675, 698 

bodhisattvasam vara, 55 

Bodhisattvavadana-kalpalata 

(Ksemendra), 37 

bodhisattvavadanamalas, 37 

bodhisattva-vehicle (bodhisattvayana), 

356, 473 

bodhisattva vows, 54, 66, 77, 263, 304, 

356, 375, 559, 615 

bodhi tree, 49, 83, 364, 486, 642 

Bodhnath, 322 

bodhyaṅga, 51 

body, perspectives on the, 63–66, 176, 

266, 331, 520–521, 569–570, 605, 

662, 758–759, 821–822. See also 

buddhahood and buddha bodies; 

dharma body; relics and relics cults 

and death, 204–209 

Bogdo Gegen Zanabazar, 327 

Bo Juyi, 143 

Bon, 66–68, 260, 589, 643, 730, 859 

Bongaku shinryo (Jiun Onko), 404 

Book of Zambasta, 121 

Borobudur, 46–47, 68, 100, 260, 340, 

371–372, 373, 402, 511, 785, 786, 

789, 807 

Brahma, 289, 330 

Brahmanas, 295 

brahmanic practices, in Cambodia, 107 

Brahmanism and Buddhism, 293–295, 

309, 316, 323, 329–330, 352–353, 

358–359, 451, 545, 589–590, 712, 

890. See also Vedic religion 

brahmas, 184, 186, 315 

brahmavihara (boundless states), 524 

‘Bras spung, 855–856, 861 

’Bri gung ’Jig rten mgon po, 48, 854 

Brilliant Kings, 253 

’Brog mi Lotsava Śakya ye shes, 513, 852 

’Brom ston rgyal ba’i byung gnas, 36, 

853, 861 

Brown, Peter, 715–716 

Brown, Sid, 901 

Browne, Malcolm, 758 

Brten ’gyur, 67 

‘Brug chen Pad ma dkar po, 856 

’Brug pa, 324 

Bsam yas (Samye), 68–69, 325–326, 334, 

484, 623, 851 

Bsam yas Debate, 69–71, 188, 852 

Bsod nams phyogs kyi glang po, 629 

Bsod nams rgya mtsho, 193, 562, 855 

Bsod nams rtse mo, 751, 854 

Bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho (Tenzin Gyatso), 

194–195, 195, 248 

Bstan ’gyur, 67, 103–104, 114 

Buddha. See also relics and relics cults 

and abhidharma, 1–2 

body of, 65 

as healer, 519, 679 

language of, 625 

as monk, 79–80 

as primordial Buddha, 473–474 

and sexuality, 761 

as storyteller, 250 

as teacher of gods, 466 

worship of, 905–907 

Buddha, death of the, 82, 84–85, 92, 

205–206, 238, 287, 489, 542, 601 

Buddha, epithets of the, 87, 93 

Buddha, life of the, 51, 82–87, 238, 

295–296, 332, 352–353, 419, 422. 

See also avadana; biography; 

Buddha, life of the, in art; disciples 

of the Buddha; jataka 

ascetic practices, 90, 566 

birth, 89, 89–90, 541 

final life, 45–46 

former lives, 59, 65, 85, 88, 400–401 

miracles, 541–542 

replicated in consecration ritual, 

179–180 

Buddha, life of the, in art, 46–47, 88–92, 

259–260, 804–805, 806 

buddha(s), 51, 65, 71–74, 87, 290, 304, 

671. See also buddhahood and 

buddha bodies; names of buddhas 

celestial, 13–15, 73–74, 77–78, 234, 403, 

743 

compassionate, 721–722 

cosmic, 338, 339 

of the directions, 14, 693 

of the future, 73, 86–87, 538 

as kami, 769–770 

multiple, 72–73, 77, 92, 186–187, 497 

of the past, 71–73, 86 

of the present, 73–74, 77 

spiritual powers of, 8–9 

Buddhabhadra, 341–342, 462 

buddha body. See buddhahood and 

buddha bodies 

Buddhacarita (Aśvaghosa), 35, 75, 86, 88, 

512, 656, 748 

Buddha darśana, 707 

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, 75, 829, 835, 898 

Buddhadatta, Abhidhammavatara, 3, 223 


I NDEX 


buddhadharmas, and bodhicitta, 55 

buddhadhatu, 827 

Buddha eras, 285 

buddha families, 193, 234, 259, 375–376, 

572 

buddha-fields (buddhaksetra), 87, 

186–187, 698, 703. See also Pure 

Land Buddhism 

Buddhaghosa, 75, 93, 223, 296–297, 574, 

837 

Kaṅkhavitaranl, 166 

Samantapasadika, 166 

Visuddhimagga, 3, 29, 204, 315, 523, 

537, 627, 649, 796, 890 

Buddhaghosuppatti, 75 

Buddhaguhya, 821 

buddhahood and buddha bodies, 76–79, 

304–305, 378–379, 420, 636, 773. 

See also body, perspectives on the 

and dharmicization, 180–181 

innate, 618–620 

and Tiantai school, 846, 849 

universal buddhahood, 389–390, 473 

Buddha images, 15, 46–47, 77, 79–81, 

90–91, 93, 178–181, 205–206, 230, 

259–260, 313, 317–318, 330, 356, 

361, 493, 570, 693, 715, 805, 838, 

906–907. See also bodhisattva 

images; Buddha, life of the, in art; 

image consecration; mandala 

at Ajanta, 12 

at Bamiyan, 41, 117–118, 641 

at Borobudur, 785 

in Cambodia, 108 

in Central Asia, 122–125 

in China, 145–153 

Gupta style, 364–365 

Huayan, 337–340 

in India, 362–364, 364, 364–365, 365 

in Indonesia, 372–373 

in Japan, 392–394, 895 

of Kamakura, 412 


in Korea, 436–437 

at Longmen, 119 

at Mahabodhi Temple, 486 

in Myanmar, 787 

in Nepal, 323 

at Polonnaruva, 527 

at Sŏkkuram, 81 

in Southeast Asia, 782–783 

in Sri Lanka, 795, 800–801, 802 

at Sukhothai, 831 

in Taiwan, 816 

in Thailand, 787, 843 

in Tibet, 326 

at Yun’gang, 921–922 

buddha-nature. See tathagatagarbha 

buddhanusmrti (mindful recollection of 

the Buddha), 93, 587–588, 699, 906 

buddha puja, 907 

buddhavacana (word of the Buddha), 10, 

17, 24–28, 93–94, 354, 745, 755 

Buddhavam sa, 72, 230, 285, 838, 890 

Buddha Varsa, 285 

buddhavasa, 178 

buddha vows, 74 

Buddhayaśas, 616 

Buddh Dam nay, 422 

Buddhism, as social institution, 353 

“Buddhism for Human Life,” 913 

Buddhist Association of the Republic of 

China, 817 

Buddhist Churches of America, 866 

Buddhist Coalition for Economic Justice, 

South Korea, 248–249 

Buddhist Compassionate Relief Tz’u-chi 

Association, Taiwan, 249, 610, 

817–818 

Buddhist Council of the Midwest, 869 

Buddhist Institute, Cambodia, 109 

Buddhist Peace Fellowship, United States, 

249 

Buddhist Pure Karma Society, 447 

Buddhist Sangha Council of Southern 

California, 869 

Buddhist schools. See doctrinal 

differences; names of schools 

Buddhist societies, 266–268. See also 

names of organizations 

lay, 447 

in Meiji Japan, 531 

Pure Land societies, 702 


Buddhist Society for the Defense of the 

Nation, Japan, 586 

Buddhist studies, 94–100, 100, 153, 

160–161, 189, 455, 460, 485, 592, 

594, 628, 745, 782, 864 

and colonialism, 164–165 

and Diamond Sutra, 227–228 

and esoteric art, 252–254 

and folk religion, 288–289 

in Japan, 95–97, 99–100, 311, 386, 

413–415, 573–574, 860 

and Kenmitsu Buddhism, 271–274 

and Mahayana school, 492–499 

major trends, 94–95 

and monasticism, 556–557 

problem of divinities, 465–466 

traditional approaches, 95–98 

in Vietnam, 881, 883 

Buddhist theology, 94, 99 

Buddhist Theosophical Society (Ceylon), 

16, 164, 448 

buddhology, 94, 838 

Budugunalam karaya (Vldagama 

Maitreya), 778, 797 

Buduruvagala, 801 

Bühler, Georg, 97 

Bukhara, 380 

Bukkyo Seito Doshikai, 449 

bu lugs, 104 

Bunkyohifuron (Kukai), 656 

Burgess, James, 96 

Burma. See Myanmar 

Burmese, Buddhist literature in, 101–103 

Burnouf, Eugène, 96–97, 628 

Buryatiya, 138 

Busan school, 765 

Bu ston (Bu tön) rin chen grub, 95, 

103–104, 854 

Chos ’byung, 70, 103 

Lung gi nye ma, 104 

Buswell, Robert, 428, 638 

Butkara, 367 

Butsarana (Vidyacakravarti), 778, 796 

Byang chen theg chen chos ‘khor gling, 

562 

Byang chub rdo rje, 418 

Byang chub sgron me (Atisha), 36 

Byodoin, 650–651, 706 

C 

caitya, 355, 550 

Caitya (subsect), 504 

Cakkavaladlpanl (Sirimaṅgala), 628 

cakra, 728 

Cakrasam vara-tantra, 407, 563, 751 

cakravada, 184 

cakravartin, 34, 424–425, 441, 538–539, 

562, 657–658, 660, 717, 824. See also 

kingship; names of rulers 

Cakrin, 410, 410 

calendar, 284–287 

Camadevl, Queen, 900 

Camadevlvam sa, 832 

Cambodia, 42, 105–110, 160, 245, 260. 

See also communism and 

Buddhism; Khmer Buddhism; 

Khmer, Buddhist literature in 

Angkorian period, 106–107 

and communism, 169–170 

consecration ritual, 179–181 


949

I NDEX 


Cambodia (continued) 

modern era, 109–110, 646 

post-Angkorian “middle” period, 

107–108 

pre-Angkor period, 105–106, 783 

role of laity, 446–447 

Cambodia, Buddhist art in, 92, 783. See 

also Southeast Asia, Buddhist art in 

Can, Master, 528 

Canavarro, Marie De Souza, 865 

Canche, 816 

Candi Sewu, 785 

Candragupta I, King, 357 

Candraklrti, 31, 111, 420, 482, 861, 896 

Madhyamakavatara, 111, 482, 604 

Prasannapada, 111 

canon, 10–12, 25, 45, 93–94, 111–115, 

116–117, 164, 166, 217, 266, 

755–756. See also abhidharma; 

agama/nikaya; apocrypha; authority, 

scriptural; buddhavacana; catalogues 

of scriptures; scripture; sutra; 

tripitaka; vinaya 

Bon, 67 

Chinese, 143, 197, 756 

Daoist, 144, 200 

in Korea, 432–433 

in Mongolia, 114 


outside India, 113–115 

Pali, 755–756, 837 

printed, 25, 96, 99, 108, 114, 115, 

116–117, 628, 677, 856 

Sanskrit, 745–747 

Theravada, 625–628 

Tibetan, 96, 103–104, 114, 115, 756, 

853–855 

canonicity, 111–112, 114–117, 536 

Caodong (Soto) house of Chan school, 

132–133, 135, 235–236, 348, 413, 

428, 569, 866, 880–881 

Caoqi, 348 

Caoshan Benji, 131, 344 

Cao Zhongda, 694 

Cariyapitaka, 401 

Carus, Paul, 864–865, 924 

caste system, 14, 249, 358, 448, 590, 870 

catalogues of scriptures, 98, 116–117, 

746, 759. See also printing 

technologies 

and apocrypha, 25–26 

catechesis, in abhidharma, 2, 4 

“Cathedral of Lhasa,” 404 

Catuhśataka (A ryadeva), 31, 480–481 

Caturaśltisiddhapravrtti (Abhayadatta), 

491 

causality, 545, 648, 669–670, 713. See also 

pratltyasamutpada (dependent 

origination) 

causes and conditions, typologies of, 6 

Cave of the Thousand Buddhas 

(Dunhuang), 552 

cave sanctuaries, 117–119, 789. See also 

China, Buddhist art in; names of 

sites 

in Central Asia, 117–118, 122–125 

in China, 118–119, 147–151, 240, 338, 

471, 921–922 

in India, 12–13, 363, 402, 550–551 

in Korea, 554 

in Ladakh, 324 

in Laos, 793 

in Sri Lanka, 800 

celibacy, 134, 140, 303, 305, 313, 376, 

617, 761–762. See also ascetic 

practices; family, Buddhism and 

the; marriage; sexuality; 

Central Asia, 113, 117–118, 120–122, 

251, 454, 481, 519, 538. See also 

Central Asia, Buddhist art in; 

Gandharl, Buddhist literature in; 


monastic architecture in, 550–551 

and Silk Road, 775–776 

Central Asia, Buddhist art in, 122–125, 

150, 775–776. See also Buddha, life 

of the, in art 

Ceylon. See Sri Lanka 

Chajang, 431 

Chakkraphat, King, 425 

Cham, 782, 784 

Chamlong Simuang, General, 834 

Champa, 785 

chan, 130 

Chan art, 31, 43, 125–129, 129, 150–152 

and bodhi, 90 

oxherding pictures, 131, 621–622 

and portraiture, 661 

Chandi Mendut, 508 

Chandi Pawon, 508 

Chandi Sari, 508 

Chandler, David, 106 

Chandogya Upanisad, 18 

Chang’an, 146, 149–150, 197, 535 

Chanlin sengbao zhuan, 406 

Chan Pitaka, 929 

Chan (Zen, Sŏn, Thiê`n) school, 22, 

130–136, 266, 305, 656, 685, 

722–723. See also Chan art; China; 

Confucianism and Buddhism; 

Japan; Koan; Korea; lineage; 

mozhao Chan; Nine Mountains 

school of Sŏn; Vietnam; Zen, 

popular conceptions of 

and bodhi, 51–53, 79, 169 


in China, 38–39, 57–58, 132, 141, 144, 

156, 174, 200, 202–203, 213, 338, 

344, 346–348, 405, 813, 849–850, 

911–914, 928–929 

in Japan, 99, 189, 235–238, 274, 

313–314, 352, 386, 390, 426–429, 

500, 819–820 

key figures, 17, 487 

key texts, 27, 227, 314, 655, 915 

in Korea, 158–159, 349, 423, 432–435, 

443 

and lineage, 334, 347–348, 462–465, 616 

and martial arts, 516–518 

and meditation, 205, 278, 287, 428, 521, 

528–529, 665, 754, 758, 810, 827 

and monastic architecture, 552–553, 

556–557 

and Pure Land, 700, 705, 708 

in United States, 866 

in Vietnam, 879–880, 882 

chanting and liturgy, 137–139, 138, 191, 

533, 613–614, 714, 774, 882. See also 

entertainment and performance; 

language, Buddhist philosophy of; 

meditation; ritual 

and buddhanusmrti, 93, 587–588, 699, 

906 

daimoku, 93, 191, 413, 596–597, 781 

and funerary ritual, 713, 833 

in Japan, 727 

mantras, 376, 429, 512, 526–527, 

613–614, 666, 820–821, 824 

and meditation practice, 527–529 

nenbutsu, 79, 93, 136, 250, 307, 336, 

348, 412–414, 476, 587–588 

and paritta/raksa texts, 635, 840 

prayer, 671–672 

and Tantric meditation, 525–527 

Thet Mahachat, 829 

Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu (Zongmi), 929 

Chanzong, 130 

Chaofeng, 816–817 

charity. See dana; merit and meritmaking 

Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, 835 

Chavannes, Edouard, 96 

chedi, 783 

Chengde, 553 

Chengdu, 147–148, 693–694 

Chengguan, 139, 167, 341, 343–344, 346, 

925, 929 

Huayan jing suishu yanyi chao, 139 


I NDEX 


Cheng Hao, 174 

Cheng weishi lun (Xuanzang), 59, 239, 

283, 441, 903, 909–910 

Cheng Yen (Zhengyan), 610 

Cheng Yi, 174 

Chengyuan, 700 

Chen Hui, Yin chi ru jing, 166 

Chenla, 105 

Chen Yi, Chinese vice premier, 170 

Chiang Mai, 181 

Chigong, 599 

Chiko, 708 

Childer, Robert Caesar, 96 

China, 21, 57–58, 139–145, 212, 245, 

254, 405–406, 447, 454, 519, 

538–540, 722, 915. See also Central 

Asia; China, Buddhist art in; 

Chinese Buddhist translation; 


Daoism and Buddhism; Taiwan 

arhat worship in, 30–31 

and ascetic practices, 65, 759 

and Buddhist nationalism, 585–586 

Buddhist schools in, 143–144, 566 

Buddhist texts and translations, 47, 

116–117, 142–143, 166–167, 321, 811 

and canon, 113–114 

cave sanctuaries, 118–119 

Chan school in, 130–133 


festivals, 287–288 

as focus of Buddhist studies, 94, 98–99 

folk religion, 290–291 

Ghost Festival, 307–309, 319 

historical writing, 334 

lineages in, 462–465 

and martial arts, 514–517 

millenarianism in, 538–540 


ordination in, 607, 617, 643 

persecution in, 643, 645 

and printing technologies, 676–677 

Pure Land Buddhism, 700, 707–708 

and relics cult, 717–718 

and selection of Dalai Lama, 194 


and Taiwan, 815–819 

Tantra in, 823–825 

and Tibet, 857–858 

and Vietnam, 787, 879 

China, Buddhist art in, 145–153. See also 

Buddha, life of the, in art; Central 

Asia, Buddhist art in; Chan art; 

esoteric art, East Asia; Huayan art; 

Pure Land art 

Dunhuang, 240 

Guanyin, 61–62 

hell images, 318–320 

Huayan art, 338–339 

Chinese, Buddhist influences on 

vernacular literature in, 43, 154–157 

Chinese Buddhist Association, 819 

Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text 

Association, 678 

Chinese Buddhist translation, 24–28, 

38–39, 113–114, 116–117, 142–143, 

154, 167, 173–174, 227, 300, 341, 

454, 471–472, 505, 534–535, 656, 

750, 824. See also commentarial 

literature; translation and 

translators 

translators, 24, 44, 197, 225–226, 

282–283, 630–631, 759–760, 

775–776, 903, 909–910, 912–913 

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (U.S.), 865 

Chin’gakchong, 434 

Chingjing faxing jing, 27 

Chinhŭng, King, 425, 431 

Chinul, 134, 157–158, 159, 345, 349, 428, 

432, 702, 864, 929 

Kanhwa kyŏrŭiron, 158 

Pŏpchip pyŏrhaengnok chŏryo pyŏngip 

sagi, 158 

Wŏndon sŏngbullon, 158 

Chisŏn Tohŏn, 599 

Chittadhar Hridaya, Sugata Saurabha, 

594 

Chizan school, 765 

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, 868 

Chogye school, 134, 157–158, 158–159, 

430, 432–435, 599 

Chŏngt’o Society, South Korea, 249 

Ch’ŏngwŏnsa, 157 

Ch’ŏnt’ae. See Tiantai (Tendai) school 

Chos ’byung (Bu ston rin chen grub), 70, 

103 

Chos grags rgya mtsho, 418 

Chos kyi dbang phyug, 418 

Chos kyi rgyal mtshan ’phrin las rnam 

rgyal, 629–630 

Chosŏn Pulgyo yusin non (Han Yongun), 

314 

Chos rgyal ’Phags pa, 854 

Christianity and Buddhism, 159–161, 

537–538, 584, 586, 644, 864–865 

Buddhist studies, 94–95 

in Japan, 377, 633 


in United States, 869 

chronicles, 34, 333, 457, 626, 777, 

837–838, 877–878 

chronology. See also calendar 

of Buddha’s death, 82 

in catalogues of scriptures, 116 

cycles of time, 185 

for decline of dharma, 210–211 

chuanqi, 156 

Chua Vien Giac, 869 

Chuguji, 772 

Chulalongkorn, King, 546 

Chula Phatom Chedi, 783 

Chunbŏm, 599 

Chunqiu zuozhuan, 172 

Chuon Nath, 108–109 

Chu sanzang jiji (Sengyou), 116 

Ci’en zhuan (Huili), 909 

Cihang, 817 

Cimin, Jingtu cibei ji, 707 

citation, scriptural, and abhidharma, 

6–7 

Citra, 232 

citta, use of term, 175–176 

classification 

in abhidharma, 2, 4–5 

catalogues of scriptures, 116–117, 321 

of dreams, 238–239 

of local divinities in Japan, 768–770 

panjiao, 95, 321, 342, 345–346, 474 

of sutras, 472 

cleanliness, and monks’ robes, 731 

Clement XII, Pope, 160 

Clement of Alexandria, 159 

clerical marriage in Japan, 161–162, 386, 

413, 616–618, 762–763, 766 

clerical marriage in Tibet, 763 

cloth, for monks’ robes, 731–734 

clothing. See robes and clothing 

cognition, 915, 917. See also logic; 

perception, theories of 

Coleman, James William, 867 

Collcutt, Martin, 732 

colonialism and Buddhism, 94, 97, 

160–161, 162–165, 169–171, 

584–586, 644, 778, 797. See also 

Christianity and Buddhism; 

communism and Buddhism; 

modernity and Buddhism; 

nationalism and Buddhism 

color, of monks’ robes, 731–732 

commentarial literature, 12, 102, 

166–169, 248, 427, 627–628, 665, 

747, 837–838, 877, 889. See also 

abhidharma; canon; China; India; 

scripture; names of authors; titles of 

works 

commentaries. See commentarial 

literature 


951

I NDEX 


Committee for the Reorganization of 

Chinese Buddhism, 819 

communism and Buddhism, 169–171, 

458, 644–646, 839. See also 

modernity and Buddhism; 

nationalism and Buddhism 


in Mongolia, 564–565 

in Tibet, 630, 857–858 

comparative ethics, 263 

comparative religion, 94–95 

compassion. See karuna (compassion) 

computer technology, 678 

conception, human, 9. See also abortion; 

rebirth 

confession. See repentance and confession 

Confucianism and Buddhism, 136, 140, 

142, 144–145, 155–156, 158, 

172–174, 263, 265, 423, 643, 

813–814, 880–881, 928. See also 

syncretic sects: three teachings 

Confucius, 172 

conscientious objectors, 869 

consciousness, theories of, 13, 18–19, 32, 

38, 54–56, 175–177, 220–221, 224, 

683, 712, 917–919. See also 

anatman/atman (no-self/self); 

philosophy; psychology; 


consciousness, types of, 175–177 

consecration, 56, 178–181, 375–376. See 

also image consecration; initiation; 

space, sacred 

contemplation, 549, 647. See also 

meditation 

conversion, 182. See also colonialism and 

Buddhism; ordination 

of Aśoka, 34 

Aśvaghosa and, 35 

and discipleship, 231 

of local deities, 466–467, 768 

of residential space to Buddhist space, 

550–551 

of Śariputra and Mahamaudgalyayana, 

84 

of Westerners, 160–161, 182, 266, 268, 

865, 867 

Conze, Edward, 97, 743 

correlation principle, 545 

cosmogram, Bsam yas as, 69 

cosmology, 183–187, 220, 341, 390–391, 

465, 468, 711–712, 764, 813. See also 

divinities; realms of existence 

dhyana, 226–227 

nirvana, 602–603 

and path, 636–638 

and psychology, 185–186 

and pure lands, 693, 703–706 

councils, Buddhist, 17, 34, 46, 84, 94, 

112, 187–188, 232, 301, 353–354, 

487, 490, 502–503, 657, 741, 837, 

870, 897. See also Bsam yas Debate; 

mainstream Buddhist schools 

Cousins, Lance, 628 

cpap, 422 

cremation volumes, Thai, 829 

critical Buddhism, 135, 189, 619, 860 

Csoma de Korös, Alexander, 95 

Cui Hao, 173 

Cula-Rahulavadasutta, 711 

Culavam sa, 777 

cultural focus, in Buddhist studies, 95 

Cultural Revolution, Chinese, 142, 170, 

325–326, 405, 645, 857–858 

Cunningham, Alexander, 96, 804 

curriculum, in Buddhist schools, 248, 

428, 832–833 

D 

Da aluohan Nandimiduoluo suo shuo 

fazhuji, 30 

dagoba (dhatugopas), 553, 807 

Dahamson˘da kavya (Alagiyavanna 

Mohottala), 778 

Dahlke, Paul, 266 

Dahui Pujue chanshi yulu, 929 

Dahui shuzhuang, 158 

Daido Choan, 531 

Daigoji, 395, 765 

Daijo bussetsu ron hihan (Murakami 

Sensho), 573 

Daikakuji, 765 

daimoku, 93, 191, 413, 596–597, 781 

Dainichi Nonin, 135 

Dainihon Bukkyoshi (Murakami Sensho), 

573 

Daisaku Ikeda, 781, 866 

Daitokuji, 191, 352, 395 

Daitokuji lineage, 135 

Daizong, 824 

dakinl, 192, 306, 486, 583, 743, 763 

Dakkhina, 801 

Da Kürij-e, 327 

Daladasirita, 778 

Dalai Lama, 94, 98, 192–195, 216, 

326–327, 562–563, 629–630, 

663–664, 730, 855–856. See also 

communism and Buddhism 

as Avalokiteśvara, 59, 62, 420, 465 

Fourteenth, 59, 162–163, 170, 170, 171, 

359, 410, 420, 645, 669, 688, 858, 893 

Thirteenth, 857 

Dali Kingdom, 152 

Dalits (untouchables), 14 

Dalverzin-tepe, 120 

Damoduoluo chanjing, 462 

Dam pa Bde gshegs, 701 

dana (giving), 196, 229, 245–246, 262, 

315, 448, 632, 759, 872 

Danapala, 824 

Dansai, 457 

Dantabhumi-sutta, 205 

Dao’an, 26, 60, 116, 143, 166, 168, 197, 

348, 616. See also catalogues of 

scriptures; commentarial literature 

Ren ben yu sheng jing zhu, 166 

Zongli zhongjing mulu, 197 

Daochuo, 212 

Anle ji, 707 

Daode jing, 198 

Daoism and Buddhism, 140–141, 

144–145, 172–173, 197–201, 309, 

534, 553, 813–814, 824. See also 


syncretic sects: three teachings 

in Japan, 291–292 

Daoist immortals, and arhats, 30 

Daojiao yishu, 199 

Daosheng, 166, 201–202, 351, 442 

Daosui, 850 

Daoxin, 599, 708 

Daoxuan, 202, 616, 674, 722 

and “Biographies of Eminent Monks,” 

44, 202 

Guang hongming ji, 202 

Jiaojie xinxue biqiu xinghu lüyi, 265 

Sifenlü shanfan buque xingshichao, 202 

Xu gaoseng zhuan, 57, 514–515 

Daoyi (Mazu), 131–132, 134, 202–203, 

348, 599 

Mazu yulu, 202 

Daoyuan, Jingde chuandeng lu, 132 

Darani jikkyo, 727 

Dar ma ’U dum btsan, King, 852 

darśana, 65, 682 

Darstantika school, 6, 177, 505, 754 

Daruma school, 236 

Daśabhumika-sutra, 59, 341 

Daśabhumikavibhasa, 707 

Dasajataka, 422 

Dasheng dayizhang, 348 

Dasheng qixin lun. See Awakening of Faith 

(Dasheng qixin lun) 

Da Tang xiyu ji, 909 

Da Tang xiyu qiufa gaoseng zhuan 

(Yijing), 913 

Datsan Temple, 728 


I NDEX 


Davidson, Ronald, 744 

Daxian Monastery, 816 

Da Xingshansi, 535 

Dazangjing, 113–114 

Dazhidu lun (Nagarjuna), 317, 462, 790 

Da-Zhou kanding zhongjing mulu, 26, 116 

Dazu, 119, 338 

Dbang phyug rdo rje, 418, 488 

death, 19, 203–204, 203–209, 307, 468, 

601, 662. See also abortion; 

ancestors; funerary culture; 

intermediate states; self-immolation; 

suicide 

of Buddha, 82, 84–85, 92, 287, 489, 

542, 601 

Devadatta and, 214–215 

as object of meditation, 204–205, 521, 

525, 687, 763 

and rebirth, 712–714 

De bzhin gshegs pa, 418 

decline of the dharma, 79, 210–213, 

333–334, 389, 395, 474, 538, 744. 

See also dharma and dharmas 


and politics, 658–659 

degenerates, monks as, 568 

deities. See divinities 

delusion, 685 

Demiéville, Paul, 70, 96, 98 

Denison, Ruth, 867–868 

dependent origination. See 


origination) 

Deqing (Hanshan Deqing, Deqing 

Chengyin), 133, 213 

Hanshan dashi mengyou ji, 213 

deSilva, Lynn, 21 

desire, 213–214, 271, 600, 684–685. See 

also psychology; sexuality 

as origin of suffering, 296, 416 

detachment, and asceticism, 33 

Detailed Biography of the Buddha 

Śakyamuni, 439 

Devadatta, 84, 214–215, 233, 354, 568 

in Lotus Sutra, 473 

Devadhamma-jataka, 911 

Devanampiyatissa, 425, 795 

devaraja cult, 106 

devata, 293, 309–310 

devataraja, 820 

devotional literature, Burmese, 103 

devotional objects. See ritual objects 

devotional practices, 447, 474, 496–497, 

525–527, 620, 653, 882. See also 

ritual 

Dezong, 824 

Dga’ ldan, 326, 822, 855, 861 

Dge ’dun chos kyi nyi ma, 629–630 

Dge ’dun chos ’phel, 857 

Dge ’dun grub, 193, 629, 855 

Dge ’dun rgya mtsho, 193, 216 

Dge lugs (Geluk), 36, 193, 215–216, 225, 

250–251, 324, 371, 418, 562–564, 

629, 855–856, 904 

Dgos lo, 852 

Dhamma Dena, 868 

dhammadesana, 247 

Dhammadinna, 232, 607 

Dhammapada, 11, 203, 216–217, 269, 

300, 532, 627 

Dhammapada-atthakatha, 301, 634 

Dhammapala, 628 

dhammasakaccha, 247 

Dhammasaṅganl, 681 

dhammasat, 101 

dhammasavana, 247 

Dhamma-yan-gyi, 579 

dhammayatra, 110 

Dhamma-yazika stupa, Pagan, 579 

Dhammayietra peace walk movement, 

Cambodia, 248 

Dhammazedi, King, 575 

dhammiko dhammaraja, 424 

Dhampiyatuva gätapadaya, 778 

Dharamsala, 419 

dharanl, 217, 253, 512, 534, 635, 666, 

675–676, 717, 722, 821 

dharma and dharmas, 18–19, 34, 86–87, 

111–112, 217–218, 217–224, 

218–220, 424, 637, 647. See also 

abhidharma; consciousness, theories 

of; cosmology; decline of the 

dharma; psychology; Sarvastivada 


dharma-body, 22, 74, 76–77 

dharmacakra, 92 

Dharmacakrapravartana-sutra, 84, 218, 

295–296, 353 

dharma centers, 590 

dharmadhatu, 139, 224–225, 338, 344, 346 

Dharma Drum Mountain, 817 

Dharmagupta, 471 

Dharmaguptaka, 11, 113, 120, 225, 300, 

368, 503, 506, 616, 674 

Dharmaguptaka-vinaya, 668, 742, 887 

dharmakatha, 2 

dharmakaya, 22, 76–78, 764, 827 

Dharmaklrti, 177, 225, 230, 371, 420, 

452, 470, 852 

Pramanavarttika, 225 

Dharmaklrtiśrl, 35 

Dharmaksema, 605 

“dharma meetings,” 819 

Dharmapala, King, 797 

Dharmapala, 224, 683, 824 

Dharmapala Center, Switzerland, 267 

Dharmapradlpikava (Gurulugomi), 778 

dharma protectors, 743 

dharmaraja, Aśoka as, 34 

Dharmaraksa (Zhu Fahu), 146, 225–226, 

471, 776 

dharmas (factors), 220–221 

Dharmasena, Saddhamaratnavaliya I, 778 

Dharma Sangha of Buddha, 865 

dharma-scroll, 464 

Dharmaskandha, 221 

Dharmaśresthin, 

Abhidharmahrdayaśastra, 4 

Dharmasvamin, 359 

dharmata, 78 

Dharmatrata, 221 

Miśrakabhidharmahrdayaśastra, 4 

Dharmavinaya, 218 

dharmicization, consecration as, 180–181 

Dharmottarlya, 692 

dhatu, 19, 680–681, 715 

Dhatukaya, 681 

dhyana (trance state), 8, 83, 130, 

226–227, 237, 520, 523, 540–541, 

632, 879. See also cosmology; 

psychology; vipassana 

dialectic cognitive-behavioral therapy 

(DBT), 687 

dialogue 

and exegesis, 168 

in prajñaparamita literature, 667 

Diamond Sutra, 167, 227–228, 228, 497, 

666, 676–677, 811 

Dibyabajra Bajracarya, 594 

diet, 33, 65, 228–229, 229, 886 

Dlghanikaya, 29, 76, 243, 245, 299, 374, 

383, 520, 626, 905 

Dlghavapi, 801 

Dignaga, 230, 451, 470, 915 

Pramanasamuccaya, 177, 230 

Dlha, 75 

Dilun school, 144, 283, 343, 915 

Dlpakara, Abhidharmadlpa, 4 

Dlpam kara, 72–73, 85, 230 

Dlpam karaśrljñana. See Atisha 

Dlpavam sa, 95, 607, 626, 777, 795, 877 

Dlrghagama, 11 

discipleship, categories of, 231 

disciples of the Buddha, 16–18, 84, 

230–233, 461, 542. See also arhat(s); 

names of disciples 


953

I NDEX 


discourse records, 132 

discursive structuring, and local 

divinities, 468 

Dissanayake, C. S., 448 

diversity, in early saṅgha, 742 

divinities, 80, 231, 233–235, 277, 672, 

770, 907. See also cosmology; folk 

religion; ghosts and spirits; local 

divinities and Buddhism; names of 

divinities 

creation of, 467, 469 

esoteric, 254–255, 259–260 

female, 234, 571–572 

in Kenmitsu Buddhism, 274 

personal deities, 743 

as providers of worldly benefits, 

292–293, 769 

Divyavadana, 36–37, 235, 251, 747 

Dizang, 318–319, 319 

Dkar brgyud, 48 

Dkon mchog rgyal po, 751 

Doàn Trung Còn, 884 

doctrinal differences 

and abhidharma, 5–7 

and first schism, 502–503 

doctrine. See abhidharma; dharma and 

dharmas 

Dogen (Kigen), 22, 135, 235–236, 387, 

413, 428, 500, 569, 850 

Shobogenzo, 135, 236, 734, 771–772 

Dohan, 765 

Dojoji, 395 

Dokyo, 236–237, 582–583 

Dol bu pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan, 854 

Dol po pa, 484 

Dong Duong, 784 

Dongshan Liangjie, 131, 344 

donor portraits, 662–663 

Dorville, Albert, 663 

doubt, 237–238, 428. See also meditation; 

psychology 

Dova Rajamahavihara, 801 

doxography, 95 

Dpa’ bo Gtsug lag phreng ba, 856 

Dpal khor chos sde, Gyantse, 326 

Dpal yul, 856 

Dragon Flower Sect (Longhua Pai), 291 

drama, 156, 251, 748 

dreams, 238–239, 238–239, 376, 394, 

429, 917. See also bodhi 

(awakening); psychology 

Du Fu, 173 

duhkha (suffering), 18, 23, 203, 239–240, 

249, 262, 269, 296, 520, 679–680, 

889. See also death; psychology 

Duluosi, 151 

Dunhuang, 118, 123, 125, 147, 149, 149, 

150–151, 153, 240, 252, 254–255, 

318, 319, 338, 551, 552, 662, 677, 

694, 705, 705, 775, 789 

manuscript cache, 26, 28, 43, 97, 99, 155, 

228, 240, 454, 744, 811, 899–900 

Dunhuang Research Institute, 148 

Dunwu dasheng zhengli jue, 70 

Durt, Hubert, 759 

Dus gsum mkhyen pa, 48, 417, 465, 855 

Dushun (Fashun), Fajie guanmen, 342 

duskaracarya, 83 

Dutt, Nalinaksha, 97 

Dutthagamanl, 425 

dvarapalas, 572 

Dvaravatl, 782, 830 

Dwags po Bka’ brgyud, 853 

Dwags po Sgom tshul, 48 

E 

“early Buddhism,” 492–493 

East Asia, 93, 252–257, 287–288, 454, 

461, 481, 823. See also names of 

countries 

East Asia, Buddhist art in, 30–31 

Eastern Europe, Buddhism in, 267 

Eastern Thousand Buddha Caves, 118 

eccentrics, monks as, 567–568 

economics, 243–246, 357, 547–548, 

872–873 

Edgerton, Franklin, 97, 745 

education, 164, 247, 247–248, 248, 

427–428, 609, 832–833, 839. See also 

monasticism 

egalitarianism, 154 

Egyal mtshan nor bu, 630 

eight consciousnesses, 918–919 

eightfold path. See path 

Eight Great Events, 570 

eight schools (hasshu), 412 

Eiheiji, 236, 413 

Eiku, 336 

Eisai, 22, 413, 500 

Eison, 414, 500 

Eizon, 765 

Ekottaragama, 11, 466, 711 

elephant, symbolism of, 89 

elitism, Chan school and, 136 

Ellora, 117, 365, 508, 789 

Emei, 553 

empowerment, consecration as, 181 

emptiness. See śunyata (emptiness) 

emptiness image (śunyatabimbam), 409 

Enchin, 131, 273, 475 

Endere, 125 

engaged Buddhism, 14, 75, 110, 165, 

248–249, 263–264, 314, 598, 

818–819, 835, 844–845, 868, 881, 913 

Engakuji, 924 

England, as colonial power, 163 

enlightenment. See bodhi (awakening) 

Ennin (Jikaku Daishi), 249–250, 273, 

475, 708 

En-no-Gyoja (En-no-Ozunu), 773 

En no Ubasoku, 447 

Enryakuji, 250, 272–274, 336, 388, 737 

entertainment and performance, 43, 100, 

154, 156, 250, 250–252, 251, 309. 

See also jataka 

“entrance by practice,” 57 

“entrance by principle,” 57 

epistemology, Buddhist, 177 

Erdeni Zuu, 327, 563, 564, 565 

Eshinryu, 307 

esoteric architecture, 256 

esoteric art, East Asia, 252–257 

esoteric art, South and Southeast Asia, 

257–261, 258 

esoteric Buddhism, 236–237, 339, 

389–390, 429, 441–442, 555, 577, 

620, 632, 727–729, 764–765, 

770–771, 790–791, 850. See also 

exoteric-esoteric (Kenmitsu) 

Buddhism in Japan; Mijiao 

(esoteric) school; Tantra; Vajrayana 

eternalism, 479, 648 

ethics, 54–56, 261–264, 263–264, 637, 

648–649. See also engaged 


etiquette, 265–266, 286, 523, 653–654 

Europe, 266–268. See also Buddhist 

studies 

European Buddhist Union, 268 

Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling, 859, 868 

evil, 269–271, 850 

E wam Chos ldan, 752 

examination system 

in China, 173–174 

in Korea, 432 

in Vietnam, 881 

exegesis, 4–7, 167–169, 320–321, 757. See 

also abhidharma 

existence, 183–184, 220–221. See also 

cosmology; realms of existence; 

rebirth; sentient beings 

exoteric-esoteric (Kenmitsu) Buddhism 

in Japan, 271–275, 388, 400, 

414–415, 770, 815 

experience, 5–6, 51–52, 529–530, 847. See 

also enlightenment 


I NDEX 


expression, and Chan art, 127–129 

expulsion, of monks or nuns. See 

monastic discipline; precepts; vinaya 

extrasensory perception, 684 

F 

fa, 218 

Fachang, 903 

Faguang, 818 

Faguo, 425 

Fahaisi, 153 

Fahua, 816 

Fahua lun (Vasubandhu), 471 

Fahua sanmei chanyi (Zhiyi), 722–723 

Fahua wenju (Zhiyi), 927 

Fahua xuanyi (Zhiyi), 927 

faith, 277–279, 766. See also Pure Land 

Buddhism; Pure Lands 

Fajie guanmen (Dushun), 342 

Famensi, 253–254, 256, 279–280, 719 

family, Buddhism and the, 161–162, 

280–281, 287, 356, 582, 589, 633, 

678, 762. See also buddha families; 

laity; monasticism 

family religion, 289 

Fanwang jing (Brahma’s Net Sutra), 27, 

59, 167, 229, 281–282, 500, 609, 

675, 896 

Fanwang jing pusa jie shu (Faxian), 166 

fashion. See robes and clothing 

fasting. See ascetic practices 

Fatian, 824 

Faure, Bernard, 179 

Fausbøll, Viggo, 96, 217 

Faxian, 49, 72, 121, 215, 233, 282–283, 

358, 360, 462, 642, 652–653, 717, 

723, 776, 795 

Fanwang jing pusa jie shu, 166 

Faxian zhuan, 283 

Faxiang (Hosso) school, 224, 283, 

283–284, 337, 411, 441, 582, 915 

Faxian zhuan (Faxian), 283 

Fayan (monk), 344 

Fayan house of Chan school, 132, 134 

Fayan Wenyi, 132 

Fayao, Nirvana Sutra, 166 

Fayaz-tepe, 120 

Fayuan yilin zhang (Kuiji), 283 

Fayun, 167–168 

Fayun Chan Monastery, 213, 817 

Fazang, 139, 150, 167, 282, 284, 321, 338, 

341, 343–344, 346, 441, 827, 849, 

863–864, 904 

Huayen wujiao zhang, 284 

Jin shizi zhang, 343 

Fazhao, 700 

Feer, Léon, 96 

Fei Changfang, Lidai sanbao ji, 116–117 

Feilaifeng, 153 

Fengguosi, 151, 552 

Fengxian, 338, 471 

Fenollosa, Ernest, 377, 865 

Fergusson, James, 96 

fertility cults, 761 

festivals and calendrical rituals, 284–288, 

286, 374, 559, 596, 623, 654, 833. 

See also Ghost Festival; pilgrimage 

Buddha’s birthday, 286–287, 434 

Great Prayer festival (Lhasa), 861 

mukaeko, 701 

New Year, 441, 533, 835, 867, 882 

Thet Mahachat, 891 

Thin-gyan, 576 

Ullambana, 310, 882 

Vessantara-jataka, 838–839, 843 

vía day, 882 

Visakha Puja, 833 

Wesak, 838–839 

Wŏnbulgyo, 903 

fiction, 156, 397, 439–440. See also 

drama; storytelling 

“field of merit” (punyaksetra; futian; 

fukuden), 532, 715 

Fihrist (Ibn al-Nadlm), 381 

filial piety (xiao), 27, 140, 282, 289, 308, 

439, 446 

First Bhavanakrama (Kamalaślla), 521 

Fitzgerald, Timothy, 547 

five, eight, and ten precepts, 673 

“Five Mountain and Ten Monasteries” 

network, 133 

Five Mountain (Gozan) Zen network, 

678 

five paths paradigm, 639 

Fleet, J. F., 97 

Fodi jing lun, 168 

Fogong, 552 

Foguangsi, 150 

Foguo, 338 

Fo Kuang Shan, 816, 817–818, 818 

Foladi, 118 

folk art, in China, 146 

“folk Buddhism,” 291, 813 

“folk intellectuals,” 813 

folklore. See folk religion; jataka; 

storytelling 

folk religion, 288–289, 468. See also 

ghosts and spirits; local divinities 


folk religion, China, 145–146, 290–291. 

See also Confucianism and 

Buddhism; Daoism and Buddhism 

folk religion, Japan, 291–293, 540. See 

also local divinities and Buddhism; 

Shingon Buddhism, Japan; Shinto 


folk religion, Southeast Asia, 293–295, 

301–302. See also ghosts and spirits; 

local divinities and Buddhism 

folktales, 593, 761–762, 812, 843. See also 

jataka 

footprint, of Buddha, 231, 788, 800, 906 

forest monks. See wilderness monks 

Forte, Antonino, 98 

Foshuo huangji jieguo baojuan, 813 

Fotudeng, 251 

Foucher, Alfred, 96, 100, 366 

Foulk, T. Griffith, 129 

founders, of lineages, 22, 461, 662 

Four Beneficences, 903 

fourfold assembly, 355 

four great authorities, 111 

Four Great Kings, 309–310 

Four Heavenly Kings, 772 

four immeasurables, 649 

four noble persons, 28–29, 638 

four noble truths, 51, 76, 84, 92, 186, 

203, 239–240, 295–298, 518, 520, 

636–638, 648, 669 

four paramitas, 632 

Four Part Vinaya, 616–617 

four paths, 28–29 

four refuges, 111 

four sights, 85 

Four Transmissions, 583 

Fozu tongji, 464 

France 

Asian refugees in, 267 

as colonial power, 109, 163, 881 

Franke, R. O., 87 

Frauwallner, Erich, 98 

Freer Gallery, Washington, D.C., 694 

Free Tibet movement, United States, 249 

Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, 

268, 744 

fruitional vehicle (phalayana), Vajrayana 

as, 875–876 

Frykenberg, Robert, 333 

Fudo Myoo, 253, 773 

Fu fazang yinyuan zhuan, 462 

Fugai Ekun, 126 

Fujian, King, 430 

Fujiwara Yorimichi, 650 

fuju fuse movement, 598 


955

I NDEX 


Fukuda Gyokai, 531 

Fumu enzhong jing, 27 

Funan, 105 

funeral, of Buddha, 86, 205–206 

funerary culture, 20, 206–209, 468, 633, 

662, 701, 713–714, 859 

funerary ritual. See memorial rites 

Furong Daokai, 569 

Furukaka Rosen, 531 

G 

Gadaladeniya, 799 

Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 321 

Gadjin Nagao, 97 

gahapati, 245, 547–548 

Gaki zoshi, 319 

Gal Vihara, 802 

Gama, Vasco da, 160, 163 

ganacakra, 820 

Gandantegchinling, 565 

Gandavyuha-sutra, 338, 341, 403 

gandhakutls, 12 

Gandhara, 61, 72, 80, 90, 100, 120–121, 

230, 363–368, 380, 493, 805. See also 


Gandhara recensions of 

Abhidharmahrdaya, 7 

Gandharl, Buddhist literature in, 

299–300, 776 

Gandharl Dharmapada, 299 

gandharvas, 204, 234, 310, 378, 712 

Gangoji, 772 

Ganjin (Jianzhen), 301, 499–500, 617, 

662, 674, 850 

Gansu, 147 

ganying, 543 

Gaochang, 124–125, 147 

Gaofeng Yuanmiao, 133, 278 

Gaoseng zhuan, 44, 47 

Gaozong, Emperor, 471, 658 

Gaozu, Emperor, 173 

Garbhavakrantinirdeśa-sutra, 378 

garuda, 467 

Gassho, 265 

gati, 711 

Gaudapada, A gamaśastra, 331 

Gautama Buddha. See Buddha 

Gavam pati, 301–302 

Gaya-mahatmya, 890 

Gellner, David, 744 

Geluk. See Dge lugs (Geluk) 

gender, 56, 62, 64, 112, 302–304, 302–306, 

473, 547. See also body, perspectives 

on the; men; sexuality; women 

Genji monogatari (Lady Murasaki), 397 

Genju, 904 

Genkai, To daiwajo tosei den, 301 

Genshin (Eshin Sozu), 307, 697, 702 

O joyoshu, 307 

gentry Buddhism, 141, 174, 447 

genze riyaku, 292 

geography, sacred, 407–408, 790–792. See 

also space, sacred 

pure lands, 14–15, 77, 187, 315–316, 

693, 696, 697, 703–706, 739, 790 

geopiety, 793 

Germany, Buddhism in, 267–268 

Gernet, Jacques, 900 

Geshe Wangyal, 868 

gesture, 265–266. See also mudra 

Ghantaśala, 363 

Ghost Festival, 20–21, 287, 307–309, 308, 

319, 447, 487–488. See also ghosts 

and spirits; hells 

in China, 209, 723 

in Japan, 307, 308, 309, 633 

ghosts and spirits, 208–209, 309–310 

in China, 290–291 

hungry ghosts, 206, 309–310, 319, 468, 

487, 819 

in Japan, 292, 544 

in Southeast Asia, 294 


Gilgit, 367–368 

Gimello, Robert, 638 

Ginkakuji, 556 

Ginsberg, Allen, 924 

Giovanni de Montecorino, 160 

Giovanni de Piano Carpini, 160 

Giovanni Marignolli, 160 

Glassman, Bernard, 248, 868 

Gling rje ras pa Padma rdo rje, 49 

God. See divinities 

Goddard, Dwight, 866 

Goenka, 591 

Gogerly, D. J., 164 

Gokhale, B. G., 424 

Goldstein, Joseph, 867 

Goldstein, Melvyn, 194, 629 

Gomyo, 904 

gong’an. See koan 

gongde, 532 

Gongxian, 119, 148, 551 

Gopadatta, 402 

Go ram pa, 484 

Goryu Shinto, 400 

Gotaml-apadlna, 489 

Gothabhaya, 644 

Government Museum Chennai (Madras, 

India), 806 

Govinda, 268 

Gozan network, 135 

grace, and bodhicitta, 56 

Grags pa rgyal mtshan, 751, 753, 854 

Gra thang monastery, 508 

Great Perfection tradition, 379 

“great renunciation,” 90 

Green, Paula, 248 

Gregory, Peter, 269 

Grimm, Georg, 266 

Grousset, René, 122 

grub mtha’, 95 

Grueber, Johannes, 663 

Gshen chen klu dga’, 67 

Gshen rab mi bo, 67 

Gter bdag gling pa, 730 

Gtsang pa rgya ras Ye shes rdo rje, 49 

Guanding, 167, 462 

Guang hongming ji (Daoxuan), 202 

Guan Gong, 291 

Guan Wuliangshou jing, 694, 699–701, 707 

Guanxiu, 30–31, 151 

Guanyin, 59, 61–63, 147, 151–153, 234, 

290–291, 420. See also Avalokiteśvara 

guardian images, 572 

Gueth, Anton W. F. (Nyanatiloka), 266 

Guhyamantrayana, 875 

Guhyasamaja-tantra, 56, 747, 821, 823, 

862, 876 

Guiyang house of Chan school, 132 

Guiyuan zhizhi, 884 

Gukansho (Jien), 335 

Guldara, 805 

Gunakarandavyuha, 593, 748 

guoyu, 156 

Gupta rulers, 364–365, 550, 807 

Gupta style, 802, 807 

guru, 36, 450 

guru devotion, 672 

gurudharma, 607 

Gurulugomi 

Amavatura, 778, 796 

Dharmapradlpikava, 778 

Gurunanda, Samavati e* tac bhava sam 

sara, 103 

Gushri Khan, 563 

Gyer sgom Tshul khrims seng ge, 49 

Gyogi, 708 

Gyoki, 411, 499 

Gyonen, 310–311, 414 

Hasshu koyo, 311, 345 

Sangoku buppo denzu engi, 335 

Gyosin, 904 


I NDEX 


H 

Hachiman, 237, 313, 393, 394, 769 

Haeinsa, 434, 554, 676 

Haesimmilgyŏng so (Wŏnch’ŭk), 903 

Haihui, 816 

hair, 79–80, 303, 313 

Hajime Nakamura, 33 

Hakamaya Noriaki, 189 

Hakuin Ekaku, 79, 135, 205, 313–314, 

428, 683 

Zazen wasan, 705 

Halifax, Joan, 248 

Hana matsuri, 287 

hanging scrolls, 323–324, 395, 438, 

509–510. See also manuscripts; 

thang ka 

Hanoi, 585 

Hanseikai, 531 

Hanshan, 127 

Hanshan dashi mengyou ji (Deqing), 213 

Han Yongun (Manhae), 134, 314 

Chosŏn Pulgyo yusin non, 314 

Nim ŭi chimmuk, 314, 440 

Pulgyo taejŏn, 314 

Han Yu, 173–174, 718 

Lun Fogu biao, 759 

Haribhadra, 78, 384 

Haribhatta, 402 

Harihara, 106 

Haritl, 289, 762 

Harsha, King, 658 

Hasshu koyo (Gyonen), 311, 345 

Hayes, Richard, 485 

Heart Sutra (Prajñaparamitahrdayasutra), 

137, 167, 314–315, 666, 757, 

821, 882 

heavens, 184, 315–316. See also 

cosmology; hells 

Heian Buddhism, 271, 386–388, 411–415, 

555–556, 764–765 

Heike Nokyo, 811 

hells, 62, 176, 184, 290, 316–317, 317, 

351. See also cosmology; heavens 

hells, images of, 316–317, 317, 318–320 

Hem Raj Shakya, 594 

hermeneutics, 6–7, 93–94, 167, 320–321, 

329, 345–346, 451–452, 638, 855, 871 

Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, 

Russia, 151, 254 

Heruka, 820 

Heshang Moheyan, 484 

Hevajra Tantra, 562, 751 

Heze Shenhui, 347 

“hidden texts.” See treasure texts 

Hie shrine, 771 

Himalayas, Buddhist art in, 13–14, 

322–327. See also Central Asia, 

Buddhist art in; India, Buddhist art 

in; monastic architecture; Mongolia; 

Nepal; Tibet 

Hlnayana, 300, 328, 492–496, 750, 840. See 

also mainstream Buddhist schools 

Hinduism and Buddhism, 189, 328–332, 

410, 415–416, 518–519, 842 

in Cambodia, 42, 106–107, 783 

in India, 356, 358–359, 364, 369, 

380–381, 550, 641–642 

in Indonesia, 371–372, 784 

in Java, 785 

in Nepal, 593 

in Sri Lanka, 287, 796–797 

Hinduization, 381 

Hirakawa Akira, 100, 497 

Hirata Atsutane, 767 

Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, 924 

historical sources, for life of Buddha, 

82–83 

historicity, use of term, 332 

historiography, use of term, 332 

history, 332–335. See also chronicles 

Hizoki (Kukai), 255 

ho, 218 

Hoa Hao movement (Vietnam), 245 

Hodgson, Brian Houghton, 96–97, 592 

hoguk pulgyo, 432 

holistic Buddhism, 430 

“holy fool,” 567 

homiletics, 167, 427, 474 

homosexuality, 763–764 

Honen (Genku), 22, 336, 387, 395, 

412–413, 643, 766, 850. See also 

nenbutsu; Pure Land schools 

Senchaku hongan nenbutsu shu, 336, 708 

hongaku, use of term, 619 

Honganji, 720, 766 

Hongbian, 662 

Hongch’ŏk, 599 

Hongren, 130, 348, 543 

Hongzhi Chengjue, 133, 569 

Hongzhou, 202 

honji suijaku, 274, 337, 769–770. See also 



honmatsu system, 386 

Honmon Hokkeshu, 598 

Honzan-ha, 773 

honzon, 597 

Horyuji and Todaiji, 236, 273, 301, 

310–311, 337, 340, 345, 388, 393, 

393, 395, 554, 554–555, 582, 658, 

676, 678, 765, 769, 772 

Hosso school. See Faxiang (Hosso) school 

houses, Chan (jia), 132 

Hpo-win-daung, 579 

hrdaya-mantra, 512 

Hsi Lai Temple, 869 

Huadu, 745, 873 

Huahu jing, 198, 200 

Huaihai, 131 

Huairang, 202 

Huangbo Xiyun, 132 

Huang Tingjian, 405 

Huang Xiufu, 31 

Huayan art, 337–340 

Huayan jing (Avatam saka-sutra), 150, 

167, 187, 284, 321, 337–340, 

340–341, 341–343, 346–347, 374, 

650, 775, 810, 849 

Huayan jing suishu yanyi chao 

(Chengguan), 139 

Huayan lun (Li Tongxuan), 157–158 

Huayan (Kegon, Hwaŏm) school, 99, 

321, 337, 341–347, 619, 700, 810, 

827, 904, 928. See also Huayan art 

and Chan school, 132, 134 

and Dasheng qixin lun, 38–39 

and dharmadhatu, 224–225 

in Japan, 310–311, 411, 582 

key texts, 341, 374 

in Korea, 431, 650, 863–864 

and lineage, 342–344 

origins, 141, 144, 150 

patriarchs, 139, 284 

and Tiantai school, 849 

Huayansi, Upper and Lower, 152 

Huayen wujiao zhang (Fazang), 284 

Huayu ji, 913 

Huber, Toni, 407 

Huiguo, 825 

Huihong, 132 

Huijiao, and “Biographies of Eminent 

Monks,” 44 

Huikou, 441 

Huili, Ci’en zhuan, 909 

Huineng, 53, 127, 130–131, 227, 334, 

347–348, 463, 655, 662, 665 


(Liuzu tan jing), 130–131, 134, 157 

Huirui, 442 

Huisi, 462, 772, 845, 850 

Huiwen, 462, 845 

Hŭiyangsan, 599 

Huiyuan, 197, 201, 346, 348, 693, 700, 

702 

Kanding ji, 343 

Huizhao, 167, 283 


957

I NDEX 


Hülegü, 380 

human being, Buddha as, 80. See also 

sentient beings 

humanistic Buddhism, 263–264, 913 

“human revolution,” 781 

human sacrifice, 294 

Humphreys, Christmas, 267 

Hŏngdŏk Monastery, 677 

Huot Tath, 108–109 

Hu Shih, 99 

Huviskapura, 322 

Hwangnyongsa, 431, 436 

Hwaŏm ilsŭng pŏpkye to (Ŭisang), 344, 

863–864 

Hwaŏm school. See Huayan school 

Hyakumanto darani, 676 

Hyech’ŏl, 599, 825 

Hyegwan, 481 

Hyeja, 772 

Hyesim (Chin’gak kuksa), 158, 349, 428 

Hyeŭn, 599 

Hyŏnjong, King, 432 

Hyŏnjŏng non (Kihwa), 423 

Hyŏnuk, 599 

Hyujŏng (Ch’ŏnghŏ taesa, Sŏsan taesa, 

Ch’oe Hyŏnŭng), 134, 349–350, 433 

Sŏn’ga kwigam, 349 

I 

Ibn al-Faqlh, 380 

Ibn al-Nadlm 

Fihrist, 381 

Ibn Batuta, 381 

icchantika, 284, 351, 606, 827 

iconoclasm 

and Chan art, 127, 129 

in Islam, 640 

in Zoroastrianism, 642 

iconography and icons. See bodhisattva 

images; Buddha images 

idealism, 176 

identity, and lineage, 461 

Ikeda Daisaku, 661 

Ikkyu Sojun, 351 

image consecration, 392–393, 716, 789 

Imagit Kosen, 924 

immigration, of Asian Buddhists to 

Europe, 267–268. See also refugees 

Imperial Household Agency, Tokyo, 

Japan, 31 

impermanence. See anitya 

(impermanence) 

Inari, 769 

India, 33–34, 95–98, 117–118, 166, 

352–359, 549–550, 642–643, 

775–776. See also India, Buddhist 

art in; India, Northwest; India, 

South 

India, Buddhist art in, 13–14, 61, 

360–366. See also Buddha, life of 

the, in art; India; India, Northwest; 

India, South 

India, Northwest, 366–368, 367. See also 

India; India, Buddhist art in; India, 

South 

India, South, 369–370, 574. See also 

India; India, Buddhist art in; India, 

Northwest 

Indianization, 105, 421, 829 

Indian Museum, Calcutta, 362 

Indo-A ryans, 352 

Indonesia, Buddhist art in, 68, 260, 

372–374, 784–786. See also Buddha, 

life of the, in art; Indonesia and the 

Malay Peninsula; Southeast Asia, 


Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula, 

370–372, 644–645, 782. See also 

Indonesia, Buddhist art in; 

Southeast Asia, Buddhist art in 

Indra, 184, 289, 330, 374–375 

Indra’s net, 347, 374 

indriya, 51 

“inexhaustible storehouses,” 745, 

872–873 

inference, theory of, 225, 230, 451–452, 

470 

Ingen Ryuki (Yinyuan Longqi), 375 

initiation, 375–376, 388, 409, 771, 820, 

876. See also Tantra 

inner alchemy, 200 

Inner Asia. See Mongolia; Tibet 

Inoue Enryo, 377, 531 

inscriptions, 12, 72, 83, 101, 106, 113, 

120–122, 299, 302, 368, 371, 421, 

457, 493–494, 588, 614, 740, 777, 

782, 784, 795, 800, 828 

of Aśoka, 97, 182, 355, 362, 366–367, 

625, 651 

placed in hollow images, 394, 662, 

716–717 

Insight Meditation Society, 867 

insignias, robes as, 732–734 

Intaravehan Temple, Bangkok, 834 

intentionality, 9–10, 320–321, 546, 

681–683, 872, 917–918 

in Jainism, 383 

interdependence, and impermanence, 23 

intermediate states, 18–19, 21–22, 204, 

377–379, 504, 712. See also 

cosmology; death; rebirth 

international Buddhism, 50, 248–249, 

266–268, 448, 608–610. See also 

names of organizations 

internationalization, of Chan school, 

133–136 

International Network of Engaged 

Buddhists, Thailand, 248, 835 

internment, of Japanese Americans 

during World War II, 866 

Inter-Religio network, 161 

intersubjectivity, and Tiantai school, 846 

interview 

of ordinand, 615 

Zen use of, 529 

Inwanggyŏng so (Wŏnch’ŭk), 903 

Iŏm, 599 

Ippen Chishin, 380, 395, 412–413, 709 

Iran, 642 

Iriya Yoshitaka, 99 

I-ro-ha uta, 397 

Irwŏnsang, 903 

Iryŏn (Kim Kyŏnmyŏng), 738 

Ise shrine, 771, 793–794 

Ishihara Kanji, 162 

Ishii Yoneo, 831 

Islam and Buddhism, 121–122, 358, 372, 

380–381, 410, 640–643, 785 

Islamization, 381, 776 

Isurumuniya Monastery, 802 

Itum Baha, 590 

Ivolginski Datsan Temple, 138 

Izikowitz, Karl, 458 

J 

Jackson, David, 753 

Jaggayyapeta, 363 

Jago, 374 

Jainism and Buddhism, 33, 80, 329, 

383–384, 415–416 

Jakarta, Indonesia, 371 

Jambhala, 373 

’Jam dbyang Blo gter dbang po, 857 

’Jam dbyang Mkhyen brtse’i dbang po, 

857 

’Jam dpal (Jampel) rgya mtsho, 194 

James, William, 924 

Jamtsarano, 564 

Jamyang Choling Institute, Dharamsala, 

608 

Jaṅguli, 820 

Japan, 43, 191, 252–253, 319, 321, 335, 

337, 340, 384–391, 460, 643–644, 

828, 896. See also Chan art; esoteric 

art, East Asia; exoteric-esoteric 


I NDEX 


(Kenmitsu) Buddhism in Japan; 

Heian Buddhism; Japan, Buddhist 

art in; Kamakura Buddhism, Japan; 

Mahayana precepts in Japan; Meiji 

Buddhist reform; Nara Buddhism; 

Pure Land art; Pure Land schools; 


Buddhism; temple system in Japan 

and abortion, 9–10, 533, 544 

and Buddhist studies, 95–97, 99–100, 

311, 386, 413–415, 573–574, 860 

Buddhist texts, 26, 116, 676–677, 811 

Chan (Zen) school in, 134–136 

and Confucianism, 172 

decline of the dharma, 212–213 

Faxiang (Hosso) school in, 283–284 

folk religion, 291–293, 540 

Ghost Festival, 287–288, 307, 309 

Huayan (Kegon) school in, 345 

laity, 385–386, 388–389, 447–448, 531 

martial arts, 516–518 

monastic architecture, 554–556 

monks, 161, 236–237, 380, 404 

ordination, 499–500, 616–618, 674, 714 

and Pure Land Buddhism, 699–700, 

708–709 

religious practices, 21–22, 90, 534, 561, 

718, 726–727 

sacred space, 208, 788–794 

and Shingon Buddhism, 764–765 

and Taiwan, 816–817 

Tantra in, 825 

Tiantai (Tendai) school, 850 

Japan, Buddhist art in, 391–396 

Japanese, Buddhist influences on 

vernacular literature in, 396–398. 

See also Chinese, Buddhist 

influences on vernacular literature 

in; poetry and Buddhism 

Japanese royal family and Buddhism, 

398–400. See also Meiji Buddhist 

reform 

Japanization, 767 

jataka, 25, 32, 46, 59, 86, 102, 230, 251, 

264, 400–401, 422, 430–431, 495, 

532, 593, 627–628, 734, 829, 

842–843, 890–891. See also avadana 

jataka, illustrations of, 46–47, 80–81, 88, 

118, 401–402, 842–843. See also 

Buddha, life of the, in art; jataka 


in China, 146–147 

in India, 362, 365 


Jatakamala (A ryaśura), 32, 401–402, 402, 

748 

Jatakanidana, 86 

Jattakatthavannana, 627 

Java, 68, 371–372, 785 

Jayabahu Dharmakirti, 

Nikayasam grahaya, 777 

Jayavarman II, King, 106, 425 

Jayavarman V, King, 106 

Jayavarman VI, King, 106 

Jayavarman VII, King, 106–107, 783 

Jayhanl, Kitab al-masalik, 380 

Jetari, 35 

Jetavana Monastery, 18, 644, 796, 801 

Jetavana school, 795 

Jetavanlyas, 506 

Jet Tamnan, 634 

“Jewel in the Lotus,” 613 

jewels, 403, 424, 450, 715, 717. See also 

Indra’s net 

jhana, 226–227. See also dhyana (trance 

state) 

jiangjing wen, 155 

Jianzhen. See Ganjin 

Jiaojie xinxue biqiu xinghu lüyi 

(Daoxuan), 265 

jielü, 263 

Jien, Gukansho, 335 

Jigoku zoshi, 319 

’Jigs med gling pa, 730, 856 

Jimingsi, 551 

Jinakalamall, 877–878 

Jinakalamalinl (Ratanapañña), 628 

Jinakalamallpakarana, 832 

Jin’gangbei (Zhanran), 849, 925 

Jin’gang keyi, 813 

Jin’gang sanmei jing, 27 

Jingde chuandeng lu (Daoyuan), 132, 427 

jinglu, 116–117 

Jingmai, 909 

Jingtu cibei ji (Cimin), 707 

Jingtu lun, 707 

Jingwan, 677 

Jingying Huiyuan, 167 

Jin shizi zhang (Fazang), 343 

Jinshui Jingyuan, 863 

Jintasi, 147 

Ji school, 709 

Jishu school, 380, 412 

Jiuhua mountain, 553 

Jiun Onko (Jiun Sonja), 404 

Bongaku shinryo, 404 

Juzen hogo, 404 

Jlvaka Komarabhacca, 519 

jlvitendriya, 203–204 

Jizang, 144, 167, 481 

jizoku, use of term, 161 

jñana, 523, 632, 683 

Jñanagupta, 471 

Jñanaprasthana (Katyayanlputra), 166, 

220 

Jodo Shinshu, 10, 22, 79, 279, 414, 

531–532, 544, 573–574, 617, 699, 

708–709, 720, 766 

in West, 267, 865–866 

Jodo Shinshu school, 412 

Jodoshu, 336, 412, 699 

Jog Muni Vajracarya, 594 

Jojitsu (Chengshi) school, 411, 582 

Jokei, 414 

Jo khang, 326, 404–405, 851, 854, 857 

Jo nang pa, 827, 854, 856 

Jo nang Taranatha, 95, 575, 856 

Joruriji, 706 

Jotipala, 628 

Juefan (Huihong), 405–406 

Jueshe, 819 

Juhakka-in, 696 

Juhoyojin shu (Shinjo), 815 

‘Ju Mi pham, 857 

Jung, Carl G., 686 

Junnin, Emperor, 237 

Juqu Mengxun, 147 

“just war,” 894–896 

Juzen hogo (Jiun Onko), 404 

K 

Kabul Shah, 380 

Kachai (Mahakachai, Sangkachai), 302 

Kadavädduve Jinavaṁsa, 898 

Kagyu. See Bka’ brgyud (Kagyu) 

Kah tog rig ’dzin Tshe dbang nor bu, 856 

kaidan, 598 

Kailaśa (Kailash), 407–408, 408, 654, 654 

Kaiyuan shijiao lu (Zhisheng), 26, 116 

Kajisan, 599 

Kakka, 772 

Kakrak, 118 

Kakuban, 765, 790, 825 

Kakuju, 765 

Kakukai, 765 

Kakuryo Nishijima, 865 

Kakuzen, 414 

Kalacakra, 204, 373–374, 381, 408–410 

kalacakra system, 87 

Kalacakra Tantra, 511, 747 

Kalasan, 372 

Kallla wa-Dimna, 380 

Kalpanamanditika Drstantapaṅkti 

(Kumaralata), 37 


959

I NDEX 


kalpas, 538 

Kamakura Buddhism, Japan, 271–274, 

386–388, 411–415, 412, 556, 

594–597, 765, 770, 850. See also 

Chan (Zen, Sŏn) school; exotericesoteric 

(Kenmitsu) Buddhism in 

Japan; Nichiren school; Shingon 

Buddhism, Japan; Tiantai (Tendai) 

school 

Kamalaślla, 69–71, 483–484, 851, 915 

Bhavanakrama, 70, 483, 525 

First Bhavanakrama, 521 

Madhyamakaloka, 483 

Second Bhavanakrama, 55 

Kamata Shigeo, 723 

kami, 393, 620, 765, 767–771, 791 

kammatic Buddhism, 263 

kammatthana, 523, 525 

Kammatthana tradition, 898 

Kamo no Chomei, 398 

Kampuchea. See Cambodia 

Kamŭnsa, 436 

Kanakamuni, 72 

Kanding ji (Huiyuan), 343 

Kandy, 797 

Kandy Perahera, 287 

Kaneko Satoru, 293 

Kang Senghui, 166, 199, 879 

Kanheri, 363 

kanhua Chan, 428. See also koan 

Kanhwa kyŏrŭiron (Chinul), 158 

Kanishka, King, 120–121, 188, 367 

Kanjin Kakumusho (Ryohen), 284 

Kaṅkhavitaranl (Buddhaghosa), 166 

Kannon, 59, 61–62, 234, 292, 393. See 

also Avalokiteśvara 

Kantaka Cetiya, 801 

Kapilavastu, 83 

Kapleau, Philip, 868, 925 

Kara Khitais, 380 

Karandavyuha-sutra, 613 

Karashahr, 125 

Kara-tepe, 120 

Karll, 117, 363, 550 

karma (action), 19–20, 22, 27, 176, 183, 

186, 262, 269, 303, 329, 415–417, 

532, 648, 682–684, 713, 721–722. 

See also death 

Karma Dgon, 417 

Karma gling pa, 853, 859 

Karma pa, 417–419 

Karma Pakshi, 417–418, 562 

Karmaśataka, 36–37 

Karmasiddhiprakarana (Vasubandhu), 

916 

Karnataka, India, 369–370 

Karpelès, Susanne, 109 

karuna (compassion), 58, 61–62, 65, 

419–420, 894–896, 899. See also 

bodhicitta (thought of awakening); 

engaged Buddhism 

kasaya, 731 

Kashgar, 120 

Kashmir, 366–368 

Kashmir, Buddhist art in, 150, 322, 365 

kasina, 523 

Kaso Sodon, 351 

Kasuga Shrine, 274, 388, 511 

Kaśyapa, 72, 694, 802–803 

Kaśyapaparivarta, 496 

Kaśyaplya school, 368, 506 

Kataragama, 234 

Kathasaritsagara, 250–251 

Kathavatthu (Moggaliputta Tissa), 377, 

502, 504, 627, 840–841 

Kathmandu, 591 

Katyayanlputra, Jñanaprasthana, 166 

Kaukkutika, 504 

Kaundinya, 296 

Kavsilumina, 777 

kavya, 656, 748 

Kawaguchi Ekai, 98 

Kawaharadera, 554 

kaya, 76–79 

Kazi Dawa Samdup, 859 

Kegon school. See Huayan (Kegon, 

Hwaŏm) school 

Kellogg, Samuel Henry, 864 

Keng Vansak, 422 

Kenmitsu Buddhism. See exotericesoteric 

(Kenmitsu) Buddhism 

Kenninji, 413 

Ken’o Soi, 351 

Keown, Damien, 263 

kepan (segmental analysis), 168–169 

Keqin, Biyan lu, 132 

Kerala, India, 369–370 

Kern, Hendrik, 96 

Kerouac, Jack, 924 

Kevaddhasutta, 8 

Khaggavisana-sutta, 299 

Khalchayan, 146 

Khandhaka, 626 

Khema, 607 

Khmer, Buddhist literature in, 421–423 

Khmer Buddhism. See Cambodia 

Khmer people, 782–783, 787 

Khmer Rouge, 109, 423, 646 

Khóa Hu Luc, 880 

’Khon Dkon mchog rgyal po, 853 

Khotan, 121–122 

Khri srong lde btsan, King, 66–67, 69–71, 

188, 334, 623, 852 

Khro phu lotsava Byams pa dpal, 49 

Khruba Slwic∧hai, 832 

Khuddakanikaya, 627 

Kihwa (Hamhŏ Tukt’ong), 423 

Hyŏnjŏng non, 423 

Kim Manjung, Ku unmong, 439–440 

Kim Taesŏng, 781 

Kimura Shigeyuki, 162 

King, Henry M., 864 

kingship, 34, 106, 178, 182, 262, 338, 

424–425, 717–718, 720–721, 877, 

893–896 

ideal ruler, 657–658 

kingship metaphor, in Tantra, 820, 823 

Kinkakuji, 387, 556 

Klrti Śrl, 797 

Kisa Gautaml, 607 

Kitab al-masalik (Jayhanl), 380 

Kitab al-milal wa-n nihal (Shahrastanl), 

381 

Kitabatake Doryu, 531 

Kitab Bilawhar wa-Yudasaf, 380 

Kitsiri Malalgoda, 586 

Kiyozawa Manshi, 531 

Kizil, 118, 123, 123, 124–125, 551 

Kizilgara, 118 

kleśa, 52, 214, 682, 763, 919–920 

klistamanas, 176 

Klong chen pa (Longchenpa, Tshul 

khrims blos gros), 425–426, 484, 

730 

Mdzod bdun, 426 

Klong chen rab ‘byams pa, 853 

Klong chen snying thig, 730 

Klu mes, 852 

koan, 132, 135–136, 143, 205, 426–429, 

528–529. See also Chan (Zen, Sŏn) 

school; meditation 

koan commentary, 426 

koan meditation, 157, 237–238, 314, 349, 

528–529, 569, 928–929 

Koben (Myoe), 340, 345, 414, 429, 765 

Kodaiji, 395 

Koen, 500 

Kofukuji, 274, 336, 388, 393, 582 

Koguryŏ kingdom, 430 

Kojiki, 397, 767–768 

Kojong, King, 432 

Koken, Empress, 236–237 

Kokuchukai (National Pillar Society), 

162, 449, 531, 598 


I NDEX 


Komazawa, 531 

Komeito, 661, 781 

Konakamana, 72 

Konbaung art, in Myanmar, 579–580 

kongan. See koan 

Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas, 488 

Rin chen gter mdzod, 857 

Kongwangshan, 146 

Konjaku monogatari, 252, 429–430 

Konow, Sten, 97 

Korea, 99, 116, 119, 157–158, 172, 182, 

314, 349–350, 423, 430–435, 443, 

447, 464, 586, 609, 617, 643, 738, 

811, 863–864, 902–905, 929. See also 

Chogye school; Korea, Buddhist art 

in; Korean, Buddhist influences on 

vernacular literature in 

Chan (Sŏn) school, 133–134, 428–429 

Chogye school, 158–159 


Faxiang (Pŏpsang) school in, 283–284 

Ghost Festival, 21, 307 

Huayan (Kegon, Hwaŏm) school, 

344–345 

Japanese annexation of, 134, 433, 

586–587, 643 


Mongol invasions, 643 

and printing technologies, 676–677 

Tantra in, 823–825 

Tiantai (Ch’ŏnt’ae, Tendai) school, 850 

Korea, Buddhist art in, 253–254, 

339–340, 435–438, 781–782. See also 

Chan art; esoteric art, East Asia 

Korean, Buddhist influences on 

vernacular literature in, 439–440 

Korean Buddhist translation, 439 

Korean Tripitaka, 825 

Kornfield, Jack, 867–868 

Koryŏ monastery, 863 

Kosalabimbavannana, 178–179 

Koshoji, 236 

Kou Qianzhi, 173 

Koya, 708 

Kozanji, 345, 395, 429 

Krakucchanda, 72 

ksanti, 632 

ksatriya caste, 83, 893 

Ksema, 232 

Ksemendra 

Avadanakalpalata, 748 

Bodhisattvavadana-kalpalata, 37 

Ksitigarbha (Dizang, Jizo, Chijang posal), 

62, 290, 403, 544, 570–571 

Ksudrakagama, 11 

Kubjotara, 232 

Ku Bua, 783 

Kucha, 118, 121, 124–125 

kudoku, 532 

Kuiji (Dasheng Ji, Ci’en Dashi), 167, 283, 

441, 909, 915, 920 

Fayuan yilin zhang, 283 

Kuiy kyaṅ abhidamma (Arhaṅ 

Janakabhivam sa), 102 

Kukai (Kobo Daishi), 22, 255–256, 273, 

293, 345, 397, 399, 411–412, 

441–442, 511, 535, 540, 543, 662, 

717, 764–765, 790, 793, 825 

Bunkyohifuron, 656 

Hizoki, 255 

Kukkutarama Monastery, 694 

Kumano, 792 

Kumarajlva, 121, 143–144, 167, 197, 201, 

226, 281, 348, 442, 454, 471, 481, 

658, 707, 759–760, 776, 926 

Kumaralata, Kalpanamanditika 

Drstantapaṅkti, 37 

Kumararaja, 426 

kumbhandas, 310 

Kumbum, 326 

Kŭmgangsa, 436 

Kumtura, 118, 551 

Kunalajataka, 894 

Kŭn Ch’ogo, King, 430 

Kun grol grags pa, 67 

Kun ldan ras pa, 49 

Kuo’an, 621 

Kuonji, 595 

Kuroda Toshio, 271, 414, 767 

Kuruma Takudo, 531 

Kusa Jataka (Alagiyavanna Mohottala), 

778 

Kushans, 120–121 

Kusha school, 411, 582 

Kuśinagara, 92 

Ku unmong (Kim Manjung), 439–440 

Kuya, 702 

Kvaerne, Per, 67 

Kwangjong, King, 134, 432 

Kwanseŭm, 59, 61–62. See also 

Avalokiteśvara 

Kwanŭm, 234. See also Avalokiteśvara 

Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, 580 

Kyogyoshinsho (Shinran), 766 

kyok ca, 102 

Kyŏngdŏk, King, 339 

Kyŏnghŏ Sŏngu, 443 

Sŏnmun ch’waryo, 443 

Kyoṅ to ra Rvhe kyaṅ Cha ra to bhu ra 

krl theruppatti (Phui Kya), 102 

Kyo school, 157 

Kyoto school, 650 

Kyung po rnal ’byor, 852 

L 

Labrang Tashi Khyil, 326 

Ladakh, Buddhist art in, 324–325 

LaFleur, William R., 10 

laity, 168, 445–449, 589, 741, 762, 885 

and Chan (Zen) school, 133 

and dana, 196, 229 

in Japan, 385–386, 388–389, 531 

and Mahayana, 494–495, 501 

and modernization, 448–449 

and monasticism, 560, 886 

and Nichiren school, 595–596 

and precepts, 27, 182, 246, 262, 282, 

431, 446, 668, 673, 675, 714 

and relics cults, 717–718 

religious aspirations, 315, 356, 662–663, 

699 

religious practices, 286, 723, 734, 804, 

842 

laksana, 80 

Laksmlṅkara, Princess, 306 

Lalitavistara, 86, 88, 450, 512, 747 

lama, 193, 450, 535. See also Dalai Lama; 

Panchen Lama 

householder, 589 

lay, 852 

Lamaism, use of term, 450 

Lamaseries, 553 

Lamayuru, 324 

Lam ’bras, 854 

Lamotte, Etienne, 86, 96–97, 461, 496 

lamp histories, 334, 464 

lam rim, 56 

Lam rim chen mo (Tsong kha pa), 36, 

855, 861 

land ownership, 780 

language, Buddhist philosophy of, 

154–155, 217, 230, 451–452, 512, 

526–529, 545, 683 

language, Hindu philosophy of, 331 

language learning, 248 

languages, 452–455. See also canon; 

Gandharl, Buddhist literature in; 

inscriptions; Newari, Buddhist 

literature in; Pali, Buddhist 

literature in; Sanskrit, Buddhist 

literature in; Sinhala, Buddhist 

literature in; translation and 

translators 

Apabhram śa, 821 

of the Buddha, 452 


961

I NDEX 


languages (continued) 

Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, 625, 745 

Buddhist Middle Indic, 625 


of canon, 112–113 

in Central Asia, 120, 454 

Chinese, 154 

of East Asia, 454 

Gandharl, 218, 299–300, 453, 776 

Khmer, 108, 421 

Khotanese, 454 

Khotanese Saka, 776 

Korean, 439–440 

Lao, 828 

Magadhl, 625 

Mongolian, 455, 776 

Nepal Bhasa, 592 

Newari, 592–593 

nonstandard Sanskrit, 821 

Pali, 452–453, 455, 625, 837 

Prakrit, 453 

Sanskrit, 421, 451, 592–593, 745 

Shan, 828 

Sinhala, 777–778, 877 

Sogdian, 454, 776 

Thai, 828–830 

Tibetan, 776, 851–852 

Tocharian, 251, 454, 776 

Tumshuq, 454 

Uighur, 454, 776 

vernacular, 452–453, 455 

Vietnamese (quôć ngu´), 883 

Lankatilaka, 799, 801 

Laṅkavatara-sutra, 57, 167, 177, 351, 456, 

603–604, 915 

on diet, 229 

Lao Issara, 645 

Laos, 446–447, 456–458, 645–646. See 

also folk religion, Southeast Asia; 

Southeast Asia, Buddhist art in 

and communism, 169 

Laozi, 197–198, 538 

Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, 743 

Lassen, Christian, 628 

La Vallée Poussin, Louis de, 96–97, 99 

law and Buddhism, 459–460 

law codes, Buddhist, 101, 460 

Burmese, 102–103 

Ganden Phodrang, 460 

Lcang skya Khutukhtus, 563–564 

Lcang skya rol pa’i rdo rje, 856 

Ldan dkar ma catalogue, 613 

Ldan ma brag, 508 

“learning of culture,” 174 

Ledi Sayadaw, 524 

“legal person,” relics as, 715 

legend, and life of Buddha, 85–86 

legitimacy, and lineage, 461 

Legs bshad snying po (Tsong kha pa), 321, 

738 

Legs par bshad pa rin pa che’i gter (Sa 

skya Pandita), 753 

Leifengta, 719 

Lengzhai yehua, 405 

Leria, Giovanni Maria, 160 

Lévi, Sylvain, 96–97, 495 

Lhasa, 404–405, 789 

Lha tho tho ri, King, 613 

Liangkai, 127, 152 

Liang Qichao, 585 

Liang Sicheng, 150 

Liang Wudi, 425 

Lianyun’gang, 551 

Li Bai, 173 

Licchavi rulers, 588 

Lidai sanbaoji (Fei Changfang), 25–26, 

116–117 

Liê˜u Quán, 881 

life span, 74, 185, 473 

Ligdan Khan, 563 

Li Hua, 925 

Liji, 172 

Likir, 324 

liminality, of pilgrimage, 654 

lineage, 22, 281, 334, 461–465, 607, 

661–662. See also Bka’ brgyud 

(Kagyu) 

Chan school, 130–134, 334, 347–348 

in China, 462–465 

Chogye school, 159 

disciple lineage, 617 

in esoteric Buddhism, 620 

Huayan school, 342–344 

initiation lineage, 617 

in Korea, 599 

Mongolian, 564 

Nichiren school, 595 

Shingon school and, 765 

in Taiwan, 816–817 

lineage portraits, 260, 661–662 

Linehan, Marsha, 687 

Lingbao scriptures, 199 

Lingquan Chan Monastery, 817 

Lingyanshan Monastery, Taiwan, 515 

Lingyin Monastery, 912 

Lingyun Chan Monastery, 817 

Linjian lu, 405–406 

Linji (Rinzai) house of Chan school, 

132–133, 135–136, 313–314, 334, 

375, 413, 428, 528–529, 569, 866, 

880–881, 912 

Linji lu (Yuanjue Zongyan), 913 

Lin Tinggui, 31 

Lin Zhao’en, 200, 813 

liquid life theory, 10 

liru and xingru, 57 

lists of patriarchs, 82 

literacy, 156, 247, 295, 448, 813 

Lithai, King, Trai Phum Phra Ruang, 

828–829, 832 

lithography, 677 

Li Tongxuan, 134, 167, 344, 432 

Huayan lun, 157–158 

liturgy. See chanting and liturgy 

Liu Yimin, 693, 707 

Living Buddha Jigong (Jigong Huofo), 

290 

Lmas Rsi, 550 

local divinities and Buddhism, 200, 234, 

259–260, 274, 288–289, 310, 

465–469, 466–467, 623, 625, 653, 

762, 820, 838, 842. See also ghosts 

and spirits; Shinto (Honji Suijaku) 

and Buddhism; names of divinities 


in China, 290–291 

in Japan, 393, 620, 765, 767–771, 791 

in Laos, 457 


in Myanmar, 575–576, 579 


Lochen Dharmaśrl, 730, 856 

logic, 225, 459, 469–470, 482, 647, 861, 

884–885, 915. See also language, 

Buddhist philosophy of 

Lohan, 290 

Lokaksema, 146, 492, 671, 776 

lokavid, 87 

Lokottaravada (Ekavyavaharika), 490, 

504 

Lomas Rishi, 117 

Lombok, 372 

Longhu Yan, 816 

Longmen, 100, 118–119, 119, 147–148, 

338, 471, 551, 661 

Long Roll of Buddhist Images (Zhang 

Shengwen), 661 

Longshan, 816 

Longxing, 338, 552 

Loori, John Daido, 248, 868 

Loro Jonggrang, Prambanam, 68, 785 

Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarlka-sutra), 

61–62, 65, 77, 93, 138, 180, 191, 


I NDEX 


215, 226, 292, 332, 395, 412–413, 

471–477, 500, 532, 619, 693–694, 

759, 772, 781, 871, 882. See also 

Nichiren school 

and commentarial literature, 167 

cult of, 594–598, 672 

as protective text, 634 

and sacred geography, 792 

and Tiantai school, 845–847 

Loulan, 125 

Loväda sam grahaya, 778 

Luce, Gordon H., 302 

Lumbinl, 83 

lunar cycle, and time reckoning, 285 

Lun Fogu biao (Han Yu), 759 

Lung gi nye ma (Bu ston), 104 

Lunyu, 172 

Luohans, 151–152. See also arhat(s) 

Luo Qing, 813 

Luoyang, 146, 148, 535, 551 

Luoyang qielan ji, 57, 516 

Lushan, 348 

Lu Shengyan, 814 

Lüders, Heinrich, 97 

M 

Macy, Joanna, 248 

Madhyamagama, 11 

Madhyamakahrdayakarika (Bhavaviveka), 

42, 481–482 

Madhyamakakarika (Nagarjuna), 111, 

581, 809 

Madhyamakaloka (Kamalaślla), 483 

Madhyamaka school, 31–32, 42, 53, 

77–78, 111, 144, 223–224, 470, 

479–485, 481–483, 581–582, 649, 

680, 683, 749, 809, 827, 846–847, 

855, 861–862 

Madhyamakavatara (Candraklrti), 111, 

482, 604 

Madhyantavibhaga, 914, 916 

Madhyantika, 368, 750 

maechi, 901 

Maezumi, Taizan, 868 

magazines and periodicals 

Buddhist Ray (U.S.), 865 

Light of Dharma (U.S.), 865 

Vietnamese, 883 

Ma gcig lab sgron (Machig Labdrön), 

485–486, 901 

Mahabharata, 331 

Mahabodhi Temple, 50, 364, 486–487 

Mahabodhi Society, 16, 359, 448, 798 

Mahabodhivam sa, 877 

Mahachulalongkorn, 832 

Mahadeva, 504, 568 

Mahadhamma Saṅkram 

Sasanalaṅkara ca tam, 102 

Maha Ghanta, 774 

Maha Ghosananda, 110 

Mahakala, 563 

mahakalpa, 185 

Mahakarma-vibhaṅga, 302 

Mahakassapa (arhat). See Mahakaśyapa 

Mahakaśyapa, 29, 84, 133, 188, 232, 354, 

487, 507, 542, 566, 576, 897 

Mahamakut, 832 

Mahamantranudharinl, 634 

Mahamaudgalyayana, 232, 287, 290, 

308–309, 317, 354, 487–488, 542, 

741, 750 

Mahamaya, 238 

Mahamayurl, 634 

mahamudra, 488–489, 513 

Mahanaman, 232 

Mahanikai order, 108 

Mahapadana-suttanta, 72, 890 

mahapadeśa, 111 

Mahapadesa-sutta, 94 

Mahaparinibbana-sutta, 205–207, 626. 

See also Mahaparinirvana-sutra 

Mahaparinirvana-sutra, 8, 84–85, 179, 

300, 489, 715, 894, 905–906 

Mahaprajapatl Gautaml, 83–84, 232, 238, 

353, 489–490, 607, 741 

Mahaprajñaparamita-śastra (Nagarjuna), 

214 

Mahapratisara, 634 

mahapurusa, 80, 361 

Maharajakaniskalekha (Matrceta), 518 

Maharajavaṅ krl (U Kala), 102 

Mahasaccaka-sutta, 83 

Mahasam ghika school, 11, 77, 86, 113, 

121, 188, 223–224, 354, 368, 490, 

491, 502–504, 538, 588, 674, 742 

Mahasam ghika-vinaya, 887 

mahasammatta, 424–425 

Mahasasrapramardinl, 634 

Mahasatipatthana-sutta, 754 

mahasattva, 58, 61, 85 

Mahasena, 644 

mahasiddha, 488, 490–491, 572, 583, 

820–821, 878–879 

Mahasi Sayadaw, 898 

Mahasthamaprapta, 15 

mahastupa, 804 

Mahathat Monastery, 39 

Mahatisadda Ghanta, 774 

Mahavadana-sutra, 85–86 

Mahavagga, 231, 285 

Mahavagge Mandapeyyakatha, 445 

Mahavairocana, 274, 373, 412, 473, 476, 

764. See also Vairocana 

Mahavairocana-sutra, 56, 254, 511, 534, 

764 

Mahavam sa, 75, 95, 162, 333, 626, 644, 

742, 777, 795–796, 877 

Mahavastu, 86, 230, 491, 512, 538, 746 

Mahavessantara-jataka, 422 

Mahavibhasa, 20, 166, 188, 377, 505 

Mahavihara, 188, 644, 795, 837 

Mahaviharavasins, 506 

Mahavlra, 383 

Mahavyutpatti, 87 

Mahayana art, 372 

Mahayana precepts in Japan, 499–501 

Mahayanasam graha (Asaṅga), 32, 59, 

914–916 

Mahayana school, 29, 33, 52, 211, 214, 

239, 269, 309, 342, 419–420, 490, 

492–499, 525, 534, 616, 809–810, 

871, 878 



and buddhahood, 77–78, 186–187, 219, 

230, 378, 760 

and Buddha images, 81, 88, 550 

and buddhas, 13–14, 47, 71–74, 87, 

234, 497, 743 

in Cambodia, 106–107 


in China, 143 

“cult of the book,” 474, 591, 717 


and gender, 304–305 

and initiation, 375–376 

institutionalization of, 357–358 

key texts, 113, 183, 227–228, 320, 456, 

756 

in Korea, 430–432, 904–905 

and laity, 445, 447–448 

and merit, 208, 532 

in Nepal, 588, 593 

and nirvana, 603–604 

and original enlightenment, 619–620 

and path, 93, 636 

and prajñaparamita literature, 665–667 

precepts, 281–282, 675 


698–699, 701, 707 

rise of, 356–357, 369, 479, 507, 776 

and spread of Buddhism in China, 

140–141 

and Tantra, 820, 852 


963

I NDEX 


Mahayana school (continued) 

and tathagatagarbha, 826–827 

and Theravada, 839–840 

and Tiantai school, 845–847 

in United States, 868–869 

and Vajrayana, 875–876 

in Vietnam, 879–882 

Mahayana-sutralam kara, 58 

Mahayana sutras, Sanskrit, 746–747 

Mahinda, 627, 877 

Mahlśasaka school, 223, 368, 501, 506, 

914 

and vinaya, 503, 674 

Mahlśasaka-vinaya, 887 

Maidari, 327 

Maijishan caves, 118, 149, 151, 551 

mainstream Buddhist schools, 24, 113, 

120–122, 131, 183–187, 225, 269, 

328, 492, 501–507, 603, 776 

Mair, Victor, 98 

Maitreya, 63, 233, 290, 507–508, 755. See 

also millenarianism and millenarian 

movements 

in Central Asia, 121 

in China, 538–540 

in East Asia, 197 

as future Buddha, 28–30, 59–60, 73–74, 

87, 211, 375, 537, 658–659, 704, 

813–814, 838, 914 

images, 61, 125, 147–148, 393, 437, 437, 

695–696 

in South Asia, 538 

Maitreyasamitinataka, 251 

maitrl, 419 

Maitrlpa, 488, 491, 513 

Majjhimanikaya, 63, 75, 299, 451, 541, 

545, 601, 627 

Makiguchi Tsunesaburo, 781 

Malaya, 260, 370–372 

Malay Peninsula, 370–372 

Maligavila, 801 

Mamallapuram, 369 

manas, 175–176, 224 

mandala, 43, 68–69, 81, 150, 234, 372, 

409, 508–512, 511, 686, 697, 764, 

770–771, 823 

Adamantine, 791, 794 

besson, 791 

Diamond World Mandala, 508–511, 

510, 773 

in esoteric art, 255, 259–260 

and initiation ritual, 375–376 

Japanese tradition, 511–512 

Kalacakra Mandala, 511 

and kayas, 78–79 

of Lotus Sutra, 476, 595, 597 

Mandala of Eight Great Bodhisattvas, 

508 

Matrix, 791, 794 

pure lands, 705–706 

and Shugendo, 791–792 

Taima Mandara, 706 

Tantra and, 820 

of Tibetan Book of the Dead, 859 

Womb World Mandala, 508–511, 509, 

770–771, 773 

Mandalay, 113, 579 

mandalization, 791–792 

mandorla, 147 

Maṅgalatthadlpanl, 422 

manghon il, 307 

Mangrai, King, 830 

Mani, 159 

Mani bka’ ’bum, 404, 853 

Manimekalai, 369–370 

Manipadma, 613 

mani stones, 614 

Mañjuśrl, 60–61, 63, 68, 372–373, 498, 

562–563, 570–571, 666, 785 

Mañjuśrlmulakalpa, 823 

Mañjuśrlnamasam glti, 821 

mantra, 217, 315, 376, 452, 512, 526–527, 

613–614, 635, 666, 764, 820–821, 

824, 875 

Mantra of Radiance (komyo shingon), 

429 

Om mani padme hum , 138, 512, 

613–614 

mantra dharanl collections, Newari, 593 

mantranaya, 821, 875 

Mantrayana, 512, 875 

manuscripts, 228, 746 

from Afghanistan, 120 

Bamiyan, 368 


Dunhuang cache, 26, 28, 43, 97, 99, 

155, 240, 744, 811, 899–900 

Gandharl, 299–300 

Gilgit cache, 97, 368 

illuminated, 438, 592, 810–812, 811 

in Japan, 394–395 

in Korea, 436–438 

of Lotus Sutra, 472, 474 

in Myanmar, 628, 782 

Newari, 592–593 

Pali, 782 

in Sri Lanka, 628, 796 

Man’yoshu, 397 

Manzei, 397 

Mao Ziyuan, 702 

mappo. See decline of the dharma 

Mara, 45, 86, 90, 184, 204, 233–234, 270, 

271, 289, 373, 512–513, 870. See 

also evil 

Maravijaya, 90, 513 

March First Movement, Korea, 314 

Marco Polo, 160 

marga. See path 

Mar pa (Marpa, Mar pa Chos kyi blo 

gros), 48, 488, 513–514, 536, 583, 

589, 852–853 

marriage 

of bodhisattvas, 356 

of clergy, 134, 136, 161–162, 386, 413, 

433–434, 589, 762–763, 766 

Marston, John, 109 

martial arts, 514–518, 515. See also 

monastic militias 

Marui Keijiro, 817 

Ma-so-shin, 580 

master-disciple relation, 464 

material perfection, 632 

Mathura, 61, 80, 125, 363–366, 805 

Matrceta, 518, 748. See also Sanskrit, 

Buddhist literature in 

Maharajakaniskalekha, 518 

Prasadapratibhodbhava, 518 

Varnarhavarnastotra, 518 

Matrka, 1–2, 888 

Matsumoto Shiro, 189 

Maya, 83, 85, 89–90 

Mazu Daoyi, 131–132, 134, 202–203, 

348, 599 

Mazu yulu (Mazu Daoyi), 202 

McGregor, Bennett (Ananda Metteyya), 

266 

mchod rtens, 260 

Mdzod bdun (Klong chen pa), 426 

Mean (Son Ngoc Minh), 109 

medicine, 64–65, 518–519, 686–687 

Medirigiriya, 800 

meditation, 93, 278, 298, 315, 384, 

520–530, 522, 523–524, 540–541, 

547, 603, 647, 649, 665, 671, 

684–686, 724, 840, 882. See also 

bodhi (awakening); buddhanusmrti; 

dhyana (trance state); psychology 

Chan school and, 133, 135 

on death, 204–205, 687, 763 

deity yoga, 93, 234, 526 


focus on body, 63–64 

Four Lands, 792 

gcod (chöd), 521 


I NDEX 


hwadu, 158 

insight meditation, 8, 226, 520, 524, 

526, 577, 647, 666, 754, 798, 

889–890 

jingzuo (quiet sitting), 174 

koan, 157, 237–238, 314, 349, 528–529, 

569, 928–929 

mindfulness meditation, 521 

and mozhao Chan, 428, 568–569 

research on, 685–686 

śamatha, 889 

and Sa skya school, 751 

and scriptural study, 757–758 

severance meditation, 485–486 

Shugendo and, 773–774 

“sleep exercise,” 701 

and Tiantai school, 847, 849–850 

and vinaya, 886–887 

visual support for, 185, 258, 259, 327, 

523 

Yogacara and, 919–920 

zazen, 390, 528–529 

meditation centers, 890 

Meghavarman, King, 50 

Meiji Buddhist reform, 517, 530–531, 

585–586, 643–644, 659, 765, 

767–771, 773, 924 

memorial portraits, 662–663 

memorial rites, 21–22, 129, 206–209, 207, 

209, 291–292, 308–309, 379, 544, 

633, 701, 859 

memorization, of scripture, 757 

men, 294–295, 303, 306, 446. See also 

gender; monks 

Menander, King (Milinda), 356, 367, 537 

Mencius, 172, 174 

mental culture, and meditation, 523–524 

mental health, 684–685 

merchants, 244–245, 547 

merit and merit-making, 229, 392–395, 

446–447, 532–534, 533, 533, 

533–534, 560, 672, 833, 842, 882, 

928 

amulets and, 15–16 

and dana, 196, 245–246 

local divinities and, 467–468 

in Myanmar, 576–579 

sutra-copying, 394–395, 474 

in Theravada, 838–840 

transfer of merit, 21–23, 139, 208, 217, 

246, 310, 447, 532 

Merv oasis, 120 

messianism, 28. See also Maitreya 

Metteyya, 73 

Miaoying, 553 

Miaoyun ji, 913 

Mi bskyod rdo rje, 418, 484, 856 

middle way. See path 

Mi ’gyur rdo rje, 856 

Mihintale, 800–801 

Mihirakula, 642 

Mijiao (esoteric) school, 150, 338, 511, 

534–535. See also esoteric art, East 

Asia; Tantra 

Mi la ras pa (Milarepa), 48, 407–408, 

488, 536, 853 

Milindapañha, 19, 532, 536–537, 602, 

634 

millenarianism and millenarian 

movements, 449, 537–540, 538–540, 

658–659, 813. See also nationalism 

and Buddhism; Pure Land 


Minamoto Tamenori, Sanboe, 447 

mindfulness (smrti), 138, 523–524, 

540–541, 601–602, 686–687, 754, 

889. See also consciousness, theories 

of; meditation 

“mindfulness of the body,” 64 

Mindon, King, 898 

mind-only theory, 904. See also 

consciousness, theories of 

Ming, Emperor, 140 

Mingkin, 579 

Mingun Pagoda, 580 

minkan shinko, 291 

Minnanthu, 575 

Min Yide, 200–201 

miracles, 29–30, 85, 541–544, 543 

miracle tales, 227, 292, 395, 543 

Miran, 125 

Mirŭksa, 436 

misogyny, 763 

Miśrakabhidharmahrdayaśastra 

(Dharmatrata), 4, 220 

missionaries 

Buddhist, 105, 121, 140, 248, 466–467, 

816, 836, 865 

Christian, 160, 163–165, 531, 584, 643 

Mission Pavie, 458 

Mithra, 538 

Mitsui Koshi, 162 

Mituo, 816 

Miyake Hitoshi, 291 

Mizuko Kuyo, 10, 544. See also abortion 

Mkha’ ’gro snying thig, 426 

Mkha’ khyab rdo rje, 418 

Mkhan po Gzhan dga’, 857 

Mkhas grub, 215–216, 484, 629, 855 

Mkhas pa rnams ’jug pa’i sgo (Sa skya 

Pandita), 753 

Mnga’ ris pan chen Pad ma dbang rgyal, 

856 

Mochizuki Shinko, 99 

modernity and Buddhism, 163, 544–548, 

545, 547–548, 646. See also 

colonialism and Buddhism; 

economics; engaged Buddhism 

modernization, 194–195, 448–449, 

545–546, 546, 584–586, 767 

mofa, 212 

Mogao, 118 

Moggaliputta Tissa, 188 

Kathavatthu, 377, 502, 504, 627, 840–841 

Mohan Wijayaratna, 556 

Moheyan (Mahayana), 69–71 

Mohe zhiguan (Zhiyi), 475, 548–549, 927 

Mon, 782–783, 787 

monasteries, 199, 245, 433, 575, 591, 617, 

678, 780, 841–842. See monastic 

architecture; monasticism; names of 

monasteries 

administration of, 566–567 

economics of, 245–246, 433, 780, 

818–819, 872–873 

growth of, 357–358 

and monastic militias, 560–561 

private, 582, 589–590 

as sacred space, 789–790 

monastery gods, 768–769 

monastic architecture, 12, 17, 39, 

122–123, 178, 191, 259, 323–327, 

325, 363, 404–405, 436, 549–556, 

578, 590–591, 700, 774, 781–782, 

789–790, 803–807, 838, 841–842. 

See also cave sanctuaries; space, 

sacred; temple system in Japan; 

names of monasteries 

monastic Buddhism, 492 

monastic code. See vinaya 

monastic discipline, 9, 131, 133, 229, 229, 

404, 459, 499–503, 523, 547, 

557–558, 615–616, 626, 667–668, 

673–675, 762. See also precepts; 

vinaya 

monastic family, 280–281, 464 

monasticism, 33–34, 129, 140, 280–281, 

355, 388–389, 431, 434, 446, 458, 

493–496, 514–516, 532, 547, 

556–560, 557, 588–590, 673–675, 

861, 897. See also ordination 

monastic militias, 516, 560–561, 659. See 

also war 

monastic routine, 133, 135, 559 

monastics, categories of, 557–559 

monastic training, and perspectives on 

body, 63–66 

monastic vocation, 568 


965

I NDEX 


money 

and abstraction, 244, 547 

“spirit money,” 713 

money lending, 872–873 

Mongkut, King, 245, 546, 657, 832 

Mongolia, 169–170, 454–455, 460, 553, 

561–565, 609, 752 

Mongolia, Buddhist art in, 327. See 

Himalayas, Buddhist art in 

monk-painters, Chan, 128 

monks, 155, 206, 303, 313, 431, 543, 

565–568, 572, 582, 741, 762, 821, 

839–840, 907. See also 

bhiksu/bhiksunl; diet; disciples of 

the Buddha; nuns; ordination; robes 

and clothing; vinaya; wilderness 

monks; names of monks 

arhats as, 30–31 

Buddha as, 79–80 

eminent, 15–16, 35–36, 178, 290 

householder, 590, 592–593 

as misfits, 897–898 

and money economy, 244–246 

as outsiders, 659–660 

and perspectives on body, 63–66 

royal, 657, 662 

and rulers, 658–660 

and rules of etiquette, 265–266 

and state law codes, 660–661 

as storytellers, 251–252 

warrior monks, 514–516, 561 

Monk’s Militia, Korea, 350 

Moon’s Reflection on the Buddha’s 

Lineage, 439 

moonstone, 802 

morality. See ethics 

motive, and karma, 262 

Motoori Norinaga, 397, 400 

Mou Bo, 879 

Mountain Buddhism, 349–350 

mountains, sacred, 407–408, 540, 593, 

654, 706, 768–769, 789–791. See also 

Shugendo 

Mount Emei, 339 

Mount Fuji, 793 

Mount Hiei, 272–274, 307, 336, 388, 

412–413, 476, 561, 720, 737, 766, 773 

Mount Koya, 412, 511, 540, 765, 773 

Mount Meru, 407 

Mount Negoro, 765 

Mount Wutai, 339, 535, 700 

movable type, 677 

mozhao Chan (silent illumination Chan), 

133, 428, 568–569 

Mtho ling Monastery, 484 

Mthong ba don ldan, 418 

Muara Jambi, 374 

Muara Takus, 373 

mudra and visual imagery, 15, 79–81, 90, 

91, 92, 521, 569–572, 571, 764, 820, 

844. See also bodhisattva images; 

Buddha images; posture; robes and 

clothing 

Mugu chŏnggwang taedarani kyŏng, 676 

Mujaku Dochu, 135 

Mulamadhyamakakarika (Nagarjuna), 

480, 496 

Mulasarvastivada school, 83, 86, 166, 

378, 503, 505, 668, 674, 750–751, 

750–751. See also Sarvastivada and 


Mulasarvastivada-vinaya, 235, 495, 

572–573, 615, 742, 746, 873, 887 

Mulian, 309, 319–320 

Müller, F. Max, 95, 97 

Muqi (Fachang), 152 

Six Persimmons, 128 

Murakami Sensho, 531, 573–574 

Daijo bussetsu ron hihan, 573 

Dainihon Bukkyoshi, 573 

Murasaki, Lady, Genji monogatari, 397 

murder, Devadatta and, 214–215 

Mus, Paul, 717 

Musang, 133–134 

music, sacred, and chanting, 138–139 

musical instruments, as ritual objects, 

729, 729 

Muso Soseki, 135, 678 

Muvadevavata, 777 

Muyŏm, 599 

Myanmar, 17, 47, 160, 163, 165, 234, 

245, 260–262, 381, 446–447, 457, 

467, 488, 566, 574–577, 608, 870, 

879, 890, 898. See also Burmese, 


Myanmar, Buddhist art in, 17, 577–580, 

774, 782–783, 786–787, 807, 811 

Myanma saṅgha, 575 

Myin-wun-taik, 580 

Myoan Eisai, 135 

Myoe. See Koben 

myokonin movement, 705 

Myoryu, 500 

Myoshinji lineage, 135–136 

Myozen, 235 

My The, Vietnam, 882 

N 

naga, 234, 310, 466–467, 838 

Nagarjuna, 31, 60, 223–224, 479–480, 

581–582, 649, 707, 755, 760, 845 

Dazhidu lun, 317, 462, 790 

Mahaprajñaparamita-śastra, 214 

Mulamadhyamakakarika, 111, 480, 496, 

581, 809 

Ratnavall, 479–480 

Suhrllekha, 480 

Śunyatasaptati, 480 

Vigrahavyavartanl, 480, 581 

Yuktisastika, 480 

Nagarjunakonda, 363, 365, 369, 550, 

805–806 

Nagasena, 105, 537 

Nag mtsho tshul khrims rgyal ba, 36 

Nagoya, Japan, 26 

Nakamura Hajime, 99 

Nakapattinam, 369 

Nakazato Nissho, 531 

Nakhon Pathom, 783 

Nakulapita-sutta, 445 

Nalanda, 111, 357–359, 365, 372, 380, 

583, 807, 909, 915 

nama, 18 

namarupa, 175 

namaskara, 265 

namas te, 265 

Namsan, 554 

Ñanakitti, 628 

Nanatsu-dera, 26 

Nanchansi, 150 

Nanda, 607 

Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan (Yijing), 759, 913 

Nanjo Bun’yu, 531 

Nanking, 148 

Nanquan Puyuan, 427 

Nanyue Huairang, 348, 463 

Nanyue Huisi, 927 

Naong Hyegŭn, 134 

Nara Buddhism, 271–274, 345, 386–388, 

411–415, 554–555, 582–583, 737, 

765 

Naropa, 48, 379, 488, 491, 513, 536, 583 

Naropada, 410 

Nasik, 363 

Natha, 420 

nationalism and Buddhism, 163, 

169–171, 189, 448–449, 584–587, 

585. See also kingship 

in Japan, 162, 377, 517–518, 531, 598 

in Korea, 314 

in Sri Lanka, 778, 799 


nativism, Shinto and, 770 

nats, 576, 774 

Nattier, Jan, 314, 333, 454 


I NDEX 


nature origination, Huayan school and, 

346–347 

Natyaśastra (Bharatamuni), 251 

navadharma, 746 

Navayana Buddhism, 249 

Neak Pean, 783–784 

need, transcending, 246 

Negapatam, 372 

Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, 

Missouri, 508 

nenbutsu (Chinese, nianfo; Korean, 

yŏmbul), 79, 93, 136, 250, 307, 336, 

348, 412–414, 476, 587–588, 672, 

699–700, 707–709, 720, 766. See also 

buddhanusmrti 

neo-Confucianism, 134–136, 142, 145, 

172–174, 200, 423, 433 

Nepal, 588–591, 590, 594, 608, 746, 748 

Nepal, Buddhist art in, 91, 322–324, 811. 

See Himalayas, Buddhist art in 

Netherlands, as colonial power, 163–164 

Newar Buddhism, 590–591, 642, 744 

Newari, Buddhist literature in, 592–594. 

See also Nepal 

New Buddhism, 413–414, 584, 596–597, 

924 

“new new religions,” 385 

“new religions,” 385–386, 449, 596, 781 

New Tantra, 514 

“New Vehicle” (Navayana) Buddhism, 14 

New Year, 286, 287–288 

Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho, 193, 

418 

Ngag dbang kun dga theg chen dpal ’bar, 

752 

Nganjuk, 511 

Ngeaum Panich, 75 

Ngog Blo ldan shes rab, 852 

Ngor chen kun dga’ bzang po, 511, 752, 

856 

Ngor E wam chos ldan, 856 

Ngor pa subsect, 752 

Nguyên Thiê`n, 881 

Nhân-Tông, 136 

nianfo. See nenbutsu 

nibbanic Buddhism, 263 

Nichira, 769 

Nichiren, 22, 321, 387, 413, 474, 

476–477, 500, 594–595, 596–598, 

643, 781, 850 

Rissho ankoku ron, 597 

Nichiren school, 93, 138, 180, 191, 263, 

274, 386, 413, 449, 594–596, 

595–598, 596, 757, 781, 866 

Nidanakatha, 72, 230 

nidana, 713 

Nidanas, 888 

Niddesa, 2 

Nie Chengyuan, 226 

“nightstand Buddhists,” 867–868 

Niguma, 583 

nihilism, 479, 648 

Nihon shoki, 397, 768 

nihsargika-patayantika, 667 

Nijugo zammaie, 307 

nikaya. See agama/nikaya 

Nikayasam grahaya (Jayabahu 

Dharmakirti), 777 

Nikayasaṅgraha, 644 

Nllakantha-sutra, 254 

Nillakgama, 800 

Nim ŭi chimmuk (Han Yongun), 314, 440 

Nine Mountains school of Sŏn, 134, 158, 

432, 599 

Ningai, 765 

Ningpo, 152 

Ninjo, 765 

Ninkan, 815 

Ninko Teiki, 404 

Ninku, 500 

Ninnaji (monastery), 399, 765 

Nipponzan Myohoji, 249, 477, 598 

nirmanakaya, 78, 871 

nirodha, 296 

nirodhasamapatti, 603 

nirvana, 22–23, 50–53, 76–78, 183–184, 

186, 199, 220, 226, 600–605. See 

also buddha(s); death 

Nirvana Sutra, 131, 135, 166–167, 201, 

229, 351, 605–606, 694, 723, 827, 

846, 894 

Nishiari Bokusan, 531 

Nishida Kitaro, 650, 924 

Nishitani Keiji, 335, 650 

Nispannayogavall, 747 

nissayas, 102 

Nithan Khun Borom, 457 

Niya, 125 

Nogor Vatt, 108 

nonattachment, depiction of, 127 

nonenlightenment (bujue, fukaku), 619, 

770, 905 

Nongchan, 818 

noninterference, and local divinities, 468 

nonsectarian (ris med) movement, 67, 

418, 730–731, 857 

Norodom, King, 108 

northern route (uttarapatha), 366, 367 

no-self. See anatman (no-self) 

Nowbahar, 380 

Nulchi, King, 430 

Nŭngsan-ri, 436 

nuns, 17, 63–66, 84, 210–212, 252, 303, 

313, 606–610, 607, 608, 610, 668, 

741, 762, 817, 835, 839, 888. See 

also bhiksu/bhiksunl; diet; 

ordination; robes and clothing; 

vinaya 

end of the order, 446, 557, 591, 614, 

741–742, 839, 900–901 

founding of the order, 232, 353, 489 

Nyang ral nyi ma’i ’od zer, 623, 853 

Nyar ma, 324 

Nyayanusaraśastra (Saṅghabhadra), 4 

Nyingma. See Rnying ma (Nyingma) 

Nyogen Senzaki, 621, 866 

O 

O baku, 135–136, 375 

O baku-san Mampukuji, 375 

O baku shingi, 375 

obedience, 282 

Obermiller, Eugène, 98, 103 

Obeyesekere, Gananath, 269 

Obon. See Ghost Festival 

Oc-Eo, 105 

Oda Nobunaga, 561, 643, 659 

Oda Tokuno, 99 

Odorico da Pordenone, 160 

offerings, 20–21, 727–729, 834, 907 

Ohnuma, Reiko, 759 

Ojin, 825 

ojoden, 448 

O joyoshu (Genshin), 307 

Olcott, Col. Henry Steel, 164, 182, 

797–798, 865 

Old Buddhism, 413–414 

Oldenberg, Hermann, 266 

Old Snar thang, 114 

O miwadera, 771 

Om mani padme hum , 138, 512, 

613–614 

Öndü Gegen, 563 

“one mind,” 905 

“one vehicle,” 472–473 

Ono Genmyo, 99 

ontology, and abhidharma, 5–6 

oral lineage. See Bka’ brgyud (Kagyu) 

oral transmission, 45, 83, 85–86, 112, 

155, 619–620, 626, 755, 757, 810 

ordination, 281–282, 303, 375, 551, 

558–559, 614, 614–618, 657, 674, 

726, 741, 839–840, 885–887. See also 

initiation 


967

I NDEX 


ordination (continued) 

in China, 617, 643 

of dead, 501, 614, 714 

in Japan, 301, 388, 499–500, 598, 

616–618, 674, 714 

in Korea, 617 

of nonhumans, 310, 614 

of nuns, 446, 606, 608, 900–901 

self-ordination, 499–500, 582 


in Taiwan, 816–818 

temporary, 615, 668, 762, 833 

in Tibet, 590, 851–852 

ordination ceremony, 614–616 

ordination platform, 616–617, 817 

O rgyan ’phrin las rdo rje, 418, 419 

O rgyan smin grol gling, 856 

orientalism, 164–165 

original enlightenment (hongaku), 52, 

135, 273, 389–390, 473, 476, 

618–620, 770, 850, 905 

ornamentation, 61, 149, 726 

orthodoxy, and lineage, 461 

O tani, 531 

Otantapuri Monastery, 69, 358 

other power, 707 

other worlds, buddhas of, 73–74 

O uchi Seiran, 531 

Ouyang Jingwu, 283 

oxherding pictures, 131, 621–622 

P 

pacifism, 264 

Padang Lawas, 373 

Padang Reco, 374 

Padma dkar po, 484 

Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), 69, 

334, 588, 623–625, 624, 730, 

852–853, 854, 859 

Paekche kingdom, 430 

Pagan, 101, 402, 578–579, 787, 789, 842 

pagodas, 146, 149–150, 152–153, 256, 

279, 436, 551, 576, 678, 774, 805 

painting, 117–119, 123, 126–129, 

145–153, 259, 322–327, 338, 340, 

360, 365, 392, 394, 437–438, 579, 

701, 800, 802–803. See also 

manuscripts; portraiture 

Pak Chung-bin (Sot’aesan), 902 

Pakistan, 366–368 

Pak Ou, 793 

Pala rulers, 785 

Pala style, 365, 365–366 

Palembang, 371 

Pali, Buddhist literature in, 96–98, 108, 

216–217, 536–537, 625–628 

Pali Text Society, London, 96, 628 

Pali Vinaya, 887–888 

Pallava style, 800, 802 

Pañcaraksa, 593, 634 

Pañcaskandhaprakarana (Vasubandhu), 

916 

Pañcatantra, 250, 380 

Pañcavastuka, 220 

pañcayatana, 324, 326 

Panchen Erdini, 629 

Panchen Lama, 15, 170, 193–194, 

629–630, 858 

Pañcika, 762 

pandaka, 764 

Pandrenthan, 322 

Pang jushi yulu, 447 

Pang Yun, 447 

Panini, 745 

panjiao, 95, 321, 342, 345–346, 474, 871 

Paññasajataka, 628 

Pansiya Panas Jataka Pota, 778 

papa, 269, 297 

paradises, Buddhist, 703–704, 726 

parajikas, 607, 667–668, 887–888 

Parakramabahu I, King, 575, 644, 796, 

831 

Parakramabahu II, King, 778, 796, 898 

Parakramabahu VI, King, 797 

Paramartha (Zhendi), 38, 143, 177, 283, 

630–631, 915 

Paramaśukha Cakrasam vara, 153 

paramita (perfection), 53, 58, 196, 

631–632 

paramitanaya, 875 

Paramitasamasa (A ryaśura), 748 

paratantra, 918 

Parihasapura, 322 

parikalpita, 918 

parinirvana, 82, 92, 602 

parinispanna, 918 

parish (danka, terauke) system in Japan, 

386, 632–633 

paritta and raksa texts, 634–635, 840 

Parivara, 626, 888 

Paro, 327 

Parśva, 383 

passions, extinction of, 8 

pata, 324 

Patacara, 607 

Pataliputra, 188, 502 

Patan, 322, 591 

Patañjali 

Yoga Bhasya, 331 

Yoga Sutra, 331 

patayantika, 667 

path, 23, 27, 33, 84, 93, 182, 218, 

261–262, 277, 285, 296, 303, 416, 

540–541, 602, 635–639, 782, 871. 

See also bodhisattva path; 

psychology 

and arhatship, 28–29 

and bodhi, 50–53 


developmental model of, 77–79 

and four noble truths, 296, 636–638 

Pathamsombodhi, 422 

Pathet Lao, 645–646 

Patisambhidamagga, 2, 627 

Patriarch of the Clear Stream (Qingshui 

Zushi), 290 

patriarchs. See lineage 

patronage, 281, 740. See also dana 

(giving); politics and Buddhism; 

state and Buddhism 

families and, 281, 287 

merchants and, 244–245, 353, 789 

royal, 353, 357, 658, 789, 831–833 

women and, 900 

Pa tshab Nyi ma grags, 484 

Patthana, 627 

Payasi-sutra, 301 

Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, 864 

Pei Xiu shiyi wen (Zongmi), 929 

Pelliot, Paul, 96 

perception, theory of, 225, 230, 470, 

682–683, 916–918 

Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand 

Lines, 495–496 

perfection of wisdom literature. See 

prajñaparamita literature 

periodization, for decline of dharma, 

211–212 

Periya Puliyankulama, 800 

permanent perfection, 632 

persecutions, 640–646, 658. See also 

Christianity and Buddhism; 

colonialism and Buddhism; 

communism and Buddhism; Islam 

and Buddhism; modernity and 

Buddhism; politics and Buddhism 

in Afghanistan, 41 

in Cambodia, 109, 646 

in China, 141, 160, 173, 535, 643, 645 

by communist parties, 169–171 

Huichang, 132 

in India, 641–643 

in Japan, 386, 585–586, 643–644 

in Korea, 134, 433, 643 


I NDEX 


in Laos, 645–646 


in Tibet, 66–67, 643 


White Huns, 642 

Zoroastrian, 642 

personhood, concept of, 18–19, 680–681. 

See also anatman (no-self); atman 

(self); body, perspectives on the; 


skandha and, 779 

Peruntevanar, 370 

petas, 309–310 

Petavatthu, 208–209, 309 

Pha Dam pa sangs rgyas, 485 

Phagawam, 302 

Phag mo gru pa Rdo rje rgyal po, 48 

Phag mo gru pa subtradition, 854 

’Phags pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan, 

561–562, 751–752, 854 

Pháp Âm, 883 

Phât Hóa Thanh Niên, 883 

philology, and Buddhist studies, 96 

philosophy, 97–98, 330–331, 347, 377, 

545, 581–582, 647–648, 647–650, 

648, 680–681. See also anatman 

(no-self); consciousness, theories of; 

dharma and dharmas; logic; 

psychology 

Phnom Penh, 286 

Phoenix Hall (at the Byodoin), 555, 555, 

650–651, 697, 697 

Phothisalarat, King, 457 

Phra Bodhirak, 832, 834 

Phra Dhammakaya Monastery, 448 

Phra Thammachayo, 835 

Phra Thammapidok (Dhammapitaka), 

835 

Phra That Luang stupa, 458 

Phra Thattachlwo, 835 

’Phrin las (Trinlay) rgya mtsho, 194 

Phui Kya, Kyoṅ to ra Rvhe kyaṅ Cha 

ra to bhu ra krl theruppatti, 102 

Phyag na rdo rje, 561 

Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge, 854, 861 

pilgrimage, 83–84, 105, 205, 286, 293, 

338, 355, 358, 407–408, 536, 

651–654, 652, 773, 788, 789, 

792–794, 821, 839, 879, 909–910, 

912–913. See also relics and relic 

cults; space, sacred 

and relics sites, 34, 47, 49–50, 72, 208, 

716, 842 

pilgrimage routes, 652–653, 792–793 

Piluo sanmei jing, 26–27 

Pindo, 410 

Piprahwa, 715 

Pirit Pota, 634 

Pirivenas, 248 

piśacas, 234 

Pitalkhora, 363 

Plaosan Lor, 373 


(Liuzu tan jing) (Huineng), 

130–131, 134, 157, 347–348, 617, 

655, 722 

poetry and Buddhism, 102, 121, 397–398, 

422, 439, 518, 594, 620, 656, 656, 

735, 748, 765, 777–778, 797. See also 

Chinese, Buddhist influences on 

vernacular literature in; Japanese, 

Buddhist influences on vernacular 

literature in; Sanskrit, Buddhist 

literature in 

political neutrality, 893–894 

political parties, Buddhist, 661, 799 

politics and Buddhism, 564–567, 

586–587, 595, 597, 630, 657, 

657–661, 744–745, 798–799, 816. 

See also millenarianism and 

millenarian movements 

Pollock, Sheldon, 421 

Polonnaruva, 527, 796, 802, 807 

Pŏmil, 599 

Pŏmnang, 599 

Pongnimsan, 599 

pŏp, 218 

Pŏpchip pyŏrhaengnok chŏryo pyŏngip sagi 

(Chinul), 158 

Pŏphŭng, King, 431 

Pŏpsang school, 283. See also Faxiang 

school 

portraiture, 661–663, 785. See also Chan 

art; China, Buddhist art in; Japan, 


Portugal, as colonial power, 163 

Postel, Guillaume, 160 

posture, 80, 90, 92, 265–266, 520–521, 

671–672, 699. See also mudra and 

visual imagery 

yab-yum, 260, 305, 324, 572 

Potala, 326–327, 662, 663–664, 664, 706 

practice, bodhisattvas and, 59 

Prajña (monk), 341, 824 

prajña (wisdom), 53, 56, 58, 218, 226, 

237, 524, 632, 637, 664–666, 

861–862. See also bodhicitta 

(thought of awakening) 

Prajñaparamita (divinity), 305, 374, 572, 

666, 899 

prajñaparamita, 130–131, 234 

prajñaparamita literature, 36, 77–78, 97, 

314–315, 665, 666–667, 720–721, 

809, 840, 871, 926 

Prajñapradlpa (Bhavaviveka), 42 

prajñapti (mentation), 681–683 

Prajñaptivada, 504 

Prakarana, 221 

Pramanasamuccaya (Dignaga), 177, 230 

Pramanavarttika (Dharmaklrti), 225 

pranidhana, 632 

pranidhicitta, 55 

prasada, 56, 278 

Prasadapratibhodbhava (Matrceta), 518 

Prasaṅgika Madhyamaka, 111, 481–482, 

484, 861 

prasannacitta, 278 

Prasannapada (Candraklrti), 111 

Prasenjit, King, 233, 424 

prasthanacitta, 55 

pratideśanlya, 667 

pratimoksa, 218, 266, 282, 285, 459, 615, 

626, 667–668, 673–675, 721, 

741–742, 887–888 

pratiśarana, 111 


origination), 22–23, 175–176, 183, 

203, 218, 346–347, 416, 479, 648, 

669, 669–670, 712, 779, 847–848. 

See also duhkha (suffering) 

pratyekabuddha, 71, 87, 670–671. See 

also buddhahood and buddha 

bodies 

pratyutpannasamadhi, 93 

Pratyutpannasamadhi-sutra, 671, 693, 

699–700, 707 

pravrajika, 741 

pravrajya, 85, 280 

Pravrajyavastu, 886 

prayer, 671–672, 672, 882 

prayer wheel, 613, 672, 728 

Prayudh Payutto, 830 

Preah Kan temple, 106 

precepts, 9–10, 27, 29, 261–262, 281, 414, 

446, 558, 667–668, 673–675, 714, 

872–873, 876, 893. See also 

bodhisattva precepts; ethics; laity; 

monks; nuns 

Chan school and, 131, 135 

“Fanwang precepts,” 282 

Mahayana, 281–282, 499–501 

nuns and, 606–607 

violation of, 535, 567, 872, 876, 

887–888 

“precious scrolls” (baojuan), 156, 539 

Prinsep, James, 97 


969

I NDEX 


printing technologies, 114, 115, 164, 168, 

422–423, 457, 594, 675–678, 856 

Prip-Møller, Johannes, 100 

proselytizing, 781 

protectors 

guardian images, 572 

local divinities, 468, 768 

mantras, 613 

paritta/raksa texts, 634–635 

scripture, 757 

spirits, 294 

Protestant Buddhism, 163–165, 245, 591, 

798 

Protestant Reformation, and Kamakura 

Buddhism, 414 

provincial temple system (kokubunji, 

rishoto), 582, 678 

Przyluski, Jean, 301–302 

psychology, 185–186, 420, 516, 649, 

678–688. See also abhidharma; 

anatman (no-self); atman (self); 


Western, 679, 683–684, 686–688 

Public Law 480 Program (U.S.), 858 

Pudgalavada, 504, 692–693, 712 

Puguang, 909 

Pujavaliya, 778, 796 

Pulcho chikchi simch’e yojŏl, 677 

Pulgasaŭi, 825 

Pulguksa, 553–554, 676 

Pulgyo chŏngjŏn, 902 

Pulgyo taejŏn (Han Yongun), 314 

Pullahari, 513 

Pulsŏl panya paramilta simgyŏng ch’an 

(Wŏnch’ŭk), 903 

Puming, 621 

Punhwangsa, 436 

punya, 532. See also merit and meritmaking 

Pure Land art, 43–44, 148, 438, 555, 555, 

650–651, 693–697, 701 

Pure Land Buddhism, 79, 150, 250, 274, 

290, 307, 336, 380, 386, 390, 

412–413, 447, 476, 493, 587–588, 

594, 671, 698–702, 766, 782, 865, 

879–880, 882, 927 

Pure Lands, 14–15, 77, 187, 315–316, 

693–695, 695–696, 697, 703–706, 

739, 790 

Pure Land schools, 59, 144, 159, 208, 

213, 234, 263, 278–279, 348, 500, 

532, 706–709, 791, 808, 850, 

911–912 

Pure Land tableaux, 696, 696 

pure perfection, 632 

purification of mental stream, 919–920 

purity, bodily, 64 

purusadamyasarathi, 87 

Pusa yingluo benye jing, 59 

Pusŏksa, 864 

Pusyamitra, King, 356, 641–642 

Puttamittiran, Vlracoliyam, 370 

Putuo, 553 

Puyong Yŏnggwan, 349 

Pyŏkkye Chŏngsim, 134 

Pyu, 782 

pyui, 102 

Q 

Qianlong emperor, 63, 254, 563 

Qian Qianyi, 133 

Qinglongsi, 256, 535 

Qingwei school, 200 

Qingyuan Xingsi, 348, 463 

Qingzhou, 148 

Quanzhen school, 200, 813 

Qubilai Khan, 751–752 

Queen Śrlmala Sutra, 772, 827 

R 

Rahula, 45, 83–85, 90, 711 

Rahulabhadra, 481 

Rahulamata, 83 

Raibo, 765 

raigo, 696–697, 706 

rains-retreat (varśa), 285–286, 307 

Raiyu, 765 

Rajagala, 800 

Rajagrha, 188 

rajasat, 101 

rajavaṅ, 101–102 

Rajendravarman II, King, 106 

raksasa, 467 

raksa texts, 634 

Ral pa can, King, 852 

Rama I, King, 829, 832 

Rama V, King, 831 

Ramakerti, 421–422 

Ramakian, 829 

Ramañña, 797 

Ramayana, 421–422, 843 

Ramkhamhaeng the Great, King, 828, 

830–831, 838 

Ran ’byung rdo rje, 418 

Rang ’byung rig pa’i rdo rje, 418 

Rangoon, 188, 789 

Ras chung pa Rdo rje grags, 536 

Rashld al-Dln, Ta’rlkh al-Hind, 381 

Ratanapañña, Jinakalamalinl, 628 

Ratchaburana Monastery, 39 

Ratnagotravibhaga, 827 

Ratnagunasam caya-gatha, 746 

Ratnamati, 915 

Ratnasambhava, 260, 403 

Ratnavall (Nagarjuna), 479–480 

Rawak, 123 

Ray, Reginald, 33, 214 

rddhipada, 8, 51 

Rdo rje brag, 856 

Rdo rje shugs ldan, 858 

rdzogs chen, 425–426, 856, 859 

reading, and chanting, 137–138 

“reading with the body,” 476 

realms of existence, 711–712, 713, 739, 

760, 773, 848 

rebirth, 19, 22, 27, 64, 73–74, 175–176, 

183–184, 199, 214, 281, 310, 

315–316, 329, 379, 711–712, 

712–714, 760. See also cosmology; 

death; intermediate states; karma 

(action) 

and gender, 303, 899–900 

in Pure Lands, 701–702, 739 

reception of Buddhism, 24–28, 38–39, 

159, 182, 231, 288–289, 466–467, 

542–543 



in Central Asia, 120–122, 140 

in China, 140–141, 144, 172–174, 282, 

542 

in Japan, 542–543 



recollection (anusmrti), 523–524 

reconsecration, 181 

“recorded sayings” texts, 132, 143, 427 

Red mda’ ba, 484, 855, 861 

reform movements, 448–449, 497–498, 

545–546, 566–567, 819, 834–836, 

913 

Meiji, 517, 530–531, 585–586, 643–644, 

659, 765, 767–771 

refugees. See also Tibet 

Asian, 868 

Chinese monks, 135 

Lao, 646 

Southeast Asian, 267, 866 

Tibetan, 94, 195, 359, 418–419, 590, 

858, 868 

Vietnamese, 881 

refuges, 714, 740, 838–840 


I NDEX 


regionalism, in monastic architecture, 553 

Reiku, 500 

reincarnation, 19, 712 

and Dalai Lama, 193–195 

Reiyukai 385, 449, 595 

relics and relics cults, 15–16, 34, 46, 77, 

86, 129, 178–181, 205–208, 256, 

279–280, 313, 355, 436, 497–498, 

575–576, 678, 715–718, 716, 718, 

734, 803, 808–809, 838–839, 877, 

906 

religious education, and jataka, 46 

reliquary, 256, 279, 368, 436, 716, 718, 

719–720 

relocalization, 469 

Ren ben yu sheng jing zhu (Dao’an), 166 

Rennyo, 720 

renunciation, 280, 657. See also 

ordination 

Renwang jing (Humane Kings Sutra), 

27–28, 59, 631, 720–721, 824 

repentance and confession, 721–723, 882 

repentance ritual, 254, 667, 674, 687, 714 

representation, 127, 569, 661–663, 683 

Reps, Paul, 621 

Research Institute of the Tripitaka 

Koreana, 678 

Revata, 188 

revivals of Buddhism, 359, 448, 654, 912 

Rg Veda, 204, 328–330 

Rgya gar chos ‘byung (Taranatha), 380 

Rgyal mtshan nor bu, 630 

Rgyal rabs gsal ba’i me long (Bla ma dam 

pa Bsod nams rgyal mtshan), 855 

Rgyal tshab, 215–216, 484, 855 

Rgya tsha, 49 

Rhys Davids, T. W., 96, 266, 628 

Ricci, Matteo, 160 

Right Faith Society, 447 

Rin chen bzang po, 35–36, 324–325, 852 

Rin chen gter mdzod (Kong sprul Blo gros 

mtha’ yas), 857 

Rinzai Zen. See Linji (Rinzai) house of 

Chan school 

rissho ankoku, 598 

Rissho ankoku ron (Nichiren), 597 

Rissho Koseikai, 249, 385, 449, 477, 595, 

598 

Risshu (Vinaya school), 301 

Ritigala, 800 

Ritsu (Vinaya) school, 411, 582 

ritual, 47, 54–56, 100, 182, 252, 274, 390, 

532, 545–546, 559, 570, 590–591, 

607, 653, 700, 717–718, 723–725, 

742, 833, 840, 882. See also chanting 

and liturgy; consecration; 

devotional practices; memorial rites; 

mizuko kuyo; nenbutsu; Tantra 

of accession, 399–400, 765 

circumambulation, 653–654, 654, 664, 

773, 789, 803, 882 

of consecration, 179–180 

constant walking samadhi, 708 

Daoist, 199–200 

and etiquette, 265–266 

eye-opening, 179–180, 392, 789 

fire ceremony (goma, homa), 725, 725, 

773, 820 

of initiation, 375–376 

kalacakra, 785 

kathina ceremony, 839 

Latter Seven-Day Rite, 399, 441 

life-extension, 833 

and mandala creation, 508 

and meditation, 521–523 

nyungne (bsnyung gnas), 526 

ordination ceremony, 614–616 

pavarana, 721 

posadha, 559, 674, 721, 742 

rainmaking, 765 

recitation of paritta/raksa texts, 840 

recitation of Patimokkha, 285–286 

rejection of, 245, 723–724 

of repentance, 254 

sadhana, 821 

saṅgha posadha, 667 

of severance, 485–486 

shinpyu, 576 

spirit rites, 294, 831, 833 

Taimitsu, 476 

tantric, 525–527, 821 

ritual guides, 593, 790, 884 

ritual interaction, and local divinities, 

468 

ritualization, use of term, 724 

ritual language, 441 

ritual objects, 255, 260, 280, 361, 

395–396, 436–437, 543, 726–729, 

727, 729, 757. See also robes and 

clothing 

ritual texts, Sanskrit, 747–748 

Rje btsun dam pa Khutukhtus, 564 

Rje btsun Rig ’dzin chos nyid zang mo, 486 

Rnam gyal, Dharamsala, 247 

Rnying ma (Nyingma), 104, 192, 379, 

418, 425–426, 589, 623, 701, 

729–731, 822–823, 852–853, 

856–857, 859, 915 

Rnying ma rgyud ’bum, 822–823, 853 

Roben, 345 

robes and clothing, 32–33, 79, 265–266, 

286, 303, 437, 536, 731–734, 733 

Rockhill, W. W., 86 

Rol pa’i rdo rje, 418, 563 

Rong ston, 216, 484 

Rong zom Chos kyi bzang po, Theg chen 

tshul ’jug, 852 

royal imagery, 357 

Ruegg, D. S., 98, 104 

Ruggeri, Michele, 160 

rules of conduct. See etiquette; monastic 

discipline; vinaya 

Rumtek Monastery, 418, 727 

rupa, 779 

rupakaya, 76–77 

Ruqing, 135 

Ruvanvälisăÿa, 801 

Ruxing, and “Biographies of Eminent 

Monks,” 44 

Rva sgreng Monastery, 36 

Rva streng (Reting) rin po che, 195 

Rwa lo, 852 

Rwa sgreng, 853 

Ryoanji, 390 

Ryobu Shinto, 825 

Ryohen, 283–284 

Kanjin Kakumusho, 284 

Ryokan (Taigu), 735 

Ryomokyokai, 924 

Ryonen, 395 

Ryukoku, 531 

S 

Sa chen Kun dga’ snying po, 751, 854 

Sadarhadvana, 322 

Saddanlti (Aggavamsa), 628 

saddha, 277 

Saddhamaratnavaliya I (Dharmasena), 

778 

saddharma and saddharmapratirupaka, 

211–212 

Saddharmapundarlka-sutra. See Lotus 

Sutra 

Saddharmaraja Vajracarya, 594 

Saddharma Ratnavaliya, 796 

sadhana, 525–527 

Sadhanamala, 747 

Sad na legs, King, 852 

Saeki Kyokuga, 99 

Sagaing, 580 

Sagathavagga, 627 

Sagulsan, 599 

sagyo ipsŏn, 349 

sagyŏng, 437–438 


971

I NDEX 


Saha World, 703 

Saicho (Dengyo Daishi), 249–250, 

272–273, 282, 411–412, 476, 500, 

535, 617, 675, 708, 737, 772, 825, 

850 

śaiksa, 667 

Śaivism, 785 

Sajasan, 599 

Sakaino Koyo, 573 

Sakas, 120 

Śakasam vat, 285 

Sakka, 374 

Śakra, 374 

sakrdagamin (once-returner), 723, 740 

Sakya. See Sa skya (Sakya) 

śakyabhiksu, 590, 592 

Śakyamuni. See Buddha, life of the 

Śakyas, 742 

Śakyaśrlbhadra, 753 

śalabhañjika, 89 

Salisbury, Edward Elbridge, 864 

salvation, in Chinese folk religion, 290 

Salzberg, Sharon, 867 

samadhi (concentration), 8, 29, 520, 524, 

665. See also meditation; 

mindfulness 

Samadhiraja-sutra, 498 

Samantabhadra, 60–61, 68, 570–571, 722 

Samantapasadika (Buddhaghosa), 166 

śamatha, 647 

Samavati e* tac bhava sam sara 

(Gurunanda), 103 

samaya, 255–256 

sambhogakaya, 77–78, 871 

Sam dhinirmocana-sutra, 320–321, 

737–738, 871, 914 

Samguk sagi, 905 

Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three 

Kingdoms), 447, 738, 781, 824, 905 

sam jña, 779 

Sam khya, 331 

samma, 297 

Sam matlya sect, 3, 358, 692 

samray, 422 

sam sara, 56, 183, 199, 329, 603, 712, 

738–739, 760. See also cosmology; 

death 

sam skara, 779 

saṁskara-duhkhata, 682 

Samtec Sangharaj Dlen, 108 

Samtec Sugandhadhipatl Pan, 108 

samudaya, 296 

Samuel, Geoffrey, 840 

sam vara, 523, 820 

samyakprahana, 51 

samyaksambuddha, 83, 86–87 

Samye debate. See Bsam yas Debate 

sam yojana, and arhatship, 29 

Samyŏngdang taesajip (Yujŏng), 921 

Sam yuktagama, 11 

Sam yuttanikaya, 65, 75, 175, 299, 627, 

669, 905 

Sanboe, 395 

Sanboe (Minamoto Tamenori), 447 

Sañcl, 72, 361–364, 550, 651, 739–740, 

762, 804–805, 806, 906–907, 911 

San Francisco Zen Center, 866 

saṅgha, 33–34, 45, 64, 84, 187–188, 303, 

353, 740–744, 744, 832. See also 

disciples of the Buddha 

first schism in, 502–503, 742 

Saṅghabhadra 

Abhidharmasamayapradlpika, 4 

Nyayanusaraśastra, 4 

saṅghabheda, 215 

Sanghadeva, 201 

Saṅghamitta, 800 

Sangharakshita, 268 

saṅghavasa, 178 

saṅghavaśesa, 607, 667–668 

Saṅglti-sutra, 299 

Sangmuju Hermitage, 158 

Sangoku buppo denzu engi (Gyonen), 335 

Sangoku denki, 252 

Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho, 663 

Sanjie jiao (Three Stages school), 212, 

744–745, 873 

Śaṅkara, 331 

Saṅkrtyayana, Rahula, 746 

Sanlun school, 144, 810 

Sannagarika, 692 

Sanron school, 411, 582 

Sanskrit, Buddhist literature in, 35–37, 

96–98, 573, 656, 745–748. See also 

titles of works 

Sanskritization, 113, 453, 829 

santana, 681 

Śantaraksita, 69–70, 483–484, 851 

Tattvasam graha, 483 

Santi Asoka, 832, 834–835 

Śantideva, 263, 482–483, 604, 749 

Bodhicaryavatara, 53–55, 420, 482–483, 

525, 603, 748–749 

Śiksasamuccaya, 482, 749 

Sanyi Jiao, 813 

Saošyant, 538 

saptavidha-anuttarapuja, 54 

Saraha, 491, 665 

Saranamkara, 797 

Śariputra, 232, 315, 354, 487, 542, 566, 

741, 749–750, 837 

Śariputrabhidharma, 221 

Śariputrapariprccha, 503 

Śariputraprakarana (Aśvaghosa), 35, 251 

śarlra, 715. See also relics and relic cults 

Sarnath, 84, 364, 364, 365, 807 

Sarvagamin, 188 

sarvajña, 87 

Sarvastivada school, 3–4, 6–7, 11, 76, 82, 

120–121, 166, 176–177, 183, 188, 

211, 330, 368, 503–505, 674, 712, 

750–751 

and dharma theory, 219–223 

and life of Buddha, 82–83, 86 

Sarvastivada-Vaibhasika, 505 

Sarvastivada-vinaya, 197, 616, 887 

Sarvatathagatatattvasam graha, 14, 747, 

821, 823–825 

Sarvodaya Shramadana rural 

development movement, Sri Lanka, 

248, 798 

Sasadavata, 777 

Sasanalaṅkaracatam (Mahadhamma 

Saṅkram ), 102 

Sasanavam sa, 302, 878 

Sa skya (Sakya), 151, 561–562, 701, 

751–752, 752–753, 822, 853–857 

Sa skya Pandita Kun dga’ rgyal mtshan, 

71, 407, 489, 561, 752–753, 854, 861 

Legs par bshad pa rin pa che’i gter, 753 

Mkhas pa rnams ’jug pa’i sgo, 753 

Sdom gsum rab dbye, 753 

Thub pa’i dgongs gsal, 751, 753 

Tshad ma rigs gter, 753 

Sasseruva, 801 

Sassi namjŏng ki, 440 

śasta devamanusyanam, 87 

śastras, 755. See also commentarial 

literature 

Sanskrit, 748 

Satipatthana-sutta, 11, 297, 524, 754, 

889–890 

satori (awakening), 754 

satra lpaeṅ, 422 

Saundarananda (Aśvaghosa), 35, 656 

Sautrantika school, 177, 220, 505, 683, 

754, 878 

Sayadaw U Ottama, 165 

Sayagyi U Ba Khin, 524 

Sba bzhed, 70 

Schiefner, Anton von, 98 

schism edict, 503 

Schlingloff, Dieter, 100 

Schlütter, Morten, 428 


I NDEX 


Schmidt, Isaak Jakob, 98 

Schmidthausen, Lambert, 98 

scholars, monks as, 566 

scholasticism, of Mahayana, 495–496. See 

also abhidharma 

school names, problem of, 328, 501–503 

Schopen, Gregory, 97, 100, 289, 497, 615, 

715 

Schopenhauer, Arthur, 266 

Schwartz, Jeffrey, 687 

scriptural study, 757–758 

scripture, 94–95, 166–169, 320, 755–756, 

755–758, 756–758, 792. See also 

buddhavacana; canon; catalogues of 

scriptures; Chinese Buddhist 

translation; texts, Buddhist; titles of 

works 

sculpture, 91, 117–119, 804–805, 843, 

843–844 


in China, 145–153, 338, 339 

in India, 360, 362–365 

in Japan, 392–394 


in Korea, 339, 437 



in Nepal, 323 

in Southeast Asia, 782–785 

in Sri Lanka, 795, 801, 802 

in Tibet, 219, 326–327 

Sde dge, 327 

Sdom gsum rab dbye (Sa skya Pandita), 

753 

seasonality, of monastic routine, 559 

Seattle Buddhist Church, 869 

Second Bhavanakrama (Kamalaślla), 55 

second spread of Buddhism, Atisha and, 

36 

Second Vatican Council, Rome, 161 

Sedamocanakagatha, 626 

seed-families, 284 

seed syllable, 512 

Segal, Zindel, 687 

Seidenstücker, Karl, 266 

Seiichi Mizuno, 148 

Sejong, King, 134, 439 

“selective Buddhism” (senchaku bukkyo), 

389 

self, in Śramana movement, 329 

self-deception, 685 

self-immolation, 65–66, 170, 264, 474, 

644, 701, 758–759, 927 

self-ordination, 499–500, 582 

Sena I, King, 778 

Senarat Paranavitana, 800, 803 

Senart, Emile, 96 

Senchaku hongan nenbutsu shu (Honen), 

336, 708 

Sengbian, 903 

Sengcan, 136 

Xinxinming, 278 

Sengrui, 442 

Seng shilue (Zanning), 923 

Sengyou, Chu sanzang jiji, 116 

Sengzhao, 167, 442, 481, 659, 759–760 

Zhao lun, 926 

Zhu Weimo jing, 166 

seniority, 616 

Senkan, Gokurakukoku Mida wasan, 708 

Senoo Giro, 598 

sense faculties. See ayatana (sense 

faculties) 

Senshin Buddhist Temple, Los Angeles, 

308 

sentient beings, 52, 176, 185, 233–235, 

269, 744, 760, 760, 850, 905. See 

also cosmology 

“Separation of Gods and Buddhas” edicts 

(Japan), 393 

Se ra, 855, 861 

serfs, 780 

sermons. See homiletics; teaching 

Setsuhei (Tominaga Nakamoto), 860 

setsuwa bungaku, 252 

seven buddhas, 462 

seven jewels, 403 

Seventeen Article Constitution, 772 

Seventeen Point Agreement, 195, 645 

severance, 485–486 

Sewu, 372 

sexuality, 313, 761–764, 815, 899. See also 

body, perspectives on the; family, 

Buddhism and the; gender; Tantra; 

women 

homosexuality, 763–764 

sexual temptation, 761–762 

Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen, 48, 536, 

853–854 

Thar pa rin po che’i rgyan, 54, 488 

Shahji-ki-Dheri, 805 

Shahrastanl, Kitab al-milal wa-n nihal, 

381 

Shakako, 307 

shakubuku, 476, 595, 597 

Shaku Soen, 924 

Shaku Unsho, 531 

shamanism, in Mongolia, 562 

Shandao, 212, 336, 694, 697, 705, 707 

Shanhua, 552 

Shanjia, 849, 926 

Shanshan kingdom, 121 

Shanwai, 849, 926 

Shaolin Monastery, 515–516 

Sharf, Robert H., 129, 584 

Shar rdza bkra shis rgyal mtshan, 67 

Shelun school, 144, 343 

Shengyan, 264 

Shenhui, 70, 130, 132, 463 

Shentai, 909 

Shentongsi, 149 

Shenxiu, 53, 348, 463, 655 

Shes rab rgyal mtshan, 67 

Shi, use of name, 462 

Shibayama Zenkei, 205 

Shide, 127 

Shido Bunan, 205 

Shigetsu Sasaki, 866 

Shih Cheng-yen, 248 

shihua, 656 

shiichi, 794 

Shiji jing, 318 

Shijing, 172 

Shimaji Mokurai, 531 

Shimen zhengtong, 464 

shinbutsu bunri, 767 

Shingi school, 765 

Shingon Buddhism, Japan, 252–257, 

272–273, 293, 345, 386, 388, 400, 

411–412, 662, 717–718, 764–765, 

790–791, 815, 825. See also esoteric 

art, East Asia; exoteric-esoteric 

(Kenmitsu) Buddhism in Japan 

shingyo, 279 

shinjin, 279 

Shinjo, Juhoyojin shu, 815 

Shinnyo, 765 

Shinran (Zenshin, Shakku), 22, 387, 

412–414, 617, 697, 708–709, 

762–763, 766, 772, 850 

Kyogyoshinsho, 766 

Shin Sawbu, Queen, 774 

Shinto (Honji Suijaku) and Buddhism, 

271, 274, 288, 313, 384–385, 

398–400, 511–512, 517, 530–531, 

585–586, 620, 644, 765, 767–771, 

773, 791, 794. See also folk religion, 

Japan; ghosts and spirits; Japanese 

royal family and Buddhism; local 

divinities and Buddhism; Meiji 

Buddhist reform 

Shioiri Ryodo, 723 

Shiqi di lun, 631 

Shitennoji, 554, 772, 812 

Shitou Xiqian, 131, 135, 348, 464 

Shiwang jing, 27, 318 


973

I NDEX 


Shizong, Emperor, 759 

Shobo, 765 

Shobogenzo (Dogen), 135, 236, 734, 

771–772 

Shomu, Emperor, 236, 337, 340, 399, 678 

Shotoku, Empress, 237 

Shotoku, Prince (Taishi), 337, 395, 398, 

399, 425, 662, 772 

Shouluo biqiu jing, 28 

shu, 168 

shugaku, 99, 386 

Shugendo, 236, 772–774, 790–792 

shugenja, 772 

Shug gseb Nunnery, 486 

Shu ho Myocho, 135, 191 

Shujing, 172 

Shunzei, 398 

Shutsujo kogo (Tominaga Nakamoto), 

335, 860 

Shuye Sonoda, 865 

Shwedagon, 576, 774, 787, 807 

Shwe Kyaung, 580 

siddha, 376, 490–491, 820–821 

Siddhartha. See Buddha 

Sifenlü shanfan buque xingshichao 

(Daoxuan), 202 

Sigalovada-sutta, 262, 445 

Sigiriya, 777, 802 

Slhala saṅgha, 575 

Sikhavalan∧da, 778 

Sikhavalan∧da vinisa, 778 

Śikhin, 72 

śiksa, 523 

śiksamana, 606 

Śiksananda, 284, 341, 343, 775, 912 

śiksapada, 673 

Śiksasamuccaya (Śantideva), 54, 482, 749 

ślla (perfection of moral conduct), 29, 

261, 315, 632, 665, 673 

Śllabhadra, 909 

silent illumination, 568–569 

Silk Road, 254, 380–381, 775–776, 776. 

See also Central Asia; Central Asia, 


Silla kingdom, 430–432 

Silsangsan, 599 

Simsang (Shinjo), 345 

Sind, 380 

Singapore, 372 

Singasari, 374 

Sinhaeng, 599 

Sinhala, Buddhist literature in, 777–778, 

796 

Sinhalatva, 162 

Sinmun, King, 436 

Sin’pyŏn chejong kyojang ch’ongnok, 863 

Sirimaṅgala, Cakkavaladlpanl, 628 

Si Satha, 808 

Sishier zhang jing, 199 

Sithu I, King, 579 

Situlpavvuwa, 800 

Śiva, 105–106, 783 

Six Doctrines of Naropa, 513, 583 

six paramitas, 632, 649, 665, 773 

Sixteen Kingdoms, 147 

Sixteen Visualization Halls, 700 

Siyabaslakara, 778 

Siyam Nikaya, 797 

Skal bzang (Kelsang) rgya mtsho, 

193–194 

skandha (aggregate), 18, 23, 175, 203, 

214, 220–221, 239–240, 296, 648, 

669–670, 680–681, 692, 712, 779 

Skandhila, Abhidharmavatara, 220 

skepticism. See doubt 

Skilling, Peter, 634 

Sku ’dun, 195 

slavery, 780 

Smar pa grub thob Shes rab seng ge, 49 

Smin grol gling Monastery, 730 

Smith, E. Gene, 98, 858 

smrtyupasthana, 51, 540 

Sna nam Ye shes sde, 472 

Snar thang monastery, 103 

Sngags rim chen mo (Tsong kha pa), 855 

Snyder, Gary, 924 

snying thig, 425–426, 853 

socialism, Buddhist, 163 

social service, 248–249 

Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, 

161 

Society for the Buddhist Mission in 

Germany, 266 

Society for the Study of the Buddhadharma, 

902 

Soen Shaku, 162, 865–866 

Soga Ryojin, 335 

Sog bzlog pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan, 856 

Sogdiana, 120 

Sok (Tou Samouth), 109 

Soka Gakkai, 182, 249, 267, 385, 449, 

477, 595, 598, 661, 781, 866 

Soka Gakkai International, 868 

Sŏkkuram, 81, 119, 339, 437, 553–554, 

781–782 

Sokoji, 866 

Sŏl Ch’ong, 904 

soldiers, rebirth in hells, 893 

Sŏn. See Chan (Zen, Sŏn) school 

Sŏn Academy, Korea, 134 

Sŏn’ga kwigam (Hyujŏng), 349 

Songgwangsa, 158, 434 

Sŏnggyun’gwan, 349 

Sŏngjusan, 599 

Song Kyu (Chŏngsan), 902–903 

Songshan, 149 

Songs of the Moon’s Reflection on a 

Thousand Rivers, 439 

Songyun, 121 

Sŏnjong, 134 

Sŏnmun ch’waryo (Kyŏnghŏ), 443 

Sonno Hobutsu Daidodan, 531 

Sŏnsan, 437 

sopadhiśesanirvana, 602 

“sorcerer’s discipline,” Vajrayana as, 876 

Soryu Kagahi, 865 

Sosurim, King, 430 

soteriology, 5, 316, 465, 537–540, 

576–577, 698–699, 760, 782, 846. 

See also merit and merit-making; 

path 

Soto. See Caodong (Soto) house of Chan 

school 

South Asia, 455, 538, 549–550 

Southeast Asia, 99–100, 105, 113, 245, 

302, 455, 628, 634–635 

Southeast Asia, Buddhist art in, 340, 

782–787, 807. See also Buddha, life 

of the, in art 

Southern Lineage (Chan), 130 

South Seas Buddhist Association, 817 

South Xiangtangshan, 694 

space, sacred, 788–794. See also 

pilgrimage; relics and relic cults 

Pure Lands, 697 

space, wild vs. civilized, 294 

Spa tshab, 861 

spirit cults, 105, 107, 293–294 

spirit-mediums, 289, 292, 317 

Spiro, Melford, 263, 269, 468, 840 

Spituk, 324 

Sponberg, Alan, 304 

śraddha, 277 

śramana movement, 328, 415, 712 

śramanas, 741 

śramanera/śramanerika, 558, 614–615, 

673 

śravakas, 603–604 

Śravakayana sect, 368, 871 

Śrl Harsa, 644 

Śrl Kalacakra, 409, 409 

Śrl Ksetra, 302, 574, 577–578, 807 


I NDEX 


Sri Lanka, 16, 99, 113, 182, 212, 234, 

247–248, 506, 519, 566, 642, 644, 

654, 777–778, 795, 795–799, 

799–803, 807. See also Buddha, life 

of the, in art; India, Buddhist art in; 

Sinhala, Buddhist literature in; Sri 

Lanka, Buddhist art in 

Anuradhapura period, 795–796, 800 

and Buddhist nationalism, 163–164, 

584–586 

Christian missionaries in, 160–161, 584 

festivals, 21, 286–287 

historical writing, 333–334, 877–878 

and Myanmar, 574–575 

nuns in, 607–609 

Polonnaruva era, 796, 800 

Sri Lanka, Buddhist art in 

Buddha images, 81 

Sri Lanka Freedom Party, 799 

Śrl-mahadevl, 403 

Śrlmaladevl-sutra, 772, 827 

Śrl Rahula, 797 

Śrlvijaya, 371–373, 785–786 

Srong btsan sgam po, King, 404, 460, 

662–663, 851, 853 

srota-apanna (stream-enterer), 723, 

740–741 

Stag lung thang pa Bkra shis dpal, 49 

Stag tshang, 216 

state and Buddhism, 424–425, 459–460, 

837–839 

in China, 141–142, 149, 172–174, 539, 

585, 617, 643, 645, 824 

in Japan, 236–237, 273–274, 386–389, 

391–393, 398–400, 411–412, 441, 

501, 530–531, 582–583, 585–586, 

633, 678, 718, 772, 828 

in Korea, 431–432 


in Myanmar, 460, 575–576, 787 

in Sri Lanka, 460, 795–796 

in Thailand, 831–834 

in Tibet, 460, 854–855 

in Vietnam, 879–881 

State Shinto, 767 

Stcherbatsky, Theodore, 98 

Stein, Aurel, 123, 150, 776 

Steinkellner, Ernst, 98 

stele, 147–149 

Sthavlra school, 188, 504, 742, 837 

Sthavlravadana, 36 

Sthiramati, 915 

Stod lun Mtshur phu, 417 

Stone, Jacqueline I., 619 

storytelling, 155, 250–252, 316–317, 395, 

495–496, 593, 842–843. See also 

jataka; koan 

Strickmann, Michel, 98 

Stuart, Maurine, 868 

stupa, 12–13, 15, 22, 34, 68, 76–77, 92, 

117, 118, 205–208, 259–260, 279, 

402, 497–498, 550, 717–718, 739, 

774, 776, 803, 803–807, 842. See 

also monastic architecture; relics 

and relics cults; names of sites 

in Central Asia, 123 

in China, 146–147, 149, 551 

and consecraton, 178–181 

dagoba (dhatugopa), 807 

as focus of worship, 80–81, 86, 290, 

355, 672 

in India, 362–363, 368–369 


in Korea, 436 

lotus-bud, 809 


in Myanmar, 578–579, 807 

in Nepal, 322, 362 

and reliquary deposits, 719–720 

as sacred space, 788–789 

in Sri Lanka, 362, 800–801 

terrace-stupa, 805 

in Thailand, 808–809 

tower-stupa, 805 

Suan Mokh Monastery, 75 

Subahupariprccha, 823–824 

Su Bai, 124 

subconsciousness, use of term, 175 

Subha (arhat), 29 

Subhadra, 238 

Śubhakarasim ha, 511, 534, 823–825 

Subhasita (Alagiyavanna Mohottala), 778 

Subhuti, 233 

subjectivity, 546–547 

Sudama, 117 

Śuddhodana, 83–85, 238 

Sudhana, 341 

Sudŏksa, 434 

suffering. See duhkha (suffering) 

sugata, 87 

Sugata Saurabha (Chittadhar Hridaya), 

594 

Suhrllekha (Nagarjuna), 480 

suicide, 205, 264 

Sui Wendi, 425 

Sujata, 90, 288 

Sukhavatl, 704, 808. See also pure lands 

Sukhavatlvyuha-sutra, 14, 59, 73–74, 493, 

694, 698–699, 707, 808 

Sukhothai, 39, 787, 808–809, 831 

Sukumar Dutt, 556 

Sulak Sivaraksa, 248, 835 

Sullivan, Michael, 128 

Sumatra, 372, 785 

Sumedha, 85 

Sumeru. See cosmology; Mount Meru 

Sumisan, 599 

Sŭngjang, 282 

śunyata (emptiness), 52, 262, 303–305, 

314–315, 479–480, 484, 525, 581, 

649, 659, 763, 809–810, 846. See 

also philosophy 

Śunyatasaptati (Nagarjuna), 480 

supernatural powers, 8–9, 86, 226, 

301–302, 490–491, 566–567, 

772–774, 878–879. See also abhijña ; 

miracles 

Śurangama-sutra, 59 

Surendrabodhi, 472 

Surucolo, 511 

Suryavarman I, King, 106 

Suryavarman II, King, 106 

Su Shi, 174 

Susiddhikara, 821, 823 

Susŏnsa Society, 349 

Susumu Yamaguchi, 97 

sutra, 1, 3–5, 7, 10, 755, 810, 821. See 

also A gama/Nikaya 

sutra-copying, 394–395, 474, 811 

sutra illustrations, 810–812, 811 

sutra mahamudra, 488–489 

Sutra of Meditation on Bodhisattva 

Samantabhadra, 722 

Sutrapitaka, 10–12, 188, 810 

Suttanipata, 2, 203, 512, 601, 627, 740 

Suttapitaka, 445, 626–627 

Suttavibhaṅga, 626 

Suvarnaprabhasottama-sutra, 425, 631, 

722, 812, 825 

Suzong, Emperor, 824 

Suzuki, D. T., 99, 517–518, 812, 866, 

924. See also Zen, popular 

conceptions of 

Suzuki Shosan, 205 

Suzuki, Shunryu, 866, 868 

svabhavikakaya, 78 

Svatantrika Madhyamaka, 111, 481–482, 

484 

Svayambhu Nath, 804 

Svayambhu Purana, 593, 748 

syncretic sects: three teachings, 813–814. 

See also Confucianism and 

Buddhism; Daoism and Buddhism; 

folk religion, China; millenarianism 

and millenarian movements 

syncretism, 468–469, 830–831 


975

I NDEX 


T 

Tabo, 324–325 

Tachikawaryu school, 763, 815, 825 

Tada Tokan, 98 

Tadjikistan, 120 

Taegak kuksa munjip (Ŭich’ŏn), 863 

Taegak kuksa woejip (Ŭich’ŏn), 863 

T’aego order, 134, 434 

T’aego Pou, 134, 159 

T’aehak, 430 

T’aehyŏn, 282, 904 

Ta’er, 553 

Taimitsu, 475–476 

Taisho shinshu daizokyo, 114, 116 

Ta’i si tu Byang chub rgyal mtshan, 854 

Taiwan, 142, 608–610, 815–819. See also 

colonialism and Buddhism 

Taixu, 263, 283, 819, 881, 913 

Taixu dashi quanshu, 819 

Taizong, Emperor, 173 

Takakusu Junjiro, 97, 531 

Takamuruin, 725 

Takht-i-Bahi, 805 

Takuan Soho, 135, 819–820. See also 

Zen, popular conceptions of 

Taliban regime, 640–641 

Tambiah, Stanley, 21, 246, 716 

Tamil, Buddhist literature in, 369–370 

Tamilnadu, India, 369–370 

Tamura Yoshiro, 619 

Tanabe Hajime, 650 

Tanabe Zenchi, 531 

Tanaka Chigaku, 162, 449, 531, 598 

Tang Taizong, Emperor, 909 

Tanguts, 535 

Tang Yongtong, 98 

Tanlin, 57 

Tanluan, 707 

Tantra, 98, 192, 263, 305–306, 331, 

378–379, 408–410, 512, 604, 619, 

665, 685, 743, 820–825, 901. See 

also esoteric art, East Asia; esoteric 

art, South and Southeast Asia 


and buddhahood, 78–79 

in East Asia, 250, 700–701, 773, 823 

and initiation, 375–376, 450, 616 

key texts, 36, 104, 113, 475–476, 

751–752 

mahasiddhas, 490–491 

and meditation, 521, 525–527 

practices, 420, 756, 763, 878–879 

in Southeast Asia, 108, 575, 882 

in Tibet, 48, 729–731, 861–862 

tantras, 812, 852, 862, 875 

anuttarayoga, 305, 511, 535, 747, 821 

anuyoga, 822 

atiyoga, 822 

carya (conduct) tantras, 747, 821 

deity yoga, 93, 724 

kriya (action) tantras, 747, 821 

mahayoga, 623, 822 

severance, 485–486 

sexual yoga, 763 

Tantra mahamudra, 488–489 

yoga tantras, 747, 821 

“Tantric Theravada,” 830 

Taoism. See Daoism and Buddhism 

Ta Prohm temple, 106 

Tara, 234, 254, 304, 372, 498, 571–572, 

784, 853, 899 

Taranatha, 95, 575, 856 

Bka’ babs bdun ldan, 491 

Rgya gar chos ‘byung, 380 

Ta’rlkh al-Hind (Rashld al-Dln), 381 

Tarim basin, 121 

Tarkajvala (Bhavaviveka), 95, 482 

Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, 868 

Tashi chödzong, 327 

Tashi Lamas, 629 

Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 866 

tathagata, 87, 826 

tathagatagarbha, 38–39, 52, 78, 130–131, 

144, 177, 201, 269, 278, 284, 341, 

344, 351, 603, 605–606, 744, 760, 

810, 826–827, 846–848, 849 

Tathagatagarbha-sutra, 827 

Tattvasam graha (Śantaraksita), 483, 764 

Taxila, 366–367, 550 

taxonomic lists, in abhidharma, 2, 4–5 

teachers, 130, 132, 231–232, 250, 268, 

295, 451–452. See also Buddha, life 

of the; names of individuals 

women as, 304, 306, 485–486 

teaching, 71, 83–84, 86, 92–94, 111, 154, 

247–248, 261 

Teiser, Stephen, 659 

temple families, 161–162 

temples. See names of temples 

temple system in Japan, 292–293, 385, 

388, 392–393, 395–396, 399, 448, 

582–583, 632–633, 643, 678, 828 

Tendai school. See Tiantai (Tendai, 

Ch’ŏnt’aejong) school 

Ten Kings of Hell, 318–319, 468 

ten paramitas, 632 

Tenzin Gyatso (Fourteenth Dalai Lama), 

59, 162–163, 170, 170, 171, 

194–195, 195, 248, 359, 410, 420, 

645, 669, 688, 858, 893 

Teramoto Enga, 98 

Texas Buddhist Council, 869 

textbooks, monastic, 8 

texts, Buddhist, 11, 95–98, 120–122, 132, 

180, 456–457. See also 

agama/nikaya; apocrypha; canon; 

Chinese Buddhist translation; 

manuscripts; titles of works 

Thagya Min, 374 

Thai, Buddhist literature in, 828–830 

Thailand, 9–10, 21, 33, 39, 75, 160, 

179–180, 234, 246–247, 372, 

446–447, 457, 644–645, 808–809, 

830–836, 890. See also Thai, 


Thailand, Buddhist art in, 782–783, 

786–787, 811, 843 

Thammacarik, 832 

Thammakai movement (Thailand), 245 

Thammathut, 832 

Thammayut order, 108, 832 

thang ka, 185, 258, 259, 327, 624, 

661–662 

Thapar, Romila, 425 

Thar pa rin po che’i rgyan (Sgam po pa 

Bsod nams rin chen), 54, 488 

That-byin-nyu, 579 

Thaton, 578 

Theg chen tshul ’jug (Rong zom Chos kyi 

bzang po), 852 

Theg mchog rdo rje, 418 

Theosophists, 161, 164 

Theragatha, 232, 301, 303, 627 

Theravada art and architecture, 841–844. 

See also Buddha, life of the, in art 

and Buddha images, 81, 90 

Theravada school, 6, 11, 23, 46, 72, 76, 

82, 188, 208, 211, 261, 263, 354, 

557, 625, 665, 670, 712, 836–841, 

871, 877–878, 898. See also 

mainstream Buddhist schools; 

Theravada art and architecture 

and abhidharma, 2–3, 183, 837 

and arhatship, 28–29 


and commentarial literature, 75, 166, 203 

and education, 247–248 

key texts, 113, 216–217, 223, 632, 756 

and laity, 445–447 

and life of Buddha, 82–83, 86 

in Myanmar, 17, 574–578 

in Nepal, 591, 594 

practices, 15, 33, 521, 889 

rise of, 492, 503, 506, 837 


and Tibetan Buddhism, 840 


I NDEX 


in United States, 867–869 

and vinaya, 503, 668, 674, 887 

in the West, 266–267 

and women, 304, 608–609 

Therlgatha, 232, 303, 489, 607, 627 

Thích Minh Châu, 884 

Thich Nhat Hanh, 248, 263, 420, 

844–845, 868, 881 

Thích Quang Du’c, 758 

Thích Tâm Châu, 881 

Thích Thanh Tù, 881 

Thích Trí Quang, 881 

Thicksay Monastery, 558 

Thiên Chiêú, 884 

Thiê`n school. See Chan school 

Thiê`n Uyê n Tâp Anh, 880 

Thi-loka-guru, 579 

thirst, and desire, 214 

Thirty-Seven Lords, 576 

Tholing, 325 

Thompson, Ashley, 107 

Thông Biên, 136 

thought, in dharma theory, 221–223 

“three fields of blessings,” 532 

Threefold Practice, 903 

“three jewels,” 219, 403 

three kayas, 78 

“three knowledges,” 8, 45 

three mysteries, 764 

three self-natures, 918 

“three teachings,” 144–145 

“three thousand quiddities,” 848–849, 

927 

three tracks, 848 

three trainings, 638 

“three treasures,” 261 

“three truths,” 847–848, 927 

“three ways of gaining knowledge,” 757 

three wheels of doctrine, 320–321, 871 

Three Worlds According to King Ruang, 

184 

Thub bstan chos kyi nyi ma, 629 

Thub bstan (Tubten) rgya mtsho, 194, 

629 

Thub pa’i dgongs gsal (Sa skya Pandita), 

751, 753 

Thubten Samphel, 195 

Thuparama, 800 

Thupavam sa, 778, 877 

Tiandong Rujing, 236 

Tianlongshan, 119, 149–150, 551 

Tiantai Deshao, 912 

Tiantai (Tendai, Ch’ŏnt’ae) school, 55, 

134–135, 141, 144, 149, 282, 

344–345, 500, 700, 810, 827, 

845–850, 925–928 

in Japan, 52, 99, 134, 272–273, 301, 

386, 388, 400, 411–412, 597, 

618–620, 825 

key figures, 26, 249–250, 307, 707–709 

key texts, 314, 321, 475–476, 548–549 

in Korea, 432, 434, 863 

lineage, 462–465 

Tiantishan, 147 

Tibet, 35–36, 180, 212, 252, 254, 288, 

484, 516, 519, 536, 609, 643, 654, 

660, 851–858, 915–916. See also Bu 

ston (Bu tön) rin chen grub; 

Himalayas, Buddhist art in; Tibetan 


Bon, 66–68 

Bsam yas Debate, 69–71, 188, 852 

Chinese invasion of, 162–163, 195, 216 

and communism, 169–170, 170, 171, 

171, 645 

historical writing, 334–335 

languages, 454–455 

monasteries, 68–69, 245 

Mongol conquest of, 561–562, 730 

ordination in, 851–852 

Tibet, Buddhist art in, 151, 153, 324–327, 

404–405, 811 

Tibetan Book of the Dead, 208–209, 379, 

714, 853, 859 

Tibetan Buddhism, 188, 211, 267, 321, 

378–379, 465, 535, 553, 572, 642, 

810, 868, 901. See also Dalai Lama; 

esoteric Buddhism; Karma pa; 

Tantra 

and Bka’ brgyud, 47–49 

and Bon, 66–68, 260 

and Buddhist studies, 94, 98 

Dge lugs (Geluk), 215–216 

key figures, 103–104, 111, 425–426, 

536, 583, 623–625, 861–862 

and lamas, 450, 629–630 


in Nepal, 588–590 

practices, 521–523, 613–614, 634, 714 


705 

and Rnying ma, 729–731, 822–823 

and Sa skya, 751–753 

Tibetan Buddhist translation, 36, 

103–104, 113–114, 341, 454–455, 

484, 513–514, 852 

Tiep Hien Order, 844, 868 

Tiktse, 324 

Tilokarat, King, 831, 838 

Tilopa, 48, 488, 491, 583 

time. See chronology 

Tinh Gió , I, 543 

Tiriyayi, 800 

Tivanka, 801 

Tiwei jing, 27 

Todaiji. See Horyuji and Todaiji 

To daiwajo tosei den (Genkai), 301 

Toda Josei, 781 

Tofukuji, 389, 556 

Toji, 273, 388, 395, 412, 765 

Tojŭng, 904 

Tokkyokai, 531 

Tomikichiro Tokuriki, 621 

Tominaga Nakamoto, 860 

Setsuhei, 860 

Shutsujo kogo, 335, 860 

T’ongdosa, 431, 434, 554 

Tongnisan, 599 

Tooth-Relic Temple, Kandy, 799, 906 

topophilia, 793 

torana, 550 

Toshio Nagahiro, 148 

Toshodaiji, 301, 582, 662 

Totagamuve Sri Rahula, 778 

Toŭi, 134, 599 

Toyok (Toyuq), 118, 124–125 

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 561 

Toyun, 599 

Tozan-ha, 773 

trade, 776, 782, 795, 872 

traditional denominations, in Japan, 

385–386 

Trai Bhum, 108, 422 

Trainor, Kevin, 65 

Trai Phum Phra Ruang (King Lithai), 

828–829, 832 

traividya, 45 

Trâ`n Nhân Tông, 880 

“tranquility worker,” 889 

transformation, 179–180, 654 

sexual, 303–305 

transformation tableaux (bianxiang), 

43–44, 319, 693–695 

transformation texts (bianwen), 43 

translation and translators, 24, 48, 154, 

167, 442, 453–454, 484, 759–760, 

775, 909–910, 912–913. See also 

names of translators; titles of works 

transmigration, 9, 712. See also rebirth 

Trâ`n Thái Tông, 880 

treasure texts, Tibetan, 24, 192, 334–335, 

426, 623, 625, 730, 756, 822, 853, 

856, 859 

treasuries, monastic, 400 

tribal-republicanism, 424 

trikaya, 81 


977

I NDEX 


Trilokya Bauddha Mahasaṅgha Sahayaka 

Gana, India, 248 

Trim śika (Vasubandhu), 748, 916 

Trinkler, Emil, 123 

Tripitaka, 10, 93–94, 112, 114, 219–220, 

626, 742, 755–756. See also 

abhidharma; canon; commentarial 

literature; scripture; vinaya 

Tripitaka hall, 841 

triratna. See refuges 

trisam vara, 853 

trsna, 175, 513 

Trúc Lâm lineage, 136, 880–881 

Tshad ma rigs gter (Sa skya Pandita), 753 

Tshar chen Blo gsal rgya mtsho, 752, 856 

Tshar pa subsect, 752 

Tshe dbyangs (Tseyang) rgya mtsho, 193 

Tshul khrims rdo rje, 426 

Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa, 111, 

193, 215–216, 629, 665, 855, 

861–862, 904, 915–916 

Lam rim chen mo, 36, 855, 861 

Legs bshad snying po, 321, 738 

Sngags rim chen mo, 855 

Tsukamoto Zenryu, 98 

Tsurezuregusa (Yoshida Kenko), 397 

Tucci, Giuseppe, 98 

Tuck, Andrew, 484 

Tumshuk, 123 

Tuoshan, 149 

Turner, Victor, 654 

Tz’u-chi, 249, 610, 817–818 

U 

U Ba Khin, 898 

Uchimura Kanzo, 598 

Uda, ruler, 399 

Udraka Ramaputra, 83 

Ŭich’ŏn, 134, 432, 850, 863 

Ŭijŏk, 282 

Ŭisang, 339, 344, 431, 863–864, 904 

Hwaŏm ilsŭng pŏpkye to, 344, 863 

U Kala, Maharajavaṅ krl, 102 

Ukña Suttantaprlja Ind, 422 

Unden Shinto, 404 

Union of Lao Buddhists, 458 

United Nations, 781 

United States, 864–869 

universal histories, 334 

U Nu, 188 

upadhi, upadana, 175 

Upagupta, 232, 513, 542, 576, 750, 870 

Upaka, 83 

Upali, 84, 112, 188, 232, 870 

Upali Thein, 580 

Upanisads, 328–330 

upasaka/upasika, 182, 445, 741 

Upaśanta, Abhidharmahrdayaśastra, 4 

upavasatha, 668 

upaya, 10, 56, 250, 305, 420, 632, 763, 

846, 871, 871–872 

Upayakauśalya-sutra, 871 

Uposathaghara (Pohotaghara), 800 

Uppalavanna, 607 

U rgyan gling pa, 853 

U rgyan gter bdag gling pa, 856 

Usa Hachimangu, 399 

Usnlsavijaya, 572 

usury, 872–873, 888 

Utpalavarna, 232 

Uttara, 232 

Uttaragrantha, 888 

Uygurs, 122 

V 

Vadavidhi (Vasubandhu), 916 

Vaibhasika school, 7, 220, 878, 914 

Vairocana, 60, 118, 150, 260, 324, 338, 

339, 340–342, 345, 372, 393, 437, 

471, 473, 476, 509–511, 632, 730. 

See also Mahavairocana 

Vairocanabhisambodhi, 821, 823, 825 

Vaiśall, 502, 715. See also councils, 

Buddhist 

Vaiśesika, 331 

vajra, 253, 255, 259, 373, 403, 728, 729, 

875 

Vajrabodhi, 534, 824 

vajracarya, 590, 592, 594, 744 

Vajracchedika-prajñaparamita, 227–228 

Vajradhara, 48, 326 

Vajrapani, 61, 911 

Vajraśekara, 511, 535 

Vajravali, 511 

Vajrayana school, 47, 66, 81, 88, 93, 204, 

257, 305–306, 375, 512, 590, 747, 

752, 763, 875–877. See also Tantra 

Vajrayoginl, 305, 666 

Valahassana-jataka, 911 

Väligama, 801 

Valignano, Alessandro, 160 

vam sas, 34, 333, 457, 626, 777, 837–838, 

877–878. See also history; Sinhala, 


Vanavasl, 369 

vandalism and destruction of Buddhist 

sites, 50, 640–641 

Va Hanh University, 881 

Varnarhavarnastotra (Matrceta), 518 

Varsakara, 84 

vasana (traces), 681–682 

Vaspa, 232 

Vasubandhu, 32, 60, 227, 239, 456, 649, 

683, 707, 738, 878, 914–915 

Abhidharmakośabhasya, 4, 7–8, 220, 

377–378, 416–417, 424, 602–603, 

670, 748, 878, 914–915 

Fahua lun, 471 

Karmasiddhiprakarana, 916 

Pañcaskandhaprakarana, 916 

Trim śika, 748, 916 

Vadavidhi, 916 

Vim śatika, 748, 916 

Vim śika, 417 

Vyakhyayukti, 168, 755 

Vasudhara, 323–324 

Vasumitra, 188 

Vatslputrlya, 692, 712 

Vattagamanl, King, 188, 796 

Vatt Bodum Vaddey temple, 108 

Vatt Unnalom, 108 

vedana, 779 

Vedic religion, 328–330, 352–353, 374, 

451, 712, 724 

vegetarianism, 229, 456, 606 

Venuvana, 84 

vernacularization, in Southeast Asia, 421 

Vesakha, 286 

Vessantara-jataka, 46, 833, 891. See also 

Viśvantara 

Vetterling, Herman C. (Philangi Dasa), 

865 

Vëttëve, 778 

Vibhajjavada school, 837 

Vibhajyavada school, 3, 505–506 

Vibhaṅga, 888 

vibhasa, 3–4, 7, 238–239 

Vicitrakarnika Avadana, 593, 748 

Vickery, Michael, 106 

Victoria, Brian, 896 

Vldagama Maitreya, 778 

Budugunalam karaya, 778, 797 

vidya, 821 

Vidyacakravarti, Butsarana, 778 

vidyacaranasam panna, 87 

vidyadhara, 743, 820, 878–879 

vidyadharacakravartin, 876 

vidyadharasam vara, 876 

vidyaraja, 572 

Vientiane, 458 


I NDEX 


Vietnam, 136, 169–170, 460, 644, 

879–882 

Vietnam, Buddhist art in, 783–784, 787. 

See also Southeast Asia, Buddhist 

art in 

Vietnamese, Buddhist influences on 

literature in, 883–884 

Vietnamese Buddhist translation, 884 

Vietnamese Unified Buddhist Church, 

881 

Vietnam War, 65–66 

Vigrahavyavartanl (Nagarjuna), 480, 581 

viharas, 12–13, 550 

Vijayabahu I, King, 575 

vijñana, 175–176, 681, 779. See also 


Vijñanakaya, 504 

Vijñanavada school, 13, 224, 884–885, 915 

vijñaptimatra, 917–918 

Vikramaślla, 358–359, 380, 853 

Vimalaklrti, 147, 167, 263, 885 

Vimalaklrtinirdeśa, 445–446, 496, 772, 

846, 871, 885, 901 

Vimalamitra, 730, 853 

vimanapetas, 309 

Vima snying thig, 426 

Vim śatika (Vasubandhu), 748, 916 

Vim śika (Vasubandhu), 417 

vinaya, 1, 8, 10, 197, 218, 262–263, 265, 

282–283, 459, 519, 557, 572–573, 

606–607, 667–668, 673–675, 731, 

741, 746, 755–756, 762, 780, 870, 

885–889, 886–888. See also 

monastic discipline; precepts; 

Risshu 

“Vinaya of the True Dharma” 

movement, 404 

Vinayapitaka, 75, 188, 295, 626, 714, 

741–742 

Vinayavastu (Khandhaka), 888 

vinicchaya, 102–103 

Vinltaruci, 136 

vipassana (Sanskrit, vipaśyana), 8, 226, 

520, 524, 526, 577, 647, 666, 

867–868, 889, 889–890 

vipassana movement, 890 

Vipaśyin, 72, 890 

Vlracoliyam (Puttamittiran), 370 

virtues, Confucian, 27 

Virupa, 491, 854 

vlrya, 632 

Viśistacaritra, 476 

Visnu, 106, 369, 410, 783, 890 

visualization, 526, 699, 722, 790, 821, 

850, 875 

Visuddhimagga (Buddhaghosa), 3, 29, 75, 

204, 315, 523, 537, 627, 649, 796, 890 

Viśvabhu, 72 

Viśvamata, 409 

Viśvantara, 46, 196, 627, 890–891. See 

also Vessantara-jataka 

vocabulary, of Buddhism, 24, 99, 273, 

346–347, 454–455, 747 

Vo Canh, 784 

Vogel, J. Ph., 72 

Von Le Coq, Albert, 124 

vows, 821, 885–886. See also bodhisattva 

vows; ordination; precepts 

Vyakhyayukti (Vasubandhu), 168, 755 

W 

Wachirawut, King, 832 

Wachirayanwarorot, Prince-Patriarch, 

829 

wai, 265 

Waldschmidt, Ernst, 85, 124 

Waley, Arthur, 125–126, 128 

“wall examining” (biguan), 57 

Wanfu Monastery, 375 

Wang Changyue, 200 

Wang Kŏn, 432 

Wang Wei, 143, 173 

Wangxi, 70 

Wang Zhe, 200 

Wanshan Tonggui ji (Yanshou), 759, 912 

war, 893–896 

Warder, A. K., 333 

war ethic, Buddhism and, 894–896 

warrior ethic, Buddha and, 893–894 

Washio Junkyo, 573 

Wassiljew, W. P., 98 

Wat Bowoniwet, 832 

Wat Carolina, 869 

Wat Mahathat, 809, 832 

Wat Pa Daeng, 831 

Wat Thammakai, 831, 834–835 

Watts, Alan, 924 

weikza cult (Myanmar), 879 

weikza-lam, 577 

Weishi school, 283–284 

Wei-Shu, 744 

Wei Wenlang, 147 

Welch, Holmes, 100, 464 

Welivitiye Saranakara, 778 

Wells, Kenneth, 584 

Wen, Emperor, 717 

Wenbei, 909 

Wenchang, 200 

Wenshushan, 147 

Western Thousand Buddha Caves, 118 

wheel of dharma 

(dharmacakrapravartana), 84, 92, 

219, 295–296, 362, 783 

wheel of existence, 712 

wheel of life (bhavacakra), 185, 235, 739 

White Lotus, 200, 348, 539–540, 643, 

659, 702, 707 

White Lotus Rebellion, 659 

“White Path to Paradise,” 694, 707 

Wiengjan, 457 

wilderness monks, 33, 356, 575, 832, 

897–898. See also Shugendo 

William of Ruysbroeck, 160, 613 

wipathana yeiktha (insight hermitages), 

890 

wisdom. See prajña (wisdom) 

“wish-fulfilling jewel,” 403 

women, 56, 155, 192, 235, 247, 280, 304, 

306, 413, 473, 491, 627, 663, 791, 

833, 839, 898–902. See also gender; 

nuns 

as disciples of Buddha, 231–232 

in early Buddhism, 303–304 

female body, 64, 303, 763, 899 

female divinities, 234, 571–572 

inferiority of, 303–304 

laywomen, 445–447 

as teachers, 304, 306, 485–486 

as temple wives, 161–162 

Wŏn Buddhism. See Wŏnbulgyo 

Wŏnbulgyo, 902–903 

Wŏnbulgyo kyojŏn, 903 

Wŏnch’ŭk, 167, 283, 903–904, 909, 916 

Haesimmilgyŏng so, 903 

Inwanggyŏng so, 903 

Pulsŏl panya paramilta simgyŏng ch’an, 

903 

Wŏndon sŏngbullon (Chinul), 158 

Wŏn’gwang, 431 

Wŏnhyo, 167, 282, 339, 345, 431–432, 

543, 863, 904–905 

woodblock printing, 675–677, 676 

woodcarving, in Myanmar, 580, 774 

work, Buddhist concept of, 243–244, 547, 

780 

World Council of Churches, 161 

world missionary conference, Edinburgh, 

1910, 161 

World Parliament of Religions (Chicago, 

1893), 16, 160–161, 865, 924 

world systems, 184, 187 

worship, 905–907, 905–907. See also 

devotional practices 

Wright, J. K., 793 

written transmission, of canon, 112–113 


979

I NDEX 


Wu, Emperor, 132 

Wu, Empress, 471, 775 

Wu (Taizi), Emperor, 643 

wu, 52–53, 132–133 

Wubu liuce, 813 

Wuchan Buddhist Institute, 819 

Wudang-zhao, 327, 553 

Wudi, Emperor, 173 

Wuming, 817 

Wusheng Laomu (Eternal Mother), 

813–814 

Wutaishan, 153, 553 

Wuwei sect, 813 

Wuyan Tong, 136 

Wuyue Kingdom, 151 

Wu Zetian, Empress, 63, 141, 338, 343, 

900 

Wu Zhao, Empress, 173, 539 

Wuzong, Emperor, 141 

Wuzu Fayan, 132, 134 

X 

Xavier, Francis, 160 

Xetthathirat, 457 

Xiangtangshan, 119, 148, 551 

Xiangyang, 197 

Xianshou school, 343 

Xianyang shengjiao lun (Asaṅga), 32 

Xianyu jing, 251 

Xie Lingyun, 656 

Xihuang Monastery, 630 

Xilituzhao, 553 

xin, 278 

Xingyun, 818 

xinxin, 278 

Xinxing, 212, 744 

Xinxinming (Sengcan), 278 

Xiong Shili, 283 

Xishuangbanna, 553 

Xixia Kingdom, 151 

Xuanlang, 925 

Xuanshi, 708 

Xuanwudi, Emperor, 471 

Xuanying, 909 

Xuanzang, 49, 78, 96, 117, 121, 143, 149, 

166, 173, 202, 215, 224, 283, 314, 

343, 357–358, 360, 441, 486, 588, 

616, 642, 652–653, 658, 692, 

719–720, 723, 776, 903–904, 

909–910, 915 

Cheng Weishi lun, 909–910 

Xuanzong, Emperor, 173 

Xu gaoseng zhuan (Daoxuan), 57, 

514–515 

Xunzi, 172 

Xuyun, 133 

Xu zang jing, 621 

xylography, 675–677 

Y 

Yabuki Keiki, 99 

Yakhine Maha-myat-muni Hpaya-gyi, 580 

yaksas, 80, 234, 310, 572, 911 

yaksinl, 467 

Yama, 204, 233, 289–290, 317–319 

yamabushi, 540, 772 

Yamantaka-Vajrabhairava, 572 

Yanagida Kunio, 21 

Yanagida Seizan, 99 

Yang Wenhui, 283 

Yang Xi, 198–199 

Yanshou, Yongming, 132, 134, 205, 700, 

708, 911–912 

Wanshan Tonggui ji, 759, 912 

Zongjing lu, 912 

yantras, 457, 840 

Yanxiadong, 151 

Yaoxian, 147 

Yapahuwa, 799 

Yaqut, 380 

Yaśa, 232, 301 

Yaśodhara, 45, 83, 85, 238 

Yaśovarman, King, 106 

Yasutani Hakuun, 925 

Yatala, 801 

yazuo wen, 155 

Yebao yinyuan jing, 199 

Yellow Hat sect. See Dge lugs (Geluk) 

Yemar, 326 

Ye shes brtsegs pa, 49 

Ye shes mtsho rgyal, 306 

Ye shes ’od, King, 35–36, 325 

Ye shes rdo rje, 418 

Ye shes tsho rgyal, 625 

yi dam, 259, 259–260, 526 

Yiengpruksawan, Mimi, 650 

Yi-Fu Tuan, 793 

Yiguan Dao, 814 

Yijing, 215, 283, 371–372, 723, 748, 785, 

812, 912–913 

Da Tang xiyu qiufa gaoseng zhuan, 913 

Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan, 759, 913 

Yijing, 172 

Yin chi ru jing (Chen Hui), 166 

Yingxian, 152 

Yinshun Shengzheng, 262–263, 817, 913 

Yintuoluo, 127 

Yinyan Longqi, 708 

yinyuan, 155 

Yi Sajŭng, 349 

Yishan Yining, 135 

Yixing, 167, 824 

Yixuan, Linji, 131, 913–914 

yoga, 305–306, 331, 376, 409, 535, 875. 

See also meditation; Tantra 

Yoga Bhasya (Patañjali), 331 

Yogacarabhumi (Asaṅga), 32, 914–916 

Yogacara-Madhyamaka synthesis, 483 

yogacara (yogavacara) manuals, 525 

Yogacara school, 32, 38, 52, 60, 176, 183, 

224, 230, 236–237, 496, 604, 649, 

683, 738, 810, 827, 878, 884–885, 

903–904, 909–910, 914–920. See also 

Faxiang (Hosso) school; philosophy; 

psychology 

and buddhahood, 77–78 

in China, 143–144, 283–284, 631 

and consciousness, 176–177 

and karma, 416–417 

Yogaratnamala, 192 

Yoga Sutra (Patañjali), 331 

yŏmbul. See nianfo (nenbutsu) 

Yongbi ŏch’ŏn’ga, 439 

Yŏnggwan, 433 

Yonghegong, 553 

Yongjusa, 89 

Yongming Monastery, 912 

Yongningsi, 551 

Yongquan, 817 

Yon tan rgya mtsho, 563 

Yoshida Kanetomo, 770 

Yoshida Kenko, Tsurezuregusa, 397 

Yoshida shrine, 770 

Yoshishige Yasutane, 702 

Young Men’s Buddhist Association, 448 

Yuanjue, 167 

Yuanjue Zongyan, Linji lu, 913 

yuanqi, 155 

Yuanwu Keqin, 929 

Biyan lu, 427 

Yuanying, 819 

Yujŏng, 433, 921 

Samyŏngdang taesajip, 921 

Yukai, 815 

Yuktisastika (Nagarjuna), 480 

yulanpen, 20 

Yulanpen Festival, 307 

Yulanpen jing, 209, 308, 309, 319 

Yulin, 118, 151, 319, 508 


I NDEX 


Yun’gang, 100, 118, 148, 338, 551, 921–922 

Yunju Monastery, 677 

Yunmen house of Chan school, 132 

Yunmenshan, 149 

Yunmen Wenyan, 132 

Yunqi fahui, 928 

Z 

Za hor ban de Ngag dbang blo bzang 

rgya mtsho, 856 

Zang gling ma, 623 

Zanning (Tonghui dashi), 923 

and “Biographies of Eminent Monks,” 

44, 166, 923 

Seng shilue, 923 

Zazen wasan (Hakuin Ekaku), 705 

Zen, popular conceptions of, 267, 866, 

868, 923–925. See also Chan art 

“Zen nationalism,” 584 

Zen Peacemaker Community, United 

States, 249 

Zen school. See Chan (Zen, Sŏn) school 

zhaijiao (vegetarian religion), 817 

Zhang Daoling, 198 

Zhangjia Living Buddha, 817 

Zhang Shangying, 405 

Zhang Shengwen, Long Roll of Buddhist 

Images, 661 

Zhang ston Chos ’bar, 751 

Zhang tshal pa Brtson grus grags pa, 48 

Zhang Xuan, 30 

Zhanran, 167, 344, 475, 849, 925–926 

Jin’gangbei, 849, 925 

Zhiguan fuxing zhuanhong jue, 925 

Zhao lun (Sengzhao), 760, 926 

Zhaozhou Congshen, 132, 427 

Zhe chen, 856 

Zhenfo Zong, 814 

Zheng’e ji (Zhuhong), 759 

Zhengyan, 264, 818 

Zhenhui, 697 

Zhenjing Kewen, 405 

Zhenyan (True Word) school, 534–535 

zhiguai, 156 

Zhiguan fuxing zhuanhong jue (Zhanran), 

925 

Zhiji, 529 

Zhili (Siming Fazhi fashi), 344, 849–850, 

926–927 

Zhi Qian, 166, 199 

Zhisheng 

Kaiyuan shijiao lu, 116 

Zhiyan, 150, 167, 284, 342–344, 346, 

863 

Zhiyi, 26, 167, 282, 462, 472, 700, 

707–708, 769, 845–847, 850, 871 

Fahua sanmei chanyi, 722–723 

Fahua wenju, 927 

Fahua xuanyi, 927 

Mohe zhiguan, 475, 548–549, 927 

Zhiyi (Tiantai Zhizhe dashi), 927–928 

Zhizhou, 167, 283 

Zhongfeng Mingben, 133 

Zhongyuan, 309 

Zhou Dunyi, 174 

Zhou Jichang, 31 

zhu, 167–168 

Zhu Daosheng, 167 

Zhu Fachong, 166–167 

Zhu Fatai, 197 

Zhu Fonian, 616 

Zhuhong Fohui, 133, 928 

Zheng’e ji, 759 

Zhu Weimo jing (Sengzhao), 166 

Zhuxi, 142, 174, 816 

Zhu Yuanzhang, 539, 562 

Zhwa lu Monastery, 103–104 

Zixi, Empress Dowager, 63 

zong, 143–144 

use of term, 461–462 

Zonggao, Dahui (Miaoxi, Pujue), 

132–135, 158, 344, 428, 569, 

928–929 

Zongjing lu (Yanshou), 912 

Zongli zhongjing mulu (Dao’an), 197 

Zongmi, Guifeng, 132, 284, 344, 665, 

700, 827, 929 

Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu, 929 

Pei Xiu shiyi wen, 929 

Zoroastrianism, 538, 642 

Zung chung, 853 

Zunshi, 700, 850 

Zur chen, 853 

Zürcher, Erik, 98, 492 

Zutang ji, 427 

Zwa ra ba Skal ldan ye shes seng 

ge, 49 

Zysk, Kenneth, 64 


981

LEFT: The bodhisattva Samantabhadra and his śakti (female 

partner/creative power), from a nineteenth-century Tibetan 

thang ka. © Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis. Reproduced by 

permission. 

BELOW: A Buddhist temple in the Thai style, the Wat 

Buddhapadpa, at Wimbledon, London. © Tim Page/Corbis. 

Reproduced by permission.

TOP: Pusading Monastery in the Wutai Mountains of Shanxi province, China. © Dean Conger/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

BOTTOM: Entrances to cave sanctuaries excavated from the early sixth through the eighth century C.E. in the cliffs on the riverbank at 

Longmen. This site contains over two thousand such caves. © Robert D. Fiala, Concordia University, Seward, Nebraska. Reproduced by 

permission.

TOP: The recumbent Buddha entering 

parinirvana, from an eighteenthcentury 

Tibetan thang ka. The Art 

Archive/Musée Guimet Paris/Dagli 

Orti (A). Reproduced by permission. 

BOTTOM: Prince Siddhartha 

encounters a corpse on an outing 

beyond the palace walls, a decisive 

episode in the life of the Buddha. 

Chinese, 1818, hand-colored 

woodblock print. The British Library. 


Hell, as represented by the Pure Land school. This scene was copied from a thirteenth-century original in the Seishu Raigo temple. 

Japanese, eighteenth century, ink and color on paper scroll. Copyright The British Museum. Reproduced by permission.

A carved panel depicting an unidentified bodhisattva, from a portable shrine. Kashmir, eighth century C.E., painted wood and ivory. 

Copyright The British Museum. Reproduced by permission.

TOP: King Mindon of Burma (r. 1853–1878) 

making donations to the Buddhist monks. 

This image is from an illustrated book the 

king had made to record his donations in 

detail, including their cost, and to testify to 

his merit. Burmese, mid-nineteenth century, 

painting on paper. The British Library. 


BOTTOM: Jataka tales of the Buddha’s last ten 

births, adapted from traditional Thai 

manuscript illustrations by a Thai artist for a 

British patron, Captain Low. Thai, ca. 1820, 

painting on paper. The British Library. 


TOP: Illustration from the Amitabha Su tra. 

The image depicts Śakyamuni preaching 

to bodhisattvas, monks, divinities, and 

other buddhas. The calligraphy, of 

Kumarajva’s Chinese translation of the 

text, was done by a Korean monk for the 

sake of his deceased mother. Korean, 

Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392), 1341, gold and 

silver paint on blue paper. Copyright The 

British Museum. Reproduced by permission. 

BOTTOM: A realistic sculpture of a lay 

Buddhist, probably a prosperous 

merchant. Japanese, ca. 1700, lacquered 

and painted wood. Copyright The British 

Museum. Reproduced by permission.

LEFT: Netsuke, the devices used to attach pouches 

or other objects to the belt of a Japanese robe, 

were often elaborately carved. This one represents 

Bodhidharma, semilegendary first patriarch of the 

Chan school of Buddhism, during his nine-yearlong 

seated meditation. He is shown sitting—his 

legs having fallen off—on a flyswatter. Japanese, 

nineteenth century, carved ivory. Copyright The 

British Museum. Reproduced by permission. 

BELOW: The Chinese recension of the Lotus Su tra 

(Saddharmapundarlka-su tra). The borders are 

ornamented with gold and silver foil, and the 

entire scroll is sprinkled with gold dust. Japanese, 

Kamakura period (1185–1333), ca. 1240–1280, 

block printing on paper scroll. The British Library. 


TOP: A Buddhist monastery in the mountains above Tetang, Nepal. 

© Macduff Everton/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 

RIGHT: The Sku ‘bum (Kumbum) (“place of one hundred thousand 

images”) stupa at the Dpal ‘khor chos sde (Palkhor Chode) 

Monastery in Rgyal rtse (Gyantse), Tibet. © Craig Lovell/Corbis. 


TOP: The wooden cover or “title page” of the Prajñaparamita-su tra (Perfection of Wisdom Su tra). The manuscript is in Tibetan, translated 

from Sanskrit; the text on the cover is in Mongolian. Tibetan, eighteenth century, gold on blue paper with carved and gilt wooden covers. 

Victoria & Albert Museum. Reproduced by permission. 

BOTTOM: Illuminated title page from the Tibetan translation of the Vinayavibhaṅga (Explanation of the Monastic Discipline). The figure on 

the left is Kaśyapa, senior disciple of the Buddha; on the right is Tsong kha pa (1357–1419), founder of the Dge lugs (Geluk) school of 

Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan, gold ink on paper. The British Library. Reproduced by permission.

TOP: The Ratnaku dapariprccha (Ratnaku da’s Questions), in Chinese translation. This work is the forty-seventh scripture in the collection 

known as the Maharatnaku ta-su tra or Great Heap of Gems Su tra, a collection of early Mahayana sutras. Chinese, Western Jin dynasty 

(265–316 C.E.), ink on paper scroll, with wooden roller. The British Library. Reproduced by permission. 

BOTTOM: Illuminated manuscript of the Astasahasrikaprajñaparamita-su tra (Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines), in Sanskrit, from the 

Vikramaśla Monastery in Bihar. The figures depicted are the bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara (top), seated on a lion’s back, and Maitreya. 

Indian, ca. 1145 C.E., ink and gouache on palm leaves with wooden covers. The British Library. Reproduced by permission.

Vaiśravana, Dharma-protector of the north, with Śrdev (the goddess Splendor) and attendants. Chinese, Tang dynasty (618–907), 

painting on silk from Dunhuang. Copyright The British Museum. Reproduced by permission.

The horrific celestial buddha Śam vara with his female partner. Above Śam vara are depicted the buddhas Dpam kara, Śakyamuni, and 

Maitreya; below is Amitabha Buddha flanked by green and white Taras, protective female deities. Tibetan, eighteenth century, painting 

on cloth with silk border. Copyright The British Museum. Reproduced by permission.

TOP: The Procession of the Buddha’s 

Tooth Relic. This image is one of six in 

a scroll depicting an annual event in 

Kandy. Here the temple elephant carries 

the reliquary casket, surrounded by the 

faithful. Sri Lankan, ca. 1796–1815, 

watercolor on paper. The British Library. 


RIGHT: Illustrated manuscript of the 

upasampada (ordination ceremony), in 

Pali. The image depicts Siddhartha being 

carried away from household life on his 

horse by the gods. Thai, late nineteenth 

century, painting and gold script on 

stiffened cloth. The British Library. 


TOP: Nichiren (1222–1282), founder 

of the Nichiren school, was an 

opponent of the established Japanese 

Buddhist schools of his day. Here he 

is shown calming the sea on his way 

into exile on Sado Island following a 

failed insurrection in 1271. Japanese, 

ca. 1830. Woodblock color print by 

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861). 

Copyright The British Museum. 


LEFT: The Pañcaraksa (Five Protective 

Hymns). This decorated manuscript 

was donated to the Tarumula 

Monastery in Kathmandu by a 

wealthy merchant named Jayarama 

and his family, who are depicted 

making offerings to the Buddha in the 

bottom panel. Nepalese, 1676, gold 

and gouache on blue paper, gouache 

on wood. The British Library. 


The seventh–eighth-century stupa at the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya. © David Cumming; Eye Ubiquitous/Corbis. Reproduced by 

permission.

Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

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